Could achieving financial happiness be as simple as choosing your dad wisely - rich or poor? Together with Mike White, a former submarine officer turned MBA student, we navigate the intersection of wealth and well-being, drawing from Robert Kiyosaki's 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' as our compass. Mike brings a wealth of knowledge from Austin's Objectivist and Bitcoin circles, infusing our discussion with a fresh perspective on finding joy in the numbers.
Strap on your helmet and join us for a ride through the deserted streets of a shutdown California, where the freedom of motorcycling intersects with the solitude of empty cities. As we share tales from this eerie quietude, we segue into the transformative power of financial literacy. You'll discover the roots of my passion for financial education, tracing back to a high school real estate investment club and the strategic play of Cashflow 101. All this is intertwined with the practical advice of building a safety net, distinguishing assets from liabilities, and the tools—like YNAB and guidance from Certified Financial Planners—that make navigating the financial seas smoother.
Immersion in this episode will leave you contemplating the richer aspects of life—like how happiness, core values, and a robust vision can guide you to fulfillment beyond the balance sheet. We'll discuss the pursuit of happiness even in the most restrictive environments and how embracing Bitcoin can be an act of personal and financial rebellion. Our stories and insights serve as a reminder that true wealth is not just in your wallet but in the alignment of your life with your deepest values.
Could achieving financial happiness be as simple as choosing your dad wisely - rich or poor? Together with Mike White, a former submarine officer turned MBA student, we navigate the intersection of wealth and well-being, drawing from Robert Kiyosaki's 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' as our compass. Mike brings a wealth of knowledge from Austin's Objectivist and Bitcoin circles, infusing our discussion with a fresh perspective on finding joy in the numbers.
Strap on your helmet and join us for a ride through the deserted streets of a shutdown California, where the freedom of motorcycling intersects with the solitude of empty cities. As we share tales from this eerie quietude, we segue into the transformative power of financial literacy. You'll discover the roots of my passion for financial education, tracing back to a high school real estate investment club and the strategic play of Cashflow 101. All this is intertwined with the practical advice of building a safety net, distinguishing assets from liabilities, and the tools—like YNAB and guidance from Certified Financial Planners—that make navigating the financial seas smoother.
Immersion in this episode will leave you contemplating the richer aspects of life—like how happiness, core values, and a robust vision can guide you to fulfillment beyond the balance sheet. We'll discuss the pursuit of happiness even in the most restrictive environments and how embracing Bitcoin can be an act of personal and financial rebellion. Our stories and insights serve as a reminder that true wealth is not just in your wallet but in the alignment of your life with your deepest values.
Welcome everybody to the Troubadour show. Today I have Mike White and we're going to be talking about finances, happiness and do you follow your rich dad or your poor dad? And some of you may notice that reference, but we'll talk a little bit about that. Before I say anything, I just want to mention Mike White has a podcast YouTube show, so go check it out. You can go to I'll put this in the show notes linktreeee slash the Mike White pod, so make sure you check that stuff out. We'll be talking about his podcast, a podcast focused on documenting my learning through life, which I like that a lot. That's cool and I know you're also. Are you a recent Austin person who just moved here recently, or have you been here?
Speaker 2:I just moved back. I went to undergrad here, so I left in 2017 and I've been here for about the last year and a half. So glad to be back with a bunch of objectivists and freedom-loving people.
Speaker 1:There are some, but there's also the opposite, quite a lot of the opposite, in the broader Austin community. This is true, so it's nice to have our little microcosm of objectivists in Austin, but it's definitely a blue city for sure. What brought you back?
Speaker 2:by the way, yeah. So I didn't really know what I wanted to do after the Navy and so I was a submarine officer, did five years in the Navy and I had the GI bill so they'll pay for my schooling if I wanted to. And I was trying to think of like okay, where do I want to go? What am I interested in? And really, austin was really, I think, the best city big time. Objectivists have seen. Just some awesome objectivist intellectuals at the University of Texas that I could go to and learn from. They have the Ein Rahn Club If you guys have, if you're UT students at all, definitely check them out but also just the Bitcoin scene too. So I started learning about Bitcoin separate to the whole thing, but Austin is the Bitcoin capital. So objectivism and Bitcoin I thought this was the perfect place to go do an MBA. Maybe eventually I want to be running a business at some point and getting that general business knowledge would be beneficial. On the Navy's dime.
Speaker 1:Nice, I like that, so okay. So yeah, I see that you have your Bitcoin shirt in the background. I know you do a lot of podcasts on Bitcoin and I think that'll lead to our broader conversation about finance and happiness, but that's interesting. So you came to Austin for the opportunity and I did not know, I guess, that it was the epicenter of Bitcoin. I knew it was popular here, but I did not realize that and I think it's great that we have. So you mentioned the Ein Rahn Club on campus.
Speaker 1:So if you're like under 25, I think, even if you're not a UT student, you should probably still hop on over and you can find them on Meetup. There's the Salem Center that Dr Greg Sanieri is one of the co. He's not the owner or whatever, but is one of the co-people there and they do a lot of cool events. I think they have. They're having your own Brooke pretty soon. Come to Austin. Then I run a social group called Objectivist Social, which is just, you know, against socials. We'd kind of hang out, meet with all the different people in the area. So there's a lot. There is a lot going on in terms of Objectivism here in Austin. I would say that it's more the epicenter than Southern California used to be, which is where I think the epicenter used to be, and so that's an exciting part of living here for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Unfortunately we don't have the weather Southern California, but yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a big deal yeah.
Speaker 2:The trade-offs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always talk about the weather and so I won't go into it too much this time, but I think it's an important segue for happiness though, because you know we're talking about finances. Happiness how do you achieve that? How do you think about that? You know, I could say my reason for moving to Austin was because I was in Northern California, which I think has some of the best weather in the world. That's where I was born and raised. I loved it.
Speaker 1:So I always kind of find myself gravitating back there at some points in my life and but because of the lockdowns during COVID, because of the intensity of all that, I became so isolated, so depressed, so miserable, that the weather just wasn't helping at all. You know, I used to have a motorcycle then because I could motor. You know I could literally ride year-round anywhere and I basically had that as my main vehicle and I loved that. I was a lot of fun. I can't really do that here, like there's times when it's just too hot for me, especially to do that.
Speaker 1:So when I was thinking about happiness, the next stages of my life, what would I do? I was like 36, I'm 35 or something. I'm 38 now. So I was just looking at places and even though I don't like Texas, I just, like you know, less standard of living is. You know, the cost of living is lower, the weather sucks, but there's a lot of good objectivists I was like, all right, fine, so I did it and it was a good thing because, like, it made sense on other levels and I just had to reprioritize my values and that, I think, has led to more happiness for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you touched on a great point there. You could have all the motorcycles in the world, the best motorcycle, the best workshop, all this stuff that money can buy and you can get with money. But if you don't have that freedom, if you don't have the other stuff in life, it's not going to bring you happiness. So it's. I think some people you know people say, oh, I just need a little bit more money and I'll be happier. I think that's not true at all.
Speaker 1:I will say one good thing about the shutdowns for me and I hated them probably as much or more than anybody, but because having that bike in California, you know, so you can lane split in California, like that's like one of the few. That means like driving in between the lanes, which I did all the time because it was so much traffic. But it was crazy because during the lockdowns there was like no traffic. So the one perk is that I could ride my motorcycle anywhere and it's going on. The sad part is like I couldn't go anywhere. There's nowhere to go, so like I could just go, like I could enjoy the ride, and then, you know, I could be on the. I mean I'd be on the beach that was beautiful, there's one, but there's no one around. It was like. So you know, you kind of get an appreciation for the people side of things, which is important in life too. I mean, there's only so much you can. I can handle the isolation, first line.
Speaker 2:No, definitely. We had some guys on my boat that really wanted to go bowling during the lockdown and they got caught off base at a bowling alley and ended up getting reduced in rank and pay and going to Captain's. Mass. So a huge deal just for going to a bowling alley. So it got. It got insane out there.
Speaker 1:Now I know you and I have one connection to finances so I don't want to. I'd be interested, if you're interested, in telling me a little bit about Bitcoin. I've heard some of it, I don't know a lot about. It Doesn't, honestly make a hundred percent sense to me in terms of an investment, but I can see it as like an interesting thing. But you and I do have a financial connection, which is with Rich Dad, poor Dad. So I read Robert Kiyosaki's book, I think in like 2001, because I was still in high school.
Speaker 1:I graduated 2003 and I actually started a little real estate investment club in high school and the club was actually just to learn about this stuff together, to bring on real estate investors and other types of salespeople, to learn those skills back in high school and eventually, you know, build out the kind of worldview or the kind of plan that Robert Kiyosaki was talking about. And we played cashflow. I think this one cashflow was coming out, the game cashflow 101. I think there was like a 202 or a 303. There's a more advanced game and it was like a $200. So it's like a big deal, I think, to buy those back then the more advanced one. So we did that and I learned a lot from that, even though I ended up not pursuing that real estate investment, although another person in my club did and I could talk about him and he's and what he's doing. He's doing very well, I think, because he did pursue that, but I'd be curious about your Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad, poor Dad story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I learned of it as a kid. My dad was a big reader. That's how I learned to iron ran, but he also had Rich Dad, poor Dad, and he said you got to read this book. You got to read this book and eventually I picked it up. You know, against it wasn't super interested in it, but then it started making a ton of sense to me.
Speaker 2:And just the thought of your time being one of the best, most like the ultimate asset is your time and the difference between assets and liabilities and how you can set yourself up to where you're not having to work at for a salary job that you may not love, that allows you to do other things you love for the rest of your life. Like, I think jobs are great and necessary for most people, but eventually not everyone can can work in there with what they're passionate about. I mean, ideally that would be the case. I find it very hard.
Speaker 2:Maybe, maybe I'm wrong there, but I think that financial freedom allows you to do stuff with your life that you really love, spend time with the people you love and work on projects that you love, without having to worry about where's my next, next paycheck coming from. And so that whole concept of assets versus liabilities I mean, he's Robert Kiyosaki's big into real estate, but Rich Dad, poor Dad, isn't just about real estate, it's about owning businesses as well. Owning assets, that cash flow and using that cash flow to pay for your liabilities. And I love that idea. To never get myself in a pinch, you know if I always have cash flowing assets, I know that that is financial freedom to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean that was. I think the big takeaway for me as well was, you know, as I was developing these ideas as a high school kid, developing a kind of different perspective on how to achieve success, particularly material success, and then I was also simultaneously reading Ayn Rand, which is about material plus spiritual success in conjunction. So thinking about those two together was very useful for me, and I agree with you that there's an important thing that we aren't really taught in terms of a mentality of how to think independently, to build our own you know lives, the way we want to build our lives, to kind of be the CEO of your own life, and the sense of you know, like I'm not and I don't think you are opposed to a job, but thinking about it in the way that it has always been taught to us is that you, you know, get good grades, you go to a good school, you get a good job and you're taking care of, in a sense, like that's the message I got I think most of us got in America and you know that can work out to some degree, but there's a lot of evidence that doesn't work out Like you could start making a lot of money and then your whole industry is taken over by AI. And now what do you do? Because you didn't have any control and you didn't think about the control you could have over your life. And that kind of thing, I think is detrimental, because again you're giving up the control, like when I think about going to an employer which I have an employer now and I love my job, it's a great job but I think about going to an employer as a paid employee.
Speaker 1:To me it's actually more like an alliance, it's more like a like we're having an agreement. I don't really consider it like. I consider them as like my biggest client, in a way where they're a client. Now we have parameters, we have a contract. This is how it works. But I don't think it was like they own my life. They don't even own my life during the nine to five or any period of time. It's just like I'm doing this X job for you to get X or to get Y result, and that's it. And you know like, can I get Y result better? And you evaluate me on that and that's how I look at it. And you know, I think they look at me the same way and there's a kind of reciprocal relationship, rather than, oh you know, give me this job so I could have the salary and I'll do whatever you want and anything you say, and it's like no, you're hiring me for my mind and my talents.
Speaker 2:Essentially, yeah, which is a different mentality, right? I think. Yeah, I think it's a good debt to have that mentality, and some people, I wouldn't say, aren't able I don't know if that's the right word but if they get themselves in such a pinch where they have to have a job just to pay the bills, just to eat and I think this reminds me of the fountain head and Howard Roark how he goes bankrupt and he has to take a job at a rock quarry, which for him, you know it's, I bet it's rewarding in that these are the materials that build the buildings that he loves to design. He'd much rather be an architect than working at that rock quarry, for however long he did. And if he had financial assets or stuff that would could pay for his sustenance, he wouldn't have to go to that rock quarry.
Speaker 2:You could keep designing buildings, and that's that's how I think of the power of of assets and financial freedom. It gives you the options to really choose the jobs you love and the projects you love, because you know that your basic needs are taken care of and and it's on your own dime and own risk. It's not a UBI or anything. It's not like we need some socialized safety net. It's you make your own safety net.
Speaker 1:Well. So here's why I'm going to push back a little bit on that idea actually, because I agree in in some sense. But one of the problems, so this is why I left the the path of Rich Dad, poor Dad, which does push you toward getting assets for the sake of getting assets. But the problem, so I agree with that and I, looking back, maybe I should have done more of that for sure, because I think, financial, I'd be in a much better position. I'm not in a horrible position, but I'd be in a better position.
Speaker 1:But one of the things I think is problematic in that, versus the Howard Rourke model in a sense, is that you aren't necessarily building the skills in the profession that you want. So let's say, Howard Rourke became like a real estate agent or, like you know, went into the investment world or something like that. Well then, he's not practicing design, right, he's not. I mean now he could on the side, yeah, you could do that and that's fine. And again, sometimes you have to do that. I'm not against that.
Speaker 1:My point is just that, especially when you're young and you can make those non-financial decisions more easily, I do recommend, I do think it's actually valuable to just go through the suffering quote unquote financially when you're young for your craft, because in the long run it'll benefit you. Now, how long you do that, how much you do that, that's up to every individual person. And if you're capable of, on the side, running like a dropshipping business that makes money, do it 100%. If you get a chunk of windfall money from inheritance invested in real estate and continue suffering financially for a while. So you know, and if you want to be a writer, whatever it is you want to do, you need to just do that full time, particularly when you're young, otherwise you'll never get great at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's true. The opportunity cost right, Like all the time spent reading real estate books that could have been reading something else that could perfect my craft in. So I think-.
Speaker 1:Well, it depends on your passions and interests, though.
Speaker 2:Mike.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So you might be interested in that, legitimately. So, my friend, his name is Marco Romero. We've done business together. He's here in the central Texas area, he comes to a lot of events, so hopefully you'll meet him sometime. But he stayed with it and now he has like I don't know 40, they call it doors. He has like 40 doors now, right, and he has like all these investment properties and he loves that stuff. But that's why he stayed with it is because he loved that. Right, I left because I loved writing and literature and I wanted to pursue that. So go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 2:No, and it makes me think about it. What more, one of another big reason that I like the idea of real estate and started investing in real estate. It was kind of a, it was almost out of fear and I don't know if this is this was rational or not, but I saw what the financial crisis could do. So my dad got a little rich dad happy and had over leveraged himself with some houses and he was leaving the military and the financial crisis happened. He had to sell and just got himself into a lot of trouble with real estate and finances. And I saw when you have to like all the choices he made, which I lived a great childhood I saw what he had to do to provide for us.
Speaker 2:I didn't want that with my family in the future and I wanted to be in a really stable footing. That didn't add all those stressors, whether rational or not, you know we all. It's his character. There's nothing happened with his character. He's a great man. I love him. But there was definitely a lot of stress in the, in the household, when you're going through financial problems. So that made me really want to, no matter what, always have that, that safety net, which I don't know there's there's trade offs there.
Speaker 1:Well. So I think one of Robert Kiyosaki's big values and insights is his whole conversation with his dad, who was an educator, and other teachers in the school system who, when he asked them, when are we going to start learning about money? I said we don't teach that subject here, and so the idea of how to deal with finances, how to think about finances, how to be smart about your finances, is like an important subject that we aren't actually taught much about, and it's valuable for us to learn some of the basics, Like. I was probably in my 30s when I started learning things about it and that was only mostly because I started. One of my clients was a guy named Jake Nuno who's a certified financial planner in San Antonio, and for seven years we've done a podcast called the Jacob all trades, which is a financial podcast, and I would basically be. He was the expert, I was the dummy who didn't know anything and he would just basically. You know, I literally started off in an RV when we were doing this, broke, basically, and then I learned a lot. Now I have a house, I built my own gym, you know a lot of. That's just making like slight different changes in how I think about things.
Speaker 1:I still think I have a lot to learn, but the value of understanding finances is profound and I think if we learn them younger, you know people can make more decisions.
Speaker 1:And having like a holistic view of life is really difficult because you know again, my advice to like 19, 18, 19, 20, all the way to like 26, 27 year olds is just live in poverty and, in a sense, like be willing to go after your passion that you really want.
Speaker 1:But if you need to like, that's a time when you can do the poverty thing a lot better. And just do that for for five, six years, going toward the thing you want. And put anything you can aside into any kind of investment, like to get started, even a small amount, even if it's just a couple of thousand dollars, whatever to get started and that's it. And just focus on getting something and thinking about how am I going to take my passion and make real money with it, which I think is the valuable you know endeavor, Because going after your passion for the sake of going after your passion, I think is a mistake. It's you should own, you should be figuring out how to take the thing that lights you up and bring it to a market that wants that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you said you were living in RV, was that out of necessity or out of choice? You're trying to save up.
Speaker 1:It was a that's complicated. It was kind of necessity. So I had basically the small story. The quick story was I had a business with Marco Romero at the time. It was called Real Elite. We did media production, media production services for real estate investors in the San Antonio area and we made pretty good money actually for a small two man team with very little overhead and everything but his other, his main business, marco's main business, started really picking up because I was doing shows, producing shows for him on social media for free, and all of a sudden his team went from like him, his wife and one other person to like a 13 person team and they got like office spaces and like in the span of seven, eight months, so very quickly. So that made him start to consider well, the real elite thing is a side project for me. This is really starting to take off. I need to put all my efforts here. So we split ways amicably.
Speaker 1:He gave me the whole thing basically, but I was like I don't want to do this without you, so I just took one or two clients. I was like I don't know what I want to do now and I, you know, was trying to figure out stuff. So actually just said you know what I'm going to get out of this lease that I have. I'm going to put some money into just getting this living as cheaply as possible. I thought an RV would be doing that, where I could do, like you know, living cheaply and doing content creation and have like a fun. So I called I had a show called very short live show, rv Odyssey, because I love literature, so the Odyssey of Homer and I was going to do a whole bunch of shows like that and I did.
Speaker 1:And the problem was one on RV living is much more expensive than people think. Like it's really hard to do the living on the street level of the RV, like that's a lot harder than people think. I was watching videos on how to do it and people who are doing it made it seem easy. It's not that easy and yeah, it's like really expensive, like just getting. If you want to hook up, you're talking like $45 a night and over 30 days. If you were to do it like a do a hook up for 30 days, excuse me, that's basically like $1,200 or whatever, or you know. So it's like rent and then you're paying.
Speaker 1:And then I was. I didn't buy the RV outright. I bought an older RV but I still had a little bit that I had to pay for it. So you know it was an interesting learning experience. I like RVs, I think it's. I would definitely one day you know if I have a family and everything it'd be fun to have an RV and go on a trip. I don't think I would live in one ever Not permanently anyway. So yeah, that was my RV story and I started off low and then I yeah, no, and that's.
Speaker 2:I kind of got that from Rich Shedport. That too is kind of having that, that craze for savings, like always trying to, and it's a dichotomy too. It's not. It's not a. I don't think it's bad to have a scarcity mindset, like scarcity versus abundance, like the save a penny versus make a buck mode or whatever people say. But saving is super beneficial and, like you said, the more you save, the more you can invest in other things, the more time you can invest in yourself and your passion just to really prioritize what's important and realize that the true cost of of rents like maybe if you get a roommate you know like or maybe, maybe some places.
Speaker 2:what I wanted to do when I was in Florida is I got an RV and my plan was to get a house and park the RV on property, get the hookups and then rent out the house. I ended up not doing that, yeah, but just finding those little little ways uh, house hacking is the I don't know. You hear that a lot nowadays where, as soon as you can get a, get a mortgage that you can afford reasonably I'm very conservative, you know like I don't want any questions of am I able to pay this monthly rent? But with the extra space, rent it out and have the other people pitch into your mortgage, like all these ways that you can can save money are huge.
Speaker 1:Well, so I'll tell one principle that I learned. In many principles I learned working with Jake Nuno, the co-host with me of Jacob Alltrades and a certified financial planner, was one thing, and this is just how I kind of formulated. But one thing that's problematic, especially when you're young, is really grasping the whole idea that you're going to be here for 80, 90 years and like because when you're young you know that on some high, abstract conceptual level, but it's very difficult to really see it because you just don't have enough history. You know 38 now, so I can. I remember what it was like to be 28. That was 10 years ago and I remember what it was like to be 18 and like that whole, like you need a kind of memory and you don't have that as a 26 year old.
Speaker 1:But one way that I really think would have been helpful for me when I was younger, and so if you're a younger person listening to this, it's like whenever someone tells me about saving, about investment, it's always about the law, like the really long term. It's always about like you should be in saving now because when you're 65, if you put this much in you'll be a millionaire. It's like, well, maybe I won't even live to 65. What does that mean? What does that mean to me? Right, it doesn't really. So the way I think about it now is like I try to have six to eight months of all my expenses taken care. So that's what you should do, even if you're 25, your savings goal should be like if I can get to a point where I have six to eight months or a year of all my expenses taken care of, that's valuable, especially in like a more realistic would be like three to six months of your rents and your basic living expense, like your most basic living expenses. So you could say if you're $1,200 a month for rent, let's say, and you have a couple of hundred dollars for groceries and then gas, let's say so $1,750 a month, and save that for three, you can get a full three to six months of that.
Speaker 1:That's a savings goal you could have. That's very valuable because it gives you a kind of confidence that if things don't work out at the current job, then I can. I have three to six months to figure it out and get another job or do something else which is a good place to be in, and so to me that's a much more manageable financial goal that I learned. That's very useful, but I did not have. I was often scrambling. Now, luckily, I have some sales skills so I could often hustle something and figure something out, but it's not a great place to be in. I think now I have a good, you know, six plus months built up easily Well, not easily, but I could do that pretty good. So if something bad happened I could probably survive, even though it's sad.
Speaker 2:So yeah go ahead.
Speaker 2:One thing I caution with that too, if I think a lot of people underestimate how much they actually spend. So, people, I would highly recommend tracking your expenses and, like I use, I started using you need a budget, a YNAB like probably 2012. So like over 10 years, and it's been a game changer for tracking all the expenses, categorizing it, and it's a budget system of, like the envelope budgeting system, so it's. You can create these categories so food, housing, gas, and you, you know, allocate dollars towards those, and so you know exactly, like this is how much I have to spend. And then it also tracks. You can see, you know the average of your last year's expenses.
Speaker 1:To keep you honest, Well, yeah, so I think a lot of banks do that now pretty automatically, which is nice. So I still kind of I'll probably get rid of this soon. I have Rocket Money which does that. It's an app that does that, but through my certified. So I also recommend people getting a CFP as soon as possible in your corner, like, especially if you're not good at finances, I don't care what it costs like it's worthwhile to have that voice in your head professionally telling you what to be doing essentially, given your situation and your long-term goals, and they will often have some kind of website or whatever that does exactly what you're talking about. To get a more realistic view of, okay, this is how much I spend and then you can make a, you know, a kind of a baseline, as you said, envelope budget to know that I need three to six months of this.
Speaker 1:My point about the three to six months is the mentality, though, to know that, like that's a goal people can actually have, that they can work toward as a young person. That makes sense versus save for when you're 70. That's too big and, like you could always tell yourself I'll do that, I'll start, you know, I'll do that later, like I'm only 25. I could, I'll do that a little bit. That's. That's not the point of saving. The point of saving should be to help you through certain intermediary things because it's true, you may not live to 70. So you know, hopefully you do, hopefully we all live to 120. I want to live to 120 healthily. But that's the wrong kind of mentality, I think, to think like the long term, which is all we're taught. That's what I was taught, and so I always tell young people just try to get that three months of your baseline budget. Like, go for that first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think there is. There's some value to me for the long view. There's one one reason when I I bought my first house in Charleston, south Carolina, when I was going to power school there, I thought, okay, I have this house. The mortgage rate is really low, based on the rental market in this area. You know, in a year when I leave, I'm pretty confident like I'm going to be able to get renters that will pay for this mortgage. And as long as I can get renters, to pay for this mortgage and maybe there's some.
Speaker 2:I have a steady cash flow in another area that can play for some vacancies down the road or any, and I allocate so whenever I have to change out the carpet or do any repairs. So I know there's other expenses that go with it. But in the long run in 30 years I got 30 year mortgage this house would be paid off. So I'd always have a place to move to or I could an equivalent house of this of this stature I could sell and I have that as a backstop and for me that's comforting and it's it's. You know I'm not going to be be rich by a single house, but having that in the backdrop of a safety net is, I still, I think, still valuable at minimal cost. You know it's really not costing me anything to have this backstop, so I'm going to have this backstop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it costs you the house.
Speaker 2:No, but the cut I mean okay. So I see what you're saying In this case, in this case, I was in the military, so I had a 0% down house. Whatever, but still primary residence is, you can put.
Speaker 2:None of this is investment advice, of course but you can put 3 to 5% down and depending on the numbers, like if you can get to where the rents are covering the mortgage and all the costs there is liability. You have risk. It's riskier than but I can't say it's riskier than holding cash, because cash is getting devalued and debased every day. So I think it's a. For me it made a lot of sense as soon as I could. If the numbers work out, make that jump.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think figuring out that situation, figuring out exactly what strategy to use, is important for, and it's individualized, so some people may be really good or maybe a possibility for them is creating some side business, online, for instance, and that could be an asset, something that is valuable. I mentioned drop shipping or I don't know if that's even as big a thing anymore, but there's a lot of little things, side hustles, like you have a passion or skill on the side, putting that into an asset and in terms of an income generating machine, essentially, even if it's just a little bit extra and extra $500,000 a month, that can offset a lot of stuff. And, yeah, if you're in a situation where you're able and it makes financial sense to purchase a home, I think there's a lot to consider with that, including the liability part of it, including the market, might change. Yeah, you should definitely consider that as one important asset or opportunity. For sure, I think that's a valuable one to think about.
Speaker 1:The question is always what is the individual person's interest and passions? Because you do have to learn a lot, so there's still a lot. You, mike, learned about that, which is good, and if you have the time to do that. Do that and you also had different. If you're not in the military, like if you're in Texas in the military, you don't pay property taxes and property tax is one of your biggest expenses in Texas.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's.
Speaker 1:Oh no, If you're a vet, my dad's a vet. He doesn't pay any property taxes in Texas, 100%.
Speaker 2:I think if you're in the military, well, you're in the military. I think if you have to be a certain disability, Okay, so he's 100% dissipate.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's probably it. I don't know enough about the whole vet chain, but I just know my father is that. So, yeah, good point. Point is that's a different situation for him, even figuring out exactly what that looks like for each of you. It could just be you're living in a room in someone's house, you have a job and you do some online business, or you go out and you flip like if you know Gary Vaynerchuk, you flip like garage sale flipping. Where you go to garage sales, you find some cheap stuff. You sell it on eBay. You could make an extra $500 a week doing that. $200 a week, that's not nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I'm completely. Gary Vee is one of my favorite people to follow on social media.
Speaker 1:And I completely agree.
Speaker 2:It's got to be something you're passionate about. Because you're not passionate about it, you're not going to do the research, you're not going to invest the necessary time into it, and if you do, it's a waste. If you're investing all that time and you don't like it, then what are you doing? So I think that's a great point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because life is limited. Now, saying life is limited, though, one thing we can maybe move into more happiness idea is, for me, finances are not just something that's an interesting thing. To make side money to have your life be better, this is just what you're supposed to do. It's literally foundational to living in the world, which is necessary for happiness, and making a lot of money is a valuable good thing, especially if you do it based on your own interests, passions and integrity and honor and everything. It's not.
Speaker 1:Obviously, the idea of making a lot of money can go wrong. Where someone is immoral, they lie, cheat, steal, hook or crook. That's obviously bad. But the idea of making money as itself is very good and even though I don't think it directly leads to happiness necessarily, it's definitely critical for the achievement of the kinds of values that will make you happy.
Speaker 1:So for me, making a lot of money means being able to find a romantic partner that we can live a wonderful life filled with art and travel and just experiences, going on to nice fine dining that could be like $200, $300 at dinner. Those kinds of things make me happy in the sense of the achievement of values and then building into my own business. That also makes me happy, so having the finances to do that. So to me, I don't know how you think about the relationship to finances and happiness. I think of it almost as like the skeleton and muscle finances like the skeleton and muscles, and you know this is a bad analogy, but happiness is kind of the heart and soul and brain of it. They're integral. You can't have one without the other.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I completely agree, because I think I could be happy and dirt poor it definitely opens up.
Speaker 1:You know, you think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm one of the dirt?
Speaker 1:I definitely. What do you mean by dirt poor?
Speaker 2:Explain that, Give me your number when I know where I'm. I could be happy in a jail cell. You know like locked up, not being able to do stuff or you got that stoic mentality. No, I mean, I'd rather not, I'd rather not be there.
Speaker 1:But you can be, you're saying yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's all how you approach things, and I love Ayn Rand for the productive achievement as a value. I think I really resonate with that as where I want to work the rest of my life, so why do I even need to save? Like I don't want to see how fast I can retire and just live off my retirement. That's not enticing to me, but I still am going to save because it provides you more options, different ways to fulfill your happiness and go after things that you were excited about. So I think that's the true value of, like you said, going out to find dining. Like you got to have money. You got to have produced something in order to convince someone else to trade with you.
Speaker 1:But I want to pick on this. I want to ask you about this though this whole I can be happy in a jail cell, like I could be happy in a concentration camp type thing. So explain to me how you think you could be happy in that situation, like, how would that look to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, the way I had this, I thought the other day, and so I was in a submarine and kind of like a jail cell right. I could never do that, by the way. That's so brave to me.
Speaker 1:I think, like I did a tour once, I'm like F. No way that's intense. That's very brave of you.
Speaker 2:I was on one of the big ones. And, of course, submarine versus jail. I know I'm working for national defense Like I have a job I'm doing every day staying in watch but other than that, you know it's wake up every day, do the same. You know it's very like Groundhog Day-esque and I was thinking if I'm in jail I could and nowadays I'm assuming I have the internet and I have books like you could read I could work on physical fitness and ideas, and there's so much with the internet today that you can learn and learn a language and push yourself and try to do things you're interested in, and I would enjoy that. Of course, it would be better to be able to interact with more people, to have different opportunities. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think you've touched on the key thing I was trying to get at is when you say, like you're in this jail cell, you would have access to the internet, to books and basically those two things which would mean, and the floor did you push ups.
Speaker 1:And the floor and maybe even the the. Actually, you know they A lot of prisoners come out pretty ripped because all they're doing is lifting weights, right. So you'd probably have access to the weight, so you'd have health, mind and access to the world. So, yeah, I think the key thing here is that what you would have are access to some values and what you're saying. So to me, what I'm hearing is there's a relationship between You're happy, because if I cut all those off, you would not be happy. If I put you in a dark cell by yourself, you probably would be. Then the happiness would be going away, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or do you think you could be happy if I put you in isolation for years?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'd rather not test that out. Probably not.
Speaker 1:Okay. So for me the critical thing is the pursuit of those values, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of worldly, getting you know, building something in the world through the internet and the building of your body. That's what I'm hearing and I agree with that fully. And the jail cell thing is, yes, without access to a nice restaurant, you could still maintain some level of happiness. Because you're, because you're able to pursue values on some level, I would think that you would still have a major part of your happiness impossible.
Speaker 1:There's still a limit to that in my view, because you don't really have freedom, and freedom is the issue. Like you can't just walk up to the grocery store and get a pint of ice cream because you just you know what the hell with it, with my diet today, I just want to have some damn ice cream, right, or whatever, or have a bottle of wine, or whatever it is. You cannot do that in a jail. So there's huge limitations, that. But you're getting to the key where, to me, the pursuit of these specific values is what's critical to happiness, to me, a psychological state, and if we take that away, then you have no ability to pursue any values. It's very difficult to have that, and I would tell everyone to go read a book called Man's Search for Meaning. If you haven't read that one, have you read that?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I would really recommend that. That is from Victor Frankel and he basically was in a concentration camp. Everything was taken from him and he actually has a. It's a beautiful story, it's very popular, has a wonderful story about still, even in that environment, having the imagination, the vision of what he would eventually have and that's what sustained him. And I do agree that if life comes and takes you down, that's an incredible important value to pursue. There's a poem I recommend everybody read, also called Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, which is about that. It's about I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. So in those dark moments but I don't think the dark moments are the necessary thing for happiness so happiness is happiness equals, sign, pursuit of concrete, rational values. That's how I think of it, because of what I've learned from Iron Rand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think listing out those values is a good exercise. I don't know, have you ever thought of, like, what your major values are?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and more and more lately I did something with the CEO of ARI's, tals Fawney, and he does something called the happiness team and I recommend people do the happiness team.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting and he does has a really good and it's very valuable. He has a very good exercise system for writing these out, kind of thinking them through, going through all the concrete you can think of, trying to abstract a way into what's your overall. So you know, for me it was like community, strength, imagination, education like those are top overarching values that guide a lot of my life and it makes it a lot easier also in like building relationships, because people who don't value strength and imagination, I'm not going to get along with them. I'm a high level romantic in all areas of my life and so I could not be with a woman who doesn't really appreciate romanticism, not just the romance stuff, but like the like high level of visionary romance. So like knowing those values are really important to know yourself so that you could go out in the world and find the kind of people that you want to be around and influence the kind of people you want to influence.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree.
Speaker 2:My number one, I would, I always say, freedom, health, and then the loved ones and productive achievement, I think go hand in hand. They're like. I don't know if you necessarily need to rank, order them, because it's not like you have to do tradeoffs.
Speaker 1:But with freedom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes I was thinking in North Korea, the people born in North Korea, that's terrible, but that person in North Korea can still, if they can, you know, be rational, find reason, find have good ideas and fight against the corrupt regime. I think that's a life well lived. You know, like, even in those terrible scenarios, I think you could have a great life and a happy life. So it's not that and that's my, that's my kind of reason for bringing up the jail cell. Even in these situations where people are thrust into, out of their control, you can still have a rewarding, happy life. I don't know if you agree.
Speaker 1:I don't think you could have a rewarding, happy life if you're stuck in that forever. I, like, my view, is like I said you can still pursue some values on some level and that's the life you're able to. And one of the values you should be is how to get out of that. That should be a big part of your life which can be, I guess, a form of happiness in that you're pursuing escape and so while you're alive, you're aiming toward the, the life outside of that. But I do think there's a. So there's a great book by I ran called we.
Speaker 1:The Living was her first novel.
Speaker 1:I really recommend everybody read that because that's it was originally called air tight and it's about the kind of constricting you know, starting in the 1920s communist, you know Soviet regime that was just getting started and how it squeezes and squeezes the best out of people. And I don't know if you've read that, but here are going to. Gov is trying to be a steal. She wants to build bridges and she wants to pursue her life and her values. She's not able to in the world she lives in, so she wants to get out and it's the whole journey of her trying to do that and I think she's trapped in it. There's a lot of misery, but because she has that goal of getting out as a valuable thing, she, she, is alive, fully flourishing, and alive in that sense. So I agree, as long as you have the right pursuit of values, but it's still. We cannot evade the fact that it's a huge constriction on your actual ability to do that. Like death is literally what's around the corner for people in North Korea if they step out of line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's huge to recognize that in the United States, we have it extremely good. We are the best country people. I disagree with so many things that we do as a country or our country does, but it's still still awesome. There's plenty of and I still am going to fight fight against the things I don't like, like. That's why I love the iron rain meetups and trying to spread reason and and that type of philosophy, objectivism throughout the world. I think it would be a better place it's a. It makes me happy to talk about it to do this sort of stuff, and that's talking about finances. I don't like the fiat system. I think you know the fact that we left the gold standard and and there's there's not free banking in the world is a mistake. That's why I'm not going to say like I think everyone should learn about Bitcoin, because I think that is the key value prop to Bitcoin. Is it? Everyone should learn about Bitcoin for the freedom aspect of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a can of worms. I agree that it'd be nice, if you know, I'll just say this and I'll let you have a rebuttal, but we can go on forever and we're running out of time. But I would just my my only view is you have to solve the underlying philosophical premises before you can get to that kind of freedom of money. Because the issue is and I know you're not going to agree with this, I'm pretty confident is that I think the government will discover ways to hinder even Bitcoin, despite and I do know enough about it that the whole point of it is to kind of go outside the radar and it has the whole structure of how that works and I think it does work.
Speaker 1:But there's still a lot of power the government can have on the end product of what you could buy with that by. They could just stop, they could shut down a company if they ever find out you ever take Bitcoin, for instance, like they. They just have power. So the underlying my point is the underlying philosophy needs to be fixed. Now, if Bitcoin can somehow solve it, then I'm all for that, because I'm very much for freedom and money, freedom of exchange, things like that. But again, I think as a society, we need to solve the underlying premises that are leading us to be OK with having a fiat system and a fed and and so much government interference in economics as such.
Speaker 2:No, I agree. I don't think Bitcoin itself fixes the world, because there's going to be bad ideas. We're still going to have subsidies. If we had a Bitcoin standard, people could tax the heck out of it. So there needs to be good ideas, but I don't think it's like an if-then type thing. I think it can be parallel, kind of like what we're seeing with Argentina and Javier Malay's election.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's not going to. I don't know if that itself is going to change the world there, but I think it's going to introduce more people to Ayn Rand too. Yeah, these ideas that are very good and every little bit helps. And I think Bitcoin does the same thing. It's going to get attacked, but the ideas behind Bitcoin are the Austrian economics, very free market, that kind of stuff. I think it will help the education. It goes hand in hand and it's something that if we ever do go to a hard money standard, stay on money standard. I think it protects itself from the bad ideas, from the thieves, the looters, the moochers. Just the way Bitcoin's built compared to a gold, and that's a whole other rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:That's another rabbit hole. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I agree with the principles behind what they would like to do. I would love to see a marketplace for money.
Speaker 1:It's like it would be Bitcoin versus gold, versus diamonds versus cigarettes, I don't know Whatever. I think that's a good thing and I'm for that. That, to me, is the real thing to advocate into the degree that Bitcoin represents. That that's good. I would caution people that just be careful in putting your money into it unless you really know a lot about it and you understand what you're getting into. That's really my only thing. But yeah, I think, like I said, I think we're on the same page with the design, yeah, even if you never invest in it.
Speaker 2:Just the whole idea of it and Austrian economics I think is really fascinating. It's the most I mean. I think Alex Epstein has done a huge, like tangible effect of bringing those type of ideas into the real world. I think what?
Speaker 1:So his ideas are the moral case for fossil fuels, like advocating for fossil fuels oil, coal, natural gas for burning more of those. Using more of those is what he's been advocating for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I see that relation with Bitcoin to me. I think it can make a tangible change in the financial system with these freedom ideas, whether or not it gets adopted or it gets pushed away and taxed forever. So just the whole idea behind sound money I think needs to be brought up again and people need to realize hey, fiat is an experiment, it's totally state run. This is not what a free market money would look like.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the only thing I would push back for you to think about. If you agree or disagree, it's just To me, it's yes, you want sound money as an end result, but the way to get the question is how do you get there? And to me, the way to get there is to have competition among money, because there is no sound money in terms of like. This is like. Bitcoin is the thing. It may have been some other electronic thing, or maybe we would find that the electronic money isn't actually the best, that having some hard, physical thing is necessary. I don't know, that's a question to be asked. Maybe Bitcoin it can answer that or solve it. We could only know these types of things in a free market where there's competition, and I think that's the under. For me, that's the underlying premise that needs to come out of all of this. Like, if we want sound money because of these values, we need this necessary input of freedom of competition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree and I. Yeah, we're on the same page. Yeah, I just have come to the conclusion that Bitcoin is the best money, based on my what properties of money I think are important. But that's, I think. You have to come to that yourself. Like everyone's going to be different probably, but I think, Bitcoin is the best.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. So last thoughts about happiness now. So we have there's the idea about finances. You know, the quote that I have, I like, by, I think, simon Sinek, is like money won't buy you happiness, but it'll pull the yacht alongside of happiness, which I think is great. It's like, you know, I want these.
Speaker 1:I'd love to have a boat one day or something, and I do, actually would love to have a boat. But having a boat is not going to make me happy. What's going to make me happy is having, you know, the friend's family wife on the boat that I love and have great relationships with, or on the beach, without a boat, like either way. But the boat would be nice, right, it would be a nice, cool thing to have. That, when I think, enhance the the In pleasure to have, like a sailboat going through, you know, the Galapagos islands on a sailboat with your wife, or something. That would be great. So that's my view of happiness and finances. Finances, or finances are kind of allow you to be the winds of, the sails of your happiness, in a sense that like enhances it to me. What do you think? Last thoughts on happiness and finance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, money is not going to bring you the wife and the kids and if it does, be skeptical, because that's not what a true relationship is. So I think that's very important and it's hard to realize that until you come into some money, I felt like I was making a solid paycheck. As a naval officer, I had everything I could really want for the basic needs. And you realize like, hey, like okay, this is nice, but that's not what brings happiness. It's the relationships, it's the work you're doing, it's all that other stuff, and money makes it more accessible and gives you a little more options, but it's not going to bring the happiness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the thing that I this is something I learned I heard from Iron Rand when she was on I think Donahue and I'm taking this to my grave is my favorite thing. I think you want happiness is two things you need and this is definitely true for me you need romantic love and imaginative work. You have those two pillars, you're happy and everything else is supported under those pillars in a sense. But I think those two things romantic love and imaginative work work, so that actually makes money and all that goes along with that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I like that Very nice.
Speaker 1:All right, mike. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and talking about finance is happiness, and we only had a slight, slight argument about Bitcoin. That was pretty civil and I appreciate that. But thanks so much and I hope to see you and, if you're an Austin guys, hopefully Mike will come join us for a third Thursdays and future events and you can go see him there and go check out his podcast Again. I'll share a link in the show notes, but it's link tree link tr dot e slash the Mike White pod, so check that out.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, Kirk. I look forward to seeing you at the third Thursday this month.
Speaker 1:All right, see you later.