Afford Anything - Tell Me About Something That Scared You - from Camp FI

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

#149: Welcome to the September 2018 First Friday bonus episode! We recorded this episode at Camp FI, which stands for Camp Financial Independence. It's a gathering of people who are pursuing financial independence; we spend a few days eating, drinking, and having late-night poolside conversations about money. There are several Camp FI's throughout the year; I recorded this bonus episode at the Camp FI at Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California in early August.    I invited several of the people at Camp FI to come to the microphone and share one thing: “Tell me a story about something you did that scared you."   Justin shared a story about getting invited by a corporate sponsor to take part in a mountainous 75-mile cycling ride, despite the fact that he wasn't trained or ready. Tim told the story of the first time he met his future father-in-law, and, to phrase it mildly, the meeting didn't go well. GingerFI shared a story about something she ate while traveling that ... well, I won't give away the ending, but let's just say that it's something she'll never forget.    Anna described moving from New Zealand to the U.S. to attend school, while Johanna talked about getting laid off from work and deciding to use her newfound joblessness as an opportunity to road trip from Maryland to Los Angeles. Jennifer described the resilience she discovered after surviving a disability, layoff and divorce. Wakefield talked about investing in real estate before he felt ready, and Vickie shared a childhood story of overcoming the intimidation she felt when she wanted to meet someone.    Listen to hear the stories they shared, and the life lessons they learned along the way.   Enjoy!   For more information, visit the show notes at http://podcast.affordanything.com/episode149 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every decision that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. It applies to any limited resource in your life, whether that's time, energy, attention, focus. So the questions become twofold. What's most important to you? And how do you align your behaviors to reflect that? In other words, what matters most and how do you take action appropriately?

Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice, and that's what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pant. I'm the host of the Afford Anything Podcast and the founder of Afford Anything.com. Normally, we are a weekly show that airs every Monday morning, but once a month, on the first Friday of the month, we air a bonus episode. Welcome to the September 2018 First Friday bonus episode. We recorded this episode at Camp FI, that stands for Camp Financial Independence.

It's a gathering of people who are super into pursuing financial independence. They have Camp FIs throughout the year, but I went to the one at Joshua Tree in Southern California. And while we were there, I invited several of the people at Camp FI to come to the microphone and answer one simple question. Tell me a story about something you did that scared you. Now, it could be about anything. It could be money-related business, career, quitting your job, starting a new job, moving across the country. It could be absolutely anything. But tell me about something you've got to be.

did that scared you and yet you did it anyway. I invited people at Camp FI to come share that story. Here's what they've shared. Justin David Carl, I live in Menlo Park, California, right next to Stanford University, and I'm a little nervous. The thing that I was scared to do was something that I thought I couldn't do or that I didn't do because it wasn't who I was. And this happened super recently back in the end of June. So I've been slowly building myself up as like an online influencer through Instagram. And the Four Seasons Hotel reached out to me to be their local Silicon Valley influencer in the wellness space. And they were doing their inaugural Grand Fondo cycling event, which is a 75-mile bike ride with 7,000 feet of elevation from Palo Alto over the Santa Cruz Mountains

to the ocean and back. The very first thought I had, or that my mind had, was, I can't do that. Then I started coming up with all the reasons why I couldn't do it. I'm not a cyclist. I don't have a bike. I've never cycled more than 10 to 15 miles in my entire life at one time. So the thought of doing 75 miles sounded insane. I've never climbed a hill on a bike,

much less 7,000 feet of hill. And I was scared, shipless, to be honest, kind of throwing back to Jillian's talk yesterday, everyone often is like, oh, Justin, you're, you're very good at fitness things. And I was scared that they would find out that if I tried this and didn't do it, that I wouldn't be as good as they think of it. I am. And that thought of what would other people think if I failed scared me. So fortunately, I'm super blessed and I have this incredible, powerful woman in my life. So I went home after the opportunity was presented to me and I told her all the reasons why I couldn't do it. And she patiently

listen to me, vent, and give all the excuses and all the reasons and, you know, I don't have a bike and I'm not trained up for this and I'm not a cyclist, all this limitation and limiting beliefs. She, in her own words, and I'm paraphrasing here, said, Justin, it's the four seasons. Your message, which is a personal mission that I lived throughout my blog, and Instagram of empowering people to transform and self-actualize, this is a perfect opportunity to show people how you can say yes to something that you think you can't do. And I listened in that I didn't say anything back and I slept on it.

And something in me that night, why my mind was sleeping, something in my heart, woke up. The next day I was like, I have to do this. I have to live my mission and show people that when we say yes to these opportunities in disguise, that's when our life really transforms. So I reached out to the Four Seasons and I said, yes, I'm going to do this. And this was on Monday. The cycling event was on.

Saturday. And again, I did not even have a bike. Wow. I had never trained for cycling ever. I listened to my heart instead of my mind, and I said yes. And it was when I said yes and when I officially committed, when I wrote to them and said, I'm in, that's when all the magic started to happen. So in that day, I literally found a friend who happens to be one of the most talented professional

videographers to fly down to cover me on video and drones, literally drones following me on the bike. I found an incredibly talented photographer to come do a professional shoot the morning of the event and really showcase the four seasons, really showcase a message of, saying yes to the universe when it presents really scary things to you. And I started sharing with my work. I didn't even have cycling gear. I had like, you know, you need those shorts that have the built-in crotch that protects your tailbone from being injured. So I started sharing with my friends and my co-workers what I was doing. And literally magics just started happening. My company offered

after I asked them to sponsor me because my company, oh my green. Our mission is to empower people to live healthy and blissful lives. So this was like a perfect thing for them to support me as one of their team members doing. So they paid for all my cycling gear. My head of catering at my company is an avid cyclist and he loaned me. Not just any bike, but a Bianchi that was like a freaking sweet bike and shoes and a helmet. And somehow it all magically fit. One of the key things to riding long distances is a bike has to fit really, really well.

So I had the opportunity to do two short six to eight mile rides on two different days to learn how to shift gears and clip in because I've never clipped in before. And additionally, I was able to negotiate with the four seasons to have one of my coworkers who was an avid cyclist come do the event with me. So it turned into the most epic adventure I've ever probably done in my life. So throughout the experience, I never understood why cyclists were so into it. I just did not get it. But when I was working up those hills, like 7,000 feet of hill, I pushed my body to a level I'd never been to. and emotions that had been stored in my body for maybe decades literally like broke and released and I would be bawling my face out why I'm climbing these hills but I was so euphoric and so

incredibly happy and inspired with life and surrounded by like insane nature and I totally fell in love with the sport and I'm like, I get why cyclists are so into this. It is like therapy, really powerful, natural therapy. And I felt so incredibly alive. And to be doing it with the mission of showing people what can happen when you say yes to something that you think you can't do and just how that can push you forward in life. That entire week leading up to it, I was so focused I was also working on the biggest deal at my company at the exact same time, which was crazy. It was learning that I could say yes to an opportunity that is aligned with kind of like my passion project along with my career and do both and be a good partner to my fiance all at the same damn time was really powerful learning for me. I think the best part is I didn't finish.

So my ego wanted me to finish, but my body said, we've had enough after about 55 miles. So I made it up and over the mountains. I made it to the ocean. And then on the way back, I was working my way up the mountain, and that's when my body just started to give out. I had to say, okay, I've gone as far as I've gone. You know, if 10 miles was maxed before, I 5xed myself. So this is pretty damn good. And it was to the point, unfortunately, I did a few things during the race that I normally don't do.

They had junk food at every one of the stops. There was four stops, and I ate a bunch of candy and cookies just trying to get through this event because I was on a bike for seven and a half hours. And they're also giving out gel packs that had caffeine in them, and I had about seven of those, so I think I had too much caffeine. And so when I stopped, the first responder who picked me up was also picking up other people who were falling out of the ride, and he was whipping through mountain roads, and I got car sick,

and I started throwing up. And then I continued to throw up for the next, like, three hours. So originally I was planning on taking a ride up the mountain so I could then cruise back down and finish the event. but that wasn't in the universe's plan because I started throwing up and I was like, all right, I got to tap out. But then the next day, like even though I spent three hours throwing up, I felt so incredibly detoxified, renewed, reborn.

No joke, I did like an hour of yoga. Then I went and worked out and then I went and played two hours of spike ball. And I was just like on fire. and I've been so inspired with life and so in love with the sport just in the last month and a half. I've cycled Tahoe twice. I've cycled all over the Bay Area. I've cycled Monterey, Pebble Beach. We're cycling Joshua Tree tomorrow.

And I found this whole new way to experience the world that is absolutely breathtaking that I never even thought or never even knew about. and it was because I said yes to something that seemed like, you know, I couldn't do. And, you know, I didn't finish. But none of my friends called me up and said, Justin, we thought you'd finish the 75-mile ride, but you didn't it so we're no longer friends. No, everyone were like, dude, you're badass. Like, so cool you even said yes. Wow.

I've met so many amazing people through just that adventure and then now embracing the sport of cycling. It's literally open up my world. And I guess kind of the message that I want to share with people through sharing the story is the universe isn't going to give you a silver platter and be like, here's this perfect opportunity. It's exactly what you want. It's going to be in disguise. It's going to be something you think you can't do or you think you won't like. I literally thought I wouldn't like cycling. I literally was like, no, I'm not going to like that.

That's not me. And it's going to be hard to say yes. Your mind is going to say, no, I can't. No, it's going to limit you. But there's something like a whisper that you'll feel in your chest, your stomach, or somewhere, your spirit will stir and it will be so quiet. And if you just listen and focusing on that and let the other noise of your body, your mind just become like a bunch of white noise and just do it even if you think you can't do it,

your life will transform in such an awesome way and you'll be so grateful that you said yes. And you will be scared the entire time leading up to it. But the funny thing about being scared and having anxiety is anxiety is literally a two-sided coin. On one side of anxiety and on the other side of anxiety. and on the other side is excitement. And you can choose which side of the coin you're going to let drive your life. And so I guess in ending, when that thing shows up in your life, just say yes.

And all the details will work themselves out once you officially commit and say yes. And that's my story. I'm Tim from Orange County. I mentor a lot of folks where I work, and I get the common question about how to ask for something that you're afraid of the answer. And it's a fear of the unknown. It's a fear of if I ask for something and I get a no, am I going to get embarrassed? If I ask for a raise, are they going to look at me like I'm greedy? If I try to negotiate a better price of my rent, is my landlord going to do something to me?

And I think it's interesting. I think the fear of asking for something and the fear of the unknown is it's clearly something we think about in our moral mind. And it really takes us to ask that question and get a little bit of rejection to really feel like you're not afraid to ask that question anymore. So I'll just tell a personal story. I'm married to my wife for the last 10 plus years. Probably 14, 15 years ago, we went to Taiwan where her family lives. Part of the mission of the trip was go see her country and how beautiful it is. Part of the mission of trip was also just to ask her father if I can date her. And there's a lot of pride in her family. So I think her family is

17 generations of Taiwanese. They had two daughters and the intent of their family, unbeknownst to me at the time, was to marry a Taiwanese person. Although it's, in radio, you can't see like, I'm Caucasian. So we go to Taiwan, we have a good time. And I go to her apartment where her parents live. So I walk up the stairs. I think the father knew something was up. So he's sitting on the couch and the couch is a three-seat love seat and he's sitting in the middle seat and he's real tense. So he's like got his back really straight and he's a pretty strong guy. I literally opened my mouth to ask the question, you know, can I date your daughter? And before I even asked the question, he's like, no. You know, it was like, you know, I got a couple, you know,

swear words, but I think the long story short was about a good 60 seconds of just stay away. You know, this is not for you. You don't, this is not, you're not part of the family. You're not going to be part of the family. And so I left. Fast forward the story. Actually, we did get married, clearly, because I mentioned she was my wife. The father did come, you know, to our wedding.

But it did take a little bit of coercing. And I think for him, if you look at his life, it's the fear of the unknown, right? If you're 17 generations in one country, it's the fear of the unknown for that individual, my father-in-law, who I actually really like and respect a lot. And for me, I needed to get that hard no because I think it's helped me later in life because you get a hard no in your early part of your career. I mean, you're not really afraid to ask for much. I mean, it's helped propel me in my career where I can ask for questions about, you know,

can I get a different job? Can I get a raise? Can I get an extra responsibility? But I really firmly believe that if you ask for something, it's okay to get any answer. What's the worst that can happen? For me, I got a hard no, right? And one anecdote to that story is not only did he say no, he actually got off the couch in the middle seat, he went to the end of the couch, pushed the couch over, and actually put it through a plate glass sliding door. No is not the worst answer. No's not that bad. No plus broken glass. I mean, it's not my glass.

It was his glass. So no harm, no foul. But getting there. experience, I think, has been helpful. And I think there's not many things that I'm afraid to ask for. And it's good for folks that I mentor and folks in the room, like, never be afraid to ask for that thing that you want. Because if you get a no, it's okay, right? You're either going to learn from it, you're going to get it, or you're going to be better next time. So, thanks, Paul. Ginger Fye. So my story isn't like one in which my entire life changed. It's a story of facing a fear of a situation and then it just being okay. So I'd like to share that with you guys. So my husband and I were traveling around the world for a year. We did a mini retirement.

One of the things we did was we decided to volunteer with workaway. info. And we volunteered at this home in Denmark. And it was advertised as an eco home. And we had volunteered in the past. And how it went was you worked around 20, 25 hours a week for our family. And they usually provided you free lodging and free food. And the free food was usually very very basic. So like vegetarian diet, beans and rice. And so that's what we were expecting. It makes sense. Twenty, five hours of labor a week wouldn't pay for a very expensive diet, a very expensive lodging. So we arrive at this home and it is beautiful. We get in and the host says, let me show you around the home and show you what you can use and what's yours. She shows us the kitchen and opens up the drawers and says, eat whatever you like, we'll provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but you have any

snack you'd like. And in the refrigerator, there's organic meats, there's organic half and half, organic sugar, there's fancy teas and fancy coffees, fancy breads. And I say fancy breads, fancy coffees, fancy cheeses, you know the type, like the stuff you find at Whole Foods, that type of food. I'm thinking to myself, this is insane. Why are they, why don't they just hire cheap labor and have them do this work themselves instead of, you know, getting free labor, quote unquote, and paying tons of money for food and lodging. I can't figure it out, but they're the nicest people. Maybe they're just giving, whatever.

So we go up to our room, we spend the night, we wake up the next morning, there's an amazing breakfast that one of the other volunteers had made, and we eat it, yogurt, granola, farm fresh eggs. It's amazing. We do our day of labor. We're helping to build like a tiny home. We have dinner there. Same thing.

Huge spread. wonderful people. The night's over, we go to sleep. I had kind of a stomach ache, so I wake up in the middle of night, and I go downstairs to get some tea. And I walked down the stairs, and the owner of the home, her husband, and one of the volunteers, walks in about the same time. And they're wearing jumpsuits, kind of like the ones you see car mechanics wear, and headlamps on their head, and they're carrying huge boxes of food. This is at 2 a.m. And I'm wondering what And I said, hey guys, I'm just getting, I'm getting tea. What are you?

What are you coming from? And they said, oh, yeah, we were just diving. Don't mind us. We have a few more loads to do from the car. Diving. I said, what the hell is going? So I go back to the room and I wake up my husband and I tell him what I just witness. And he says, I think they're doing dumpster diving.

I said, are we eating dumpster food? He says, maybe. I didn't know what to do. My stomach got worse. I think it might have been like the, you know, I couldn't tell if it was the food or my mind influencing the food. Unclear. Wake up in the morning and I decide, I want to be open. I don't want to be judgmental.

I don't want to judge the fact that they're eating food out of a dumpster. You know, rats eat food out of dumpsters. But apparently now I eat food out of dumpsters. I say, so tell me how long have you guys been doing this? Is all the food from a dumpster? Oh, no, no, not the milk. We buy the milk. I said, but the meat?

Oh, yeah, the meat. The cheese, the cheese, everything. One thing, actually they bought the sugar because they had a bee farm and they didn't want the bees to have the sugar from the dumpster. So I thought that was a nice little color for the story. So I'm going back and forth. Should I leave? Should I stay? This is, you know, should I just go buy my own food?

What should we do? Well, I decided to go on a vegan diet. I thought that would be a little bit more safe. So I was eating vegan, but we're still eating the food that they have. And a couple days passed and decide, maybe I'll check it out myself. Maybe I should go dumpster diving with them and see what this is all about. I can get firsthand knowledge if it's really clean or dirty because I'm eating it anyway, so what's the difference with just going there?

We decide to do it, and they have a lot of clothes. Apparently they go dumpster diving not just for food, but for clothing too. So they show us the wardrobe, and this woman happened to also be a hoarder, so that doesn't really help with the hoarding thing. So she had a lot of clothes, and we put on a jumpsuit. She gave us a headlamp. She provided antiseptic wipes, all that. kind of stuff with us. So we go to the first place, and we go into the dumpster, and she opens it up,

and she says, all right, guys, here's my box, start loading it in, only stuff that looks good. So I take, the first thing I grab is I see a huge bag of apples, and it's bag, so I thought, okay, that's a bit safer, right? I put it in the bin, and she says, no, no, no, no, not organic. I said, what? She says, we only eat organic in this household. I said, but you only from the dumpster, she's like, yeah, but only organic. I couldn't. Okay. So I put that apples back and she's picking and choosing all the organic produce. I mean, there was so much fruit. There was bread. There was fruit. Cheese and it was nice and wrapped up. It was great. I didn't see a single rat, not that there aren't ones there, but it was pretty clean overall.

So we were done. We go back home. I feel a bit more confident, but not confident enough to eat the meat and cheese. So I still decided to be vegan for the rest of the trip. I didn't get sick. And it all turned out okay. So that's my whole story. It didn't change my entire life. But if anyone had told me they were a dumpster diver before that, I would have had a thousand judgments. Now I only have 100. So it's not too bad. So that's my story.

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If you would like to open an account with them, head to radiusbank.com slash Paula. That's radius bank, R-A-D-I-U-S, bank.com slash Paula. Again, that website is radiusbank.com slash Paula. Hi, I'm Anna. I'm originally from New Zealand, and that's actually what my story is about. But right now I live in the Bay Area. So my story is very like first world problems. So don't judge me too hard for that.

One of the scariest things I did, thinking about it actually makes my heart base, was deciding to come to the U.S. to study. You would think that doing a lot of stuff preparing for that would prepare me for the anxiety. Like you know, okay, I'm about to make this life change, but for some reason it didn't register until I got the notice and accepted. And I was like, okay, I got to get myself ready now. So then less than a month later, Virginia Tech happens. Everybody except for my parents are asking me, do you think you're going to get shot? super weird question. I don't know why, but just the media, that's what they were thinking. And so that wasn't the best start ever. But anyhow, I continued and decided, okay, I'm already

so invested, the sunk cost fallacy. Like, I didn't understand that, but it had a really strong hold on me. So I went. And then the plane ride was really hard. I cried a lot. And so I go through customs, you know, my eyes are swollen shut. They're asking me, why are you here? And I said, for school, and then they said, which school? And I said, you know, USC. And then the Customs Border Patrol officer starts trolling me saying, oh, the University of Spoil Children. And I was like, uh, what is that? He was like, that's where you're going. And I was like, oh, okay, he has a gun on his hip, so I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to say anything. We arrive on a Sunday. My dad gets a rental. He doesn't know how to drive on the other side of the road. So it's already an adventure. And so,

So we're trying to head down towards L.A., from L.A.X. I don't have any family in the U.S. I never visited the campus. And so if you see the pictures, you know it's a really nice and pretty school, but the area is a little bit sketchy. We take the wrong turn, because we're not familiar. We're in the middle of nowhere, and honestly, it looks kind of scary. And so the first person I see, I ask for help, and he only speaks Spanish.

And I'm so confused. I don't speak Spanish. I was like, what? Like, what's happening? And so finally, I don't know how it happens, but we get to L.A. By the way, there's no GPS, right, since this is 2007. And so we've got a paper map. And so I finally get there.

We'll get to the hotel and then prepare myself for orientation on Wednesday. So a couple of days to calm down, get used to surroundings. My parents are still with me, so they're trying to help me calm down and get acclimated. So on Wednesday, it's orientational. day, moving day for the first time. I move in all my stuff, go to the first meet and greet. I'm feeling pretty good, pretty confident. Like, hey, you know, everybody's pretty normal. They're my age. We're all kind of anxious and awkward. Around noon, my parents were like, all right, so we booked a flight to Vegas. Like, you're on your own. I was like, okay, this is terrifying. Like, what did I do? So that was

a very scary evening. I had a roommate for the first time, you know, since I kind of grew up like an only child, so sharing a room with someone for the first time was also very foreign to me. And then things just kind of went uphill and downhill from there. My roommate turned out to kind of be, like, had a psychological breakdown. One night I came home and she had like trashed the whole apartment. Like went into my roommate's room, you know, it was a two-bedroom apartment, and so four girls in there, wrecked their computers, wrecked my stuff, and we were getting phone calls from the hospital, saying like, oh, do you know this and this person? I mean, it was great. So trying to get her evicted from a dorm, it was such a weird situation.

So that was my scary story. How did you deal with that? You just kind of do it one day at a time. So you kind of sit there and you're like, well, I'm here. I've already upended my life. So it's very hard for me to turn back. I mean, I wouldn't say I burned a bridge or bridges, but it would be very difficult for me to have, frankly, the courage to go home

when I had already told everybody I was leaving. It took less bravery to stay and see it through than to go home embarrassed and ashamed that I failed and quit. And you said one day at a time, how did you get through those days? Were there any things that you did or things that you told yourself that helped you? If I don't die, then I'm going to be successful.

You know, like, if this doesn't kill me, then I'll be okay. Because like how bad you? could it really get? The other thing, too, I've learned since, because I'm also a huge warrior. For some reason, I think I was just very naive, and I didn't think too much about it because you become almost like in survival mode. And so you just start thinking about, okay, well, I have to get to class, so what do I need to do there? The other thing, too, is academically, it was very easy to kind of find things that I could use to distract myself. So that was extremely helpful. And looking back on it now that I'm older, I think something that's really helped me is reading Dale Carnegie's book,

how to stop worrying and start living. And he talks a lot about the law of averages. So based on the law of average, I shouldn't be sitting here right now, right? Because so few people go through this path, but also based on the law of averages, a lot of things that shouldn't have happened did happen. And so sometimes when people say, oh, didn't you see this on the news? Shouldn't that happen to you? I mean, really, no, because the news is such a distorted lens, you know, in reality. And then it was a good experience to figure out that reality is something that is like a ball that you can play with. And the stronger you get, it's almost like a massage ball, right? Like, yes, there are physical laws, right? I'm married to a physicist. So, like, there are, you know, physical laws

that you can't break. But beyond that, you know, reality is something you can massage and control. And life is like a series of probabilities. And so some things, you can't change because they're fixed, you know, I can't change my race or my, you know, a lot of. of things, right? But if you learn to massage that ball and your hand gets stronger, you can actually control what happens in your life, and you can distort probabilities. They're not certainties, so you don't know that they're going to happen, but you can distort the probability in a way that you can control your destiny. My name is Johanna Porter. I'm from the East Coast from Maryland, and I live in Los Angeles now, and my story about difficulty and hardship is about

moving to Los Angeles. I currently live a 12-minute walk from the beach in a one-bedroom apartment with a pool. So you'd ask, like, why, why was that a challenge? Like, why was that so horrific and difficult? So when I moved to L.A., it was a little bit less than two years ago in the fall of 2016, and I'd recently just gotten laid off from my second job in a row. I'm in the corporate retail space, which is not a very healthy environment for brick and mortar retail. As you know, everything is moving to e-commerce, Amazon, I specialize in stores. Malls, which are shutting down, flagship stores that are downsizing. It's a shrinking industry, and it's very volatile.

The first job I got laid off from was in Hong Kong, which I lived for many years throughout my career, moved back to Baltimore for a retailer, and quickly got laid off six months later. And at this time, I was still carrying $58,000 in student loan debt. So jobless, living at my grandparents' vacation home on the water in my hometown, and still having student loan debt with an emergency fund, so still fine. And I was thinking, damn, I just moved back from Hong Kong for a job that just laid me off, which is super challenging for any of us. So I decided, what can I do to pivot out of this really not ideal situation and make it a good situation? So I looked at the map and I said, do I want to move back to Asia? Do I want to try Europe? Do I want to go back to New York? What do I want to do? I decided I wanted to explore the West Coast. I'd been to Los Angeles only once for a four-day weekend, but I knew there were a lot of retailers there. It was close in proximity to Asia, so I could still have that connection to Asia expansion and brands that are pushing their business to Asia, which is like one of the fastest growing markets for retail. So I packed up my Jetta. put all of my belongings in there that could fit in there and hit the road.

And I didn't tell my family if I was coming back. Maybe I'd be back. Maybe not. This was October. So I told everyone, I'm going to California. He said, when? Where are you stopping? Who are you going with?

You're just a little girl. You don't even, what? So then I started having friends call me up and say, hey, can I meet up with you on your drive? Where are your stops? Where are you going? I said, I'm going to California. Maybe I'll work there, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be in San Francisco, L.A., San Diego.

I don't know. And they said, well, I want to join you for part of this journey. And I would say, well, I love hiking. I love camping. I'm on a budget. I'm crazy frugal, as everyone that loves me knows. So I had a girl from New York. And she said, Johanna, let's camp Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains together.

So I said, all right, take a flight to Baltimore. I'll pick you up, day one. Picked her up, drove down the Shenandoah. Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the most beautiful drives. I'm sure that anyone goes there, loves any season's beautiful. So he drove down through all these national parks, and they got to the first park, and they said, do you want a national parks pass? I'm like, what is that?

You know, I'm just doing these two parks, and I'm going to L.A. And it says, it's $80. It covers all the parks, and you can go to all the parks unlimited for the whole year. And it was like October 1st. I'm like, okay, punch the hole, let's go, did all the parks. And then other friends come home and said, hey, can I meet up with you? I'm in Virginia. So people would just come and join me through the route. And I said, okay, I'll take you to the airport. My girlfriend from high school, I hadn't seen in, I don't know, 15 years or something. I live in Asheville. Do you want to come by and meet my baby and my husband? Okay, great. So I had a free place to stay for a few days. And I saw a beautiful town that I never even knew anything about. Then someone saw me post on Facebook and said, I'm, I'm, I'm a I'm living in Oklahoma. Do you want to meet up? And this is a childhood friend. I met in elementary school. And I stayed with him and his girlfriend. I met their dogs. And I'd never been to Oklahoma.

My dad's ex-girlfriend in Louisiana living in a small town was practically a second mother to me, said, come by and see me. So all of these people throughout the whole country were just reaching out to me and opening their homes to me that hadn't seen for years. And I was budgeting and, you know, Airbnb hacking and camping and setting up a tent. the dark by myself, which is very difficult if you haven't done it before. And just traveling all across the country and picking up people and dropping people off, you know, I picked up my boyfriend in Phoenix and he joined me for a leg of the trip. And I finally landed in L.A. You know, the car made it there. Everything was fine. I got there and I stayed with my college roommate. She lived in L.A. in Plyde L.A. I was like, I don't even know where that is. Maybe that's in Los Angeles. Maybe it's

not. So, Plyde-Delray is right on top of the LAX airport. It's very small between Venice and Manhattan Beach, a tiny, tiny beach town. I was like, this is really nice. And her and her husband live there, and they have a guest bedroom, and they said, why don't you just live with us? And I said, what? And I was doing all these interviews. And I was like, I don't know if this is going to work out. This is, I've got to go back to Maryland. I'm going to go be living in my grandparents' vacation home forever. The second day I got there, I got recruited by the company I'm currently at. And they said, we have a role for global retail operations for Asia. Are you interested? I said, well, that's exactly me. I've lived my whole career in Asia. I speak Chinese. I've worked extensively

in Japan and China. Your target markets lets meet. So I met, and that process went on for a few months, and I got hired. So I did more traveling and said, well, I want to go home for the holidays. I want to spend time with my family before I fully moved to California. They don't even really know what's going on. So went up to San Francisco, saw family and then cross-country all the way back. It did the same thing. So sometimes 13 hours on the road by myself, frugal eating, hacking, seeing all these different monuments. I saw 10 national parks, got back, did the holidays, told my family, I'm moving to Los Angeles permanently, and I'm not coming back. So then I drove all the way back to Los Angeles and moved there, lived with my girlfriend, husband for about a month,

and rented an apartment, a five-minute walk down the street from her. At this point, I would never be here if I hadn't done something completely impossible from a position of pure vulnerability. That is the worst position to be in, but it flipped my life totally around to, you know, at this point, this December, I will have paid off $50,000 in student loans in about 14 months. I make less 100,000, so very high savings rate, and now I'm probably going to retire in 12 years. When two years ago, I was laid off twice, a double layoff, and without a job, and with 60 grand student loans. So I think after putting yourself through a physical, emotional, mental test like that,

you are resilient. You can do anything you want to do. You can dream up any life and architect any type of lifestyle you want if you're willing to take a chance on the unknown that might be really, really, really hard. But now I'm out here and I've met all of you. And it's been a long journey, but it's been exciting and I've learned a lot. We'll return to the show in just a moment. You know, the world just wasn't built for the self-employed. Lots of services, like banking, retirement planning and accounting services, aren't built for people who are freelancers or who are self-employed. But fortunately, FreshBooks is.

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To claim it, go to FreshBooks.com slash Paula, and when they ask, how did you hear about us, type in Afford Anything. Again, for a 30-day free trial, go to FreshBooks.com slash Paula. P-A-U-L-A. And when they ask, how did you hear about us? Type in, afford anything. Do you need to renew your contact lens prescription? Yeah, then you know how time-consuming and expensive that stuff can be.

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they're a great option. We had a member of our team, you've Simple Contacts. And in her case, she had a current prescription, so she uploaded that prescription, and then she was able to buy her favorite brand of contacts, and that got delivered in the mail to her. So she saved a couple of hours and hundreds of dollars

as compared with an office visit. Give them a try. Get $20 off your contacts at Simplecontacts.com slash Paula 20, or enter the code Paula 20 at checkout. Again, get $20 off of your contacts by going to simplecontacts.com slash paula 20 or enter the code Paula 20 at checkout. My name is Jen. I'm from San Diego. And thank you very much for letting me share my story.

I'm a little bit older than quite a few of you. I was disabled and married at the time. I'd been through two layoffs as well and tech companies, never found my. I Google. I never made an IPO. But while I was laid off, the journey to heal took two years. And in the interim, my marriage started disintegrating. And we separated while I still didn't have work and was not released from disability. And I had massive amounts of fear about what does that mean for me. We had an amicable divorce, made a very business life, bought out his share of the house. You know, I took on more debt to take on the house.

conned my doctor into releasing me from disability, and I got a job within like six weeks of being released. They had another layoff. Feeling like I'm not doing so well on my own, right? I set up a consultancy, and I do web and software and content management and development. The thing I didn't know during that consultancy is that you have to market continuously. I would get gigs after gigs, but they would all pile up at the same time with the same deadline, and lots of intensity, right? And then there'd be these fallow moments where there was no work at all, where I was hustling, and I just couldn't make things work, and there was no magic. And for about four years, I struggled with that, and I had acquired a massive amount of debt,

which forced me to sell my home. Before I sold my home, I actually went to my family and said, would you please bail me out? This is the amount of money you have that I'll need to make my loan current and this is my game plan to get back on my feet and no one in my family would loan me the money. So I went ahead and did the sale. So I was super duper lucky because in that interim, my house also increased in value. So it's not like I didn't have anything and I was able to pay off credit cards and start from scratch. But the psychological and emotional toll was heavy. It made me feel like a freaking loser man. That this is a pit. I am just stupid. and I am not going to be able to dig myself out.

I don't know where to go next. It was so bad I actually asked my family, can I stay with you for a month or two while I figure out where I'm going to live next? I will pay you rent. I'll do your laundry, whatever, right? The answer, guess what? No.

So I had to find a new place to live. So the good news is I'm in San Diego. It's been home. I have resources. I have a little cash in the bank. So I find an apartment. I go live there and I try to reinvent myself. And I randomly said yes to a lunch meeting with a stranger, and that person offered me a job,

and I was employed by that company for 13 and a half years. But interesting enough, along the way, I can tell you, three layoffs, failed marriage, didn't have to file for bankruptcy, horrible debt, sold my house, and lost the American dream. And it really strips you down to the core. when you don't know where your support is or where your next meal is going to come from or your house. And so my friends laugh because I have a homeless plan. Everyone in San Diego knows that in this group.

I have a homeless plan. And that homeless plan actually sort of makes me feel safe or comfortable. I don't know. Sort of having that plan makes me feel very comfortable. And so in that time frame, in that 13 and a half years where I've rebuilt my life, I'm in a place where I have FU money, where I don't care if I have a new job right away.

I am looking for the right fit, and it's about me interviewing someone else. I'm actually looking at a consultancy, so there's hope. So I'm sharing my story because it was really scary. I didn't sleep a lot. I still don't sleep a lot. We have more resilience like Joe said than you know.

And it's amazing the friends that show up who are in your life for a moment or for a lifetime that can influence you. and all I ask is that we think about the one thing that we can be. We can be kind because that kindness being invited to a lunch to meet a stranger just to explore possibilities or just chat to get to know yourself or know each other. I would never have had that opportunity to rebuild.

So I have a very healthy portfolio. I own a house. I bought the same house back that I was forced to sell. And that's a completely different story. They had to sell it as a short sale because they got into very, very deep trouble. And during that short sale process, I had to rebuild two bathrooms, or one bathroom, and the house to get approved by the loan.

But in the meantime, they had actually found another job. And I said, do you want me to withdraw my offer so you can take the home back? Because I would never, you've built a life here. And they said, no, this is your home. So I have my old house back. Isn't that weird? Okay, so all my other good friends said, you're crazy. That house has bad Jojo.

Mojo. It's not good. Don't go back to that house. It's going to be really bad. But so far it's been pretty good. It's my space. I've repainted every room. Strip down the cabinets,

repainted those, change handles out. You know, the whole shebang. So if you can choose to be one thing today, even if you're having a rotten day, just be kind. You just don't know how much that's going to mean to someone. That's it. Thanks.

Hello, I'm Wakefield from Los Angeles. So I guess my story starts when I kind of joined the corporate world after I graduated from college. I said, oh, instead of paying to learn, I get to get paid to do something. So that was kind of excited. And I was like, oh, this is cool. So I got to my first job once I graduated, and it happened to be in commercial real estate. And so like a lot of finance, business professions, you really start at the bottom. And then they say that you, you know, you drink from the fire hose. You don't know anything. So you're the guy at the bottom of the totem pole. You're going to do whatever. work that just needs to be done. So I remember one of the first projects that I worked on was something

called data cleaning. I already hate cleaning as is. Imagine having to clean data. I didn't even know what that meant really. They should have called it like data sprucing or something else. But what that was is basically having a huge spreadsheet and you have to calculate like 30 different things for like hundreds of properties. It wasn't a totally, you know, invaluable experience. did learn a lot about real estate and things like that, but I think I got to this realization about, I don't think I want to do data cleaning for the rest of my life. So I guess, fast forward to a couple years later, I'm not official advertising here, but I discovered this podcast called Bigger Pockets and started kind of drinking Bigger Pockets, Real Estate, Kool-Aid. And then I said,

well, this sounds pretty cool what these people are doing on this podcast. Maybe I can do that. And I work in commercial real estate, so I know something, I think. Fast forward to 2013, 2014, a little bit of history. My dad does some investment. He had something in Texas. And I sort of talked to him about something. And I know, it's this weird thing where sometimes parents don't want to talk about money, Asian parents, whatever, it's weird.

So, you know, I talked to my parents about it, and they're kind of like, whatever. But I've decided to kind of check it out anyway. And so I went on this website that, uh, And I didn't know that at the time is kind of the garbage of real estate. But I said, oh, these properties look cool. There seems to be potential. I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. So I kind of worked in commercial real estate, but it was an investment.

It was more of appraisal. I sort of just read this report and I say, okay, this report looks reasonable. Next one. So I didn't own a personal residence. I didn't really know how to invest. I didn't really have any money, things like that. But I just looked up a couple properties and I said, maybe I'll just give these brokers a call and maybe I can talk to them and I'll sort of learn something. I found a couple

properties and I started calling them and a lot of them didn't even pick up and probably part of the reason was my area code was foreign from Texas. Usually I just left some messages. I never got callbacks or when I did have somebody pick up, I wasn't really sure what to say to be honest. I just sort of figured, oh, I'm just going to call them and then I'll talk about something. You know, do I say, oh, I'm Wakefield and I want to, I'm interested in real estate, or do I just start asking you about the property and the location? I really didn't know what I was doing. I think those brokers knew that, and they just said, yeah, if you have some questions, just email me. And I email them, I don't hear anything from them. So I guess I realized at the time that, okay, maybe I don't have any money and I don't know exactly what I'm doing. Maybe I'll just sort of hold off until I can actually do something. So fast, forward to 2015, and then I said, maybe I'll pick this up again and try again. I had a little bit of money to be dangerous. And then I pitch it to my parents again. They're still kind of like, eh, whatever. Like, why do you just focus on your job? Just keep working. It's great. Get a paycheck.

So I kind of tried again. And at this time, I identified a different kind of market. And then I sort of did the same process. And this time I said, you know, I'm really going to try to do it better this time. And I'm going to refine my pitch. And I'm going to ask the right questions and do better numbers because I listen to more podcasts and, you know, if they did it, I can do it too, right? So this time around I put together a plan. I said, these are 10 properties. I'm going to call these two to five guys a day and just see what happens. I guess I set up this schedule where I was also working a lot too. It's working probably like, I don't know, 50, 60 hours a week and there's like a three hour time zone difference. So I just will get stuck in like terrible

LA traffic and at least I'll be on the phone and then I'll leave messages or whatever. Maybe like one out of four or five guys would talk to me and then a lot of them will just sort of be like, who are you? What do you want? Do you have any money? You're actually going to buy this? Do you own a company? Like just a lot of questions that I wasn't really sure how to answer. But eventually it got to the point where I talked to and I probably looked at maybe like a hundred properties and then I did realize I was getting a little bit successful with a few properties where the brokers would willingly pick up the phone and be sort of enthusiastic. I said, well, why do they want to talk to me? And then I realized it's because those properties are not good. I sort of noticed a

pattern that, oh, these cap rates look really high. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is a moneymaker. This thing's great. Like location's good, all that stuff. And I said, oh, okay. And then I did some more numbers and I said, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I need to kind of balance out, you know, what what they tell me. But eventually, I found this property that seemed to be good. I probably looked at over 100 properties, and this was over maybe like a two or three month period where I called probably like 40 or 50 people. Sometimes they'll call me back and I'm at work. Oh, I got to rent to like some office and pretend I'm doing some work and take this quick call. It got to the point where my parents are still sort of against it, but I had a little bit of money. So I'm like, okay,

parents, I have skin in the game now, though. You know, so it kind of had to break some resistance. eventually got to, you know, making an offer on a property and then getting that one. And so that was the first win in 2015. So basically from that point, it's once you get that first one, you sort of get the field to keep going. And then from there kind of had the motivation and a little bit of success to continue to grow the real estate business. Where are you now with it? So where I'm at right now, we have three properties in the Cincinnati area. One's in Cincinnati and two are east of Cincinnati in the Batavia area. And then unit count were over or over 100 units.

The things that I took away from this is you're never really ready to do the thing that you need to do to get to the next step. I wasn't ready when I started in 2014, 25th. I didn't have the money and I didn't own anything. I don't own a personal residence. I didn't know how the process work, lending, underwriting, doing all this stuff. I was sort of shooting in the dark. You know, once you kind of start figuring out the process of what you need to do to get to that sort of end goal that you want, it's scary and it's uncomfortable because you need to get out of your kind of your own mind and just trying to go out and do it versus trying to think about it was, you know, once I start to think about it, then I get nervous and I don't do it. a lot of what I think was helpful is listening to other people's stories who also did it in

talking to people that did do it successfully. I think that, you know, can go both ways. I listen to all these like great deals on podcasts. I'm like, oh, that could be me. And I don't think I ever got deals that were that great, but they sort of worked out. But I think hearing, you know, the success and at least knowing that you want to try it and do it. And whether, you know, whether you succeed or you feel, you're always going to learn something. My name is Vicki, I'm from Orange County, California. So when I was six years old, I told my parents that I wanted to play the drums, and they were not happy because I am an Asian female,

and I am supposed to play the piano and the violin, preferably both and incredibly well. But my parents are cool. They put together some money for me to take lessons, at a public park. So I took lessons and I really, really enjoyed them. So fast forward two years. I'm eight years old. I'm still playing the drums and I'm still loving it. But I was also a very shy and introverted kid. My parents were kind of worried that I would just never talk to anyone. We went out to dinner one night and there was a live band playing. After dinner, we stood there and

kind of watched for a while. Obviously, I was mesmerized by the drummer. But he was a very scary looking guy. He was a big guy, big beard, totally did not look like anyone in my family, and kind of a scary guy. And then my dad said, you should go talk to him. I almost peed in my pants. I guess you could tell I was nervous. So then he said, we're not leaving until you talk to him. So I stood there for the next 30 minutes, and my dad holds very true. to his word, so we didn't move. And I kept standing there. And then finally, my dad told me, he's not going to hit you and he's not going to yell at you. And if he does, I'll hit him back. So finally, after like going to the bathroom like three times, I worked up the nerve to walk up to the

stage at intermission. And I think I said something incredibly awkward like, hi, I like your sticks. But the big, burly, scary-looking drummer guy was actually a teddy bear. He talked to me, and he even let me sit on his stool and play around and showed me a few tips. And I got a free CD and a T-shirt out of it, so that was kind of cool. So I guess looking back, this wasn't exactly like a big life-changing experience, but I think it broke me out of my shell as a kid. and if we're going back to the law of averages, by all means coming from a lower middle class family, I should not have two rental properties. I shouldn't have put together this incredible out-of-state

real estate team. I shouldn't have gone to pharmacy school and gotten my license, and I shouldn't have two businesses that I'm getting off the ground, one of which is doing really well and the other is slowly getting there. So I guess going back, every time I talk to someone new, I still have that fear and that nervousness and anxiety. But every time I have that fear, I hear my dad telling me, he's not going to hit you and he's not going to yell at you. And if he does, I'll hit him back. Thank you so much to everyone at Camp FI who stepped forward to share their story. What are some of the key takeaways that we got from all of these stories? Here are eight, one from each story. Justin told the story about being challenged to do a long-distance bike ride despite the fact that

He didn't even have a bike. And what he discovered is that anxiety is a two-sided coin. The funny thing about being scared and having anxiety is anxiety is literally a two-sided coin. On one side is anxiety and on the other side is excitement. You can choose anxiety or you can choose excitement. The choice is yours. After that, Tim told us a story about meeting his future father-in-law and that meeting didn't go very well. I really firmly believe that if you ask for something, it's okay to get any answer.

What's the worst that can happen? For me, I got a hard no. The lesson that we learned from this is don't be afraid to ask for things. Ask for what you want. And ask over and over and over again. Don't take no for an answer if this is something that is important to you. And proceed forward with what you truly want because sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission. And what's the worst that could happen? After that, Ginger F.I. told us a story about inadvertent dumpster diving. If anyone had told me they were a dumpster diver before that, I would have had a thousand judgments.

Now I only have 100. So the lesson that we learned from her story is, don't judge it until you've tried it. In fact, try it a few times because you might surprise yourself. After that, Anna told us a story about moving from New Zealand to the United States to go to school. And even though she was scared, here's what she was. She learned. You just kind of do it one day at a time. So you kind of sit there and you're like, well, I'm here.

I've already upended my life. So it's very hard for me to turn back. I mean, I wouldn't say I burned a bridge or bridges, but it would be very difficult for me to have, frankly, the courage to go home when I had already told everybody I was leaving. So the lessons that we learned from Anna's story is that first, all we ever do, all anyone ever does, good or bad. happens one day at a time, so take it one day at a time. And second, if it works for you,

public accountability and commitment can be a really powerful motivational tool. If you're an obligor, if you're the type of person who wants to see things through because you said you would, publicly declaring that you're going to do something might be the motivation that you need to get it done. Now, it might trigger a bunch of anxiety, but as we learned from Justin, that anxiety can be channeled into excitement and motivation to actually follow through. After that, Johanna told us a story about taking a road trip across the country when she moved from Maryland to Los Angeles. Johanna had gotten laid off she was $50,000 in credit card debt, but she made the most of her experience. I would never be here if I hadn't done something completely impossible from a position of pure vulnerability.

That is the worst position to be in, but it flipped my life totally around to, you know, at this point, this December, will have paid off $50,000 in student loans in about 14 months. I make less than $100,000. So very high savings rate. And now I'm probably going to retire in 12 years. She had an amazing story. She got in her car and drove from Maryland to L.A. and made it a fun trip.

She was in a difficult position. And she chose to make it fun. She chose to make it a fond memory and use it as an opportunity to connect with people and deepen relationships and be in nature. And it's that type of spirit that has gotten her where she is, both in terms of travel and adventure, as well as in terms of being on a solid financial path right now. That's what we can learn from her stories. You can't necessarily choose what happens to you.

Sometimes you do get laid off. Sometimes very bad things happen, but you do choose your response. And she provided a fantastic example of that. And so did Jen from San Diego, who told us a story about getting laid off, being disabled, and getting a divorce, and then getting another layoff, and then losing her house. I mean, if you imagine the most stressful things that can happen to a person in their life, disability, layoff, divorce, she had all of those things happen all at once. And her family didn't support her. She asked if she could stay with them just for a month or two while she was getting on her feet.

And they said no. But now her confidence comes from knowing that she made it through, that she had that resilience. But interesting enough, along the way, I can tell you, three layoffs, failed marriage, didn't have to file for bankruptcy, horrible debt, sold my house, and lost the American dream. And it really strips you down to the core when you don't know where your support is or where your next meal is going to come from or your house. And so my friends laugh because I have a homeless plan. Everyone in San Diego knows that in this group. I have a homeless plan.

And that homeless plan actually sort of makes me feel safe or comfortable. I don't know. Sort of having that plan. makes me feel very comfortable. And so in that time frame, in that 13 and a half years where I've rebuilt my life, I'm in a place where I have FU money, where I don't care if I have a new job right away. I am looking for the right fit, and it's about me interviewing someone else. So some of the lessons that we learned from Jen Story include have FU Money.

And if you don't know what that is, that's a concept that comes from J.L. Collins. He was a guest earlier on this show in a previous episode. he describes FU money as the amount of money that you need such that you can tell your boss FU. You don't have to say that. You're free to keep working, but you're also free to not really have to worry about it too much. Having that FU money is incredibly freeing, and that's one thing that Jen has found. But beyond that FU money, Jen has resilience from knowing that she is the type of person who can build it. It didn't just come to her magically one day.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-boo, right? She built it from scratch out of nothing. She built it hour by hour, day by day. And knowing that you're the type of person who can do that, knowing that you have that resilience, that grit, that determination, there's a lot to be said for that. More than just the money, it's the ability to create the money that often gives you that quiet confidence to know that you can make it past the next challenge. And then And the other thing that Jen said, and I thought this was beautiful and important, and I'm glad she said it, is when in doubt, be kind because you never know what other people are going through. And because no matter what you're going through, it's always within your power to do that. Next, we heard from Wakefield from L.A. who talked about how he got involved in real estate investing before he was quote unquote ready.

The things that I took away from this is you're never really ready to do the thing that you need to do to do. get to the next step. We're all winging it. We're all never really ready. But the difference is that some of us do it anyway. And if you keep taking the next step, even before you think you're ready, good things may happen. Now, that doesn't mean that you should get in over your head. Of course, there are reasonable limits to it. But at a certain point, the only way to be ready is to show up first and their readiness will follow.

Finally, we closed out with a story from Vicky from Orange County, who talked to about being a shy child who overcame her fears in order to talk to a big, burly, scary drummer. So I guess looking back, this wasn't exactly like a big life-changing experience, but I think it broke me out of my shell as a kid. One of the lessons that we can take from this story is that sometimes it's the smallest things, the things that you don't think will be life-changing that, in hindsight, are. So keep pushing yourself in ways that are both big and. and small, keep doing things that scare you, big and little, because overcoming your fears and

developing confidence is a habit, and it requires daily practice. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the Afford Anything podcast. My name is Paula Pant. I will see you in the next episode. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast playing app, and subscribe to this podcast so that you won't miss any upcoming shows.