Afford Anything - Take Radical Responsibility for Your Life -- a Breakfast Chat with 26-Year-Old Millionaire Emma Pattee

Episode Date: February 27, 2017

#66: You know that rare moment when you meet someone with whom you connect *instantly*? I felt that way when I met Emma Pattee, the 26-year-old millionaire and mini-real-estate-mogul who joins me on today's episode. Emma and I share similar stories: we're both young female artists and entrepreneurs who figured out that wealth is a tool for creating the freedom that allows us to live on our own terms. We both hustled harder than words can describe, living and breathing our commitment to breaking free from the trading-time-for-money cycle. We refused to accept the defaults that were handed to us. We viewed our investments as a way to create a more sustainable, meaningful life. We rejected the limiting belief that a creative, meaningful life is somehow more 'pure' when it's lived in scarcity and deprivation. We embraced abundance. We asked "how can I create this?" We viewed every problem as inherently solve-able. We took responsibility for everything that crossed our paths. Most critically, we decided that we weren't going to let any excuses hold us back. We accepted radical responsibility for our own lives. We wouldn't allow ourselves to get trapped in a victim mindset, a comparison ("they-have-it-easier!") mindset, or an external-factors-are-holding-me-back mindset. I rarely meet people who have committed to the inner work of internalizing these lessons. Emma is one of those rare people. And that's why I'm excited to share our breakfast conversation with you. I hope you enjoy this episode. And to paraphrase Seth Godin, more importantly, I hope this episode spurs you to take action. Lots of love, Paula   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Any wealth that you may accumulate in your life is the external validation of the inner work that you've done in cultivating mindfulness around that concept, around the idea that you can truly afford anything but not everything. And therefore, every decision that you make is a trade-off. It's a choice. Are you going to spend your money and your time and your energy and focus in a way that aligns with your values? and that honors your future self and creates the future that you want to create? Or are you going to spend it blindly or get caught up in all of these shoulds that we get from society? These are the questions and this is the work that this podcast is here to answer.

My name is Paula Pant, host of the Afford Anything podcast. Today, you know, I've been doing a lot of episodes lately that are totally different than the norm. I hope you guys don't mind. This is a fun experiment for me. Today's show is also going to be different. I recorded this interview in person, and it's with a good friend of mine. Her name is Emma Pette. Actually, now that I'm saying that out loud, I realize I don't actually know how to pronounce her last name. It's P-A-T-T-E. I hope I'm saying it right. Sorry, Emma, if I butchered that. Anyway, you know when you meet somebody and you instantly click and you're like, we're the same person? I totally get you. That was how I felt when I met Emma. And I think I felt that for two reasons. Number one, biographically, we're very similar in that both of us are, and I'm just going to come right out and say this, we are both female entrepreneurs who became self-made millionaires at a very young age. Emma is 26 years old and is a millionaire, is a self-made millionaire.

She did not come from family money, as she's about to describe in the upcoming episode. and I myself did the same thing. I technically I was 31 when I hit that status, so I didn't actually get it in my 20s, so Emma got me beat there. But we've done that. Frankly, that's a little bit isolating. There are not many people who I meet who have done the same thing that I have. And so when I met someone my same age, similar type of background,

who was also like me, artistic and creative, someone who was never obsessed with money, but who realized that money was a tool that could allow her to create freedom, the freedom to allow her to pursue her like more artistic and creative interests. Yeah, I don't meet those people very often. And Emma is one of those people, and that's why you get along so well. So biographically, we have that in common. But on top of that, and this is the major thing that I've learned as a result of talking to her, is both of us made a deliberate choice. to commit to having a very strong internal locus of control. We both decided that we were going to take charge of our lives. And we were never going to let excuses. We were never going to let the

external world stop us. And the daily practice that we both have of managing our money, building investments, growing businesses, that daily practice is a reflection of our coming into our own inner strength and really just expressing our knowledge that we are in charge of our own lives. So that's what we talk about on today's podcast. Just as a disclaimer, most of these episodes I try to keep family friendly because I know that some of you are listening in the car with children. Today's episode, Emma and I recorded this in person over breakfast and we just let loose and we were completely ourselves. And frankly, being ourselves is a pretty profanity-laden thing. So this episode, we're not bleeping it. So if you're listening in

the company of children or if you're uncomfortable with profanity, this episode is just a constant stream of F word. So I'm throwing that out there. If that makes you uncomfortable, then this might not be the particular episode for you. I'm not going to do that with most of the episodes on this podcast, but I wanted to keep this one just absolutely real. The sound quality is not that great, again, because we recorded it over breakfast, but hopefully you'll hang with that. And also, we have a mystery guest who showed up towards the end of the interview. So you'll get to meet him at the end. All right, without any further delay, here we go. So, hey, Emma. Hey, Paula. So you and I had this awesome conversation the other. night and I wanted to bring this into the podcast because it's awesome and I want to share it with the world. Totally.

So you, how old are you, Emma? I am 26 and a half. At 26 and a half. Okay, you know you're so young when you are counting your age by half. Fuck off. You're like, can I say that in your podcast? Totally, yeah. Totally fuck off.

You're like, I'm this many. Yeah. And three quarters. I'm a big girl now. Yeah, exactly. And can I let the cat out of this? the bag about your status as a begins with M and rhymes with bin air. Yeah.

That was the best I could come up with. Did you have a better rhyme for that? I was thinking zillionaire. That is at weight makes me more sense than bin air, which is not a word. Breath of fresh air. Oh, yeah, you can totally let there's a blog post somewhere that needs to be published somewhere. So yeah, let it let it out of the bag and it'll inspire me to write the damn blog post about it.

And so actually, a quaint. the audience a little bit with your story because you you and I get along very well, I think in part because we have the same story of young female entrepreneur slash investor who turned into a self-made millionaire. We didn't come from family money. We didn't come from, like nobody handed anything to us. We were both entrepreneurs who went into the workforce and earned like low salary, low to mid-salary jobs and then decided to start investing and then really just made it happen. So introduce yourself to the audience because they know my story. Yeah, yeah, totally. I grew up without a lot of money and with parents that were very much pro-art and pro-sponsaneity

and not so much. Do you want me to hold that? Oh, yeah, totally. My husband really wants me to stop saying fuck so much and recorded scenarios and he specifically told me that just a few weeks ago. And I've already said fuck like 17 times on different recordings. So it's 100% not going to happen ever. But so I grew up without a whole lot of money without, I grew up in the woods in Oregon. Yeah, your friends were hippies. My parents were crazy hippies. And we lived in a tent.

And then we lived in a cabin that my dad built. And I don't think it was so much that my parents were poor as that money just wasn't a priority. Like art, art was a priority, adventure, travel, spontane, And I think as a kid, I remember thinking, like, no, I want a lot of money. And not so much that I want to be rich, but that I, as a child, perceived that if you took out all the instability and drama of not enough money, what you were left with was actual art and spontaneity and travel. And as a really young child, I wanted to be a poet.

And my parents really supported that. And I spent all of my, I was homeschooled. I spent all of my time studying people. poetry, writing poetry, trying to sort of hone my craft as a really young child and felt like I had the potential to be a great poet. And then as I got older, I kind of understood more what a life of art meant, which is sort of a life of poverty and just hoping to make it and that a very small margin of people make it and that you can be a phenomenal poet and really never make any money off it and be very, very poor. I think at that point I made, I had a very specific moment where I made

a choice that I wanted to have money and that I wanted to live a stable life. And I really threw myself into that. At the time, I was young. I was right out of college. It was making like $27,000, $28,000 a year. I was living in Boston, it's a very expensive city. And from there, I decided to move to a back home to Portland where I could buy a property. I bought one. I worked on it. I rented it out. Then I bought another and then I started doing, you know, cash out refinances to pull the money out and buy more. One day I woke up and logged into my personal capital. And Paula's story is so much better than mine because she actually like watched it happen. Whereas I just fumbled along and one day was like, oh, I wonder what personal capital is.

That sounds nifty. And logged in and realized that I was a millionaire, fully expecting that I had maybe, I don't know, $100,000? Like, I had no concept of myself and my net worth. And then it just kind of, the numbers popped up on the screen. And I was like, oh, huh, look at that. So that's my story. I know I'm going to get emails from listeners who are like,

I want you to walk through exact, how did you buy that first property? Like every email that I get from listeners or readers, people really want to know the mechanics of how. And I understand why, because people want the step-by-step formula. I can do that. Do you want me to do that? No, I don't, because that's really boring.

I mean, it's boring and it's been done a million times. Well, okay, so for a few reasons. Number one, because it's been done a bajillion times. Number two, because the step-by-step formula that you followed is not necessarily the step-by-step formula that somebody else should follow. Because when a person's asking how, they're not necessarily really wanting to know how you did it. They want to know how they could do it. And doesn't it really just come down to, like, aggressive, aggressing savings?

Like, if I had to tell anyone in my story, I would be like, oh, extreme frugality. Like on a level, you probably don't want to replicate. But maybe if you make more money, you don't have to. Like, honestly, it comes down to extreme savings and then just making that leap to buy your first property. Yeah. And the first one is the hardest. Oh, my God. I just remember the, like, I remember a solid month of lying awake every single night, like, sweating, scared, felt like I couldn't breathe.

Like, I put every penny. I had saved my entire life since I was 11 into that. home and I was so sure I was going to end up on the streets, you know, it was going to burn down. It was worth nothing and I was going to end up on the streets. So, yeah. So a lot of the emails that I get and a lot of the questions that I get, people are like, but I can't because of X. Yeah.

You know, and X is always, I don't make very much or I have kids or I don't have kids or I, you know, like there's always some type of external like bullshit, bullshit, reason, excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse. I get that a lot. I don't know anything about houses. I'm not handy. Yeah. I'm scared.

I'm scared. I'm scared of tenant. I'm scared of the law. I'm scared. Like, I totally, I understand. Like,

I have a lot of compassion for that because I think, um, a privilege we don't talk about a lot is that, is that some of us have more comfort with the concept of real estate ownership than others. And if you grew up and your parents never owned a house and you, or maybe like they, you just, you don't know anyone that has ever owned a house or been a landlord. I get that that is a,

that's a mental barrier, but that's all that it is. It's a mental barrier. But you grew up in a tent. I did grow up in, but we own that damn tent. And then we rented it out to a squirrel. For sure. But I think my grandparents owned real estate. Like, not like, you know, they were in the military.

So they would like own a house, live in it, and then they'd move to the next base. Like, no one in my family is certainly a mogul of real estate. But I knew people who owned real estate. My dad was obviously super handy. So I understood, like, I watched a home being built. I sort of understood functionally, oh, when something goes wrong in a home, it's possible to fix it. But do you credit your success to that external validation? Like, oh, you know, my dad knows how to use a screwdriver, therefore I became a self-made millionaire? I credit. God, I credit my success. More than even crediting, I, if I take a step back and look at the situation as an outside observer, the thing that made me successful is that I am able to perceive a problem as just that.

in need of a solution. And so I look at everything. I'm asking her to hold this so that I can take a bite of my egg scrambled, my bacon and egg scrambled. Let Paula eat. I'm going to talk to you guys. Shh, don't tell her. As just an ability to see a problem and then find a solution. And I often don't have the solution and I am usually, or I have the wrong solution, but I am very, very able to perceive a problem and then find the person that has the answer. And so, So, for example, when I financed my first house, we got approved for a loan from a bank. And it was for, and we lived in Boston, me and my boyfriend at the time. And we lived in Boston.

They said, well, sure, we'll give you a loan to buy this house. But it's going to be, because it's an out-of-state property, it's going to be a vacation home loan. And it was like, I don't know, it was a high interest rate. And I turned around to a family member and I said, if you will match this, I will give you higher than a residential. And, you know, you don't have to, there's obviously a tax benefit, which I won't get into. And I was able to get a loan, not through a bank, by sort of using my bank loan as leverage to haggle a deal with a family member. And I have done that since. And I've done that with non-family members where I've sort of said, look, a bank is willing to give me this.

If you want to match that, I'll give you all the money I would just give a bank. Do you want the bank to get the money or do you want you to get it? And so I think it's more about perceiving a problem and knowing that you are the person who is capable of finding a solution and finding an answer. So when I hear that story, the first thing that comes to my mind is I don't have any family that would ever do that for me. Like, I'm an immigrant. My family lives in Catmandu, Nepal. They earn in rupees. Like, I don't have, I don't have family.

I don't have much family that speaks English, you know. And so when I hear a story like that, again, the first thing that pops into my mind are the excuses, the extorting. the external localus of control excuses of I can't I can't because I'm not in as good of a position as you I mean how do you

Yeah and I think for like most people that's actually true or like they don't have family members that would help them out and I think what I always come back to is like I remember the mindset I was in then and I had this bank approval and I was going to buy that fucking house

and if I got that loan from a family member awesome and if I didn't I was going to use that bank loan like I was so focused that I was going to buy that damn house that all I needed was to find an answer to the problem I had, a solution. And I knew there were many solutions, and I was hunting for the best one. And I truly believe if a family member had said, no, I don't want to loan you that money.

And honestly, it ended up kind of being a bad deal for me because interest rates really dropped, and mine didn't, you know, I'm locked into a loan that doesn't really benefit me. And the tax benefits ended up being more costly than I realized. So it didn't, it's funny that for some people that can look like, oh my God, God, you got handed sort of like this golden ticket. And when you look back on it, you just think, yeah, that wasn't an okay decision that I made. So I guess what I would say is aggressively pursue the thing that you want. There is an answer.

There is a solution. If you are trying to buy your first house and you have $5,000. And not even if you're trying to buy a house. If you're trying to do any fucking thing. Of course, right. You can relate this to anything. Truly. This is not, I'm so, I'm like, this is not about real estate and that's a message I keep trying to drive home.

Right. This isn't about that. Right. And that's, absolutely. And I think it's more about being willing to aggressively pursue a solution. And often when people come to me, because I get a lot of similar, like, yeah, you did X, Y, Z, but I could never do that. What I see is that they are convinced there is no solution to their problem. They're not looking for a solution.

They're telling me, am I have a problem that. has no solution, and if I start offering solutions, they don't want to hear the solutions. And so that's a whole other problem. But if you are a person that can understand that every problem has one, if not many, solutions, then I think you can basically do anything you want to do. Tell me about other ways that that's benefited you. So you and I had this conversation last night. I think the thing that sets us apart, both in terms of what we've achieved as well as just from most of the people that I feel like I meet an encounter in my day-to-day life is, and I think the reason you and I connect so well is just that incredibly strong internal locus of

control where we both are like, I am, I so live inside of my circle of influence. It's not even funny. Like, this is where I live, and this is where I operate from, and I can do anything, you know, and I just don't care about spending any of my mental energy. things that are on like, you know, the victim bullshit or the reactive bullshit or any of those. Like, I just don't care about spending any energy there because I am so inside of my own internal locus of control. Yeah.

I mean, I would say when I was a little kid, my dad told me two things. He said, always do what you say you're going to do and always take responsibility for when you do something wrong. And that I have, those are truly my guiding principle. And I, even if it's not out loud, it's like, it was just talking with a colleague of mine about this, you know, and he said you always walk out of meetings and you always have these like one or two things that you could have, you know, that you think you could have done better. And it's exactly what I do in every situation, in every real estate or business situation or anything,

interpersonal situation. I walk away and I just think, what could I have done better? What could I have? Or I think, oh, I did a great job. Or I think, man, you know, I wish I had done XYZ. And I just don't give a shit about the other person. That sounds really horrible. But it's just in a, it's so true that I don't waste a lot of time. I'm going to give you guys a specific example, because I think this, it provides a little bit of clarity on this. I just went through a really nasty eviction. And it spanned the length of crazy. My lawyer told me it was the craziest eviction he had ever not only worked on, but heard of. And I would tell people, oh, yeah, with this eviction and everyone, my parents, my husband, all my friends would just, I can't believe

this tenant is doing this to you, this asshole, I can't believe, oh my God, why do you think, how could he do that? Doesn't he know what's wrong? Doesn't he? What kind of a person? And I just would say to them, you guys, I just don't care. It just doesn't even, this is not, it is doesn't even enter my, my mind frame. If I saw him on the street, I'd be like, hey, buddy, how are you? Doing good? Awesome. See you later. I just don't care at all. Because all I see is the ways in which I made my mind. mistakes in the ways in which I could have done better or in the ways in which I did the best that I could. And that's the only information that I ever really care about in any scenario. And I think that allows me to rarely get into the victim mind frame, which cripples us all. And this is why I

fucking love you, you know, because I, that's so important and that's exactly how I think. And that is just not a thought pattern that I see in a lot of people. And that, if I can impart just one thing to the audience, like, it's that. And I've heard it phrased so many different ways by so many different people. Like, one of my friends said, and I know some people would disagree with the wording of this, but like his approach is like, take the blame for everything or like everything is your fault or, you know, like, he doesn't mean like literally your fault, but, you know, he means like in everything that happens, just focus on what you. you can do. Yeah. And also, when everything is your fault, then everything is yours to change. And I think

that for me is why I find it empowering to take the blame or to look at my part and stuff, because it gives me this hope that next time will be different. Why? Because I can make it different. And I think that, it doesn't feel like I'm a child at the hands of an evil world. It feels like every single day I am creating a better and better life for myself. Yeah, exactly. The other way I've heard it phrased is like, it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. Sure. Sure. Or people, right. Or the like, this take radical, radical responsibility for your own life, which is such a thing I'm truly working on because when things go wrong, there is such an inclination to think, but why? But what did I do? But why me? And it's painful to say, oh, yeah, me. I did this. And to really see, yeah, I could have had it

different and I made choices that made this happen. And I don't want to do that again. Yeah. I like that. radical responsibility, a radical self-responsibility. Yeah, yeah. I really like that, too. That's what I've been my, I was just telling Paula that I hired a, a coach to help me with, with this, to help me with not being so busy and with it being able to sort of live a more peaceful life. And that was where we actually circled back. And when she said that, I just started laughing and I said, wait, I've been saying that for years about like work and real estate and making money. And she said, you know, exactly. And that's where you succeeded. Work and real estate and making money. What about, have you been saying that about your yoga practice? Have you been saying that about, you know, your friendships? I'm like, oh, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because people get into these limiting beliefs where they're like, I'm just not, like, I'm not the type of person who puts on a lot of muscle. Yep. I'm just not athletic. I'm just not athletic. I'm the type of person who, like, easily gains and holds weight. I have trouble making friends, like these types of, yeah, these limiting beliefs. And that's actually. Yeah. And then they identify with it. That's the thing. And they make it true. Yeah. And they make it. And it and it becomes part of that ego identity. It becomes part of like I am not athletic. Like you're literally identifying that way. Oh my. That was me for most of my life. And it's actually interesting because Paula talks about how like the real estate stuff has helped me. But honestly, it just gave me so much confidence that every problem was there for the for the solving that I have actually applied it. I've applied it to my marriage.

I've applied it to my relationship with my family, to a lot of interpersonal relationships, to my career. And most recently, I realized that my fear of being athletic was such complete bullshit that I had a million excuses for why I couldn't be athletic. And I was like, fuck it. I'm going to run a half marathon. And that's what I'm doing. It's in two months. Like, I just realized this is so silly. Of course, people that aren't super athletic and skinny run half marathons.

I see them running the half marathons. Like I have friends who have run half marathons. And yet I think that I'm that special somebody, that special loser that could just never do it. That special loser. And so, you know, it's truly as soon as I realized how simple it is and that there is, of course, a solution to this problem I'm facing and that the solution is also looking at my mindset, then it came so easy. The whole thing fell into place. Hey, hey, we'll be back to the show in a second. but first I want to give a shout out to FreshBooks.

They have signed on as one of our main sponsors in 2017, and they have an awesome product. It's meant for freelancers, solopreneurs, small business owners. If you have a side hustle or if you're self-employed and you need to send out invoices to your clients, yeah, it's necessary. You've got to send invoices to get paid,

but it's also annoying and it's time-consuming and nobody really likes doing it. It's just one of those costs of doing the job. Inter Fresh Books. they automate the invoicing system. You type in some basic information and their system handles the rest. It automatically sends follow-ups to invoices that haven't gotten paid. It lets you know whether or not your client has even opened your invoice or not.

Basically, they take the suckiness out of invoicing. Give them a try for free for 30 days at freshbooks.com slash Paula. That's freshbooks.com slash p-a-u-u-l. As soon as I realized how simple it is and that there is, of course, a solution to this problem I'm facing and that the solution is also looking at my mindset, then it came so easy. The whole thing fell into place. Wow. Comes back to mindset. Yeah, it totally does.

I'm going to take us on a tangent and you can just cut it out during the edit. Do it. What can we do? What can we say to stop this fucking excuse bullshit about people being like, I can't do it? It's not me. It's like I'm not, you were able to because of X, Y, Z, and I'm not because of X, Y, Z. Like, what can we possibly say? Because I feel like every financial and real estate guru ever is all saying the same thing,

which is you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. And people are still saying, well, no, I can't do it. You know, I think, like the internal locus of control. So I guess to define that for people who aren't familiar with that concept, like, where does your control come from? What is the center of your control? And to have an internal one is you're stating that my center of control comes from within me. It comes from inside of me. And if you have an external one, then you're stating that my control comes from external factors.

It comes from outside of me. When I learned that concept, it was revolutionary for me. It changed everything. And my first act, like I decided I was going to have an internal locus of control. and by definition making that decision was my first act of having one.

I think there's a famous quote by somebody or other who's like, my first act of free will was deciding that I had free will. Yeah, true. You know, I mean, that's really where it starts. So I don't know

to anybody who's listening who wants to believe it, like you have to decide that you're going to believe that you can do it. And that's really what it comes down to. Like, your mind will believe whatever you tell it.

Yeah. And also your mind is going to be very, very good at trying to stop you. So your mind is going to say things like, you know, but I have kids, but I have obligations, but I come from a poor family, but, you know, it's going to bring up all these arguments and all these kind of culturally supported arguments about why you just aren't able. And that I think is when the moment that you come to see that that is just a tactic that your fearful mind has, that's a powerful moment. That it's not, and I can definitely give in this. I can sort of say, but I grew up, I grew up without a whole lot of money and or I'm, I grew up in a tent.

I grew up in a tent. You know, I'm raised my hippies in Oregon. I'm, I'm, I'm a female. Like, the think cards, I'm, I'm, I'm overweight. Like, the cards are stacked against me. You're in your early 20s. Right. I'm so young. I always think this. I walk into meetings with banks or real estate agents and I think I'm too young and chubby and female to be here. and they're not going to give me what they would give me if I was older or more attractive. And it's just like, okay, okay, scared little mind, go back to the car. Like, that's what I have learned to say. It's like, okay, little mind, your time's up now.

I'm going to go into this meeting and I'm going to make a deal. And that's how I deal with contractors. And I think when I first started, I would think that contractor just gave me a bad deal because I'm a girl or I would think like, no one's taking me seriously. And then I realized that it was me, that I wasn't acting seriously. But it's my job to make it fucking serious. It's my property. It's my job to get a good deal.

It's my job to go way through that bullshit and not even worry about that bullshit and just do the best I can do. And that was a game changer for me. Yeah. Did I just bring up gender when I wasn't supposed to? Damn it. No, no. It's true. I mean, it's totally true.

Like dealing with contractors as a woman, I had to embrace. erase the idea. Hey, look who just showed up. Hey. Hey. So, yeah, hey, sit down and jump in. Yeah, take a seat. Are you connected to that? Nope, we're not connected to anything. For this little pod thing. Yeah, this is going to be the most shit show of a podcast.

This is going to really have an explicit label. Hey, introduce yourself. Who is mystery? Oh, wait. Should the audience guess who the mystery guess is? Okay, give us a clue. Who are you? Uh, boy. You're a boy. Okay. I'm a boy. There we go.

Yeah, that's right. I'm a native Portlander. Oh, that's a good one. Drive a Mini Cooper, but not today. Hey, it's a thing. It's a thing. Yeah, it's one of my, one of my things. It's one of your things.

Yeah. Love comic books. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyone who's followed me ever knows that the Mini Cooper, the comic books, all this stuff. That's me.

I was saying Turtle. I was going full Turtle. Oh, yeah. Turtles. Turtles work too. Turtles like Teenage Mutant Ninja or turtles as in like the animal? The animal, man. No, I don't like the teenage.

Well, that's a good question, though. Comic books. Oh. Yeah. Ninja. So, okay, what type of turtle specifically, like yellow slider, snapping turtle? You know, I don't have a lot of different words for, I don't differentiate. Yeah, just green turtles.

Galapagos, tortoises, maybe. Ooh. Although, what's the difference between a tortoise and a turtle? I guess one is land-based and one is... Yes, yeah, tortoises are land-based, and if you put them in the water, they could actually die, whereas turtles are mostly aquatic, I believe. I might have that a little bit wrong, but speaking as the owner of two turtles... Oh, I didn't know you...

Oh, isn't Apollo with her turtle knowledge? Just dropping the turtle knowledge. Where does this come from? What are your turtles' names? So one of them is a yellow slider, and I found him in South Carolina... I want to eat that thing. I found him in South Carolina, and he was... in a swimming pool and I didn't know how long he had been in the pool and if he had been there for a

long time and was over exposed to chlorine, he might have died. So I wanted to give him a name that wouldn't allow me to get too emotionally close to him such that if he died, I wouldn't be too sad about it. So I named him Joffrey after the evil character on Game of Thrones. Wow. That is some mental crazy. Yeah, that keeps you from getting attached because nobody wants to be attached to Joffrey. So, Cersie. There you go. But then he survived, and so now he's been my turtle for like two and a half years. So now I have a deep attachment to Joffrey. But you get a deep attachment to a turtle?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he is. Of my two turtles, he is my favorite. I know you're not supposed to have a favorite turtle, but, you know. You get to have a favorite turtle. No, you're talking to two people in the dog camp, lady. We're full in the dog camp. Yeah, we walk dogs together.

Okay, there's another clue. Emma and I walk dogs together every Tuesday. Every Tuesday. So stalkers, you know where. to find them. Can we also have your blood type, zip code, and last four of your social security number, please? No, okay, so I'm J.D. Roth, better known for founding Get Rich slowly, currently riding at Money Boss.

Nice. And hanging out with two powerhouse women. I don't know what I'm here for, so. So, J.D., we were just talking about the concept of having a very strong internal locus of control. That's something that you've thought a lot about. Absolutely. In fact, it's one of my main messages now. When I write at Money Boss or when I speak to crowds, I want people to understand that if you want to be happy and successful, you've got to, even if your situation isn't your fault, you've got to take responsibility for improving your situation. It doesn't matter how you got there. You've got to be the one that says, screw it. I'm going to make it better. It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.

We just covered that phrase. So when did you develop one? Because you weren't, like, from what I understand, you didn't come out of the womb kicking and screaming with like a revolutionary banner and, you know. No, I was, for example, I went to college and just kind of let life happen to me. I just kind of accepted the defaults.

I was bright enough. I'm not the smartest kid in the room, but I was bright enough. and I could get by just coasting, but I never, like, took control of my situation. I just kind of whatever life gave me, I took it. And I used to think I was unlucky. I just thought I got a bunch of bad breaks after college and stuff

as far as, like, getting to debt and all that. And I just wanted good things to happen to me and have a great life. And eventually I realized, oh, you know why I don't have a great life? It's because I'm not making my life great. I'm waiting for somebody else to do it for me, and that's just not how it works. If you want a better life, whatever that means to you, you've got to be the one that says, okay, I'm going to make it better. How did you realize that and how did you decide to make it better? Okay, so it wasn't like it was just a moment of clarity.

It was a gradual realization because I was unhappy. I was perpetually unhappy. And maybe some people would think this is depression, and it could be depression. But I noticed that the more I tried to take control of my situation and do things to make things better for myself, the happier I would get. You know, when we're young, we tend to accept the defaults. I mentioned that earlier. We just kind of think, oh, we're supposed to do this thing next.

We don't think, oh, what is right for me? We say, oh, society expects me to get married. Society expects me to buy a house. Society expects me to have kids. Whatever it is. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of those steps. Yeah. But too often we do that because we think we're expected to,

or it can because it's the default. And so for me, I gradually came to understand that some of the stuff that I had done early on wasn't right for me. And so I had to change that. And some of it was painful. Some of it was very difficult to do. But now I have a much better life. So I don't have any regrets.

Okay, cool. I think we're going to wrap this up because I want a party. It's like 10.30 in the morning. You can't talk. Yeah. So say goodbye, everybody. Any partying words to? Nope.

Emma's like, I'm out. Live long and prosper. Okay, okay, final question. Favorite teenage mutant Ninja Turtle. Go. I'm not really familiar with the... Really? I mean, I've seen the movie, like, back when I was in college, but...

Favorite Game of Thrones character. Oh, Tyrion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Favorite, yeah, definitely the Ninja Turtle thing. I'm like, I grip in a tent, as we've covered. I have no idea what that even is. Favorite Game of Thrones character.

Oh, the dude with the one hand. Oh, Jamie Lannister. Yep, he's hot. He is hot. Just for the record, I don't like Tyrion. I'm not basing it on hotness. So that was a fun recording. What are some of the key takeaways that we got from that,

or that I got from that at least, because I can speak only to what I've taken from these conversations. First of all, can I just tell you, the part of the interview where Emma started talking about, you know, she went to a bank, got approval for a bank loan, and then started going to other people, initially family members and then later non-family members as well, saying, hey, here are the terms that I got. If you can beat this, then let's work out a deal where you beat it and you get the money. When she started talking about that, I got super uncomfortable, which is good. I mean, like, discomfort is a sign of growth, right? Like lean into the comfort, but I want to share with you why that aspect of the conversation made me so uncomfortable. And it's because I have found, in my experience, when a person is successful, or I just talk about myself, when I am successful and when I share stories of that success, I feel as though people are quick to invalidate that. And one of the first ways that I've observed people try to invalidate that

is by making some type of assumption that I got family money somehow, which for me in my story, like I didn't, you know, my parents live in the U.S. And I've got a couple of cousins who have moved here later in life, a few cousins who grew up in Nepal and then came here as adults, typically on a student visa, and then stayed on a H-1B or on a permanent residency. But I just don't have, like, with the exception of my parents, I don't have. I don't have anybody in an older generation who even lives in the U.S. My uncles, aunts, they all live in Kathmandu. And, you know, my cousins, some of them move to the U.S. as adults, but some of them are living.

They're all just trying to make it. They're all starting life in new countries in Australia or New Zealand or wherever they could get a visa to for the first time. And so that's just not part of my story. and yet I fit in well. I speak without an accent. And, you know, I felt like people have been quick to try to invalidate my success by searching for something like that, some narrative angle around that. Because in my experience, if somebody else can hear someone's story and then they hook on to the like, oh, but you had an uncle who gave you a loan, then that. then that invalidates the person's success and it gives the other, the listener, an excuse for why they haven't done it.

And so given that I speak about this publicly, I'm very grateful that that isn't part of my story because that gives me the privilege to avoid having that aspect of my story invalidated. And likewise, I get very uncomfortable. Like, I got very uncomfortable when Emma started talking about how she took that loan from a family member. Like that made me super uncomfortable because in my mind I was like, fuck. Now people are just going to write her off. Like this is Emma is an amazing person who has worked really hard and has as we talked about this attitude of I will figure it out and I will solve it. And I don't want other people to invalidate her story. And so when she started talking about how she took a loan from a family member, the first thought that came to my mind was like,

crap. I really hope that, you know, this doesn't result in other people invalidating what she has to teach. And so that part of her story made me very uncomfortable. And to be honest, I considered removing it from the interview. But then I thought, you know what? No, this is going to be lean into the discomfort. This is going to be a much stronger teaching experience and a much stronger learning experience if I put that in and then share why that made me so uncomfortable. So I don't know if that's a takeaway lesson or just a part of the interview experience that I want to share with you, but that was my reaction to it. I hope that made sense. I hope I explained that in a way that was understandable.

Okay, so what else came out of this interview? Well, I would say the strongest theme of it is not accepting the defaults that life has handed to you. J.D. talked about that as well. when he came in towards the end of the interview, there are so many defaults that we're born into, and there are the default assumptions about what we should be doing or what we ought to be doing.

And most, I guess I can't speak for most people, but many people go through life accepting those defaults, often without really even thinking about them. And sometimes when a person does think about the defaults, they assume that they don't have much power over that. They assume that they may recognize that they're accepting defaults, but they think that they have to do to X or Y or Z external factor. And so the major theme that I think came out of this interview and I shouldn't really call it an interview, this breakfast that we had together and recorded, is number one, not to accept the default, to get out of the should that comes from life and really consciously decide what it is that you want to do. And number two, to not make excuses, to know, as Emma said, that every problem has a solution and that you're going to fucking find that solution.

And it doesn't matter what it is. Like, that bank loan that Emma got offered, if she didn't have anybody else who could beat it, she would have accepted that bank loan. And you know what? I did that. My first property, it was a triplex. I went through rejection after rejection after rejection. like banks did not want to lend to me, to me and Will. And when we finally did get a loan, the interest rate was significantly higher than the prevailing rate at the time.

Like I think by almost double, if not triple. I mean, it was a bad interest rate. It was hard to get. It was a giant fucking hassle, a huge headache. And we took a lot of nose. We went to bank after bank. and we heard a lot of rejection before we finally got the yes. But throughout it all, I kept going because I knew that this was a fixable, a solvable problem.

And that's really what it takes. It just takes deciding that you're going to find a solution. And even if that solution isn't what you want it to look like, even if money is more expensive the first couple of times that you try to get it, even if money is expensive, you get it anyway. if that makes sense to do for the situation that you're trying to create. You know, it's not letting perfect be the enemy of done. You know, I wanted to buy a triplex and I wanted just, I wanted to get it done. And even though the loan that I got was far from perfect, even though the property itself was far from perfect,

even though so much about that situation was really suboptimal, I didn't let perfect be the enemy of just getting it done. So hopefully you got something from this, but that's what I left our breakfast with, was get out there, do it, know that you can do it, and don't get hung up on making it perfect, just get her done and move on and keep going. Because at the end of your life, like when you look back on your cumulative financial wins, it's okay to have made a whole bunch of mistakes. In fact, you will make a whole bunch of mistakes. You already have and you will continue to do so, just as I already have and I have. I will continue to do so. And that's fine as long as ultimately you win more and or bigger than you lose. As long as the net over the course of your lifetime is in the positive direction,

which it will be if you're committed to a lifetime of learning and growth and development. As long as you win more or bigger than you lose, you're fine. So don't get hung up on what went wrong. Don't get hung up on thinking that the situation has to be perfect. Just make today better than yesterday and keep doing that every day to the best of your ability. And if you trip up, just get back up and keep going. This is the Afford Anything podcast. My name is Paula Pantt.

I hope you enjoyed this. Please, if you did, head to iTunes and leave us a review. As far as what's coming up next, I know I promised you all that A.J. Jacobs, the author, was going to be on the show. we're having a little bit of scheduling conflict, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on with that. So that's a lesson for me not to promise a guest prior to when I actually record the interview. Hashtag oops. We also are going to have someone coming on to the show in some time to record an episode about game theory, about what happens when all of the chess pieces are on the table and when you have knowledge of the situation to try to take those lessons and apply it to the world of money. So that's coming up at some point. But yeah, that's all down. the road. We're coming up towards the next batch of Ask Paula episodes, so that is going to be kind of most imminently around the corner. If there is a particular guest that you'd like us to bring on, tweet me at Afford Anything and let me know. Thank you so much for listening. Please head to iTunes, leave us a review. Hit subscribe while you're there. I appreciate you so much,

and I'll catch you next week. Now let's see if I can make sure. That we actually got that. Yeah, this may or may not have recorded. Okay, finish up, press the thing. I think. I think good. Did he want to?