The Iced Coffee Hour - Harvard Psychologist Reveals How THEY Keep You BROKE, Miserable, And Lazy | Dr. John Delony

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

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Having a dollar amount is not going to solve this. And I only know that because I've sat and hugged multi-millionaires while their wife is dead in the next room. None of their money can fix that. I think the answer to the question, what are you worth, is never a number. If it ever is, you cannot have that life and not be anxious, period. Most adults will have four or five deep, powerful, passionate loves in their lifetime. And if they work really hard, it can be with the same person. I'm going to give them a map that works 100% of time.

I really stopped asking why all the bad stuff. That happens. What's more important for me is... So first of all, we have to say we are so appreciative of everyone at Ramsey Solutions. We're back with John Deloney. Really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Thanks for your hospitality.

Let me hang out together. Absolutely. So what do you say to people who ask what you do? This is such a weird diversion for what I was doing for the last couple of decades that I still haven't fully wrapped my head around what it all is. And so I just tell me about mental health. guy. So what did you do the last few decades? I was the dean of students at different universities and a professor. I was just a nerd and an academic nerd and then I would sit with people when their world had exploded. And I just did student conduct stuff. So I was the guy that was like, hey, you can't

sell drugs or I was the guy investigating sexual assaults or I was the guy calling parents and saying, hey, your kid's not going to make it through the night. You need to come. So most of my job, there was a, there was a front facing component where you talk and all that, but most of it was sitting with people just like this. So the term for that, I believe, is crisis manager. Yeah, that's where I lived. And then I worked in the police department doing that too, yeah. But what would that often entail? So people come to you when they have a crisis and you calm them down or you walk them through that crisis?

So if I showed up, so one of my responsibilities with the police department was I'd get a text on my phone and it would just say 1087 and an address. So 1087 was the police code in that area for someone has died. And sometimes it was a four-year-old. Sometimes it was a 22-year-old that had taken their lives. Sometimes it was a 98-year-old that had just passed away. And you show up. And sometimes my job was to meet mom in the driveway. And they would say she cannot come in this house and see her kid like this.

But if a mom came in and started screaming and yelling and hitting police officers, now we've got a whole other issue. So my job was to sit with mom and say, you don't want to go in there. Let's go this way. And to be real honest, your kid has died. And here's what's about to happen. So some of it was very direct. Some of it was sitting with somebody just, I mean, their whole world is explored, right? Sometimes it was trying to walk people through what just happened.

It was all over the place. How do you gauge what to do and how to feel out that situation versus, you know, being really gentle with someone or being very matter of fact? How do you differentiate the two? And how do you decide which route to take to help somebody? That's a good question. One of the cornerstones I was trained with, and I did this terribly in my, in my, in my, higher ed world the first probably five or ten years i did it um was the facts of your friends because because what we want to do is like like i know let's pretend i know your 13-year-old son is

is dead in that room yeah and you can show up and i'd be like hey listen there's been a really tough you know heart and she sees the lights you know you're the dad you see the lights you see people coming and going you see everybody kind of looking at the floor you know and then they're looking at me and I'm like, well, you know, so like there was a dark and stormy night. There's something about saying, I need you to come over here with me. I need you to hold my hand. And look at you in the eye and saying, your son has died. He's inside that room.

He's died by side. And this is what's about to happen. Then, once we have the information out there, then starts the, your body goes through a natural set of processes. And then we circle back with them one week, two week, three weeks later. Sometimes they had no money. They had no resources. Sometimes a loved one had died and they had no. dollars. So they don't know where they're going to be buried. I mean, they don't even know.

How tough is that on you? It got heavy. It gets heavy. It's something I've done for so long that it got heavy, but also I've got a, it's my responsibility as like a mental health guy and a crisis guy that I've got a routine and a set of practices that keep me whole so I can keep going back in. How did you get into doing that? Were you always just like the crisis guy growing up that people might come to you for their problems? I mean, like this happened. My dad was,

he was a homicide detective in Houston, so for a massive big company, I mean, a big city. And he was a SWAT hostage negotiator. So if someone was going to

had a bomb in a building or if somebody was going to jump off a building or had hostage, they call my dad. So I just grew up in that world. And I grew up knowing, like whenever there was something going on downtown or something

was on the news, I just had these very vivid memories of my dad putting on his bulletproof vest and put on his, like, on his little button up flannel and he had a little smile and say, I'm going to head out. So I just have a very distinct, when things get sideways, you go in. You said that you have certain practices that you employ to keep yourself grounded and sane

in a pretty insane job, insane environment. What were those practices? I don't have any proof to back this up. I think there's a wiring issue. We used to watch our colleagues. You walk into a house and see somebody has died, right? There are people who will just instantly, like, they just recoil. They just recoil. It's a great word.

And then there's those that instantly like lean in, right? And so I don't know where that comes from. I'm sure there's some nature, nurture, something or other. But I think that's a component. The second one is, like I said, like I just watched, I just grew up with. People, my dad also participated in our giant local church. And so people were always coming to the house late at night, call in late at night to help my dad. My dad would help them walk through whatever wild situation.

So I just grew up knowing, you know, when you see your dad, like, That's just what every dad does. More of a stoic. Well, it's not even a stoic. It's just like you enter in and you provide calm. You get to go bananas later. But right now, and so for me, when things get bananas, I get real still. And I wish I knew how that happened.

The burden is if you do that day after day, night after night, you can't hold that. Right. It starts coming out on your kids. It comes out on your family. You become a jerk at work. You treat the lady at the cash register. Like, you're a real jerk. You think you're suppressing some of that.

Just to eventually be uncapped eventually, like later. We used to, in council, we call it leakage. Like, it will find a way out. You can manage the release of it or it will come out. And usually comes out at a real inopportune moment. I'm curious if you ever had to tell somebody that a loved one had passed away, and they just had no reaction at all. Yeah.

That's like some of the frustrating things with the political discourse. Like, if somebody comes in, I'm going to do, you have no idea. Like, I've stumbled into it. I stumbled into an actor-situation at a university. I walked into, I'd heard something was going on. I walked into the university. It's one where I worked. I walked in, texted one of the guys that was involved live,

and I was like, hey, man, like, where's it? And I was kind of smiling. And I got an, all-caps, bold, all-caps response, this scene is live. I mean, I just waltzed right in the middle of school. I didn't know where this shit was. Some of my students that were in my particular part of the school, some of them were hiding.

I was saying, hey, this is Deloni, everybody, it's okay. They didn't come out. They didn't know. It might have been me. Right? And I'm thinking, I'm the guy that they trust. And they're like, I don't trust you. Like, I just got a text.

And then some people are, like, walking out in the hallways. So everyone responds differently. And everybody responds differently. You tell somebody they go catatonic. Sometimes they just start crying. Sometimes they're like, no, they don't. Like, they just whom. Like, everybody's different.

They don't believe the reality of the situation? Do you get that as well? They can't. Yeah, they just can't because we don't have a picture of your life without your child, right? You don't have your picture of your life without your spouse, right?

Or whatever. How do you find a way to relate to those people in that moment if they're having a hard time processing the information that you're telling them? How do you ease them into that? I don't know that easing is the goal. I think the goal is I need you to stay with me.

So some of the things we would do is sometimes I would often touch is real important because it brings you right here, right? sometimes there's hand holding. One time somebody was having a panic attack in these parking lots here. It was not related to anybody who died. They had having a panic attack.

And I drove up and there was seven or eight people leaning in the car. They were trying to be loving and kind and help out. And I just asked them all to move. And I asked the person to come out and I took her hand. And I said, I'm going to hold your hand. We put your hand on my chest and she did. We just walked around the parking lot. And we counted lines in the parking lot.

And all I'm trying to do is get her limbic system to get her frontal love to reengage, right? All the stuff just happened, but you're here now and you're okay. What, just your world's not, but you're okay. So sometimes in the middle of the night, we're walking on the sidewalk, counting cracks, sometimes we're counting trees. It's just trying to bring somebody into, we're okay right now. How does that affect your outlook to see so much, I don't want to say negativity, but let's just say loss. Yeah. So often, how does that affect your outlook? I've really wrestled with that. So there's a, there's a funny story. It's not so funny, but kind of funny. So one time when I was a little kid, I was maybe 10 or 11, I had a little

league practice, and my dad took me to little league practice, and I was running out the back door, and I jumped in his car, and we drove to practice when we came home. And I lived in this little suburb. I mean, it was like Pleasantville. And we pull up into it down a long, we had a long driveway, pull in the driveway, and dude, I'd left the back door wide open. And we have a fence, but the door's open. And my dad looked at me. said you leave that door open and I was like, ah, I was a kid and he goes, I knew it. And he opens his jacket and gets a gun out and clears the house.

Now, he was a licensed peace officer. This was his job. But I remember being young going, that feels like a lot, right? But a hundred percent of his day was dealing with things that never happen, right? You and I walked down an alley after a concert. We'll do that a thousand times in our life. his day was spent that one time somebody comes out with a hatchet and kills us all right and so it does skew your bell curve strangely for me knowing that growing up i've tried to hit the pendulum so far the other way

that um i really stopped asking like why all the bad stuff i think we can look around and and we're not taking care of each other right like that happens what's more important for me is are people showing up in other people's mess to help. And I just keep seeing people show up. And so, like, I'm pretty optimistic. Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void.

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And Dave's like, internally, he's like, get up and telling people to go see a counselor for 30 years. I'm just going to hire one. And so that's where the partnership came. My frustration, and I've circled back to my graduate school professors, was now learning how much, how much couples fall apart with money issues across the board, dealing with their parents' issues. or is my grandma going to move in? We can't afford that. Or I don't want a credit card. I do.

Separate checking accounts. All those different arguments. Not only did I not have a course on that in grad school, I didn't have a single three-hour class on the importance of personal finance and mental health. It just didn't exist. Nobody even thought to talk about it. That's insane. That's madness.

And so what I'm trying to do now is bridge, like personal finance is one of many challenges that we face and that we have enough. numbing agents to not have to deal with it. When you're studying mental health in college, I hear that they don't really reinforce, like you said, financial issues and how that can cause mental instability. The same way that diet and exercise and getting sunlight and being social can do the exact same thing. Like all of those are extremely important for mental health. Yeah, a lot of the times they talk about like the different, you know, cortisol levels and these medical things. Well, and in like, so take what Heberman does, right? I mean, He's a Stanford medical school professor, and he knows the interplay between dopamine, and that stuff's super important. And it's especially for scientists or people who want to take a deep dive. What I've come to find out after leaving higher ed, and this is something Dave really instilled in me, which I am grateful for. Let's leave the deep dive economic stuff to those who are really interested in it. 99% of Americans can't breathe because they...

don't have enough financial margin in their life at all. And they don't know what to do. I'm going to give them a plan that works 100% of the time, even if somebody wants to draw like loop-de-loops around and be like, well, you know, you can do it. This works for the truck driver who just has three kids and it's just trying to be a better dad. And his dad left and he has no picture of what that looks like.

I'm going to give him a map that works 100% of the time. And it's going to suck because getting out of debt, not owning people any money, being free. That sucks. It's hard. But I'm going to give that dude a map. And so I think for me, dude, I spent years in grad school studying neurochemistry. It's great. It's awesome.

It's fun. I'm going to concede that. I'm going to let some minds who are so, dude, Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman, those guys are so much more than I'll ever be. Great. That's awesome. I'm so glad their voices out there. I'm going to channel my energy into this single mom with three kids. And she's like, I don't know what to do.

I don't know where to turn. I got you. I'll show up and I'll sit here and we'll figure that out. And I think both are valuable. I think what happens is this person who can't breathe maybe goes to this to try to figure that out. The same as y'all meet a 22-year-old who has a hundred grand in student loan debt and has a new car they just bought because they got a new job. They're making $62,000 and their dad made $40,000. So they think they're a millionaire at the 22.

And then they're asking you guys like, all right, so if I buy an apartment complex and then I flip it and roll it on and you're like, all right, let's slow down. Right. Like you're you're going to the wrong people for the challenge that you have that faces you right now. Yeah, so how much of finance is behavioral? I don't have any date on it, but I think I would say 80%. I don't think finance is that hard. And what are the steps? What's the map that you give that truck driver that you would give to anybody? For me, I approach it psychologically then.

So I've sat there and listened to Dave walk through bond rate derivatives, and I'm like, my head falls off. I'm like, oh, that dude's a savant. And then he sits down and says, hey, get out of debt, right? So for me, I'm going to tell that truck driver, I'm going to want you to consider something you never consider. And that's choosing freedom. If your body, if your amygdala knows the part of your brain that is always scanning for fear, right? I'm way over simplifying it, but it's always skinning 24-7, 365. Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe?

If it knows here that if you get fired from your job, they're going to take your cars, your house, your kids will have no food. If you think on, like through evolutionary psychology, if your brain let you sleep at night, it would be failing you. Because the threshold between you losing your home is so thin. It's dependent on that crazy boss you have. That's that person who tells you you will show up on this day. You'll work on Saturday. That's the person that decides whether you have a home or not. That's madness.

When you think on what we're asking our brains to do for us. And then you dump in buying depreciating assets on 70 months at 7% and like your brain does the math. It knows. oh dude if this doesn't work they take our cars and so your brain would be failing you if you don't have any friends if you're lonely and it detects that you're lonely you got nobody in your gang it would be failing you if it let you sleep all night if it let you have a deep intimate moment with your romantic partner because it's trying to not die because it's designed okay you're going to watch over the hill you got the kids all go get food that's how we're wired we grew up in tribes and all sudden like

we're all just by ourselves in our suburban home or in our apartments and so When I'm going to sit down with that guy, I'm going to say, hey, dude, what if we did this? What if you chose freedom? What if you owed nobody anything? Nobody can take your house. Let's start there. Nobody can take your truck. Let's start there.

And that concept is madness. Like, what? Like, yeah. You can't even imagine a world where that can't happen. And so most people want to hammer this side of the teeter totter. And I think this side is fun, dude. I think this side, like wealth accumulation is a blast. It's fun to figure out.

But I think for 99% of it, that's probably an overestine. statement for a mass amount of Americans dude let's just be free first like the inflation if you don't anybody money it's annoying it's annoying you know what I mean and I say this after 15 years of me and my wife working through this when our air conditioner went out the biggest fight we had was who had to call you know what I mean like you call him dude like no I'm not calling I'm like you call like I hate call him you call that was it was not like face and hands somebody weeping what are we going to do like we got three kids or two kids it was the phone call, right?

And so that's freedom. All right. So is that just about getting them to realize that they just need to start? Because I have a feeling a lot of people know what they should be doing, but they're choosing not to do it or they keep postponing it.

Why is that? I don't think they know. I don't think people have a psychology for not having a house payment. I don't think we'll have a psychology for a car payment. But I do think that people know they should spend less than they make. They should eat less food

if they want to lose weight. They should go to the gym. They should do these very basic things. And in terms of spending less than you make, I think everyone can agree objectively you should spend less than you make. Right. On even a monthly basis, every six months. Right.

So why don't people do that? I think we've been put in an environment. We've created, honestly we've been put it. We've created an environment that our bodies are designed to live in. Our neurochemistry is based on you get cherries once a year for a couple of weeks. And so the dopamine system is designed for anticipate, anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. Oh, there it is. it doesn't have a roadmap for you can get cherries 360 if you're going to deliver to your house all day every day

and why would you have cherries and you can have gummy cherries right and similar to i can't if my granddad couldn't afford my parents had my parents shared a car my dad had a police cruiser but my parents shared a car because that's what they could afford and they knew less than because anything other wasn't an option well now it's like what are you driving that for it's not safe it's not smart it's not even who you are you want to identify with those people you want to identify with them I've heard people from stage say I watch to see who drives in the parking lot for a job interview and if they're driving a bad car will hire them right and so that's the messaging that goes out and then somebody comes up with a 72 month payment plan on a

depreciating asset it it would be stupid it feels like it could be stupid not to do that and so when it wasn't an option you didn't when you ate oranges once a year because that's when they're on the tree. That was awesome. And then now you get oranges all time. So there's just... So you think it's just temptation that it's so easy and they make it. Temptation sounds almost characterological. Like, like, I think it's deeper than that. I think the system has, has been hacked. I think part of its consequences. I don't think we have stronger consequences. We do. For people that... We're able to punt them. To avert them? Our country owes $32 trillion. Right, but who's suffering? There are no consequences. Yet. It's a thing. And so we've

lived in this window where for the last 10 or 15 years we've accumulated more wealth than ever for in human history and now we're saying oh we know how to do this and it's like bro you know what I mean it's like we just happen to be in the sliver of history when there was this

this bailout and a fix and what do they call it the soft landing soft land it's very illusory but also for losing weight and other things that people could be doing on a daily basis to improve their life because the benefit the yield and the consequence they're so far out in the future that you can't realize it, I think.

And they're soon after the action takes place. Yeah. Yeah. Like you want to lose weight? Like on a consistent basis, eat less than, eat calories in calories out. And I know like the, dude, you're going to get hate on that just for that one statement. But like, and exercise. Yeah.

Tadda. You know what I mean? But the thing is, once you start seeing progress when you're exercising, similar to Kyle Forgerd, whatever. Oh, that was an incredible transformation. He did a 120-day challenge. for every day for 120 days. He ate less, went to the gym.

It was six days a week. Six days a week. You could transform him completely? Oh my gosh. Yeah, we'll show you some photos afterwards. It's so inspiration. It makes me want to start it immediately. But the thing is, he said in the description of that,

he's like, it really was hard until I saw progress. Now I'm addicted to it. So it's like you've got to push to the point of seeing the actual consequence of your actions. And once you see that, then it's okay. And I think we're so aesthetically focused. I don't stop to ask myself. and this is another neurochemical thing

we lose all the good stuff right y'all can put out an episode and 99.9% of the comments like this is amazing awesome awesome and one dude's like this is terrible a you guys suck b why'd you do your hair like that see why you got your jacket like that

your math was wrong right that is the comment that just stews and stews yeah and so I think we're focused on how do we look how do we look what transformed me when it comes to exercise was I start asking myself how do I feel how to feel the next day after I work out kind of sort, kind of awesome, right?

And that was the transforming, because I was reflective on it. I wasn't just looking for this this, like, how do I look, right? What's the aesthetic? Before we go into that, I know we've said this before, but the equipment that we use here at the Ice Coffee Hour is insanely expensive. And when we went to Ramsey Solutions to film this episode, it was mind-blowing.

The cameras that they used were like four times the size of hours. But thankfully, if you want to get into content creation similar to this, you don't have to spend and arm in a leg to get started, all thanks to our sponsor, Streamyard. For those unaware, Streamyard is a high-quality streaming and recording service that allows you to get started right from your browser with just the click of a button. We've actually been using their software for years now and have been blown away by everything they have to offer.

So when they reached out to sponsor our episode, obviously we're going to say yes because we're truly a fan of what they do. They also have a really cool feature called Multistream, which basically means you can live-stream yourself, and they put that live stream on every single platform all at the same time. That means that you're going to be able to maximize the organic road. And trust me when I say this, if you're not on every single social media site, you're missing out and you're holding yourself back. So guys, let Stream Yard help you out with that and click the link down below to try them out for completely free. Graham, how much does it cost?

Zero dollars. It's completely free to try out. Click the link down below. Thank you so much, Streamyard, and back to the episode. What do we focus on that one negative comment? Why does that happen? It's, again, it's a quirk in how our bodies have evolved. But if there's a, like, a twig snapping in the woods.

Your body's better off overreacting to a negative stimuli. So it will jump and it's a frog and then it jumps and it's a bird. The time it doesn't and it's a bear, you're done. Right. So wired into us is you look for the bad stuff and you avoid it and you avoid it and avoid it and avoid it because bad stuff got you killed. Now there's so much bad stuff coming at us all the time forever in every direction that our brains are just a constant soup of stress chemicals.

So one thing that's been going on on the Instagram algorithm is they love that you even know that. I mean, it's it's horrible. They show you like gore videos, like very violent videos. And there used to be these sensitivity things that would pop up and like, are you sure you want to watch this real? Okay. Like, yes. And then it could be somebody getting rain over by a car, something horrible happening to like a dog. It's and this stuff has like millions and millions and millions of views.

and I'm sure so much of the audience. Graham, he curates his reel, so he doesn't see any of it. Exactly. But for a lot of people viewing this, they know exactly what I'm talking about. What does that do to the human brain to be exposed to that stuff? It's what we're talking about. So my dad, it shifted as Belker as to what was normal. And it shifted to if you go down an alley, you're going to get killed.

Even though statistically speaking, but it's distant on Instagram. It's kind of just seeing random. and people and... But it begins to send... So it's the same way the media started saying, hey, we're going to report on the murders in Houston where I grew up to oh, when there's a murder, everybody stops

so they're doing it like watch. And so all these media outlets are publicly traded. So they have a vested financial interest, not in telling you the truth, but in getting you to watch, getting your attention, getting you click on something. And so they create rules. You will... You will report a murder

every episode, period. If you look sometimes, it's like, you know, so-and-so kill, in Ohio and you're in Southern Arizona right they're going to report it so I think what it has is a twofold a dampening effect like

things don't outrage us anymore they don't scare us to like we're like oh well and you go on to the next thing and you've heard the title from the great Bessel van der Kolk book The Body Keeps the score intellectually we're like

oh yeah that happens guys get by a car ooh I want to see another one here your body begins putting GPS pins in cars and television shows and people that don't look like you and people who don't think like you because your body's still catching keeping the threat log right and so you get this really tiny circle of what's safe and who's safe and when your body gets scared

it instantly divides the world up into us and them who's in my tribe and who's not and dude so you watch that steadily it shifts your bell curve on how the world works because it's not true right and your threat system is running all the time. It's not good for it. It's why like murder podcasts, dude, they're so captivating,

and they're not good for you. Is it better to be ignorant of what's going on and be very selective in terms of the information that you get? I wrestle with that because my solution for me has been to opt out.

Me too. And I don't think that's, if everybody opts out, society collapses, right? Or tyranny happens. People allow to do what they want to do. So I do think it's important to opt out for a season.

And I also think you can opt out totally or you can opt out specifically like I'm just gonna check this for news This is where I'm gonna go and I'm not gonna go to infotainment or the Sensationalist I'm just not gonna do that yeah some of it is turning your phone turn the colors off on your phone Some of it is turning the colors off on your television set so you don't see the shock And all that stuff is is yeah we've done a few podcasts with people who purposely make their phone black and white There you go right as a way to it doesn't trigger your brain correct, right? I So some of that is You know here there

I just don't find a lot of value In the shock and awe I much prefer to look at the data And what I know is when my brain goes into fight or fight It shuts off the critical thinking part Of what comes next I'm not able to assess a situation Because biologically my brain doesn't want me asking

Is that a sweet tiger Is that the nice stuff It wants me to get out of there Or to get a stick and fight it right Fight or fight And so I know that if news alert, dun, dun, turn, murder in, I'm out. I'm not critically thinking, is this even my neighborhood?

How pervasive is this? Is this the overreporting of murders when actually they're going down except in a couple of selects? I can't do that because my body's, my body's in it. Do you think it would be possible for a news outlet to succeed if it's only good information? I don't know. I would, my, succeed in the marketplace right now, probably not. I think that's a greater conversation we need to have about a public good.

I remember when I first went to college, it was in a democratic society. Everybody needs to have a foundational layer of information. We need to know how the country started. We need to know how the country works. Everyone needs to read the Constitution. We need to have some of these core understandings together. That way somebody can't come and say, hey, this is the truth because we'll be like, no, it's not. And then colleges did it to themselves.

The study came out and it said, if you go to college, you're more likely to make. make more money over this period of time. Well, now we turned it into an individual good. And then state started deregulating tuition and they can charge you whatever. And then it got out of control because then it became about you. And now it's like, I don't even need to learn anything and get on YouTube, right? So we're drowning in shallow water right now. I would tend to agree with that.

I would even, you know, I got really into the YouTube algorithm for years. And in 2020 through 2023, I'd post three videos every week. And I would know the video performance and how it would do ahead of time based on whether the market was up or down. If the market was up 1%, I knew that the video would perform probably 20 to 30% worse than if the market's down. Anytime the market's down, or it's more of a negative day, let's just say. Viewership goes up consistently.

People are more attracted to the loss. Imagine if you're the head of a hedge fund and you determine that. Or you're the head of, if things are great, who watches the news? things are bad and so if i have a giant uh fund portfolio and i'm gonna need to jack these advertising rates up to make my quarterly i'm gonna tell my news people you know i gotta you all gotta get some more eyes and what's the way to get somebody eyes somebody's eyes you're gonna die right i want to hear that story right and so it becomes not real real quick but i think it also goes the same with loss aversion. I think it was, I'm going to butcher this, but if you have a dollar,

the pain of losing 20 cents was equivalent to the pleasure you would get of gaining another dollar. So it was heavily skewed that a little bit of loss is more painful than the joy you get from doubling your money. Yeah, I think that was Connman did some extraordinary work on that, and I don't remember the exact, but I remember there was very, we're terrified of loss aversion. And we don't think of gain aversion, right? We don't think, we only calculate if I take this risk And I lose. We don't think, what could you gain?

We don't have that calculation. Why is that? Because one got us killed 10,000 years ago. And one just got us more berries. And evolutionarily, more berries is cool right now. This ends the gene pool for you, right? So we're just so heavily weighted on loss. In crisis, you say truth is like the one thing

and just the cold, hard truth that brings that person back down to earth and keeps them grounded. Do you think that also in less critical situations, just like dealing with small issues and stuff like that, like there is never a time really to be white lying to somebody. Let's say your wife doesn't look great in a dress. You tell her, hey, yeah, you don't look great in the dress. You should always be honest. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm running out of reasons. I'm running out of, like, ways that that makes any sense. Where I think we cash out is that takes a level of relationship investment that happens over the course of time for her to be able to trust me if my wife says, hey, do I look beautiful in this? Be like, hey, you're always beautiful.

I probably wouldn't wear that. For her to not go, her body immediately flood with cortisol and adrenaline. Oh, he's going to leave me. Oh, he hates me. He doesn't think I'm beautiful. I knew it.

And it validates some stories she, her dad may have told her and her granddad. She's able to go, dude, loves me. Awesome. And she goes and changes. Right.

So it takes a lot of work to get there. Most of us either, A, don't know how to do that work or it's so painful, we don't do it. And so then we get to this point. And it's like, it's easier just to be like, hey, you look great. But that's unhealthy. I think any secrets, especially in a senior employment relationship or secrets in a romantic relationship, ultimately, yeah. They're just not good. How did you meet your wife?

Her brother introduced us. And he said, hey, I think you're going to marry my sister. What? So he knew you. We went to college together. and she was a year younger. So she came up on a high school visit when I was a freshman in college.

And he was like, and you need my sister. And I had long hair. And I was so desperate. I wanted to be in a metal band so bad. And she was like a West Texas farm girl. I had like a braided belt. And we looked at each other.

And I may have shaved my head by this time. Dude, I was a mess. And I looked at her and I was like, yeah, no. And she looked at me and she's like, no. And then she came to university there the next year. And then we dated for five years. We've been together 21 and a half. So why, how do you get?

get this phase. A lot of people, they go through phases in their life where they just like shave their head, they get a tattoo, they grow their hair out long, they start wearing like, you know, crazy studded jeans. It's like, why does that even, I don't understand that. I've never feel like I've went through a phase. You haven't ever gone through a phase, I don't think. Not to that day. I had longer hair, but not. You know, it's a crazy. It's affiliation. But why is there a common theme in college where, like, some people will go through a phase where they're like experimenting with certain parts of their lives? I think everybody does it. Y'all do.

100%. Maybe mine hasn't been visual, you know? That's exactly right. It's about affiliation. And it's where do I fit and where do I belong and who will accept me? And so we try on these like, I'm going to be this guy. I remember I was wearing like a Pantera shirt, long shorts that were like cut off at my shins. I had black socks and black collars. I remember this. And I went to pick up my buddy at a giant research university. And I was a sophomore in college. I think he's a sophomore. And I was sitting on the lobby

And some just college bros Walked by and one guy looked at me He didn't say anything He didn't even give me an ugly face And I remember going looking at him being like I look stupid You know what I just like I was trying it on I was trying it on

I was like this is stupid But he was important It wasn't me It was wearing a costume It wasn't me And so I think I think those things are valuable And important

Most I'll say most Many people are not allowed to do that You will wear What your mom and dad said you wear You will wear like what your football coach says you will wear like and so like my football coach We used to pull us it was Texas like if you seen Friday night lights that's real he would pull our hair down and if it went below our Our eyebrows we can play like we had to go get a haircut and so when you go to college the first thing you do is like grow all your hair

And then you realize he's probably kind of right not not totally but I get it so I think I think practicing those things But it might be um I know everything about a thing I know everything about personal finance. I know everything about this. I know how all the... And that's where your community is. And I think one difference... How old are you?

33. Okay. So I do think there's a generational difference. I'm 45. Where we had to do that in person. We had to try these things on in person. The generation right below... So year two...

Y'all got to try that out online. So I get to try to be this. I get to think these jokes are funny. I get to respond to these things. And then you're like, that's stupid. This is kind of cool. These people like... So I think...

Everybody's trying stuff on all the time. I think there's some, I think it can be healthy. It's when it becomes, when we adopt a group think in Aitly, we know that's not us. It's not, that's when it becomes really not healthy. So when you met your now wife, you said that you guys were like. Instantly no. Yeah, but then how did you cross that bridge? When did you first?

I started showering. That was a huge. That was a big thing. Here's what it was. She grew up in West Texas. Her dad was a, worked in rodeo and was a pro bass fisherman and a teacher. And her mom was a teacher. She had, and they lived outside of town on six acres.

And so she had this particular view of the world, like, inside of how the world worked. My school had 4,000 students in it. I was in a big city. I played in punk clubs in Houston. Like, I was my world, and I was a starter on the varsity football team. So I have this world. I didn't know that every football game doesn't have 8,000 people at it. I didn't know.

I was 18. I didn't know that everyone didn't know people in punk bands. That was all I knew, right? And so she saw me at a freshman event, like a fish camp kind of thing, like where freshmen go. And I was playing guitar and singing. And she was like, I think I love that guy, right? And that was a new thing she had ever seen. And I had a picture of, oh, people who dress like that and listen to that kind of music are like that.

And then we had a conversation. I was like, oh, she didn't like that at all. That was me being 18. And the beauty, the reason I love college so much is you get to like, this is how. this is how you do Christmas, and that's how your family did it, until you meet your roommate, and they're like, you open presents the day before, and then you realize, oh, there's a billion different ways to do Christmas. You don't even have to do Christmas. And then my neighbor is Jewish and do Hanukkah, like, what? And so you realize, oh, that's not the world. Like, there's so

many different pictures. And so we started talking and then realized we had a lot in common. She just had a lot, like we, she was this version in this place and I was this version, and then we got to decide we want to create a new version together. So what did her brother see in you? How did he know this before you guys did? I don't know. I've asked him that before. And he's like, I don't know.

He works at the railroad. He's got a master's of green education. He should be a matchmaker. Yeah, he's brilliant. And he works with his hands. And he just was like, I don't know. I know you'd be a good man for my sister. And interesting, he was awesome.

Right when we started dating, he goes, hey, I can't, I can't be a friend anymore. And I was like, why? And he was dating my sister. And he was so pragmatic. And he was right. And he was like, okay. And a couple years later,

when I got serious, then we were friends again. I don't get, he sets you up with her and then says we can't be friends. I don't want to hear stories about the guy dating my sister. Yeah, but it could be just like,

don't tell me about what's going on with it. Just keep that comment. I see, but I don't want a friend that it's going to have to hedge. I don't want that. I don't want that. So it worked out. In a practical sense.

Perfect, yeah. And then how long did it take when you were dating her to know that, okay, five years. So that's how long it took to know you could spend the rest of your life with her? Yeah, because I was,

was an immature coward. What happened then? Did she civilize you? No. I don't think that was it. I think I went through a natural maturation process. I grew up and there's only so much like I grew up. And I had a picture of what growing up look like.

One of my favorite mental health quotes of all time is from Estep Perel. And she says, most adults will have four or five deep, powerful, passionate loves in their lifetime. And if they work really hard, it can be with the same. same person. And so I think when I met her when I was 18 and I married her when I was, what, 24, I was a different human. Hopefully, I went through college. I started out. I had two years as a public high school teacher. I hope I'm different. And then from 24 to 30, my God, I was a train wreck. And I hope I'm different after 30. Why read a book? Why listen to a podcast if you're not going to become different on the back end? And then 35, a whole different guy. And then 40. So think about the 18 year old who

wants to be in a metal band with long hair doesn't bathe who then shaves his head and is like oh I'm gonna then I became student body president of my university and then she's married to the dean of a student of a university right of a billion dollar university here and now she's married to a podcast right so it's the whole thing keeps shifting I think the we hold on to who you were versus dude how awesome is this we get to grow and create this new thing together on an ongoing basis so one thing that Jack brought up that I think would be an interesting discussion is I very much have a scarcity mentality when it comes to money, business. I'm very conservative on all fronts. And since the very beginning on YouTube, and even since my career in real estate, in real estate, I budgeted

everything that if I closed a deal, I think that's the last deal I'm ever going to close in my life. And I think I have this much. How can I make it last for the rest of my life? That's me, dude. Good. Well, I don't know if it's good. But it's not good at all. Same with YouTube. Whatever I would do. I would say this is the last video I'm ever going to post. Every day I assume tomorrow is going to go zero. And so I budget based off that. And then what I have, I say, okay, how could I spread this out to make sure it's got the highest chance of lasting? And that I have to live off whatever I have today. So I'm going to be unable to work. I can't make any more money. Everything goes to zero. Where does that story come from? I don't know. I think I've just, I've intrinsically

been like that. I think, you know, people ask me where I got an interest in personal finance for me. It was four years old. And I remember collecting old rare coins because my grandpa had a coin collection. I thought that was so cool. So it would collect coins. But most of those stories come from a picture, something we've seen or experienced. Like for me, my dad was a public servant. He was a policeman.

And then he became a minister. And there were times he'd go put his, there was a new device, a new technology called a debit card. It didn't exist it before. And I don't know if y'all remember this season. And I don't remember when it stopped, but it was a 50-50. You didn't know. If there was no money in the account, sometimes they would let you have it, and they would just charge you this outrageous fee for buying something without the money in the account.

And then sometimes they would deny it. And there were times my dad went to the grocery store because he had three little kids. And he knew there was no money in there, but he had to get groceries. And so he was saying, I'll pay the $40 fee or $35 fee, but I got to feed my family. And so I watched that. And so I remember His face I remember the weight of the car

I remember the our home And man he was trying hard And I actually Intentionally decided I'm not If that's what the public thinks of public servants I'm out I'm gonna go try to make money Because I don't want my house to feel like that

And dude my dad's worked so hard And so For me that scarcity mindset Comes from No I know what it feels like To not have enough And so then I overcorrected And it was like, then I'll never not have enough.

And there was even a thing when my son one time said, I was just asking me, he was little. And he was like, Dad, I'm, wow, I want, let's go get a Burger King. Let's go to Chick-Flare, whatever. And I was like, no, no, no. And I heard him say to his mom, to my wife. And he goes, I'm just so hungry. Dude, it was like, I'm pulling over right now. We'll find anything.

And my wife's like, you're going to fall for that. Right, her PhD isn't working with kids. And she's like, you don't fall for that. I'm like, that sentence was such a trigger for me. And so that's where it comes from for me. You don't have like a picture of it for you? I think it started before any sort of picture would even take place. Because both my parents worked very much paycheck to paycheck.

But I think I started like collecting coins and stuff like that before I came to a realization that that was even a thing. So I think maybe I had a fixation with it before. But maybe I don't know when a scarcity mentality took place. Okay. So what makes you think this all goes away? I would say because I've seen it as a very common occurrence on YouTube especially. Because it will, right? Yeah.

And think you reverse engineer at Erin Yalom and Rolla Mae, like talking about existential psychology. They would suggest that the reason people build religious structures and banks and put their statues in front. They're trying to hedge against this one terrifying thing that makes the human animal unique. We know we're going to die. And so we all know we have this finish line. We don't know when it is. And so we create these big, intricate structures to prop up this thing and try to slow down this thing that's coming. What it could have been actually, I had this brief stint.

It was six weeks where I worked doing data entry. And it was right at this weird time where I had just like just graduated high school. But like before I was figuring out like if I was going to get my real estate license or not like a weird two months. And I hated that job so much. And before then I think I just always had a fascination with saving money, investing. I just found it interesting but I think the scarcity mindset came from after the first week I dreaded that job

and I got, I've never been like thoroughly depressed in my life but that made me so sad every single day to wake up I just hated it and I thought is this really what it is? Is this like 60 years I'm just going to have to like do a job like this that I hate?

When did you get your real estate license? When I was 18 years old? What year was it? 2008. So I started like the peak of the real estate market but this was doing data entry. I know. I don't know. Yeah.

So if you and I were hanging out or you'd hired me to be your personal coach, I would tell you, you're at the height and you watch it all go away. Well, I don't think it was that because I loved real estate. I know. But your body kept the score. Your body heard all of the people around you going, the housing market is collapsing. Nobody's buying houses. Nobody can sell houses.

And you have a hustler and you're like, I'll go make the work. I'll go get it. but you've seen, you've experienced firsthand, oh, this can I'll go away. Even something is robust as houses, people will be like, I'm not buying that.

Yeah. Right? I mean, perhaps it was very subconscious. I think the conscious part of me thought, I never want to work a job like that where I'm forced to go in every single day doing something I absolutely hate doing.

And so I'll do anything to avoid that same experience that I got before, you know, I ended up quitting. But that's six weeks for me, it was like, I never want that. Gotcha. So if I can save everything.

What does that give you? Freedom. Freedom. I think it's the freedom to make the decisions every day to do what you want and to do the things that you enjoy the most. Not every day is going to be enjoyable, but at least I'm consciously choosing, I'm doing this because I want to do it and I have fun doing it, and I can do it my way and the way that I decide is best for me. And I think the challenge is you and I do things for freedom and scarcity is a form of slavery. And so we think we're free, but we're actually running. Does that make sense? It does. And so it's a conscious, uncouple. from that scarcity. Like, I'm going to practice. Is it worth uncoupling from scarcity? Because I would say it's like, it's in a way it's a benefit knowing that there's a bit of a fallback,

there's a cushion, there's a foundation that you build up that's not going away. Isn't that a good thing? There's some great conversations I've had with people who study when the grid goes down. And they'll tell you

the number one hedge against it all going down is to have really great relationships with your neighbors. so that y'all can say okay we're good everybody trust everybody like I'll help with the let's go help with water let's figure out the food thing it is circling up

and so for me I just go back and think World War II was it 80 years ago wasn't that long ago World War I was not that long ago so this is hedge I'm gonna have a bunch of apartments we can go to some places right now

that the folks had apartments you know six months ago right right And so I think for me, I'm going to do the things the best I can't. I have a deep freezer. I got two of them. And I hunt a lot, right? So I have that.

Yeah. But I also know that the core hedge against the scarcity mindset is insane. Madhouse generosity. And so I'm going to continually, I'm going to do the next right thing to take care of me and my family. And I'm going to hold it all real loosely. Because it's just, it's just, it's just, you know, you know, I mean it's an illusion it's never lasted through history and so I think there's this I'm gonna do the right thing the next right thing and do I'm gonna make sure I'm giving it away and that keeps me

untethered to the scarcity mindset hmm but it's but it's hard it's a it's a yeah that's something I really not wanted to give up because in a way I think the scarcity mentality is an asset because I'm very protective of certain things yeah it is a it is a numbing agent for a life well lived sure and um it's kind of of like scarcity is a different it's it's differently when it comes to your money but it's very similar to i'm just not going to tell her that while we're dating because she might not like me and then you get married and then i'm not going to tell her that she need to know that and her body feels the gap she doesn't know you're not telling you're not really lying you're

not bringing that up you're not bringing up the stuff that happened when you were a kid or whatever but she knows she can't get to you and so she creates the things that her keep her safe i'm going to go exercise a lot. I'm going to start this. I'm going to go over this way. And you feel her pull away. And so then you create your, right? And it's all of this gap. And it's that lack of vulnerability. So what would be your map to me in that situation? Like you'd give to a truck driver. Here's your map. Here's where you can start. What would you say to someone like me? I would pressure you in a in a coaching scenario. Like, give me a number. What's a number that says, this is as safe as I can I can be.

I'll say $50 million. Okay. Where does that come from? I think $20 million would be the point where I would have such a surplus, and I would want to double that in case everything splits in half by 50% long term, or we don't see any growth for the next 30 years in the United States. And I'd want a little bit more on top of that as a buffer as these are unexpected life events that just seem to come up.

So here's what's beautiful. Two important things. A hundred percent. I have no doubt of my mind, if you got $50 million, that number would become $100. Sure. Instantly. Okay. And the finish line keeps moving.

Because it's not anchored in reality. It's based on this well, then if this double, then this half. I said a little bit more, and that's $10 million. Yeah, but in context. In context of 40 to 50. In three generations. It's in context. But there's no context.

it. And that's what makes it a X, right? It's a way to numb out I don't control what I think I control. I remember when I was super, like I was clinically anxious, clinically OCD, I was a madhouse spinning, spin it, spinning. And a buddy of mine is a bank executive,

a big fancy pants, and he's one of my best friends on planet Earth. Brilliant, man. And we were sitting like this, and dude, I had it. I was laying this and this and this, and what if the dollar de values here, and if the yen does, I mean, And I'm not a dumb guy. We were back and forth and back and forth. Yeah.

And finally he smiled. And he said something that changed my life. He said, John, I don't have a meteorite plan. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he said, dude, I buy real estate. I don't owe anybody anything. I've paid my house off. I put money in my retirement.

And I give void money like crazy. And he said, most people picture the dollar going away. right like the bricks thing actually works which it like that happens the dollar goes away and you're like okay cool i got 50 million dollars over here if the dollar goes away the world is so indifferent we imagine ourselves filling up our cars going to our jobs with whatever new currency it will be anarchy right people will be shooting your dog for food right so we have we like to see the apocalypse or if the market goes in half and then in half again, things will be so different that whatever you think you've saved will be of no value. It will be so chaotic. And so we imagine

our life just with the stock market one-tenth of what it is right now. We don't picture what actually would be. It'd be madhouse, right? So it was, his point was, if we get hit by a meteorite, dude, I'm going to deal with that then. I am going to like not. be captive to this because then I go insane right and then I start imagining scenarios and try to solve for scenarios that are probably not going to happen but I'll be the guy that had him ready and then I'm going to solve for that scenario and then your friends are like hey bro you're kind of like and then you find yourself with a smaller smaller community smaller community and then you sleep a little less and then you try to solve the sleep and then you only crap every four days and you go to

the doctor and try to solve that it's a longer issue of this magic George It's just peace. So where do you start? What do you mean? In terms of getting over that and embracing, I guess, more of an abundance mentality. I think it's making peace with how little I actually control. Just accepting it. And how do you start about accepting it?

How often do you journal to yourself? I've never journaled. I've meditated. I enjoy meditation. But I've never done a journal and just. I'm still like. Meditation is helpful for me, and I still do it regularly. I'm beginning to wonder if meditation as it was originally designed, like one of the guys

I credit was saving my life was a monk. He was a bioethics professor, and as soon as the school was his year was out, he went to a monastery, right? Meditation was an integral part of a life. And I think as Westerners were like, well, can we take apart and sell, right? And so we pulled this piece out, but it was also silence, and it was also no possessions. and it was also everybody had a job and everybody had a purpose

and everybody had a community and everybody talked and everybody prayed something bigger than themselves so it's a piece of it so my the broader thing is making peace not just intellectually but physiologically

I'm gonna die all right so I know this I got two kids and I'm married okay so I got a great robust life insurance plan if I die I want to make sure that because I've hugged widows

who will look at me and go I don't know what to do because their husband's dead in the next room, right? My wife will not have to ask that question. She will get to grieve for as long as she wants to grieve because the bills will be paid.

And we don't owe anybody anything, right? Was that the best, like, ROI on my... No? Because of my interest rate was so low in my house, I could have put in a high-ealt savings account and made more money. But I sleep, dude, it's a sleep tax. I sleep like a baby

because I know if I die in my sleep, no one's going to take my house from my wife, her house, and she's going to have bills until the apocalypse comes, right? So I'm going to solve for peace first. I'm not going to solve for ROI first on every penny I have. Once I solve for peace, then I begin to have joy and fun with it.

And it begins with what can I give away? And how can I watch somebody else bloom because I got to water whatever seed they'd planted, right? That becomes this, you become to disentangle yourself from this. And so I'd ask you, like knowing 50 million is not a real, number like that you won't feel safe with that because it's not it's it's just it's just thicker wallpaper on an underlying letter that's fair that's right and so I would challenge you like do you have a group of two or three guys that you go have coffee with once a week and y'all just talk

crap not about personal finance just crap no no no well I think no jack and I have a good relationship like that but yeah no I would say we're nearly best friends I mean equally but yes he does not do that he doesn't unwind okay no and so I would say your body would be failing you if it wasn't constantly ginning up a story that you needed to solve because it doesn't have and I think that's the ecosystem if I can solve for peace do you are you a minimalist guy are you a clutter you get stuff everywhere do you collect things I love collecting but I wouldn't say I'm a clutterer but I love the aspect of putting together a collection okay so there was some I just wrote a book on there's some fascinating research about

clutter and anxiety. And when I say clutter, we immediately go to like hoarding, right? Yeah. But where bodies are designed for scarcity, we've never had enough in human history. And now we have so much excess that we can buy shiny things and just stack them up all in the right order. And our brains aren't designed for this. So there's a Japanese minimalist, I lost the name, but we'll figure up. But he says that all of our inanimate objects have a conversation with us every day.

And I was like, okay, hokey. And I sounded super hokey. And I walked into my basement and I just got quiet. So I'm an academic guy, so I got walls of books. And I also have been playing guitar since I was a little kid. So I've got a wall of guitars. I'm also a huge hunter. So I've got my cases over here.

I just sat there and it's like, oh, kids are talking to me? And then I started pretending, like, who would the book say? And then I was like, oh, are you always going to be stupid? You're not going to read us? Remember when you used to know all this stuff in this chemistry book and this biochem book? And you don't know any of that crap anymore? You don't know any of it. there's a whole shelf you haven't even read yet you just gonna be stupid and then my guitars were like yeah you don't even play this anymore remember when you're gonna be cool you're just gonna be an old oh you're gonna be that old loser I was like holy crap dude and the hunting stuff was like oh you're that guy now like oh mister then I went upstairs and the dishes in the sink and I looked at them and they're like oh you're that husband you just don't even help me didn't care about your wife I'm like no no no I just got home oh yeah and I realized all our crap is talking all the time and so instead of trying to solve the next thing and solve the next thing it's cool to have things that we

love and all that make no mistake but it was just me being conscious of what am I allowing to speak into my life and I was allowing this room full of inanimate objects to talk to me particularly the guitars I don't have I got guitars for the next and by the way Metallica is not calling they're just not going to call like I've made people you don't know that Green Day announced their tour and I did not get a message right it's not happening right and I still love to play in my basement but do I need seven right do I need 10 or it's two fine or it's three fine so it began to And it's not a moral issue. It's a solve for freedom issue, right?

What's my calendar look like? Is my calendar, if I miss a meeting on Monday morning at 9 o'clock and I'm 15 minutes late, does it dominate on my whole week? Because the answer for me is yes. It becomes a cascade of drama, right? Or do I build in margin so that I can breathe and actually think and grow? All famous writers that are still in the canon had, periods of intense writing and periods of intense long walks.

They just walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk. We don't have that. We go from our work to our make the video, to cut the video, to post the video, already researching for the next video. And there's no capacity for your brain to go. How does this all work together? I wonder if it's just even right anymore. And it's so it spins and spins.

And it comes out in these weird ways that we try to solve with $50 million or for me with another deep freezer and more meat and more acres or whatever. whatever, and you're like more hair product. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But it becomes this like, what are we going to solve versus I'm good. And I really know my neighbors. And I do have food.

I got a big garden. And so I'm also not going to fight my body. I know, kind of like you, I'm a little bit of a, it could all come down. It could. Yeah. I read history. It could all come down. And let's be honest.

At some point, it will. It will. I got a garden, a huge garden out here in the middle Tennessee. I hunt a lot. I got a lot of meat. my freezer. That's true. And also a couple of times a month, I take meat to my neighbors as a spiritual exercise as much as they're, they don't have the resources that I've got. And it's just part of being a good neighbor. And my neighbor is 70-something years old and grades my gravel driveway with his tractor because he's

amazing, right? And so, and he found out how much I paid one time to have somebody come out and do it. And he's like, you're my neighbor. You'll never know. You don't pay for that crap. And so he does it. So I give him eggs and food from our chickens. But it becomes this. because I'm not solving for ROI. Now, my wife and I are saving for our next big investment and the one after that. So it's not like I'm impervious to that. And I do want to build wealth.

I know that building, having a dollar amount is not going to solve this. And I only know that because I've sat and hugged multi-millionaires while their wife is dead in the next room. And none of their money can fix that. Right. Or I'm hugging, I'm calling them and saying, I hate to be the one to have to call you.

Your son has passed away. Your son has died. and you hear it on the other line or you hear the screaming on the phone and say you need to come to town there's not a dollar amount on that and so I knew okay that can't be

that can't be the solution is it helpful yeah and so I always want to ask people like what's the money for what's it for and if it's not I say this and it sounds kind of trite but it's not in the Western world

we have an answer to the question what are you worth and it's a number and I think the answer to the question what are you worth is never a number. If it ever is,

you cannot have that life and not be anxious, period. I don't believe that. The answer to the question, what are you worth is, who do you love and who loves you? Period. If you have money and you can take all your buddies to the game, that's awesome, right?

Have you read the book, Diwa Zero? Yes, I have, actually. Yeah, phenomenal. Masterpiece. Spend the money, right? Like, ensure yourself and spend your money and enjoy your friends. And if, like, that one buddy that can't pay,

dude, bring him on because you're going to want to have had that memory, not the $1,500. He couldn't spend on the lighthouse or whatever. So if money is a tool for serving your community for having the time of your life and inviting, that's awesome, man. Though on your daughter the greatest wedding, that's amazing. If it is for the sake of some imaginary hedge against some imaginary thing, that finish line, I'm just going to move and move and move and move. And then someone's going to diagnose you with something.

Right. That's fair. See, I love that you enforce like this, just peace and calmness, and how often do you go get a coffee with your friends and not think about all these things? Because that's something I've been trying to hopefully push Graham in that direction for such. I mean, like, honestly. I do love working, though. Yeah. That's my problem.

I love it. I love it. So that's why I don't like to be too dogmatic about it. We recently had a psychiatrist on our podcast, and he was like, what I said to Graham, which was something to the tune of, like, it's hard for me to believe that you're. happy when I see you so stressed all the time living your life. They say, well, you're not in his shoes. You know, you don't know how happy is. And that's true. But I do think just overall for every human, even the weird ones like Graham, it's good to just go and have coffee, to go and try something new, to go for a walk, to play pickleball. That's something I like to do a couple of times a week.

That doesn't have anything to do with my business, no productivity or anything. It's senseless. It just is, you know, a game. But I think that that type of stuff could be very productive. And I do think although this shouldn't be a part of the argument there's probably some business ROI to that as well always and that's the part that i you don't want to enforce it reinforce it because it's not you know so if you talk to somebody who's struggling with bipolar right it's very hard because the highs feel so good and you feel like if i lose the high part then i lose me i lose all the productivity i lose all of the advantage i have and so i'm not going to take my meds and i'll deal with the lows which are abysmal because I don't want to lose this part. It's the same as the old like the old in the 80s and

90s the rock and roll guys like if I get sober I lose what makes me me and all the research says it's not true it actually is not true at all. And so what I had to do because my problem is I love work. I love it. I love thinking of problems. I like trying to solve a new thing. One of my favorite things about transitioning like careers in my 40s like dude I've trans like I went to a new planet right I was in higher ed for 20 years in the academy and now I'm doing I don't even know what this is right I write books for living and speak all over the country um I love it and you know what else I love being around a campfire and someone's like do you know what I got cigarettes I love that too right and I don't even smoke I'm like yeah I love it and you know what else I love dude if you put like a fish bowl of jellybellies right

here on this table and this show is not brought to you by jellybelly just I'd eat the whole thing. I would love that. You know what I love? I've started watching Homeland from start to finish. It's so good. It came out 2010, right? But if I could just sit on the couch and watch that for 19 straight days, all eight seasons or however me, I love that. And so I have to put a gap between what I love and what's going to kill me. And I don't think we do a good job because in our culture, we seek pleasure. And I think we seek pleasure because we got so much technology so fast. that we were able to take away things that were uncomfortable. You know what sucks? Riding on a wooden, like wooden wheels on a wooden platform pulled by a horse. Well, dude, we've got a car now. And now we're all the way to leather seats.

That's amazing. But now we think if we sit in somebody's vinyl seats, there's something wrong with that car, right? It's like, it's nothing wrong. It's amazing. Vinyl is like a cushion. It's great. Over time, solving for discomfort, solving for discomfort.

Now we've made discomfort. evil it's something wrong and so similarly we've made something if it's comfortable it must be right and so i'm not going to go to the gym because that's uncomfortable it sucks well you're going to pay a price i don't want to like watch what i eat because that's uncomfortable you're going to pay a price i want to work all the time because i love it you're going to pay a price i don't want to have to deal with relationships you're going to pay a price right and so for me i love all those things they're going to kill me. And so I have to put in barriers and hurdles so that I don't go off the go off my own cliff, right? Yeah. What are the biggest money problems you see in most relationships or marriages?

Financial infidelity and secrets. No, when you mean financial infidelity? Could you describe what that is? Yeah, I think fidelity, like we've pigeonholed that into who had sex with who, right? I think fidelity, especially in marriage, is so much broader than that. When I stand before God and my family and another person and say I do forever through sickness and health. In fidelity, I can cheat on my wife with my job. If I give my best parts of my life to my work and she gets whatever's left, I'm cheating on her with not a mistress, not another person, not another person, but with my job, or with a golf course or with a fishing pole or with my hunting rifle or whatever the thing is,

with my device, right? And so similarly, if I'm spending money and she's, doesn't know about it. If I've put some money and some stocks that haven't done well, and so now I'm trying to like circle back around and find some other things because I've lost some money. Or if I'm running up, I had one couple that ran up like like massive amounts of credit card debt. And the other person didn't know. Just didn't know. And then the person starts getting scared and just trying to solve it, right? And it gets worse and worse and worse. And so this idea of fidelity, like I'm all in has no room for I'm all in. I'm gonna do this over here.

We make these decisions together, right? And so when somebody feels unsafe in their house because how their partners spend their money, that's how we see a lot. Or they just won't talk about it. And I guess a third one is, your parents did money like this. My parents did money like this.

So we're gonna do it my way, right? We're gonna do it my way, right? And there's not the tools to say, we get to invent whatever we want. This is our marriage. This is our home. This is our house. Yeah, but my dad says renting is stupid.

Well, your dad didn't get a vote. he's not married to us. We're married now, right? And I think a lot of especially new couples bring in but my mom says that she didn't get to vote anymore. Like we're in this. And there's just not enough.

They don't have the tools. How important would you say financial compatibility is between partners? Dig into that question a little bit more. Let's say one is more of a saver. One is more of a spender. One says we should live in the moment today, really enjoy life.

The other person says, no, I think we should save it so we could make sure that we live well in the future. I think that those people desperately need each other. Desperate. If you get two people who are both savers, you're going to have a whole bunch of money and a very empty,

a very empty photo album. And if you have two like, woo! Like yolos, you're going to run out of money real quick. You don't think either side might start to feel resentful for the other. Not if you're having conversations. Not if you choose guilt over resentment. If I choose to hedge my conversation I don't want to do that

because it's going to make her uncomfortable I don't want to have this conversation to make her mad that is a recipe for resentment because it builds and it builds and it builds if we work on our relationship to say hey and here's what often in that conversation

it starts with you're spending money like XYZ a much better way to start that conversation is I'm so scared about our financial situation I can't breathe because if I come after you hey dude the way you're doing

you instantly have to fight back, right? I'm attacking. Yeah. You either have to run, or you have to hit me back. If I sit down vulnerably and say, I don't, if you die tomorrow, I don't know where any of anything is. Will you please sit down and say what money we have, what the accounts are, please?

I'm scared to death. I'm not going to die. I'll quit your wine. And, okay, I, please, that's a different conversation, right? And that, and I think we're so obsessed with these labels, like, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a spender. I'm a save. Shut up.

We agreed on a thing, right? I'm an eater. I still have the same physiology as you guys do. My wife is not. She can walk through a house full of snacks and she just doesn't grab them. I eat all of them all the way to the end of the snack line. I think the challenge is not to find someone just like you. I think we're obsessed with compatibility.

I think the deeper question is, do we agree to work on problems together? Because we both have similar places we want to go. We have similar values. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does. I'll even go this far. Yeah.

I think couples are obsessed with having the same beliefs, and I think that's nonsense. You have to have the same values. What I mean by that is my wife and I believe different things when it comes to spirituality. We have very similar values. We both believe in God. We're both Christians. But we have gone through different ebbs and flows and all sorts. And so I read a book, and I believe something different than she does.

And then she reads that book, and she comes to a totally different conclusion. That's amazing. But one of our values is curiosity. One of our values is honesty. One of our values is, let's talk this through. And so when I go, I don't think I believe this particular political opinion anymore, her instant response isn't judgment. Yeah.

How dare it's, tell me more about that. Because our core value is this. All the beliefs. Otherwise it's a way to come home. So at what point then would it be a deal breaker? Or at what point would something have to have to break or split? Is it when conversations aren't happening? If you won't commit to what we committed to,

if you don't commit to the covenant that you made, which is for sickness and health, we're going to figure this out. It doesn't matter what your impulse is. It matters what you do. And that's hard. For me, money, I came from, money was the devil. And my wife didn't have a lot.

They were both school teachers, right? They didn't have a lot. And so it never occurred to her to have a million dollars. And she lived on the outskirts of town, I grew up in suburbs of Houston right when the oil chemical boom hit Houston. You know who had a million dollars? My buddies at school. I had a picture of what that looked like.

I wanted that because I knew what I felt at home. So I had a different, I had a different, money was something differently wired into my nervous system than it was her. We had to, I always had a scheme when we got married like, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, let's do this. And she was like, I just loved my corolla. And I'm going to be a teacher. And you've probably heard that Dave talk about the millionaire study. Number three is teachers. If you make peace with a Corolla life,

you'll end up a millionaire. It's the teacher who makes $48,000 and also has to have a Yukon and also has to have this house and also has to go on vacation here. That's when you get yourself into problems. She'd already solved the problem. I was the one that had issues.

So it was a fidelity issue on my part. Will you commit to stand on a budget with me? Like, will you commit to being honest about money in our house? Will you commit to a plan? Like, and our plan is, let's don't owe anybody. Let's make that plan first.

Okay. And so I think it's the commitment to the commitment. Okay. And finally, what do you think about shared accounts? Because that's something I think you and Graham are going to have wildly different perspectives on. It comes back to what we were talking about earlier with secrets. And not even secrets as much as... Because they can be aware.

Your partner can be aware of exactly how much you have. But as far as one central thing where the card swipes, it pulls from that. I don't see any way you wouldn't have a shared account. You think that it is a necessity of marriage. Why is that? Because it tethers you in a pretty profound way. Let me say it like this. You and I, not you and I, but me and my wife joined together.

We made a human. We went to a bank and we said, hey, can we borrow enough money to have a home? And we both send our name on it. It's an illusion. that by keeping separate accounts where somehow, that's mine and that's yours, right? It's not real. It only serves as a division, as a dividing.

It's not real. Couldn't it be, though, a sense of independence between the two people? But when I marry you, that they're both individuals. Part of the ancient marriage rights where two become one, and we're building something new.

So it would be like if y'all two made money and y'all had two separate ice coffee hour, business accounts. You'd be like, well, I want to buy a microphone. That doesn't make sense, right? You would have, if y'all would discuss the business, then y'all have a infrastructure account and a savings account.

And maybe if you're running your real estate underneath this thing, you'd have this too. Or if you created a separate LLC, you'd have that. Well, some of those are for tax purposes. So logistically, it makes sense that you have to do it under a certain structure for... It's a ducts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean... So the independence would be a wild illusion. So at what point would it be okay in what situations for couples do have separate finances? Or do you say under any circumstances they should always have one shared account and that's it? Or are we talking about having a shared account but separate accounts as well? Is that different for you or should everything always be in one? I want to ask a harder question, which is if you can't trust somebody, if you feel like you still need to have part independence, don't get married. I think it's important to have. your sense of self in a marriage. Since of self is critical. Since of self is perfect. But do I have to fund that separate and apart

from our shared vision together? That's a good point. Is your self-derived from finances? His is. I'm just kidding. Mine's from hair gel. Yeah, yours is from good luck. But like it's all such an illusion.

And so if you, like, well, I don't trust him. Then don't marry it. I don't think it's necessarily trust. I think it's often trust. Or the most common complaint I heard is I've been burned before. I'm not going to get burned again. I 1,000% believe and agree with that. But don't get married.

Because if you're not going to go all in, this marriage isn't going to work either. It's not. Or it's going to be a shell of what it could be. And then when y'all get faced with true adversity, you've already got a foot out. You already have an account over here, right? And so if you're going to go all in, you've got to go all in. You gotta go all in. And the data's clear.

A bad marriage makes your life exponentially worse. So you don't think there's any situation. Give me one. Let's say one partner has a billion dollars, the other is completely broke. One is, you know, I'm taking to an extreme. Okay.

80-year-old man, 20-year-old wife. Okay. 80-year-old guy has a billion dollars, 20-year-old wife has nothing. Okay. The question there is a... A, no, but I would enter that with a pre-up, but not for the

relationship. I would enter with a pre-up for the kids they're going to come out of the woods, right? The cousins and the aunts and the uncles, they're going to melt the estate through legal channels for the next 25 years. That's what I would protect the nest egg. But if I marry you, I married you. But otherwise, why?

Why would I marry you? That's a good point. I think marriage is really important because it creates another really strong obstacle that stands between you and divorce and breaking up. You know, in the same way that getting a dog or having kids, it's more obstacles and the family unit is the foundation of America. I don't want the marriage to stay together because there are obstacles in the way.

But it's important because the obstacle will just force a different path, which is overcoming adversity. I don't think but you should want to do that regardless of the obstacle. Like I think if you're in a relationship, it should be as easy as possible for the person to leave. And I know that's engaged. But easy as possible. I want her to be with me because she's with me, as vice versa. Sure. Not because I don't want to go through the hassle having to sell the house and split the accounts going through that like that to me would be so sad that you have to stay with someone because of obstacles

in the way that makes it harder i want someone to stay with you yes because they want to and if they want to up and leave they could but you trust them enough that hey we're going to have these discussions we're going to work through it but it's not because of these obstacles i agree with that yeah so let's move an obstacle over here i i think the challenge is in an in an effort to smooth out all the obstacles it's really easy to say hey this got real hard there's in in the in the the faith circles, there was a lot of conversation back in the 80s about don't fight in front of the kids. Go in the back room. If you all have a discussion, if you all got to fight, go do that.

You're going to scare your kids, right? And what they did with good intentions is they robbed kids of seeing their parents, two people married, fight, and fight. And make up and stay together. And so what happened was they would get in a fight or disagreement, and they were like, oh, this is over. Because they had no picture of what two people disagreeing. One of them storming off, one of them going to get a hotel, and then coming back, like, oh, they don't just leave, right? And so my concern with, I'm with, I don't want my wife to stay because it's going to be a pain in the butts with the house in the market. Right.

I don't want that. But I also don't want us to believe that there's not going to be long seasons when things are uncomfortable, right? Similarly, I don't go to the gym and take all the weight off the bar and just spray paint 500 pounds on each side of the bar and say, I'm lifting a thousand pounds. I'm not. I go to the gym and put as much as I can lift on there. It's hard and it sucks and it hurts and that makes us stronger. That makes me stronger, right? And so there's been several times in my 21 years plus the five years we dated.

When we've sat across the table and said, like, we're going to be adults, is this it? Are we both done? And every time we've said no. And so we have to say, okay, here's the analogy that Esther Pro gives and it's just so great. she said if the twin towers fell right they they fell she's talking to a couple that had experienced infidelity somebody cheated on them they fell she said you could never sweep up all the glass and steel and wood and rebuild those twin towers with that original material they fell it's over you can do one of two things you can walk away and let nature take that back over or you can excavate the whole thing

get some architects and some engineers and some professionals and design something arguably stronger maybe even more beautiful a little bit of a testament a monument to the past but let's build something incredible going forward but you got to build something completely new so I think this idea that it's just going to be smooth and frictionless is an illusion I think that's melting modern marriage it's just too hard and I want to go yes that's what makes it so valuable because if you go through the hard dude on the back end it's it's staggering and that's where the question of what about separate accounts for me after 21 years like dude we've gone through some gnarly health scares and we've had I've got the names of three babies that we miscarried

tattooed on my body and we've buried grandparents and we've had cancer and we've had these things that we've had to do together and it's been hard and we've had seasons when it's like hey I think this is it and I can't keep being married to you like this and her saying I can't So are we done? Are we going to build something completely new? So we build it from new. We build it from scratch. We got to start over.

Cool. Here we go. Right. The idea of, well, should we have separate? It just feels so sophomoric, right? It seems like such a question not even worth answer. Of course we're going to share money. You see what I'm saying?

I see your perspective. And I do think it's really nice that you are normalizing some of the difficulties in a relationship and not just pretending. It's always great. Yeah. This is always perfect. I think it's really great that you're talking openly about that, that you encountered such difficulty

throughout your marriage and have still come out on the other side. And mine's a pretty good one. Right. Right? It's pretty simple. It's still going to like, hey, we're doing this. But I mean, there's no like drug addiction. There's no other cheating on each other. Like, yeah. It's pretty, the waves are pretty low, right? And it's still tough. Yeah. I appreciate you talking about that.

No, it's good, man. And I, you can call me whenever you're like, yeah. We got to, we got to share accounts. How do we do this? I'll help you out. I'll see. I'm just kidding. So, I think that's, yeah, we got. We got to wrap up. Thank you so much, production team. Thank you very much. This is so enjoyable.

Thank you. This has been great. We'll link to your info down below in the description. Thank you to the whole Ramsey team for putting this on. Shout out the recent book. Didn't you become like something? Building an in an anxious life. There is.

I have that in the bedroom. Oh yeah? Yeah, it's on the nightstand. I've not ready yet, though. Admittedly, but it's sitting there and I'm going to get to it. I really like half. Yeah. Very cool.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Hey, I'm really grateful for you guys having me on. It's awesome. Next I'm in Vegas, we'll hang out. I can easily do another hour. If you're in Vegas, we'll be three hours. All you can eat sushi.

Oh, not on Graham, of course, but on Jack. Thanks, with the shared account. That's right. It's shared account. Until next time. Thanks, guys. Great. Thank you.

I so enjoyed it.