BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 217: Don’t Quit Your Job, “Fire Your Boss” on Your Terms w/ Rahkim Sabree

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

Rahkim Sabree “aspired to be poor” when he was growing up. He saw his parents collecting section 8 housing vouchers, getting food stamps, and thought that this was the way life was. He didn’t grow up around many homeowners. All of his friends lived in apartment rentals and were in the same financial situation as him. There were no “financial literacy talks” at Rahkim's dinner table. It wasn’t until Rahkim left college and got a banking job that he decided to look at where his money was going and what it was doing for him. He started reading books like Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Millionaire Next Door, which shifted his mindset and gave him the foundation to chase financial freedom. He bought a duplex, house hacked it, and started throwing all the money he could into investments. As his own financial knowledge began to grow, he was able to share what he learned with others. He’s written two books, spoken at TEDx talks, and been invited to numerous conferences to speak. This didn’t bode well with his employer, who would consistently ask him whether his outside-of-work activities were clashing with his nine-to-five responsibilities. After hearing this over and over again, he decided to “fire his boss” and focus on building his own income, all without an emergency reserve stashed away!  In This Episode We Cover Why it’s so difficult to break out of poverty without financial education Deciding to house hack so your mortgage can be offset  Why you should always keep a safety reserve in case of emergencies  Maxing out your 401(k), HSA, and ESPP contributions  Thinking of low-interest credit as another type of safety reserve Knowing when the appropriate time to leave your W2 is  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, show number 217, where we interview Rakim Sabree from I Fired My Boss and talk about quitting your job to become an entrepreneur even without a solid liquid emergency reserve. Having grown up without money and understanding what scarcity looks like and how that can impact either saving or overspending, I think out of sight, out of mind for me, has work. and saying, I'm going to invest it all so that I don't accidentally splurge on this nice thing. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my breath of fresh air co-host, Scott Trench. Thank you, Mindy. Great to be here.

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Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Liener Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for parenting perspective and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful as its breadth.

Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more. All accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP money. Rakim Sabri, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.

I am so excited to talk to you today. I'm super excited to be here. Rakim had a viral tweet about firing his boss, which is a different way to look at it, I think. And I saw that tweet and I said, I have to tell this story. This is so awesome. So, Rakim, why don't you start off with where your journey with money begins? Let's look at what led up to the quit.

Yeah, so my journey with money probably began when I started working and banking. So I started working and banking at 21 years old. That was back in 2011. I didn't know anything about money. I didn't know anything about money instruments. I actually grew up in poverty. So certain aspects of my life I had limiting beliefs as it related to what money looked like and what money looked like for me. I tell a story in a TED talk I did that I aspired to be poor.

and what that meant was I saw that my mom had Section 8, my mom had food stamps. And so I said, hey, when I get old enough, I'm going to have Section 8, and I'm going to have food stamps. It never occurred to me that I could own property or what a credit score was or any of the things that I've accomplished later in life. And so getting started in banking really kind of opened my eyes to that world and seeing what the spectrum of behaviors look like. And certainly some of the luxuries that come along with having access to money. So let's look at your main point. I'm sorry, your main milestones. What did your financial position look like when you graduated high school?

I had no money. I had no money, had no savings. Actually, I went into college and took out student loans because I was told everybody had student loans. My first year of college, I had no money for books. So literally every class that I had, I either had. to make copies or borrow, didn't have money to like deck out my dorm room and, you know, have all the snacks.

I really kind of relied on the kindness of others. And that made learning difficult, right? You can't really focus on your education if you're worried about eating or studying and what tools you have or don't have. So I didn't know anything about credit. I think that was kind of like my first exposure to the world of credit. A lot of people were telling me. don't take out credit cards that I was going to be offered every credit card there was because I was

18. And I was kind of told to shy away from that. When you're 18, that can be really, really good advice. We have spoken to a lot of people who have, they go to college and, hey, if you fill out this credit card application, we'll give you this free t-shirt. Great. Now you have a bunch of garbage t-shirts and a ton of credit card debt because they don't educate you on how that works. So that's not necessarily bad advice for an 18-year-old. What does year two look like for college? Did you find, did you get a job? Did you find money? So year two, I actually, I stopped going to the school that I went to. So I went away and lived on campus year one. Year two, I was in the transitioning stage. I was getting ready to move across country. So I grew up in New York. My mom decided that she wanted to go to

Texas. And so I was like, all right, I'll go with you. And so I stopped. I stopped. going to the school so that I can kind of help her get her affairs together, pack up, do what we needed to do. So still no money. Once we landed in Texas, I got a part-time job in retail. It was very little money, very slow money, but it was money for me to play around with. I didn't have really any financial obligations. I was still going to school online, but I had grants to cover it. And I just, money was a toy at that particular point in time for me. Money was a toy. It doesn't sound like this is going to end well. What happened? What happened after? So you moved to Texas. Did you go back to school eventually?

So I was in school when I was in Texas. I enrolled into a community college that was local to New York. And I just took all online courses. So I was taking online courses in Texas for New York. Did terrible because online learning was just not working for me. So I would hate to be a student, last year, this year, during the pandemic. But I did both. I juggled what was my online education and what was my part-time job. Again, no money. I did end up going back to school once I finally,

I relocated again from Texas at the end of eight months to Connecticut. And that's where I ended up working in banking. And I went to school alongside my part-time and full-time endeavors. And what were you studying in school? It was general studies, but it was specific to psychology. So I actually wanted to be a psychiatrist. And then I learned that I wanted to be a psychologist. And so all of my classes was really kind of focused around covering those electives.

Okay. So let's fast forward to graduation. Did you graduate in four years? I did not. Same. So I actually did not graduate with a four-year degree. I stopped at my associate's degree. My mom warned me once I started working that I was going to want to keep making money and not finish school.

And that kind of came true. I had gotten to a point where most of my peers, a lot of my peers who had started school around the same time that I did were graduated but couldn't find jobs or couldn't find jobs in the field that they studied for. So now they were carrying around a tremendous amount of school debt, but not getting an income that could pay for that. whereas my situation was the reverse. I had some loans because of my first year of school, but I was making money. I had a career going and really started to pick up steam as I kind of ascended through the ranks there.

So once I got my associate's degree, I was like, you know what, here's the degree. I'm going to stop here. That's when I started to focus on entrepreneurship as well. And so I said, you know what, if I'm going to go to school for anything, it's going to be for me, not for a promotion, not for a raise,

just because of something that I'm interested in. Nice. So what year did you stop attending school? I want to say 2016, 2017. So how much debt are we talking about from that first year? I took out, I think, 12,000. And that was really mostly went towards room and board. So a lot of the education was covered through scholarship.

scholarships, grants. But the room and board was the most expensive. I went to a private college in New Jersey. It's called St. Peter's. It was called St. Peter's College at the time, but now it's called St. Peter's University. And so it was definitely a little pricey. Yeah.

Anytime you put private in front of the word college, you just doubled your costs or tripled them. Okay. So we graduate from college with a two-year degree in 2016 with $12,000 in student loan debt, and you are now working full-time in banking. Yep. In Connecticut. So I am assuming that you're making a decent salary.

By that time, yes. Did you start paying down your debt, or did you start accumulating more? Well, I started paying down the student debt, and I certainly accumulated more debt outside of that. So we're talking 2016, 2017. I bought my house in 2016. So definitely took on a lot of debt there. In Connecticut?

In Connecticut. They have expensive houses in Connecticut. They do. I actually bought my house as a part of an estate sale and not too expensive in an area. So I actually bought my house for about 165. And yeah, and it's a multifamily. So at that point, I had already started well on my way through the, financial education. I read rich dad poor debt. I actually took, uh, took part of his rich

debt training. So I was like all about the multifamily and I wanted to become like this multifamily portfolio holder. Okay, let's talk about this multifamily because you said you bought a house. You didn't say you bought a multifamily. Yeah. That's a little different. So first of all, Scott and I are not big on the pay off your mortgage bandwagon that some people, that you know might be on that. So we're okay with debt. You paid $165 for how many units? Two.

Two units. And this is in Connecticut. So I'm assuming that this has since appreciated in the five years and the crazy market and the pandemic that we've had. Yeah. Okay. Oh, good job. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Let's get back to the. Okay. So bought a multifamily. You have a full-time job. You're generating income. You have a rental unit where you're living in one side and renting.

out the other? Okay. Well, what's the rent? What's the expenses? What's the, what's the mortgage? How, how is it cash flowing? How does your financial position begin to accelerate following this move? So when I bought the house, I was at one level in banking. And very shortly after that, I pursued another level, a higher level, because I didn't think that I could pay the mortgage by myself. And then when I got tenants, and that was kind of part of the deal, I, I, um, I was, wanted to make sure that I had tenants in the unit, I was paying $300 a month towards my mortgage. So when I got the promotion, of course, my income increased and I'm like, well, I don't have to spend this much money. It was the first time that I'd lived on my own.

So prior to that, I was living with my mom and never had an apartment or anything by myself. And so really the rest of my disposable income, I had just invested in the market. So it was a very aggressive investor. Um, maybe two or three summers ago, the tenant left. Tenet was my mom. So the tenant was my mom and her fiancee. They left. And, um, I have not re, um, I have not replaced the tenant because I'm going, doing

renovations and what have you. And I was kind of dragging my feet on it. But I had to learn that I could afford to pay the mortgage. And so made some changes there. I, um, I agree with you guys. I'm not somebody who's in a rush to pay off the mortgage. I don't have a problem with debt at all. And so I just kind of have been taking my time, paying down what consumer debt I have, and focusing on, again, the appreciation.

So actually, as we speak, I have some renovations taking place in that unit. I just got a new siding, a new deck, a new roof. And of course, we're on a very crazy market right now. So I have a ton of equity, just kind of based off of the forced equity with the improvements and certainly with the appreciation in the market. Okay. So you just said that you didn't think you could pay your mortgage by yourself and also you quit your job. Let's look into this a little bit because you didn't quit your job that long ago. How long ago did your mom move out and you started these renovations? So this was probably about two years ago, maybe three. Yeah, two or three years ago, at that particular point in time, I had to pay the full mortgage.

And so I had to rearrange a few things. Certainly couldn't save and invest as much as I was. But over the course of that time, I was receiving salary increases as well. So I certainly became very comfortable with paying the full mortgage. And with that, because I learned that I could pay the full mortgage, the urgency that I had in getting a replacement tenant was lessened. I was like, all right, I got this. I can handle this.

So my mortgage payment is about $14.50, we'll call it $1,500 a month. And that covers taxes, insurance mortgage, what have you. So my actual mortgage, less all of those, is actually probably somewhere around $7 or $800. You're in 2016, you buy this place. You said you bought in at one level of banking and pursued a higher level of banking. what does that mean? Is that a reference to your mortgage payment or your income at your profession? That's a reference to my income. So when I bought my house, it was probably still branch side. So when I started in banking, I was a part-time teller. And I really just did everything that you could do inside of a branch environment from teller up through manager.

At that particular point in time, I was a manager and I was making a certain amount of money. and I was just like, I need to make more money. I was just really concerned. And I think that goes back to this concept of scarcity that we talked about earlier. I grew up and I didn't know that I could buy a house before 30. Certainly did not expect to. And so when I started having conversations with people who had done it, and they were telling me that, yeah, you could definitely do it.

You can definitely afford it. My biggest concern was getting to a place where I could not afford to pay the mortgage. and I didn't have the financial backing from friends or family or whatever to save me from that, from what could be foreclosure. So there was always this like, what if in my mind that stopped me from pulling the trigger until I actually did. So then once I got the multifamily and that was part of the strategy, I was like, well, I'll be able to offset the cost of the mortgage with income from a tenant.

That way I would not have to, you know, carry this burden on my own. once my mom left, then it was like, all right, the real world hits. But I didn't realize that I was making enough money. I just had preferences with how I spent my money that said, okay, you can afford this. So like I said, when I bought the house, I was still on the branch side. When I had, as the years had moved on, I changed companies, I changed roles. And certainly my salary increased that allowed for me to, to comfortably pay my mortgage.

I think it's interesting that at the beginning of the show, you said that you aspired to be poor. Your mom had sectionated food stamps and you aspired to have that as well. And in fairly short order, you changed your whole mindset to not only want more than that, but also to actually take action. I mean, it's one thing to want to have a house. It's another thing to actually go and buy a house. How did you go from one position to the other?

And I'd say fairly short order. It was probably what, like eight years or something. But still, that's like my whole life changing everything that you know to get to this point. And you bought a duplex. That's an investment. That's not just buying. Like my first house was a condo and it was all I could afford. And I did it because you have to.

Like once you're an adult, you have to buy a house. So I didn't have forethought. understanding and like I'm I'm really impressed with how you were able to to flip that switch. How did you get to that point? So there's a variety of factors I think that go into it. First and foremost, I think environment played a big role. So as I share with you guys, I grew up in New York, apartments were all that I had seen. All of my friends, I would say most of my friends either lived in apartment buildings or lived

in houses that were owned by other people. And so, you know, certainly there was. the outlier situation where I had a friend whose parents actually own their home. But it wasn't something that, you know, we consciously thought about like, okay, I'm going to own a house one day. And because I was so intimately aware of what my family's financial circumstances were with, you know, Section 8 and, you know, I actually carried over our payments to property management. I actually carried our food stamps card. So I just embraced, I guess, what were my circumstances. and we didn't talk about money in the house.

My parents were young parents. They were 17 and 18 when I was born. So they were figuring things out as we were being raised. And of course, in they're figuring things out, they weren't having those conversations with us because, you know, I don't know what the because was. So fast forward to moving from New York to Texas and then from Texas to Connecticut,

I was very quickly surrounded by people who had just this, mentality that said, this is normal. You know, having an 800 credit score, investing in your IRA, planning for retirement, life insurance, all of these things were concepts that I hadn't really gotten familiar with. But I was surrounded by so many people who were doing this as just kind of like a reflux that I felt like I had to catch up. And so part of that catching up was having conversations. And so like I said, the environment played a role. But certainly, you know, you touched on something that I like to spend a lot of time on, and that is the difference between knowing and aspiring and then pulling the trigger. And so I consumed as much as I could

about financial education, starting with Rich Dad Poor Dad, You know, all of the different books thinking Real Rich, The Millionaire Next Door, The Richest Men in Babylon, and started really understanding that it was a mindset thing. It was the difference between, okay, I don't know this thing, now I know this thing, now I want this thing to happen for me. So what do I have to do to make that happen? And so build a strong network, a supportive network that was able to kind of point me in the direction of professionals that could help, whether that was a contractor or a lender or a real estate agent or CPA. And then having conversations with those individuals to say, okay, this is what my plan is. This is how much money I'm making.

How do I make this thing happen? And so that was a big part of it. But really putting one foot in front of the other. And so I'll definitely kind of call back to my childhood where I didn't receive much by way of a financial education. I certainly was poured into by way of confidence in myself. And so there was always this belief that I could do anything that I wanted to do. It was just kind of a matter of figuring out what that thing was and then applying myself. So once I figured out what, you know, A plus B equals C looked like, then it was like, all right.

there's no shortage of confidence that I have in saying, all right, well, this is somebody else did it. They're within, you know, five years of my age. I can do this thing too. And so that was an empowerment and financial empowerment is an area that I specifically focus on, coach on, and talk about through the different platforms that I navigate. I think that's really, really powerful. I can do this. I have confidence. I'm taking notes as you're talking and you said.

I built a strong network to help me out. I found people, lenders, agents, CPAs, and I bounced ideas off them. I asked for help and guidance. There is a lot of help and guidance available if you want to do something and you're just not sure how to do it. There are like public forums and Facebook groups and, you know, individuals that you meet at local meetups and networking and, you know, hey, Rakim, I'm looking for a CPA. Well, hey, I've got this really great. CPA. Talk to your friends and, you know, ask them for help and guidance. And they want to help. People want to help other people. I love that. So where do we, where do we come in from I bought a condo? I'm sorry, I bought a duplex to I quit my job. Yeah. So I was kind of like on cruise control at that

point. And that point being me quitting my job. So I had the house. I think I'm either coming up on six years, five or six years of owning. And very conscious of the fact that I have this mortgage, right, very conscious of the fact that it needs to get paid. And of course, the renovations that come with that. And also the things that you don't expect, right? I had a flood occur in my second. I live in the second unit and it's a top, top and bottom unit. So I had a flood occur in the bathroom of the unit that I'm in that leaked all the way down through the first floor into the basement in garage. So there was a lot of internal work that needed to be done with, you know, the mitigation for mold and, you know, replacing ceiling and floor and all of that. So all that's

happening. We're experiencing a pandemic. We just started the new year. And there's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress mentally that's occurring because I'm like, man, like, how am I going to do this? But I'm also not happy at my job. And I shared earlier 10 years. So a decade in the space, I felt pretty accomplished and pretty credible. As I started to kind of grow my network, my following, and I've been called a financial influencer, really just kind of sharing my journey and saying like, okay, this is what financial empowerment looks like. This is why financial literacy is important. These are the things that I'm going through. These are the things that I'm showing you as it relates to my path.

but I started to grow very quickly in establishing a personal brand. So I did a TED Talk in 2019. I wrote my second book in 2019. I started being featured in different publications. I started writing for different publications. I've wrote about a dozen articles for entrepreneur. I write a couple of articles for the griot. And then, of course, after this, you know, me quitting my job and firing my boss,

I wrote an article for Business Insider. So I'm leading up to these things, I would share. these accomplishments on my social medias. And of course, one of those social platforms was LinkedIn, where all of my coworkers and my manager lived. And I would get these comments or these questions that kind of felt very condescending from my manager about the things that I was doing outside of work. And some of the questions that I would hear would be along the lines of, what is your commitment to the company? Or what is the reason why you, you're doing this thing. This year, I got my certified financial education instructor

certification, and I shared that. And she was like, well, what are you going to do with this? And I'm like, I spent my own money and my own time studying for this, getting this. I'm not getting congratulated. You're not finding ways to utilize the credibility that I'm establishing outside of the corporate environment. Instead, I'm being put in a situation where I have to justify why I'm doing the things that I'm doing on my own time. and being questioned in terms of my performance on the day job based off of my ability to do these things. And so it became very toxic. It became, I was anxiety-ridden.

I was showing up to work and I was just like, oh, I hate it here. Oh, I was afraid to post certain things online because I didn't want to have the conversation about it. And really just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me was I was invited to speak at FinCon this. year. And I shared that because I was super excited. You know, I had heard such great things about FinCon and it's going to be my first time attending. So first time attend the first time speaker. And so I share this on LinkedIn and she's like, I think we need to revisit the outside business interest form. They wanted me to document this stuff on a form. And I'm like, well, I'm not being paid to speak at FinCon. I'm not being paid to do any of the things that I'm showing you.

but there's like this concern. And the language that the HR guidelines kind of use is very like ambiguous. It's like the burden was not on the company to prove that there was a conflict of interest. The burden was on me to prove that there was not. And the perception of a conflict of interest is what ultimately could put me on the chopping block. And so I'm just like, well, I can't work in this gray space, right, where I'm constantly worried about the thing that I say, or do or represent on my own time being interpreted as a conflict of interest and then having

to constantly reassure my leadership that I was there for the long haul or that I was engaged or that I was committed. And I was not a problem employee. I was high performing. I got a raise every year. I got a bonus every year. And so I was just kind of confused

where it was all coming from. And while all of this was happening within the environment, I was being celebrated and approached by other people outside of the environment. founders of organizations wanting to talk to me, making great connections from the work that I was doing. And I said, you know what? Again, no shortage on confidence. I could strike out on my own and do this thing by myself. Why do I need to take this and, you know, feel, feel minimized? And so ultimately, there was two weeks leading up to my decision where I actually wrote my resignation letter two weeks

in advance. And it was in response to something that had annoyed me or frustrated me. And I said, I'm just going to do this as an exercise. And I left it in my drafts, undated. And then the day that I quit, the night before I was up all night thinking about it, the day that I quit, I woke up, I filled in the dates, I tweaked it a little bit. And then I sent that email in response to an email that was demanding that I fill out this form that I'm referring to relating to my business interest. Is there any possibility that there would be a conflict of interest, I'm sorry, not a conflict of it, it's a compliance issue with your banking job and your speaking

job. I mean, that's the only thing that I can think of. I mean, I could go down the, you know, corporate is evil rabbit hole. But like from a, from a company perspective, I'm thinking maybe there's a compliance issue because you're in banking. Could that, like, is that the thing or were they really just, I mean, I've also worked for the evil corporation where they just wanted to. control everything about you? Yeah, so I think that's a really good question. And certainly that was

something that I was very concerned about when I was customer facing. But my role, when I quit, my role for the last four years was not a customer facing role. And so from a compliance perspective, first of all, I wasn't representing the bank in any way. So I wasn't giving misinformation. We had to take yearly compliance like training that says, okay, for instance, fear lind you know, what does that look like or electronic disclosures or anything like that. So I was very up to speed with what compliance looked like, what we could do, what we couldn't do as a bank. But again, I wasn't representing the bank.

The only area, and I recently had a conversation actually with a financial firm, the only area that could have potentially been a problem if I was doing it was if I was going on social media and telling people like what stocks to buy, right? Because I'm not licensed as an advisor, but I wasn't doing that either. In fact, most of the posts that I share, um, relating to stocks or investing, um, I usually included disclosure that says, this is not financial advice. I'm not a licensed financial advisor. I can't give you this advice. And it really kind of is a point of frustration for a lot of my audience, right, because they want to know like, well, what are you invested in? What should I buy? How should I spend my money? I'm like, I can't tell you that.

And so I've really built a brand away from giving specific financial advice because my belief is that personal finance is personal, right? I can't tell you what you should be doing or that you should be doing the same thing that I'm doing if I don't know what your circumstances are. And I certainly can't advise you on, you know, the buying or selling of securities without being licensed. So I don't think that there was even an active enough interest to find out the extent of, you know, what I was talking about. It was just kind of like, oh, he's doing these things. Why is he doing these things? Why is he not just kind of falling in line

and focusing on his job here? And I think that was the culture and that is the culture of corporate America that me telling my story is kind of aimed towards like, how dare you say what I can and can do on my own time? And more than that, why does all of my time time or my exposure or my brand needs to be tied into this identity that is the corporate one.

How is your financial position around this time? What is your, what are the other aspects that are going on there? And how does that contribute to your confidence in confronting this issue? Good question. So I'm positioned well financially at this time. close to 800 credit score. I have disgusting access to credit. I have across maybe nine or ten credit cards, probably close to $200,000 in limits. And then I have a six-figure investment portfolio that I've been building, you know, aggressively since I started learning about investing. So I subscribed to the Pay Yourself first methodology. So I was very aggressive about that. There was a non- negotiable discipline. Every single time I got paid, a portion of my money went towards an investment. So when I got to this point of realization, I really had to take stock of, what did I own? And that was some of the conversations that I had leading up to my decision. People reminded me, like, okay, well, what do you have? You know, worst case scenario, what does this look like for you?

had a ton of equity in my house, you know, my investment portfolio that I really didn't want to touch and then access to credit. But if all else failed, I would be okay. And I would be okay for a little while. If I had to- Did you have an emergency reserve in cash? I did not. I actually did not believe prior to the pandemic in having an emergency reserve in cash. And that was just my own personal kind of view on my money situation because I had so much credit available to me. If there was an emergency, I could likely cover it with credit, likely at zero percent interest for a time before I had to pay it off. And if I needed to liquidate a portion of my portfolio, I could to cover that. So I invested everything. You said before the pandemic,

Do you have a different opinion now? I do. So when the pandemic hit, and there was a couple of things. First off, you know, I like to look at the stock market as going on sale or off sale, right? So there was a lot of panic due to, you know, the increasing cases of the coronavirus and, you know, concerned around the vaccines. A lot of industries from a stock market perspective suffered. And it was a huge opportunity to buy, right, because we know those industries were going to come back. Or at least we can make a reasonable assumption that it would.

And I didn't have anything sitting there that I can, you know, execute on. But in addition to that, during the pandemic, I had several instances where I needed access to cash relatively quickly. I needed to get a new roof. And that was thankfully covered by insurance, but I needed to pay the deductible for that. I had a flood in my house like I shared earlier, and of course I needed to pay the deductible for that. And then there was some projects that kind of went along with the projects that was being covered by insurance that I wanted to cover as well. And so, you know, just kind of thinking about, well, you know, how am I going to access this credit? How soon can I access this credit?

Even if that is taking like one of those convenience checks and depositing into your account, right, you still got to wait for that money to clear. or to become available. And then looking at it from an investment perspective, selling off a portion of my portfolio, I still have to wait for that money to sell on my account. So I just realized, like, there was a need, there's always a need to have some cash on hand, whether that is, you know, in a safe or liquid in some account that you can access relatively quickly. I just don't think that large portions of cash need to be kept liquid.

because it's not doing anything for you, right? Inflation is outpacing what you might be earning an interest. And so, you know, I just, I believe your money should be working. Give it a job. I like that comment, but I also feel that you should have easy access to cash. I also don't keep an enormous emergency reserve, and I do have access to credit. But I also have, like, high yield savings accounts, and I put that in air quotes because they're not really yielding anything. What is it like 0.02 or I don't know. It's not negative yet,

so it's still high yield. I just want to say, well, I think that's an interesting opinion with that. I have a completely different personal philosophy where I have six to 12 months emergency reserve and cash. I've got the same for each of my business assets, especially with the real estate portfolio, with those that are unique and specific to those businesses. And yeah, that's a drag on my overall returns and inflation hurts it. But I think that the overall waiting of that will help me in the few times that I need it with it. Yeah, I like- Well, I wasn't done, Scott. Sorry. Yeah, sorry, Mindy. I also believe that I am in a different position than you are, Scott, and you are Rakim. And I'm sorry, then you are Rakim. And I, you know,

I handle my finances the way that I do because of- my experience. But I also sit here and recommend that you have an emergency fund that you can easily tap into because you never know when you're going to need a new roof. And, you know, I have funds that are easier to access and I have funds that are a little more difficult to access. But I do have access to funds in an emergency. And that's, you know, that's the bottom line. What is your opinion on emergency fund amounts, like in terms of monthly spending? You're asking me, right? Yeah, you personally, do you have like one month, nine months? So my emergency fund, if you will, is invested. Like, I have a brokerage account that is my

emergency fund. I don't, I still, to this day, don't have a very large one. I don't, I I kept anywhere between $1,000 and $3,000 liquid in like a bank account for some kind of emergency. And that was really kind of coming off of the statistic that most Americans can't meet. I think it was a $1,000 expense, right? I think the beauty of personal finance is that, again, personal finance is personal. And you said something that I really kind of want to go back to. And that's we're all at different positions, right? I don't have an obligation financially to anybody but myself and my dog.

If I had children, if I had a spouse, I think my views would be a little bit different because the likelihood of an emergency situation occurring would probably be greater, would definitely be greater. But because it's just me, I find that I can make really agile decisions around spending in whatever form that looks like, whether that's me buying a luxury item or me covering an emergency expense by having the access to credit that I do or by having the access to my portfolio that I do. And so there is a very specific account to your point, Scott, that I have this non-retirement that I invest in with the intentions of covering an emergency. The problem is

you don't ever want to touch that money, right? Because you see it growing and you're like, I don't want to interrupt what this looks like. I will say from a mindset perspective, And this is literally something that just occurred to me. Having grown up without money and understanding what scarcity looks like and how that can impact either saving or overspending, I think out of sight, out of mind for me has worked in saying, I'm going to invest it all so that I don't accidentally splurge on this nice thing. inversely, I'm going to invest at all so that I do have money that is very disciplined and separate and difficult for me to access in the event in the event an emergency occurs

because there's not many people in my immediate family that I can tap and say, hey, I need $5,000. Hey, I need $10,000. Like, I'm that guy for people. And so a true emergency, I would be able to take. action relatively quickly. But if I needed to cover like a short span of time, my credit cards are definitely going to serve me much quicker than liquidating my portfolio. But that's just, that's my personal view at this stage in my life. Yeah, when we, when the pandemic first started

on bigger pockets, people were panicking as soon as we closed down, which was like March 13th or something, how am I going to pay April's mortgage? I'm like, well, you should. You should. You should have a way to pay that already. You should have had, I mean, you should have a way to pay May's mortgage right now as well from the context of you're providing housing for other people. You have a financial obligation to other people to pay the mortgage on the place that they are paying rent for. So that was, that, coming from that point, I am always recommending that you have an emergency fund. Scott has a. solid financial position and still has an emergency fund that he doesn't touch. And that's,

I think that's a good place to be in. But to your point, his growing, the circumstances of his childhood were very different than the circumstances of your childhood. And you don't, you don't want the temptation. You don't want to, you know, even see it there. And that's, you know, that I think is, like you said, personal finances personal. I say that all the time. The reason it is is because you have to go by what your, you know, your experiences and your, you know, how you know you're going to handle things. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing.

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988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. What percentage of your income do you save each month? Well, right now there's no income. But previous to that, so I had a layered kind of approach. So I was investing in the employee stock purchase program. I think I was putting in 10%. I was maxing out on my HSA contribution. I was investing in my 401.

K, I think at about 5%. And then by the time I got to my take-home pay, I was taking probably around 10% of my take-home pay and putting that into a brokerage. Okay. So you had a pretty good system of like multiple paying yourself first. Oh, yeah, for sure. So I think that the higher your savings rate and all the things that you're paying yourself with, the, the the paradoxically the faster you can accumulate an emergency fund and the less that you need it to a certain extent. Because theoretically, you can just go out and get another job. And even if it's lower paying, it's still going to be plenty to cover your expenses with a lot of those things. So I do think that that's an important, like that's the number one.

That and the emergency reserve are the two components of a conservative financial position with that. And the first and foremost thing is that savings rate with that. That's how you accumulate wealth, bringing it more than you spend and applying it to an investment. investments on a regular basis with that. So the less that you spend and the more conservative you are with your overall cash flow, the less emergency fund do you need. Paradoxically, though, a lot of people who are in that conservative position actually have even more of an emergency fund. They're conservative on both fronts, at least that we've talked to and how I've conducted my personal finances with that. So I just think it's an interesting discussion here.

And, you know, I think you're doing one part of that super conservatively and the other part really aggressively, which I think is unique and interesting, something I haven't come across too much. Yeah, I, you know, I definitely appreciate the dialogue here because I haven't had as detailed a discussion about what other people do with their emergency funds or even the need for an emergency fund, right? I'm usually kind of an advocate to say, definitely pay yourself first. And I won't tell somebody to invest aggressively as I have, but certainly put money away. And then it's just kind of like, well, what are you putting money away for? Right. And so I And going back to my childhood, it was always impressed upon me to save. But it was like, okay, well, what are you saving for? I would save. I was great at the discipline of saving, but then I'll be saving towards whatever that thing was, whether it's a new TV or the PlayStation or an outfit or a vacation. And it's just like, okay, well, once you get to that point in the savings, and then you deplete that savings, now you have to start all over. And so for me, it was figuring out how to get out of that cycle so that at the end of saving, you still had.

I know, like, I guess a traditionalist view would be, we'll put money away for retirement. Like, look at, you know, the Roth IRA or the traditional IRA. And it's just like, okay, well, beyond that, you know, what are you putting money away for and why? And so, again, kind of going back to this idea of scarcity, right? I am somebody who, like, I reject scarcity more than I am not even embracing scarcity. I reject scarcity. And so I'm like, yeah, put myself out there. Like, let the money circulate.

Let the money do what money does. invest. And more than that, like I used to say I hide money from myself, or it really wasn't being hidden. But I certainly was operating, you know, going back to the idea of I can't pay my mortgage or I don't think that I can pay my mortgage. Well, why is that? Because I'm investing so much, right? I'm paying myself so much that my actual take-home pay looks insignificant to what it is that I'm actually making. And that has been what works for me, you know, for all these years. It's just that, I was making money, but I certainly was living well below my means.

What is your, so what is your kind of plan and position now? What are you going to do? What's kind of next for you? Good question. I get that question all the time, and I have a different answer every time somebody asks me. So the reason why I left and some of the reason why I felt so confident in leaving my job was because I'd started building this brand, this personal brand, that really kind of details my journey and talks about my experiences from maybe a consultative

perspective. I won't even use the word maybe, certainly a consultative perspective. And so I want to build on that. I've been building on that. So I have a book. I have two books out. I'm working on a third. Actually, I'm working on a third and fourth, or at least I have the concept for it. I write freelance for, you know, several different publications. And so I, my focus right now is getting into corporate training and consulting. One of the verticals that I'm looking at is the intersection between diversity, equity, and inclusion and financial empowerment.

So an underserved community needs financial empowerment to combat the very issues that we discussed my overcoming throughout this episode. And so you have a lot of well-paid, potentially, or maybe not so well-paid employees who are showing up to work every day. and they're worried about their financial positioning. And because they're worried about their financial positioning,

they're putting themselves in an environment that is causing them anxiety, guilt, or fear frequently, but they have to do it to make ends meet because they don't know that they can aspire big or they don't know what are the steps that they need to take in order to create an emergency fund or invest, you know, wherever they want to invest or not just save money for their vacation and then start all over on the hamster wheel. So there's a little bit of the integration of like this entrepreneurship mindset. And that's to say, you know, not everybody needs to become an entrepreneur, right? But everybody needs to become like the boss of their own financial circumstances.

And so really impressing upon those audiences through a corporate space how to do these things. But figuring out how to do it in a non-threatening way has been kind of like my undertaking lately, because certainly a corporation is not going to hire me to come teach all their employees how to quit their job, right? But I do also believe that a financially empowered staff is going to be a more engaged staff. They're going to want to advance. They're going to want to take advantage of development opportunities. There are people who literally show up in their attitude is, I'm here to get paid. This is my job.

That's it. And so they're very happy kind of hanging out on the lower rungs of what the latter it looks like. They're not interested in playing the game. They're not interested in the politics. And as a result, they're not interested in the increase in salary. But then there's also other people on the other side of that, right? The higher wrongs of corporate environment that say, I'm very comfortable where I am. I'm making good money. I enjoy that, but they're still very financially irresponsible or they're not really empowered. And so they're relying on that income to stay on the hamster wheel. And so there's one thing that we've learned throughout the pandemic,

right it's once that income stops and everything else stops until you have people who are making a lot of money who are no longer making money because they got laid off or they got fired or whatever and now they're panicking and they have all of these really big ticket items whether it's a car or a house or whatever and they have to figure out how they're going to pay for it can i just comment on this where i think i think that there's a little bit of corporate policy there that doesn't make sense to me right so i'm a CEO, I have to deal with this reality and this problem as well. We run a company that teaches people how to become financially independent and have a chronic problem where people come to bigger pockets, advance their career, become very wealthy, and then go on to make a bajillion dollars

as an agent or as whatever after joining BP and get poached by a San Francisco company and at a rate, we just can't possibly pay with a lot of those things with that. That's a good problem. That's the problem you want as a CEO or as a company with that, where people come into your business and three, four, five years later, become very wealthy and have a lot of a tremendous amount of options and go on there. That's a recruiting benefit. That helps you attract and get talent. And the people who stay are the ones who want to be there for the intrinsic work long term, which is great. So I think that that's a great thing. And I think more and more employers are going to adopt that mentality with this. Because, you know, who's probably not as good an employee

is somebody who is on the hamster wheel, who's stuck for 10 years because they have no access to credit, emergency reserve, or whatever else it is, and are dependent on that next paycheck for sustaining their lifestyle, who feel optimized on the income front with those types of things, and are attached to vesting benefits and that kind of stuff. We offer no, effectively no vesting at bigger pockets. We have an annual bonus. That's the only thing that accrues on an annual basis, and I would do it on a quarterly basis if I could get away with it from an accounting perspective. It's just too cumbersome to actually compute the specific to the penny profits for the business on a quarterly or six-month basis with this. So sorry, I'm going on a rant here,

but I think the work is really powerful there. And I think it's, I think it's a mismatch in terms of what we should be thinking. So for example, like our 401K, we don't vest. We just give a 3% contribution that's 100% vested immediately with that. There's no, if you don't want to be at bigger pockets, you leave tomorrow, there's nothing to do. You know, we pay the final check and go on there with that. And I think that that's a mindset shift that I think corporate America is going to take with a lot of this stuff. And I think that's well for your business. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that because I don't think there's a lot of like,

corporate consciousness, we'll call it. And I mean, I just, that was my situation, right? Like, I was, I felt minimized because I was kind of trying to spread my wings. I lost my train of thought. I'm going to catch it back really quickly. Okay. So, addition, Now, if you're not doing a good job, that's impacting your work, right? That's a different story. And we're going to deal with that, right, on that front.

But so I think there's a thing of like, no, we want you to go invest in real estate and do all this stuff. But if you're like, you know, if you're, you know, automating your workloads, so you're doing four hours of work a week with that, you know, that's not we're paying a salary for with some of this stuff. We want you to be full time. So anyways, so I think there is a balance with that. Do you feel like you might have been crossing into that threshold where it was impacting your work? Or do you feel it was all separate and it wasn't it wasn't doing any of that? It was definitely separate. You know, I had regular connects with my manager and made sure that my performance was where it needed to be.

My last performance review, my manager was very clear with me. She said, Rock him, you do the job and you do the job well. The difference between you at meets versus you being at and exceeds is you coming to me and seeking more work, right? You find, and I'm paraphrasing here now, but basically, Basically, the expectation was that I would find capacity in my day to ask for more, and that would differentiate me as an employee that was meeting expectations versus exceeding expectations. And she said, if you're not looking for that, then okay. And so the and okay part for me was, I'm doing my job. there for me there was no opportunity for advancement in my particular like role I either had to

take one a different role within that same kind of organizational structure or look outside of that and I have so much working so much going for myself outside of the space I was very comfortable being what I referred to as a hybrid entrepreneur very comfortable like high performing in the corporate space I took pride in my work I took pride in being high-performing and doing my, you know, my side thing. And so, you know, going back to your question, the side thing was, you know, talking to people about not only their personal finances and where they either lacked an education or had an education, but also focusing on like their mindset, you know, that empowerment piece, sharing my story and doing so. And so beyond focusing on a corporate consulting, corporate training space, I focus on speaking, you know, taking speaking engagements, paid speaking engagements, I focused on, you know,

promoting my book, selling my book. I did a lot of community service work speaking to, you know, young people or schools or what have you. And then, you know, one-on-one coaching. So let's sit down, let's have a conversation. We're going to put you on like an eight-week or a 12-week plan and We're going to, you know, each week we're going to meet and talk about what your goals are. And, you know, how do we uncover the mental barriers and roadblocks to making those things happen? So that's where my focus is today. Getting more people to know who I am, what my mission is. And then, of course, turning those who are interested into paying customers who want to work with me,

pushing my book or the series of books that I have, and focusing on corporations. that say, look, this is a need that you might have. Let's do this thing. I also write freelance, so that brings in some money. And, again, I've shared. I'm very much invested, so investing in the market is something that I plan on continuing to do. So, you know, you can only cut down expenses so much,

but your earning potential is unlimited. And so I like to focus on increasing my income. not touching where it is that I have put away. And that's kind of, you know, the space that I'm navigating and figuring out, well, I have this money. I have this money for this reason. Do I want to touch this money? Or can I go out and find a way to replace my income very quickly so that I don't have to touch this money? So that's interesting that you say that. I was, as you were talking, you said several times I have a six-figure investment portfolio, which I am interpreting as in some form of the stock market.

Yes. Okay. So I went over to the Dave Ramsey investment calculator because that's the one that I know works. And I typed in your current age of 30, the age of you plan to retire of 65. How much have you saved for retirement? $100,000. How much will you contribute monthly? Zero.

What do you think your annual return will be? I put in a very conservative, 8%. And if you never put another dollar into your current portfolio, you will have $1,629,255 at age 65. I don't think you're going to put in zero more dollars into your investments. And I think that 8% is an incredibly conservative number. So as you're telling your story and you fired your boss, we didn't even read your amazing viral tweet.

But as you're telling your story, I'm like, it sounds like he's coast-fired. And coast five, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, means you don't have to do anything else and you will coast into financial independence. And that is, you know, assuming that you have a lower spend. I know 40,000 a year is a million dollars. So 1.6, you could probably spend like 50 or 55 a year. If you're going to stay in Connecticut, maybe your expenses will be a little bit more. But also, I don't think you're going to contribute zero more dollars. but you have set yourself up in a very comfortable position to allow yourself to quit your job.

I just quit my job, y'all. And honestly, I needed that for my mental health. 39,000 likes, 3,400 retweets. And then there's a thread going on. We'll continue that. We'll link to this in our show notes. But I'm scared. My heart is pounding.

I'm nervous. I've always done everything right and responsible. betting on me. I have always thought about corporate, leaving corporate, but I've never planned for it. I love this thread because it's so honest and raw. And you didn't have a huge liquid cash cushion, but you set yourself up really, really well. And what is it? All the way back on episode 11, we interviewed Joel from FI180. And he said, I quit my job. I wasn't financially independent, but I quit anyway. And what's the worst case scenario?

I go back and get another job. My worst case scenario is everybody else's everyday life. And right now, companies can't hire enough people. There is a lack of workers. If you need to earn some income, here's 17 jobs right now. And they might not all be $100,000 jobs, but you can earn income right now at, I mean, doing work that how do I say this without being offensive?

I don't mean to be offensive, but like it's not super skilled labor. You don't have to have a college degree to do these jobs. You can go in and get a job. So if you need money, it's available to you. And I think you've set yourself up in a really, really great way. And I see lots of amazing things in your future. I appreciate that. And I just want to add to because I think it's so important,

The idea of establishing a personal brand, and this is what I'm learning as I'm unpacking, right, from being in corporate America, the idea of establishing a personal brand allows for you to take those accomplishments with you, right? So, like, when I go and talk about, you know, my resume, if you will, it's not going to look like that traditional CV where it's like, from this time to this time I was in this role and I accomplished these things. my brand now says, I did a TED talk. I write for an entrepreneur. I was a guest on Bigger Pockets, right? And people, like, hear those names. They hear those brands and they're like, oh, wow, like, you must be a rock star.

And so then it becomes less about, like, what can I actually do? Not saying that, you know, those things are not important, but it becomes less about what I actually do and more about how can I improve their positioning as an organization. based off of all that I am affiliated with. And so interviews don't look like an audition anymore. They look like a conversation, right? I'm coming to the table with these things. You're coming to the table with those things.

How do we reconcile what our individual needs are to the benefit of everybody? And that's what empowerment is to me, like the ability to have a choice and not say, oh, like, I have to get up and go to this job that I don't like. so that I can collect the salary because I need to pay these bills. But let's have a conversation and figure out how we can mutually benefit each other. And I think that's going to create a more lasting relationship in those organizations. But also it's going to create an environment that says, listen, like, you need to treat me right. Don't treat me like, you know, the bottom of the barrel because somebody else is going to see my value and they're going to want to scoop me up just as well.

Okay, Rakim, this has been a super fun episode. I love where you came from and where you're going. I do see huge things in your future because you are, what did you say? Not Lacking in Confidence. And that goes a really, really long way. I love it. It is now time for our famous four questions. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Number one, what is your favorite finance book? Definitely think and grow rich. Yes. Right. Because it focuses on mindset and you know that I feel like in financial education, that's the aspect that's not often talked about. It's an intangible. It's not sexy. It's not fun. It forces people to kind of hold the mirror up and look at themselves in a deeper way than just what's in my bank account. But it's so necessary and really kind of like a testament to what my success looks like. What was your biggest money mistake? Biggest money mistake. I don't know that I would consider any of the things that I'm. I've done financially a mistake, but certainly accumulating consumer debt that I didn't need to. So as I was learning how to navigate the credit world and I was increasing my credit limits, I certainly took advantage of some of those limits in instances that maybe I could have not done.

That is not the only time we have heard that. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? invest in yourself. I can't tell you how that is a muscle that needs exercising frequently. Forcing myself to invest in myself, and I mean like literally, financially, has made me face fear, made me face anxiety, made me examine guilt. And even if that investment didn't pan out the way that I expected it to. It was a learning experience that has paid dividends over and over and over again. I think, you know, kind of combining this question and the last question, we'll call it. I invested $12,000 in the Rich Dad Training Program years ago. I went to the free seminar, then the paid three-day seminar,

and I got sucked up into the Rich Dad training. And I did. nothing with it. Partially because I didn't have the time and I didn't have all of the resources, but also because I just, I don't know what to do with it. It was just kind of like, all right, like here, I thought that this was going to be a life-changing event. Within 30 days, I was going to make back my money plus. It derailed me from what it is that I was intending to use that money for and that was putting a down payment on a house. But it also taught me that I need to put that much money down to my house. It taught me a lot about credit, taught me a lot about how to increase my credit, improve my credit, how to network. And so it was a very embarrassing time in my life in that

moment, but now I look back on that experience fondly and, you know, $12,000, there's nothing to sneeze at, but I've invested, you know, probably multiples of that in personal development, coaching, master classes, networking events, books, you name it, I've done it. And, you name it. I've done it. that has really kind of reaffirmed and solidified my position mentally in taking on the risks that I've taken up to and including firing my boss. I love it. Yeah, I think that's great advice with that. A lot to think on there.

What is your favorite joke to tell up parties? The most difficult question they're famous for. It is definitely a difficult question because I don't tell party jokes, but my grandfather told me this riddle a long time ago. And I don't remember all of it. but I remember the end of it and it's about this monkey and Africa swinging around

it has this really long tail and the lion comes and cuts off the monkey's tail and then he says what does the monkey say when the lion cuts off his tail and we're all sitting there like what and he goes

it won't be long now and well I guess it was a good joke you guys laugh but he told us us that story, it's a fond memory actually, told us that story because it was in anticipation of something that was taking a while to pass. And I reflect back on that frequently when you're

doing the work, right, whether that's financial work, whether that's personal development work, whether that's whatever, it's this idea of, it's so long, it's going to take a long time. And, you know, we'll get to the point where it's like, it won't be long now. It's like, it's right around the corner for you. And so, you know, just kind of celebrating a recent accomplishment. I, I recently hit 10,000 followers, recently, like, this morning, hit 10,000 followers on Instagram. And I had been, like, working so hard to get there. But I wanted to stick to, like, my principles, right?

I didn't want to buy followers. I didn't want to, you know, do any of the shortcuts. I wanted to build that base organically. And so I'm very proud of that, that people see value and the things that I post and things that I share and want to follow me. but at 10,000 now you have unlocked features, and of course it's going to probably go up in multiples from there. But it was kind of like this idea of having patience until there's no lead for you to have patience. Well, that is a perfect segue into our final question. Where can people find out more about you?

People can find out more about me anywhere at my name. So Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, my website, it's all Rockham, Subgroup. or Rakim Sabri.com and that's spelled R-A-H-K-I-M-S-A-B-R-E. And again, that's literally everywhere. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you name it, I'm there. That's one of the benefits of having a unique name. It definitely is. Bob Jones.

Bob Jones doesn't have his name on anything. Okay. Rek-K-K-K-K-M, this was super fun. Thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your story. Thank you for having. Thank you. Okay, that was Rakim Sabri. Scott, my favorite part of his whole story is where he talks about overcoming the mindset that he had as a young kid and decided, I am going to do this. His abundance of confidence is absolutely a huge benefit to him. But he bought a house. He didn't even buy a house. He bought an investment property, a duplex. He's making renovations to the duplex.

He's actively investing in the stock market in multiple ways. He is really setting himself up for success. Yeah, I think underlying a lot of this is a really aggressive approach to investing and to entrepreneurship in a lot of ways, but a really conservative approach to spending money, which underlies a lot of that. And I think enabled and empowered, I reckon to feel like he can go after some of these opportunities

and seize that power and seize the moment with these types of things. How many of your four levers did he pull? Spend less, save, earn more. Invest aggressively and start a business. Wow. He's got all four. Yeah, he was doing all four. And he's doing it in a little bit different of a spin that's conservative in some ways

and aggressive in other ways. And I thought it was, again, like, I thought it was an interesting and perspective with it. I think he'll be very successful with that. He's clearly very committed to a lot of the entrepreneurial pursuit. suits. And if you can have that bug to that extent, it often can be a lot better long term than than a full-time job. Yeah. And, you know, he had a solid foundation to fall back on just in case this stuff doesn't work out. Even though he didn't have a super huge liquid emergency fund, he still has a six-figure investment portfolio. He's got equity in his home. He has a lot more

options than just, oh, I hate my job, I'm quitting. So I like, I like his story a lot. Yeah, the risk he takes with his approach to cash and liquidity management is that in the event that he does have a problem with liquidity or begins having a large amount of losses that begin to pile up over your or a lack of income, he will have to liquidate his investments. And if the timing of that is unfortunate, such as right after a crash or whatever, that can backfire. So it is, that's the big risk that he's taking, probably it will work out for him, most likely, right? In most normal market conditions and that kind of stuff. But there's always that chance that it all comes down to, everything goes down together and the revenue stops, the investments are down, he has to

pull out at that point or take on debt and those types of things. So as long as he's going in with his eyes wide open, which I think he is, I think that that's a choice to make. And I think he's made it. And like I said, odds are he'll probably be very successful with that. Yeah. And another thing going for him is he doesn't have anybody who financially depends upon him. So that is a very different position than I find myself in with a husband and two kids and a very different position than you find yourself in. So, you know, the time to take risks is really when you aren't responsible for anybody else. So, okay, Scott, this episode ran a little bit long today. Should we get out of here? Let's do it. From episode 217 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench and I am Indy Jensen saying got to go about. Hello?