Your Money or Your Life | Chapter 4

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Doing the book club today. Book club continuing with our book, Your Money or Your Life. The topic of the book, financial freedom, financial independence. Meaning, you don't have to work for money anymore.

No more working for money. You have enough money to live without working. That's their definition. The writers of the book, that's their definition of financial independence.

So it means you've got enough money saved and invested. or from some kind of passive or semi-passive income source where you don't have to, you don't have to work a job to live.

That's financial independence. And what it really is, is time independence. As we have discussed already, it means you have the independence to choose each day how you use your time.

You are not forced, you're not forced to go to a job each day for eight hours a day, nine hours a day, four hours a day. Nothing. Doesn't matter. So that's what financial independence means.

We're going to do chapter four today. I'm letting some people join on live. We're live on YouTube as usual. People checking in. Let me just see what our numbers are.

All right, looking good. We're good. Let's jump in, shall we? Let's do, as usual, I'll go through and summarize Chapter 4, the main points, give you some of my thoughts about it.

Then I'll come to the comments and questions. As usual, especially with book club and movie club, But even in general, I will mostly choose the questions or the comments that are connected to our topic. Maybe sometimes I will do some frequently asked questions shows where I just

answer the same questions again and again and again. But honestly, I think that probably our regular listeners are getting probably tired of hearing me answer the same exact questions every day.

I'm getting a little tired too. So I'll focus on questions that are connected to our topic, and our topic is financial independence. And specifically, the topic is Your Money or Your Life, Chapter 4. Let's begin.

Let's begin. Chapter 4. The title of chapter 4. How much is enough? The nature of fulfillment. Oops. How much is enough? The nature of fulfillment. What is fulfillment?

They ask at the beginning. And they answer. Fulfillment is that experience of deep satisfaction. An experience of feeling... of deep, meaning strong, satisfaction.

They say, to have a fulfilled life, you need to have a sense of purpose, a dream. of what a good life might be. Okay, so fulfillment in the big sense. It's a feeling of satisfaction with your life, but at a deeper level, deep purpose, it's a feeling of purpose.

Deep fulfillment, rather, is a feeling, a sense, an experience of having purpose and meaning in your life. I think that would include things like love and faith, contribution, virtue, these things.

And that when you have all of that in your life, then you have fulfillment, this overall general feeling or sense of deep satisfaction, fulfillment. So the nature of fulfillment... So this is interesting because...

It's showing us again that their idea of financial independence is not being rich. Being rich meaning having luxury, right? That's what most people think, luxury. The most expensive cars, the biggest houses, etc.

But they're saying, no, no, no. Having a fulfilling life, having the freedom to create a very fulfilling life for you. That's what it means to be financially independent.

a sense of purpose, and those things I mentioned again, love, connection, contribution, purpose, meaning. Those things do not require huge amounts of money.

They do require time, though. They do require time, and that's why the money becomes important, because we need enough money so we have the freedom of time.

Then they ask you, take a few moments and reflect upon your dreams. Think about your dreams, your dream for a good life, a meaningful life. And then they ask a few questions to think about. What have you always wanted to do that you haven't yet done?

So think about this. In your life, what are some things in your life you have always dreamed about doing? You're like, I don't know, starting a business, traveling, becoming a monk, whatever.

Having children. What have you always wanted to do? You've thought about doing it, but you still haven't done it yet. You haven't done it. Become an artist.

Learn to play the guitar, whatever it is. So think about that and write it down. Next question. If you knew you were going to die in one year, you'll have one year to live only, only one year left.

How would you spend that year? What would you do during your last year living, your last year alive? Why is that an important question? Because if you think about that, it will kind of show you what's really important to you, right?

It'll show you. maybe some of those big dreams or just what's important. You might just say, oh, I'll spend time with my family all the time. So that shows you that your family is very, very important and meaningful to you, which means maybe you should try to spend more time with them now, even though hopefully you will live longer than a year.

Stop working so much. Spend more time with your children. Spend more time with your family. Maybe you would say you'd travel. Maybe you would do something else.

I don't know. But the point is, ideally, you do that now. Create that life now. Don't wait until you have one year to live. It's just a question to show you what your dreams are, what's important to you.

Okay, the final question, and this is the really important one. I put it in blue if you're watching on video. Because this is the key question. This is financial independence, this question.

If you didn't have to work, you didn't have to work for a living to make money, you did not need a job, no work at all, what would you do with your time?

So let's say if you're working, if you have a job or you're going to school, same idea. If you didn't have to do that, if you had enough money to live your life without working at all, no jobs at all, what would you do every day? How would you spend your time? Instead of going to work, instead of going to school, what would you do?

This again will show you fulfillment. What is fulfillment? What kind of life do you actually really want? What is that? What kind of life do you want to achieve with your financial independence?

See, too many people they just have, they just think, I want to be rich, I want to be rich. Well, why? What will you do when you're rich? How will you live?

How will your life be better? They don't know. They're just programmed to think they need a lot of money. But this question is much more specific. How will you spend your time every day if you don't have to work?

It's a great question. What will you do? All right, then they give a few stories, some examples from people in their class. They had a class in America, and so they just give some stories of how other people answered those questions.

All right, next, step four, they say. Three questions that will transform your life. Okay, now we're going to get specific about your money. Remember last week you created, hopefully, these categories, tracking your spending, and you put your spending into categories like food, and then even smaller categories like eating at restaurants, eating lunch at work,

Eating at home, junk food, whatever. You have all these categories. So now what they want you to do, and then you change it to hours. How many hours, right?

You saw the amount of money. How much money did you spend on those categories? And then you change that to hours, hours of your life based on how much money you make.

So now they want you to go and look at everything you spent. They want you to look at your spending, your spending history, and ask a question. Every category, every category where you spent money, ask these same questions. Did I receive fulfillment in proportion to the life energy spent?

What does that mean? It means, you look, let's say you, again, you ate at restaurants and you spend, I don't know, $500 in a month. You make $10 an hour.

All right, so 50 hours. You had to work 50 hours to pay for the restaurant food. So what you have to now ask is, okay, did I receive, you know, from eating at the restaurants, did it give me...

enough happiness, enough fulfillment, enough satisfaction in my life, goodness in my life, to equal 50 hours of my work. 50 hours. Was it worth it? Was that a good value, working 50 hours to pay for that food, those meals at the restaurant?

Or maybe it was clothes. He spent $300 on shoes. So let's say, okay, 30 hours of work. Was it worth it? Did you get 30 hours of happiness? Was it worth working at your job?

30 hours. Did you get enough happiness from those shoes, enough fulfillment from those shoes to equal 30 hours of your life? And then they say what you do is you make a chart. If the answer is yes, then you put a plus, I think it is,

If the answer is no, put a minus. Yeah, exactly. In fact, they say maybe in some categories it gave you so much happiness, you actually want to spend more in that category. So you can see it's not always about cutting.

There might be some areas where you spent money and you got a lot of satisfaction. So again, let's imagine travel. Maybe you took a trip. You traveled to another country.

And it was an amazing experience. And you think, oh, yeah, definitely. Maybe you had to work 100 hours to pay for the trip. But you think, oh, yeah, the trip was so great.

It was worth it. It was worth 200 hours. I would happily work more to do that trip or to travel more. So maybe, actually, you will decide, I want to spend more money doing that.

I want to spend more money traveling. Another example, a common example, like from my life, you might say like books. Maybe you bought books and you spent $100 on books and you think about the books and they were really great and some of them changed your life and you think, yeah, I got great value. I spent $100 on books, but I got so much satisfaction and learning from the books.

Actually, I would like to spend more money on books every month. So that's fine. That's great. Put a plus in that category if you want to spend more. Or maybe you bought a gift for someone you love and it made them happy and that made you really happy.

So you put a plus. Gifts. You want to spend more money on gifts for people you love. All of that's great. So it doesn't always have to be minus. Right?

Some areas might be plus. Some areas you might realize, ah, yes, it's really good to spend money on these things. But other areas... you'll put a minus.

Other areas, you'll decide, like let's say junk food. You're spending a lot of money on junk food. Maybe you're busy and you're stressed out and you're spending a lot of money on junk food. You know it's not good for you.

It's not healthy. It doesn't really make you feel better and you realize, no, I'm not getting value. I'm The money I'm spending on junk food is not giving me happiness.

It's not worth it. So you put a minus, meaning, yeah, I want to spend less money in that area. Right? So that's all you do. And it's your choice. You decide, right?

It's not my choice. It's not anyone else. It's up to you to decide this. So it's a great question. It's a very good exercise. And you do this in every single little category of your spending.

Right? All right, so that's the first question. Then you're going to do it again. Now you're going to look at all your spending again and ask a second question, which is connected but not the same.

The second question is this. Was this expenditure, this expense, expenditure, it means expense, you spent money, you're spending money or you're spending your life energy, as they say,

Was it in alignment with my values and life purpose? Aha! So the first one was just basically about, did it make you happy? Did it make you feel good?

Fulfillment. But this one's a little deeper, a little more philosophical. Does this fit your values? Your values are your principles, what you believe is right and good and true.

Virtues, things like that. So again, let's imagine maybe one of your values is health. You believe health is very important. Living a healthy life. So if you spent money on junk food, maybe it made you feel good.

Maybe, in fact, it makes you feel good. Ah, that sugar. Ah, you feel great. But it goes against your values, though. Maybe it made you feel good, gave you a better mood for a while, but it's against your bigger value of health.

Or maybe you have... I don't know, maybe if you're a vegetarian and you spent money on meat... That wouldn't be so good. That would go against your values, even if you liked it.

You get the idea. Does it fit your values, your purpose? What is your purpose in life? What is your larger purpose? Or maybe you spent money, one of your values is devotion to your family, to your children.

And you spent money, you know, you kind of wasted a lot of money and you feel like, well, that money, I should have done something for my children with that money. Or maybe you, you know, you went out drinking, right? And then later you realize, oh, that doesn't fit my values.

Again, I'm not judging. I'm not telling you what to do. It's your choice. It's your value. So you have to decide this. So again, you just go through each category and you ask the same question.

This second question. Now, does this spending, does it fit my values? Does it fit my purpose, my deeper big goals in life? Yes or no. Plus, if it's yes, then plus.

So maybe one of your values is lifelong learning and education, learning, independent learning. So again, you might look at your spending on books and you might put a plus. I want to spend more on books. This is an important value.

Actually, I want to spend more on books, more on learning. Right? And again, being generous to people and buying healthy food. Maybe you spent a lot of money on some really good healthy food.

Or organic meat or something. A grass-fed beef. And it's kind of expensive, but you're like, you know what? This fits my value, so I'm going to put a plus here.

You get the idea, right? But other things you might spend money on and decide it's a minus. Even if it makes you feel good, it goes against your values, your deeper meaning and purpose. So you'll put a minus there.

Okay, then the next section, they just talk about purpose. A lot of people have a problem with this idea. They know, they want to have a purpose in life, they want a feeling of purpose, but they don't feel it. They don't have it.

So they kind of answer the question, how do we find our purpose? And see, I like, first of all, I think one problem is people use the singular purpose. Version of the word, right? Meaning one, purpose.

But I think we can actually have purposes. We can have purposes with an S at the end. I think that, first of all, we can have, during a lifetime, a purpose. We can have a different purpose at different times in our life.

Like I have children now. So, of course, they're a big part of my life and my purpose in life. When I was younger, I didn't have children. So, obviously, they weren't, right?

So, it can change. depending on your life. And also you can have more than one. My children are certainly, and my children and my family, I would say in general, is probably my highest purpose or most important.

But you can have other ones too. Effortless English is one. You know, contributing and helping people and teaching. So you can have several. I think it's better to think of more than one.

It's a little less stress, so you don't have to, I only need one. And they say, okay, so how do you figure out what is your purpose or what is a purpose for your life or some purposes?

Number one, they say, work with your passion. Follow your passion. Follow your bliss. Follow what makes you happy and excited. Number two, work with your pain.

Sometimes maybe you've had a terrible experience in life, something painful, and you recovered, you survived. And maybe you can help other people recover and survive who have the same pain.

A lot of people do that. Okay, and finally you can ask for all your spending, each thing you spend money on, how might this change if I didn't have to work a job for a living? Okay.

So for example, and you put a plus or a minus again, plus means it would go up, minus means it would go down. And what this means is like once you are financially free, when you become financially free, some of your categories, you might not need to spend money or you might not need to spend so much. You might spend less if you didn't have a job. So for example, easy example would be if you have a car, if you drive to work every day, you drive one hour to work and you drive one hour coming back.

Also the gasoline, the car maintenance, repairs, all that stuff. That's a cost that comes from your job. Probably if you didn't have a job, you probably would drive less, right? You probably would drive less each day.

You wouldn't need to drive two hours every day if you didn't have to go to a job every day. So your car expenses would probably go down. Once you become financially free, when you don't need to work anymore, that actually would become less.

That car expense would become less. You might even be able to get rid of your car. Who knows? Depends on your situation. Same with clothes. Some people work in jobs where they have to really dress nicely for the job.

They have to have very nice suits. Everything has to be kept in very good shape. They have to do dry cleaning, which is expensive. But if you didn't have a job...

Once you can quit your job, you're financially free. Well, maybe now you can just dress casually all the time and you don't need suits anymore. So that expense would go down.

So in many ways, without a job, I think overall, for most people, when you become financially free, when you don't have a job anymore, your expenses actually drop some. For some people, they drop a lot. For some, just a little bit.

And so they finally make the point of that this is about integrity. The key to all this is to make sure that your money, your financial life, fits your values and your happiness.

Right? Not goes against it. So many people, they're doing things to make money. They're working to make money. It actually makes them less happy. It actually goes against their values.

Right? And so what you want to do is make it so that your financial life supports your values, supports your happiness, makes you happier. Again, it's another way to think about financial freedom. It's just giving you the freedom to live how you want to live so that you can create the maximum amount of happiness and meaning and purpose in your life.

That's what financial freedom is, financial independence. It's not about having the most expensive stuff. And their final nice word here, get enough. Their favorite word, which is one of my favorite words in this context.

Enough. What that means is that when you have enough money and enough time to have maximum happiness, maximum purpose... in your life, then you have enough and you don't need more.

You don't need a billion dollars. You don't even need millions and millions and millions of dollars. You just need enough. Just enough to live the kind of life you want where you can have maximum happiness and

You can spend your time doing what is most meaningful and most important to you. That's financial independence. That's what it means to have enough. Enough.

And then you stop and you don't need more. And then a nice quote from one of my favorite books, the Tao Te Ching. He who knows he has enough is rich. Thoreau, you know...

many, many, many, many centuries later, wrote something similar. But he, the person who knows that he has enough, once you realize, I don't need more, I have enough, then you are rich.

It doesn't matter how much it is. It's not the person that has the most money. It's he who has enough, who knows he has enough, is rich. That's what it means to be rich.

Good definition. And that's it. Chapter four. We'll do chapter five next week. All right. Let's go to our questions and comments and let's talk about it.

I think it's all pretty clear. I think I explained my thoughts on this pretty easily. Clearly, simply. It's a simple but powerful book. You have to do the steps.

The key thing to this book, it's not like the ideas are not difficult, but you have to do it. You have to do it. It's the discipline of doing it. It's the discipline of counting the categories of your spending every week, every month, and asking these questions for each category and doing it every month.

And as you do this, you start to build a kind of awareness and self-discipline with money that will make a big, big change in your life eventually. This is a very important part. And later we'll talk about how to invest in this book. They're going to talk about investing and saving.

That's coming next. But this first section is very important, which is about gaining financial self-discipline, gaining financial self-control. really mastering your emotions about money, becoming very clear about your values, about what makes you happy and fulfilled, all of these things. Very, very, very important just to do.

It's a habit. It's just a habit. It's this easy process. This is why I like this book. It's this easy process of just noticing and asking these questions every month, every month, every month.

And just by noticing and just by asking the questions, you will see you'll start to change. you will start to change the way you're spending money. You don't have to force yourself. You don't have to suffer.

Nothing like that. You just become more and more and more aware so that each time you're spending money, you're asking, is this really going to bring me more happiness? Does this really fit my values?

Sometimes you'll say yes and you'll buy it. Sometimes you'll buy it and later you'll think, no, actually it didn't. So, no big deal. You realize it, but it'll gradually change your habits.

It's very good. Very powerful. All right, let's jump back up and let's get to your comments and questions. Okay, let's start just going through the hellos so I can get to the actual part where you guys are saying questions and comments.

Yeah, okay, so Vladiv's all making a point about junk food. For junk food, you will pay a double price. You pay for the food itself, then for the medicine to cure your disease caused by the food. That's right, you do.

And this is why it doesn't fit your values. If you value health or feeling good, just basic things like that, then it doesn't. And okay, yes, you still might have a little bit sometimes, but I think as you become more aware, you'll reduce and reduce and reduce your spending in that area. Most people will.

Yeah, okay, so here's a great thing. Carol Lee says, I help kids learn English. I love that. It's my purpose. Great. Wonderful. See, so that's good that you know it.

Okay, sorry, you guys are typing here. Yeah, well, like Diko says here, the first important thing we know is that we know ourself, then likely we could decide other things. Yeah, this is a lot about becoming more aware of yourself, knowing yourself better, becoming more aware of how you're spending money, of how you think about money, of your emotions about money.

of what really makes you happy, what your values are. And then step two after that is developing more self-discipline with money to spend money in a way that fits your happiness, that fits your values. And that does require some self-discipline.

Yeah, like Ahmad is kind of summarizing this. Each time you spend money, please think a little bit. Which things may bring happiness to your life? If not, no need to waste your life working hours.

Right, exactly. And that's why it's good to convert it in your mind always to hours, not just money. But always think about how many hours. If you buy something, that equals a certain number of hours you had to work.

So it kind of changes things when you think about it. Instead of it just saying this is $10, you just think this is an hour of my work or two hours of my work or 30 minutes of my life.

Is it worth it? Many times the answer is no, it's not. And sometimes the answer is yes. Yeah, like here's Fernanda answering that question. It's a very good question.

If I didn't have to work for a living... I would take care of my kids full time without stress. There you go. So see, you can see by answering the question, she becomes very clear on her top value, her children.

In addition, I could learn more for my personal growth. Another one of her important values, learning. Though I like my job eight hours a day is so much. Indeed.

And see, this is the cool thing. Remember now in this definition, you don't have to work for money. You don't have to work for money. Okay. You can choose to do work, but you don't have to.

So when you become financially free, if you have a job that you love, if you have a job that is part of your purpose, that brings you happiness, it's more than just the money, you can keep doing it.

You can continue doing it. But you're doing it now. You don't have to do it. You don't need the money. You're doing it for the fulfillment. So that's the thing.

It's like a lot of people, too, they think when you become financially free that you're just going to sit on a beach all day. But most people don't do that.

I don't do that. I'm still doing work. I'm still doing effortless English. I don't have to. But I still do it because it gives me fulfillment. It's part of my purpose.

So, a lot of people do this. So, you could end... Like Fernanda, maybe she likes her job. She was financially free. Maybe she would still want to do some of that work.

But she says eight hours a day is too much because... of children and what she wants to learn. Those are more important to her. But she could still do part-time work in that area or she could become a freelancer in that area.

She would have the total freedom to do as much or little as she wanted to do according to her values because she would not need the money anymore. Right?

She could put most of her focus on her kids and learning and then do a little work if she wanted to. You're always free to do that if you want, of course.

Elena says, thank you for explaining these powerful books. You're so great. Thank you, Elena. Thank you. Hanani says, I cannot cut the money I spend on my family.

Well, I don't know if cannot is not quite the right word, but you don't want to. And even when they visit me, I cannot let them spend any cent. I love them a lot. What do you think?

What's your choice? Just like I said, if that brings you great fulfillment, if that fits your values, that's your choice. It's up to you. But you probably can cut other areas.

probably cut out many other areas in your life. That's the whole point of this chapter, is you have to go through and identify all these categories. And as I said, some categories you are happy spending that much. Some categories you will actually decide, I want to spend more in this area.

And other categories you realize, I can cut this expense. I can spend much less. So the it's totally up to you. I don't know the details of your situation, but this is, again, does it fit your fulfillment?

Does it fit your values? It's your choice. Well, Albert Amon says, could you explore the idea of having enough? If you really think about it, you always have enough.

Even when you have no money, the question is, enough for what? Well, indeed. The more you think about it, you'll realize that you need less and less and less. What does it mean enough?

Again, you have to think of this question and answer it for yourself. What is enough? Because it is different. For a monk, they don't even need money.

But of course, to eat, they're still being supported. People usually donate to monasteries, right? So they actually do get a little money. But it could be very, very little, right?

I mean, technically, if you want to get down to the lowest amount, you need enough to eat and have shelter, basically to live, to survive, and maybe more than survive, but to survive and be comfortable, right?

Well, actually, that is very little. You don't need much to do that. You could camp in a tent. You could live in a tent. and you could grow gardens and grow a lot, maybe not all your food, but you could grow a lot of your food, and you could live very, very, very, very, very, very cheaply.

And for some people, that is enough. For some people, that's more than enough. So again, it's a decision you have to make. Others want more comfort. So their amount is going to be higher.

That's why there's not one answer for this question. It's something you have to decide and figure out for yourself. My enough might be less than your enough, or it might be more.

Yeah, Nasser's got an interesting point, and he's right about this. He's very Taoist, what he's saying here. I think everything is counterintuitive. If you cling, it means you hold on to something.

It becomes more difficult. If you take it easy, then you might get more out of it sometimes. Yes, that's right. Sometimes by trying to hold on to money, you actually get more stressed about money and it becomes harder to save it, harder to get it.

That many times people who make money easily, who are good at making money, they actually care less about it. They have more of a playful attitude about money, like it's just a game.

They're not so afraid of losing it. And they actually make more, and they're better at making money. It is counterintuitive. It goes against your intuition.

It goes against what you think would be the case, what would be true. Slavica is right, and this is kind of what Kiyosaki was saying this in his book.

Children need to be taught from childhood not to spend a lot of money. It's best to show them our own example. Yeah, it's good to teach them financial discipline, right? Don't just spoil them.

Spoiling them doesn't help them in the long run. It might feel good short term, but it doesn't help them long term. Good, Asma is doing these activities. I'm starting doing this month, writing everything I spent, and I'll compare it at the end of the month so I know what more things I'm spending on.

Good, Asma, do it, do it, do it. Everybody do it. Do these exercises, you know. It's nice to listen to this book club. It's great to get the book and read the book yourself.

But most of all, do the activities. This is a very activity-focused book. This is a book of action. This is not just a book of ideas. Some books are more ideas, right?

But this is a book, you have to do it. If you just think about it, it's not so helpful. But when you do each of these things, it's very helpful. Yeah, Pablo has got a great point about fasting.

Absolutely right. With fasting, I realized I saved a lot of money. You do. You're not eating. Depending on how much extra weight, more money, I can save fasting from buying food and transform my money again.

Yes. Fasting is so great because it's so simple. You have more time when you're fasting. Fasting means not eating. Basically. It's pretty simple. You spend...

No money on food. None. Zero. So you're saving money. You're saving time because you waste no time. You don't have to spend money going to restaurants.

You don't have to spend time going to restaurants. You don't have to spend time cooking. You don't have to spend time shopping for food. You don't have to spend time thinking about food.

Fasting gives you a lot more time during the day and it gives you a lot more money. And you lose weight. And you heal health problems. So do more fasting.

We'll get to this question of inflation. A lot of people are scared to death of it, but they have a very encouraging point about inflation. N says, in some countries you can't decide how much is enough because of inflation.

You can, you can still figure it out. you have to, well, there's a couple things, but you have to just find ways to protect against inflation. That's all.

Like, for example, if you grow a garden, then you don't have to worry about inflation of the price of food because your costs for food really don't change because you're growing any food that you grow yourself.

The cost stays the same. And, of course, you can invest. Once you start saving money, there are ways to invest where you protect against inflation. There are ways to do this.

Let's see. Emmanuel says, do you recommend more working or starting your own startup? I've heard by word of mouth there are people who say it is of no consequence running your business better than a job.

Again, this is a very individual thing because some people are kind of naturally more entrepreneurs. Right? They're good at it. They like it. And other people are not.

Other people get stressed out trying to do their own business. And they're better working for other people. So there's not a right answer. It depends really on you and your personality.

My personality definitely is entrepreneur. I hate working jobs. I hate working for other people. It was the right choice for me. But it's not the right choice for everybody.

It's something you have to decide yourself. Yeah, like in another example, Elena says, I spend a lot of money on organic food here in Ireland. So I'm coming from a country where I ate always organic food, meat, fruit, and vegetables, which my parents grew at home.

Right. And so that might be, you might put a little plus in that category. You decide that eating that good food is fine. You're happy to spend that money.

That's okay. Okay. excuse me this question is funny Gladysov says I'm currently quitting my job getting another job which is distant so working at home is that what you're saying distance like working over the computer my parents believe working distantly makes people crazy lazy and become savages your opinion I don't know am I a savage maybe I think you'll be okay you'll be alright

I mean, you can be lazy if you want to. It does require a bit more self-discipline. That's good for you. It's good training to be financially free because now there's no one there to just tell you what to do every second.

But that's good. It's good. It'll be fine. Yeah, Priscilla with a good point. The media advertising tries to make us believe there's no self-sufficiency.

powerful when we understand we really need very little to be satisfied. Yeah, this is what most people discover when they think about it, when they ask these questions and they do this for a few months, they start to realize, I actually don't need that much money to be happy and satisfied. It's less than you think.

Hmm. Yeah, okay, like Zohair says, for me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is the definition of success. Again, this is getting to this question of purpose.

Purpose. Just making money is not, I mean, it's just a number. It doesn't mean anything. So, you need something more than that. Something deeper to get the fulfillment, to give this feeling of purpose.

Inspiring people can be one, and you can even be more specific than that. There's... Yes, right. Good. How do I get good health insurance? Buffender says, if I don't work somewhere that provides it, well, make yourself healthy.

You don't have to worry about it. I didn't have health insurance for 45 years. Maybe when I was a kid, I guess I did. My parents... But all through my 20s and 30s and 40s, I had zero health insurance.

But I just lived a life that kept me healthy. My health insurance was exercise and eating well. And you save money for an emergency. Also, this question also very much depends on which country you're in.

Some countries, this is not a problem. I'm answering based on America, which is probably one of the most expensive places for health. Oh yeah, Emmanuel, this kind of gets back to this conversation

This issue of advertisement and the way the media makes our desires and builds them up and we don't even realize it. Why are people nowadays so fixated with technology, says Emmanuel?

Do you think this has been drummed into our heads by someone? Well, by advertisers, yes. And by the media in general, not just advertising. TV, news, fake news, all that kind of stuff.

They call a neighbor of mine who's really into technology. He has 8K Ultra HD TV, right? So this is, again, it's just pumping this idea into your mindset. I need the newest iPhone.

I need an 8K HD TV. Why? Is it really better than a normal TV? No. It's the same old junk they're watching. So... Yeah, it's just... But this is how they... To keep you spending, they have to do this.

To make you spend your money constantly, they constantly have to be doing new, new, new, new, new, new, new. Or else you just get bored, you'll stop. And you'll realize. They don't want you to realize you have enough.

They don't want you to realize this. So if it's like with the TV, if you have just some old TV, it's probably enough. It's fine. It works. You can watch it.

You don't need any. It's enough. But they're going to, in the media and advertising, bah, bah, on the internet, everywhere, try to hit you with this idea. The newest technology, 8D, you know, 8K, 10K, 10,000K, 3D, bah, you need it, ah.

So then you want to spend a lot of money and go get a new TV, even though your TV now is enough. And of course, they do this in every area. They do this with cars. They do this with houses.

They do this with clothes. They do it with everything. Yeah, of course, it's by design. They're good at it. Good. Here's Lisa with a success story. Financial independence was a choice for me.

I decided what I had achieved is enough. I'm satisfied with what I have. I could earn a lot more money, but I only work so much that I enjoy. There you go.

And that's the mindset right there. That's the mindset of financial independence. I could work more. I could make more money if I wanted to, but Why? Why do it?

I have enough. So I'm going to just do what I enjoy and what's meaningful to me. And that's all. Is it possible to achieve financial freedom by the age of 20?

Yeah, sure. You know, it doesn't really matter the age. Right, Nasser. Fasting, you spend no money on food, you save time, and you get healthier. It's a triple win.

Triple benefit. And even more. We could go on and on. There are spiritual benefits, there are emotional and mental benefits. It's on and on. It's great.

Fernanda says, I spend a lot of money on food. I have to rethink my spending. Yeah, that was why I think I mentioned last week, right, that when I did this, when I was working to become financially free, eating at restaurants was a big one for me. This was one that I identified in my life that, oh, I'm spending.

This one does not fit. I put a big minus there, right? Like, I'm spending so much money on restaurant food. It's not really making me happy. And it's not really fitting my values.

I definitely want to cut this. And again, for me, rent was a big one. The apartment. The amount I was spending on rent was not huge, but it was big. Big enough.

And I realized, I don't care. I just need a nice, safe place to comfortable place to sleep. That's all I care about. So I always put a big minus next to my rent.

I want to cut that. So yeah, you can identify these things. You will. You'll find areas where you want to cut. Here's another example of a success story.

Today, whoops. Today I am financially free, says Antonio de Lima, but already I worked a lot in my life. Nowadays, many people in my family say I'm lucky.

Yeah, well. Yeah, well, people on the outside like to say luck because they can stay lazy. They don't want to admit that you actually had to work hard and you had discipline and you made changes in your life because then they realize, well, they could do it too.

but they're too lazy to do it. Yeah, like Samuel says... If we don't have a good model of spending money in life, probably we will get the media habit of life, right? That will be programmed, which is terrible for happiness.

I'm really happy for having you in our lives, AJ. Thank you, Samuel. And exactly right. If you don't think about this yourself, then you're just being, you're just, you're doing things from being programmed.

All of us. I was the same, right? Like you realize, you know, why am I spending this money? And we're, It comes from somewhere and you're in it, you know, in school and media and all this.

You don't even realize it. Every show you watch, every movie you watch, everything you see, read and listen to is encouraging this. So you have to think clearly about it and break it, break that habit and choose. It's all just about choosing from your own values, your own happiness, not just being programmed from the outside.

Priscilla states this in a nice way. Many people are more concerned with having rather than being. Having rather than being. Like owning things instead of being happy.

This book teaches us to care about who we are, not what we have. Somehow I think what we have will be a consequence of what we are. That's very well said.

What we have will be a consequence of what we are. Focus on who you are. Focus on the internal fulfillment, meaning, purpose. And then what you have, it'll come.

It'll come. You'll have what you need. You have to take care of those internal things. Good point. This is a nice, very simple example. Zohar says, when I visit the supermarket, my daughter wants a lot of stuff like sweets and candies and cries if she doesn't get it.

Lately, I stopped that process. It's amazing. The value comes not from collecting money, but what we do with it. Yeah, very nice. That's great. You're teaching your daughter very well.

Here you go. And with another example, it shows you about this word enough. Two weeks ago, I traveled somewhere with no electricity. There was one family living there.

They had sheep and some chickens. They were very happy and virtuous people. Exactly. And like I said, I've had this experience camping and hiking, going up into the mountains with a backpack and a tent and a little bit of food.

And staying up there for a few days, a week, something like that. And realizing, I'm perfectly happy up here. I'm perfectly happy sleeping on the ground with this little tent. Everything I need is on my back.

And this is enough. This is enough. I had the same experience living in my car. It's enough. More than enough. Exactly. Most of what we think we need, we don't need.

We only want something. Okay, I'm going to... Well, this is a nice comment. To make things with love that is the one true richness, says Maria Mercedes. Yeah, that's well said, right?

It's... What is it? Barakah is a nice word. It's something deeper than just money. We'll see it in Jerry Maguire. He has a word for this. One of the characters has a word for this.

It's not a real word, but it's kind of just for the movie. Yeah, right. Like Pablo is kind of giving an example of how this is shown to us. And it's not always directly said.

It's kind of indirect. So it kind of goes into our brains. We don't realize it. So Pablo says, we're used to seeing this in movies. The principal character wins a lot of money, gets a lot of money.

And then what do they do? He or she will spend it all on luxury things that they don't need. I feel uncomfortable. I realize it's the media programming us.

That's exactly right. Exactly right. That's what they show us. Kleepy says, these are incredible thoughts in this book, Self-Discipline, Awareness and Commitment.

Nice summary. Yes. I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Ermidara says, I'm regularly watching my father-in-law's painful saving, and it's horrible.

You mean it's painful because he's saving money, or it's painful because he's not saving money? Because he's spending it. And why is it painful? It's painful because he seems unhappy?

I don't know, I'm just curious. Baby's crying. Oh, no. Well, this is a nice... This comment kind of shows, again, this idea of fulfillment, right? My son and I very much love my wife's cooking.

It tastes more delicious than restaurants. And it's probably cheaper. Right. Exactly. And the experience of eating at home together as a family is better.

So there's the greater fulfillment. So you can identify these things as you go through this book and you think about it and you realize, well, why spend all this money on restaurants when it's actually a better experience, a happier experience at home?

And that's just an example. By the way, this is just my example. You might love eating out. And that's fine, too. Again, this is all for your life. Maybe you're a foodie, we say in English.

It's kind of slang, a foodie. I've got a friend, Joe, who I talk about a lot. He's a foodie. He loves eating out because for him, he gets great fulfillment from going to new places and trying new dishes.

And it's kind of stimulating and interesting to him. And he likes cooking himself. So he goes to a restaurant. and gets a new dish or something, and then he goes home, and sometimes he tries to make it himself.

And so he actually gets a lot of fulfillment from it. In fact, when we travel together, I've traveled with him a lot, he's always focused on eating out, always focused on the food. When I travel, my main focus is culture, temples, history, and his focus is always on the food.

So he's always interested to go to these different restaurants and try the dishes and try the local food. He gets a lot of happiness from this. So for him, he might use the same activity, and for him, restaurants might be plus. That's okay.

So you can see, it's what gives you fulfillment and happiness. That's why this is an individual activity. And that each person has to decide this based on your values, your experiences in life, what brings you happiness and fulfillment. So I'm giving some examples from my own life, like about eating out at restaurants.

living in a small place, but that's me. That's me. So you don't have to follow me. You might have different answers. That's okay also. But overall, the idea is you find the areas that don't fit you, that are not giving you happiness, and you cut, cut, cut those.

And by doing this, overall, your overall total expenses will be cut quite a lot. But you're cutting in areas where you don't really need it and where you're not happy. So this is why it's not painful.

You're not cutting things you love, right? That's why it's not painful, this book. That's what's great about this book. A lot of other personal finance books, they have the idea of budgeting, but...

In a lot of these books, the idea is you're forcing yourself to spend less on everything. And so many times you're trying to cut areas that you actually like. You're cutting areas where you get happiness. And this makes you feel unhappy and stressed.

And so what this book is doing is instead you're figuring out yourself all these areas where actually you're not getting happiness from spending. maybe even the opposite. And so you're focusing on those areas, the cut. So when you cut them, you don't feel stressed, you actually feel happier.

You cut those areas and it brings greater happiness in your life. You're spending less and you're happier. That's why I like this process of this book.

Okay, a couple more and then I've got to go take care of babies, little baby chans. Great, Ibrahim Ali, I did this when I was young, too. In the past, I was spending a lot of money on soft drinks, like Coke and Pepsi and that stuff.

I knew it's not healthy, but I disciplined myself to stop it completely. Now I only drink water and fresh juice at home. It's cheap and healthy. Yep, another example, right?

And I did this. I used to drink Cokes a lot when I was a kid, a teenager. And I finally cut it, too. And it's another example of, okay, you cut that expense, so now you're spending less money, but you're also happier because you'll be healthier.

You'll feel better when you cut that stuff. So you're spending less, but you feel better. That's what we're trying to do. Find all these areas where you can cut, cut, cut, cut, cut the expense, but it actually makes your life better.

I want to learn English. I don't have money. Is it possible to learn anything without money? You're listening to this podcast right now, so yes, of course it is.

It's more about self-discipline, right? Sometimes when you don't have money when learning something, it just means you have to do a little extra work. Like I have courses that I sell, right? It's easy.

You buy the course. I did all the work for you. You just listen. If you have to do it all by yourself for free, maybe you have to find you got to do a little more extra work figuring things out.

But you can still do it. Vicki says, I'm looking for discipline to be a programmer, a freelance programmer. All right, nice. Can you guide me in that?

Just do it. Do it. Start advertising. I can't tell you specifically because I'm not a programmer, but I know there are sites where you can enter a profile and try to get jobs, so you're just going to have to do that.

You probably have to learn about marketing a bit to market yourself. But just start, just do it. Get on, register on some sites and start doing it and see what happens.

Jump in and do it. That's my advice. How are my babies? They're doing well. Babies are fine. They just have a lot of energy. Yeah, like Preeti says, I don't have money.

I have no money. I assume you have a little. You don't have much money, but I'm still happy. Right. It's about happiness. It's about happiness and fulfillment.

It's not about a number. It's not about a number. So Preeti means you have enough. Whatever amount of money you have now seems that it's enough. Good for you.

I think we're about finished. Yeah, like Mary, as it makes a good point here, Mary Shah, he says, let me get it on the screen here, money cannot make someone happy, just thoughts can, right? Your mind, it's your mind.

We just improve our thoughts and we find the way to be happy. So much of that's true. Self-discipline, mental discipline, mental self-control, virtue, all of these things.

None of those require money. Okay. I think that's about it. On that little joke, money doesn't bring happiness, but I prefer crying in a Ferrari. Heh heh.

It's a nice joke, but the truth is, who cares? It's just a car. It's just a car. Isn't my happiness and contentment my success? Oh, right. That's what they're saying.

That's what fulfillment means. These are just other synonyms. These are synonyms for fulfillment, happiness, and contentment. Right? Right? It's all getting at the same idea.

So, what is it? What kind of life gives you happiness, contentment, satisfaction, a feeling of purpose? If you didn't need money, you had all the money you needed, how would you live your life for maximum happiness, contentment, fulfillment? What would you do?

Now, figure out how you're going to do that. How are you going to do that? How much money do you really need to do that Probably not so much. Okay. I think that's it.

We'll finish there. Okay, guys. Thank you very much. That is our book club for today, chapter four. Next week, chapter five. We're going to start moving.

Let's see, what is Chapter 5? I'll just review it really quickly. That's not it. Chapter 5, seeing progress. Oh, yeah. Another little activity next week to start tracking.

They're really into this tracking it, tracking it, tracking it. Next week, we're going to talk about making a wall chart to really see what you're doing. Make it visual.

It's all great advice. And then later in the book, we're actually going to start talking about saving then money, right? Because to save money, you've got to cut your expenses. It's number one.

It's the easiest thing to do. It's easier to cut your spending than to make more money. Making more money is also good, but it's harder to do for most people. It's a more difficult thing to do, but anybody can cut their spending.

So cutting spending, that's why they're starting with that first. Of course, then if you can also increase your earning for the same number of hours, that's also great.

And then, of course, the goal then is to save money. Every month you have extra money. Ideally, you have a lot of extra money every month. And what will you do with it?

You'll save it. And then eventually you will invest it in some way. And we'll talk about that later in the book. Anyway, next Saturday, we'll continue the next chapter.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, movie club, movie club. Many of you joined movie club. Remember, it's on Twitch. You got to follow me up here on Gab. If you want to join me on the movie club, I announce it maybe like 10 minutes before I do it, maybe five minutes.

So you've got to follow me and watch around this time every night. You got to watch to see when I'm going online. to join the live movie club. It's not on YouTube.

I can't do it on YouTube. YouTube won't let me do it because of copyright stuff, so I can't do it. So it's live on Twitch instead, twitch.tv. We're doing a great movie right now.

Everybody's enjoying the movie. I can see from the comments that you all are really enjoying Jerry Maguire, as am I. Let's say, I mean, just to be totally honest, I think that

It's a better movie for learning English. The Matrix was a fun movie. It was a good one for starting. It was good. I liked it, too. But I think for the purpose of learning English, Jerry Maguire is a better movie by far.

And you can see we've only done two weeks. We're only like the first two scenes, you know. It's going to take much longer to do Jerry Maguire, and there's just already so many idioms, so much slang, so much good vocab, lots of great ideas, the story's so positive and wonderful. It's a cool movie.

If you're interested, you can still join us, even if you missed the first two. It doesn't matter. Join us next week. I mean, tomorrow and then next week and the next week.

It's on Sundays. So again, watch My Gab tomorrow about the same time, and we'll do Jerry Maguire tomorrow, our movie club. And of course, VIP members, you will get the recordings of all the movie club lessons for free. So it's a reason to get on.

VIP, effortlessenglishclub.com, effortlessenglishclub.com. See you tomorrow for our movie club. Bye. Thank you.