[Transcript starts at 1:27]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today we're talking about my rich life. So this is a phrase that, um, has been used heavily, and I may be even wanna say, introduced by the one and only, Ramit. If you don't know who Ramit, his full name is Ramit Sethi, um, if you don't know who he is, I've mentioned him in a bunch of episodes. I don't actually personally know him. Although I will say I did a post last week. I did a Reel that was a green screen of one of his posts and he shared it to his Stories. It was a very proud moment for me. Um, so I don't personally know him, but I'm gonna just pretend like I do.
But I have talked about him extensively. I really love his work. I love what he stands for and he has just blown up. Um, I've used, you know, I've been talking about him in the past few episodes, um, just cause I'm like genuinely happy for his success.
And I'm not gonna lie, there's like a little bit of a self-serving nature to this that his success helps me mainly because I think we have a lot of shared values. We value a lot of the same things, and so the things that he is promoting now at a very, very large scale, I'm like, yes, I can get down with that. I believe that. So, today we're gonna talk about, or I'm gonna break down and let you inside of, give you a little behind the scenes look, uh, into my rich life.
This episode, 100% inspired by my girl, Emma. Um, Emma Jack. She, I did a, a question box in my Instagram Stories last week and was like, Hey, what do you folks wanna hear more of? And she was like, how about your rich life? And I was like, how about yes. So Emma, thank you. Uh, so right off the bat, if you know me, you know that this isn't just gonna be about money.
Um, if you're new to the, to the podcast, if you're new to me, um, you may hear this term rich life and be like, wow, what. Rich life, a rich life and, and having a quote unquote rich life as we traditionally understand that phrase is only a good goal if being rich matters to you. All right. If you just take it at face value. Ya'll already know I'm gonna flip the script on this, and Ramit does that exact thing, right? He flips the script.
So I actually went to his website to pull copy for what he considers a rich life to be and how he defines it. So from his website, Ramit says: So what is a rich life anyway? Is it wearing a Rolex or having a China closet? No, emphatically no. A rich life is your ideal life. One where you look at your personal relationships, your finances, and your ordinary days, and say, wow.
That could be picking up your kids f every day from school, buying a thousand dollars cashmere sweater. That is definitely his. He loves him some sweaters, he loves him some cashmere. Buying anything you want from Whole Foods without worrying about cost, taking your family on an incredible Disney World vacation that they'll never forget.
Your rich life is yours, not your parent's, not your friend's, not even mine. Yours. It's a life that is full. A life lived intentionally pro- I almost said provocatively. That's not what he wrote. He didn't write provocatively. Proactively and abundantly. A rich life isn't all about money at I will teach you- so it says, IWT, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, we see money as a tool for designing, enhancing, and enjoying the life you're meant to live.
Y'all folks can see why I love Ramit. The whole emphasis here is on your right, your life, your decisions. What you value. So the post that I did, um, we can share that.
Thank you. Courtney was a green screen reel where he had put up on his own feed on Instagram, his money rules. And it's said at the top, Ramit's runny Ramit's money rules. And the first line of the caption said, these are my money rules. Meanwhile, then we got people that don't like to read shit and in the ca in the comments, a lot of the new followers, because his, his account has exploded with the, the popularity of his, his TV show.
We got people in the comments being like, these are absurd, or it must be nice to have money, and they're not reading that it's his rules. And then the flip side is that his followers, his homies, his people are in the comments and they are responding to these people and being like, yo- and they're doing it very kindly, right?
They're being like, yo, these are Ramit's rules. You're, these don't have to be yours. Like they could be goals if you want, but the whole thing is to go and create your own. And so I did a green screen of that and basically, I actually used it to say, why going viral immediately isn't the best thing, because you haven't established yourself.
You haven't established what your values are. People don't know you yet, right? And so they won't go to bat for you. Whereas if you have that slow burn and you keep showing up, you'll attract your people, right? The people that are gonna go to bat for you. And when and if you do ever go viral, those people will show up for you in the comments section.
And it was just really cool to see firsthand an example of that. So that was the green screen, that was a video. And Ramit shared it and I was like, yo, this is amazing. Alright, uh, but the whole thing here, and the reason I love him is that the emphasis, the whole entire emphasis is on your. Right, and you see the, the shared values there that, that's my whole shtick is that I use the phrase, your best life, but it's the same.
It's exactly what he's saying. He's using the term your rich life, but it's just about a life that's lived intentionally, not provocatively, proactively. And it's on your term.
So the last part of what he says there was about money, right? A rich life isn't all about money. At IWT, we see money as a tool for designing, enhancing, and enjoying the life that you're meant to live.
So money does play a role in this, and that's why I do love what he does. His background is in finance and helping people with their personal finances and it's a tool. It's a very important tool, especially in the society that we are currently living in. And so last week I'm gonna, I'm gonna put leave you with, not leave you with, I'm gonna give you three questions here because last week I brought my girl Rachel Strickland.
I love this woman. She is just, she's just incredible, right? If you're not following on her on Instagram, do yourself a favor. Go follow her. Go check her out. She's just, a remarkable, remarkable human. And I feel truly blessed and fortunate that the universe was like, we are gonna cross your paths. Um, but she's Rachel Strickland Creative on Instagram.
We will link all the things. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, but I brought her in to speak to my Mafia. And the conversation went down the, I don't even want to say the rabbit hole, cause it wasn't really a rabbit hole, but went in the direction of talking about money. And she does an exercise with her group that she runs, The Audacity Project.
And she said, you know, she, she threw these questions out and I was like, I love them. Let's actually go over these questions right now with our people that are here. So I'm gonna give you these three questions and let you think about them. There's no right or wrong answers, but I, I think that they're really good prompts. Prompts. That's like a weird word. Prompts. They're real- they're really good prompts, for giving you a little bit of a mirror to see how you actually look at money and how you feel about money. So the first question is, the first statement is money is blank. The second one, people who have money are blank. And the third one is, I am blank at making money.
My responses to this: Money is options. Second one, people who have money are everywhere. I am good at making money.
I feel very fortunate I didn't grow up with what I would consider to be thought viruses around around money. Um, you know, we didn't have a lot of money and I really feel that I grew up valuing hard work and understanding that like things cost money.
Um, but I never was like, oh, rich people are mean or vindictive or greedy. I saw it as people who have money, have options, and there feels, it always felt like there was safety in having money and not that you had to have like the most money. It just always felt like, kind of like when you're younger and you feel like when I grow up, I'm gonna be able to make my own decisions and like I can eat whatever I want and like kind of that, but just like money will allow for that.
Um, and I still believe that. So write down your, your answers. You don't have to share them with me or anything like that, but just write 'em down, maybe see where you are at. Um, a good resource for this if you wanna dive in more to your, your own money psychology or the psychology of money, is a book called The Psychology of Money.
I've mentioned on the podcast before. It's by Morgan Housel. Um, Morgan, m o r g a n, Housel, h o u s e l. Um, I really, really enjoy his stuff. I thought he, I enjoy how he thinks. He has a podcast as well. I haven't, you know, dove into that yet. Um, but. Um, there's a, there's a good resource there. So the reason that I, I put this part first before I, you know, I've even gone into my own, um, my own rich life, is because there's no getting around it, right?
You're, if we are partaking in today's society, which I know that's a, could be its own, its own podcast episode, but if you're in today's society, money is an important tool to have, right? Having a poor relationship with money means that you will have trouble, you will have difficulty acquiring money, you'll have money, you'll have difficulty keeping money.
Um, you'll have difficulty using money, right? You will have difficulty with that tool, and it is very difficult to build something, in this case, your best life or your rich life without access to the right tools, right? So you can do it, but it becomes that much harder. So I really do want people to examine their relationship with money and, and Ramit is a phenomenal resource for this.
So I said another resource, like number one resource or is, is re, is Ramit. His book is phenomenal. His podcast episodes, things like that. His TV show. His Instagram. All of that. Um, the book, Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is another one. Um, but I really do just, I want people to examine those relationships and improve, if needed, those relationships.
And this is why I bring Sandi York on my, my CPA, cause I want you to have the tools to be able to build your best life. Right. So before I know, I realized where we are, you know, 11 minutes in this episode and I haven't told you my rich life yet, but this is my podcast. So, Imma do what I want and thank you for listening.
Uh, but, and watching, if you're watching, thank you for watching. Um, but to, to lay the foundation here for what I have learned is my rich life. Cause I think you do really learn that, right? It's, it's what you would say when you're 10 versus 15 versus my current age of 38 is gonna be different. And part of that comes with the learned experiences, uh, that you gather over time.
So, I want to start this off by saying that I am truly so grateful for all the experiences that I've had thus far. Again, I'm 38 and I honestly feel like I've been able to scratch a lot of these itches that people have and you know, I'm just talking to some of my friends and things like that and hearing what they put on their quote unquote bucket list.
I don't have one of those. Um, I've done the things. I've done, the things that people wanna do, but not that that matters to me. It's just that if I'm gonna compare. Um, cuz we do that, right? Our brains compare. Um, I've done the things that I wanna do as well and I'm like, yeah, that really allows me to sit and be like, what is my, what do I want now?
Um, but if I go back and, and recap like I did the grind of, of work, and I don't wanna, we can go into whole fucking discussion. You have to grind. You have, if you want an outcome, you gotta have an input, right? And we're gonna talk about, Laura Jean, I love Laura Jean and her concept of harvest, right? Like, if you think about this, I mean, take it back to like, just growing shit.
If you wanna grow shit, you gotta put, you gotta plant it and take care of it. Right. So I, I did the grind, um, for eight years, right? As a, as a traditional staff PT, and I'm grateful for that. And the, the experiences that I had and the knowledge that I gained from that. I did so much travel for five years straight I traveled as a lead instructor for Rock Tape. I've been to basically every state in the United States. Um, I have not been to Alaska. I'm like, kind of like, don't care about that one, but like, I know everyone's like in the summertime it's amazing. And I'm like, like so many places, most places are great in the summer.
Um, and I know that it's great. Good. If you love it, good for you. I want you to love Alaska. I love that for you. Um, but I have no desire really to go there. Um, I did that for five years, dude, to the point where I woke up one day and I was just like, where am I? And I knew that something had to change that.
I woke up in the hotel and I was like, what? What state am I in? What city am I in? Just where am I? But I loved it. I loved every second when I was doing it. Um, I played extremely high level sport. I was a division one soccer player for four years at Georgetown. Did I love all of it? I don't know, but I did it and I was a hundred percent gonna see that commitment through.
Um, I have been fortunate enough to go through higher education, right? I went to Georgetown and got my bachelors of science there. I was pre-med human science uh, major and I got my doctorate in physical therapy from NYU. Like I have gone to some of the greatest schools. I have lived in what are, you know, traditionally considered in the united, you know, very desirable cities in the United States.
I lived in New York City for nine years and I wholeheartedly believe if you can make it there, your ass can make it anywhere. I moved like seven times in seven years. Like I, I lived in New York City and I loved it. I got mugged in New York City. I've, I've had some life in New York City. I, uh, I lived in LA now I'm coming up to seven years.
I have taught around the entire world and met people entire around the entire world. I taught in Dubai, like what? I taught in Australia. If you were at that course, thank you. I taught in New Zealand. If you were there, thank you. I definitely would like to go back to New Zealand and I think I might make it happen next year, 2024.
We will see. We will see. I've built a successful personal brand and broken through the trust barrier. Uh, last week's episode I talked about cancel culture and how I'm like, I feel insulated from that. I'm not, concerned about that. Like my people know what I'm about. Um, and all of these life experiences, again, I'm so grateful for them and you know, at to the ripe old age, the ripe young age of 38, I've lived life on my own terms, which has allowed me to learn what I actually want and what I don't want. I've learned what's important to me for my happiness and what isn't important to me. And a lot of this just comes from trial and error. And you see like, Do I want this?
You try it on and you see if it fits you see if you really like it, and things I've been like, yeah, cool. I liked it at the time and now I'm done. Or like, yeah, I actually, you know, really want that because I've been through this and now I, now I see this. Right. And, and, and doing all of this and having all those experiences have allowed me to quote unquote scratch the proverbial itches that I think people have of like living away from home and moving and meeting new people and traveling and, you know, having a career and, and, and things like that.
I'm giving this background here because I do believe that part of living your rich life, or as I call it, your best life, is actually building it, right? Yes. We want, I want you to be living it and experiencing as you go, but this state that you're at, and when people think about rich life, you have to get there, right?
The man on top of the mountain, the human, the person on top of the mountain didn't fall there. You have to like walk up that shit and this means putting things in place that will actually allow you to live the life that you want. And now I am not by any means saying that you need to delay your happiness.
Like I think most of us, many of us have read that book, the Four Hour Work Week. And that was a kind of a, a, a pivotal book for us. For me, it was a pivotal book. I have a bunch of books behind me. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see 'em. None of them are The Four Hour Work Week because I gave my copy to my friend Bre, and I was like, I may never get this book back and that's okay. It really just felt, it to me, that book feels like just something that you read to realize that you don't have to wait to be happy. You don't have to do the drills in it. And you can feel whatever way about Tim Ferris. Cause I felt like that about him and I was reading it. I was like, ew. He like, he like did this weird thing to like win this TaeKwonDo thing.
If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about. And I was like, what? Ew. But the whole thing that I, you know, the concept, the main thing that I took away from that book was you don't have to wait to be happy. You can start being happy now and you can start putting things in place now to experience that happiness before you retire. You're not supposed to like work yourself to death and then be like, I'm 65, I'm gonna try and live, you know, have happiness for one second of my life.
So the, I gave you that background and my, you know, the life that I've lived thus far because it speaks to, you know, having put those things in place to live the life that I want and, you know, part of that for me was having a career where maybe you work a lot, where I worked a lot, but it established the foundation and, in terms of giving me skills and proficiency and notoriety and you know, the network and the connections and the financial savings to be able to do the things that I want to do.
Right. I'm thinking about moving across the co. I'm thinking it back to when I moved across the country, like I was able to do that and do that safely for me because I had a job with Rock Tape that I knew I could have from anywhere, and that I would have for at least for the next, you know, two, three years.
Like there was safety there. And that job came from me having that first career as a physical therapist and showing up on social media and, and having built, um, a lot of knowledge and experience as a physical therapist. I was, I was a PT for like five years before I started working for Rock Tape. And so I could take those things, those experiences and you know, put myself out there and make connections and have discussions with people and network and build the network.
Remember the redefinitions of right redefinitions the, the reframe of, of network, um, from a past episode. But those things that came first allowed me to do those next, those next things, right? Something else that I wanna tie in with this is in terms of, and I kinda said, scratch the itch because, and Ramit talks about this and kind of phases of life. Me living on my own terms, allowed me to do things that were, what I'm gonna say, age appropriate.
And this is not a negative thing, um, but realistically, you will not enjoy the same things at every age. Right. I'm thinking about going on spring break and we didn't do like wild spring break, but going to Florida, we didn't have very much money, my friends and I, and we all stayed in a studio. It was like four of us in a studio.
You're not gonna wanna do that when you're a grownup. But there, it was so much fun at the time, and I remember I built so many memories from that, right? The same way of just like traveling. You're probably not gonna wanna travel the same way when you're 72 as when you're 35 or 30. Or 40, right? So this is why, you know, putting things in place so that you can do these and, and can do these things and making the decision to do certain things at certain times.
Because you're probably not gonna wanna do 'em again later, and you're not gonna experience them in the same way. Right? So I, I lay the foundation for all of these things, or, or I give my foundation for all these things because they have absolutely allowed me to live my best life while actually building my best life, building my rich life, so that now I can be on this podcast and have this podcast rather, and state what I believe is my rich life.
So a quick definition as to what I believe the best life is, living your best life. To me, living my best life means being able to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, for as long as I want. That's it. Being able to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, for as long as I want. And maybe if you were to repeat that statement, I'm thinking about, especially people that were raised in socialized female, they may be like, oh my God, it feels so selfish.
Yes, it does. And I have no problem with that. To me, being selfish is not a bad thing. It has taken this negative connotation, or it was given a negative connotation probably by somebody who wanted somebody else's power. Um, but. I don't think it's a bad thing. Right? Put your own air mask on first. Watch what happens when, when you do that, right?
It's not that I am like cutting the air hoses from everybody else's mask. It's just like I'm gonna put mine on. We all have 'em, and I'm gonna put mine on. Oh, I see you're kind of struggling with yours. Now I can help you out. I got you boo. Um, so best life, being able to do what I want, when I want, with who I, with whoever I want, for as long as I want.
So let's dive in now 20 minutes into the episode, 21 minutes into the episode into my rich life. Cause I'm just gonna list out the things that are part of that have become, and what I have identified as my rich life, which I wanna say this can change folks. And I am saying this is my rich life and what I have is determined to be part of my rich life and things that I currently want as part of my rich life and I want, and they make me happy and not having them would make me unhappy at the age of 38. These are different than when I was 30. These are different than when I was 25 or 15, whatever. And so I imagine that they will change moving forward, and I'm okay with that. But as it currently stands, this is what it looks like, right?
So number one, I am not gonna say number one because there's a lot of lists. There's a lot of numbers here, or there's a lot of points here. And I'm, I don't know the, I didn't have it- I haven't numbered them. So, what I'm gonna say all comes after being able to automatically pay my bills, right? So it's my rich life includes being able to automatically pay my bills without any stress, without any worry, and right ,for me, I pay them bills. I pay 'em.
So being able to send money at any time that my family needs. That is huge for me, right? Like I said, I didn't grow up a lot of money. We weren't like destitute or anything like that, but I have always believed that money is options and I want to be able to provide options and safety for the people that I care about the most.
So whether it's my mom or my sister, or my two brothers, or you know, their family, whatever, I wanna be able to send money to them if they need. I want to be that safety net for them. And so, That is part of my rich life, and I have worked very hard to get to a place where I have that ability.
Not looking at grocery prices.
Ramit said that. I'm not trying to go to Whole Foods. I actually don't care about going to Whole Foods, but wherever, whatever grocery store I go to, which is usually Vons, but there's actually, now I call it the poor store, that's very bad that I call it that, but like it's dollar outlet and I go there. I definitely don't look at the prices at that place.
Um, but there's like a Lazy Acres, which is like a bougie store up the street as well. And I, I, I do not look at the prices of things when I am going grocery shopping. I don't have to because it's just me. Right? So maybe I should say that again, the decisions I've made thus far, I don't have kids. Right. I get, you probably have to look at, you may have to look at grocery prices cause you have like 17 mouths to feed.
I don't. It's just me and Rupert. Rupert, it's really cheap to feed. So not looking at grocery prices. These are conscious decisions that I made and things that I put in place so that I could have this life that I want. Never worrying about the price of items on a menu. I do remember a time when I had to do that and I'm not ashamed about that in nor do I think it's a bad thing if that's the life that you have or that you want.
Like I just don't want that. I wanna be able to go. I'm not trying to go to like a $5,000 restaurant either though. Like I'm not. That, that doesn't sound like a fun environment or anything like that, but the places I go and I'm thinking about dinners with Jill. Like Jill likes nice things and I'm like, so do I.
We go to Vegas. I'm not looking at like the price on the STK menu. I know it's gonna be expensive, but it's a great experience. And then I have the financial means to do it.
Having a dishwasher. Folks, having a dishwasher. That is 100% part of my rich life. I could never go back. I didn't have a dishwasher um, in New York. I did have a dishwasher. We did have a dishwasher growing up in some of the apartments that we were in. But we never used it. And I think a lot of you listening to this can relate to that. They just like held the dishes and our parents told us that it costs too much money, too much water, the water bill, electricity bill. And I'm like, I don't, now that I'm a grownup, I'm like, I think you lied. And maybe you're not, you don't know actually how that worked. I don't know. I don't know. But for me, having a dishwasher, my dishwasher is bomb. I freaking love that thing. Um, and that is absolutely part of my rich life.
Next one, being able to buy clothes that fit me.
I dress more, you know, masculine presenting, but I'm not big, so that can make things difficult. And my whole life has made things difficult. Um, I am five six, I'm 127 pounds on like a good, strong day. I'm not very broad. I, I have like, you know, little bird bones. I get that from my mom. I'm, I'm ya know, petite frame and so that can make it difficult to find clothes.
Especially in the United States because they making things really big. So when I find clothes that fit me, I will just like buy them all. And I want the ability to do that where I don't have to look, look at the price tag, not, and again, I'm not like shopping at some fancy boutique place. Um, but I want to be able to, I want to be able to buy clothes and maybe if they don't fit, I can return them and things like that. But not having to like, worry about that. Um, just being able to buy them.
Tying into that is being able to get my clothes tailored when needed. Y'all know I love me a good suit. Yes I do. Um, shout out to Top Man, which no longer actually exists. Asos brought, bought them and it's gone downhill rapidly. But, um, the best part about the best thing to do with a suit, if any of you listen, listening to this, wear suits.
I don't care if you're female, male, whatever you identify as, get that shit tailored. Buy one that fits decently well, and then get it tailored. You don't have to buy a super zillion dollar suit. You don't have to get it fully custom made. Get one that fits well. Get it fits well in the shoulders. They can take it in the back a little bit.
They can take the sleeves up, give you a nice little break there. Same thing with the pants, right? So I have a phenomenal tailor up the street. Um, my girl Kristy Dinh introduced me to her. She was amazing. So if I ever need anything under my tailoring needs, I go there. And it's not that it's super expensive, but I have the time to be able to do it and I do have the financial means to be able to do it.
Um, next one, paying off my credit card weekly. I pay that bitch weekly. Uh, I put all of my business expenses on a credit card, um, and I put all of my like, personal expenses on a different credit card, and then I pay it off weekly. I fucking love it. I'm like, you ain't taking my money. Boom. Pay it. Boom, pay it. It gives me such joy and the ability to pay that off weekly.
Having savings, that is a huge part of my re my rich life. You'll know that I think money equals stability. Money equals safety. Money equals options. And so having those cash reserves if needed, and we saw it during Covid, what happened?
People living paycheck to paycheck. Businesses that are, you know, operating paycheck to paycheck, that is a scary place to be. One thing goes off the rails a little bit and everything is derailed. So having savings is big for me.
Having a retirement fund. Having a retirement fund that is invested, that's important, right?
Feel like some people have these IRAs and things like that, but they're not actually invested. They're just sitting there. So I have a SEP IRA because I work for myself and it is invested. I use Vanguard. Um, and it's all, basically all invested in like a, a target date index fund for 2050. So like when you go to do these things, you basically pick like what day you'd want to retire, and you can see, uh, what year you'd want to retire based on your age, and then you can allocate it to that target index, target date index fund. Um, Ramit's book talks about this. I don't think it talks about a SEP IRA. Um, Sandi helped me out with that and understanding a bit more about that. Um, but that is what I, what I have and I have some in like the world total stock as well because of Jeremy from Personal Finance Club on Instagram.
We will link that as well. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, what's next?
Biweekly, sometimes it's usually actually more about like every three weeks, getting a haircut. My guy, Sean Pastuch, he goes every week. I go biweekly. Biweekly is nice. Three, three, sometimes every three weeks. I wear hats a lot. You, you folks know that.
Um, I don't have the time to go every week and I don't have the skin for it. I tend to get a skin fade, which is like so fun to me and so nice, but like, it's literally a skin fade. And so like, my skin can get irritated, especially where my, where my glasses go, so right. Like behind my ears. So I don't need weekly haircuts, but the ability to afford that.
The ability to afford a biweekly haircut is phenomenal. It just feels, it does feel like luxurious, right? People taking care of you. They give you a drink. I don't ever take the drink cuz you can't really drink it while you getting a haircut, but it's just a great place to be and someone taking care of you.
Right? They're actually like making you look good and cutting your shit. It's just, it's just really nice.
Big one here: being in charge of my own schedule or being in charge of my schedule. That means being able to work from home. Um, what, so if I kinda wanna take like a step back from here because it's just being in charge of my schedule. Period.
And the things that allow for that is gonna be having my own business and being able to pay my people well as part of that business, right? This thing, that item wasn't on my list originally. So like having my own business isn't part of my rich life. It's allows me to live my rich life. And like now, it has become an integral part of my rich life.
But growing up I didn't think I wanted my own business. And being in PT school, I didn't want my own business cause people were like, you're gonna make no money. And I was like, what? That sounds terrible. So it's a vehicle that allows me to have these other things. And Ramit does talk about this in terms of one of the easiest ways, like you can cut, you cannot cut but so much with your finances, but you can, you know, there's no limit to how much you can make. And one of the easiest ways to start doing that and making more money is to have your own business. So for me, having my own business is part of my rich life, but it's largely a vehicle. Um, and it falls under the umbrella of being in charge of my own schedule, which also tying into that is being able to work from home.
That is absolutely a huge part of my rich life. Um, I love it. I absolutely love working from home. It is the best thing ever for me, a hundred percent.
Next one, having a home gym. Didn't realize how much I loved this and how, you know, important it was to me until I got one. And now I'm like, it'd be fine if I had to go to a gym. But it really does feel like, and is absolutely part of my rich life, part of my best life.
Next one, having a California king bed. I'm not big, I just told you how about my size. Five, five, six, a hundred twenty seven pounds. But I like that bed. I don't even, I don't even fucking sleep on the whole bed. I usually sleep on the one side cause I got all these pillows.
When I got this bed, Dr. J Pop was like, you gotta get like, you know, put some pillows on this thing. So I bought these fucking pillows and now they take up all the space cause I don't wanna put 'em on the floor. I don't wanna move 'em. They're heavy. So I just move 'em to the other side of the bed and I sleep on the one side and Rupert sleeps on that side with me.
He doesn't go to the side where the pillows are, even though there's space there. He goes on my legs and then I wake up with a broken back. Unpleasant, but anything for that guy, right? But having a California king bed, which in and of itself was a little bit of a debacle because I got the mattress when I was here, ordered the bed frame, and the bed frame was a regular king bed.
It was a whole thing. It's a whole thing. But either way, having that California king bed, definitely part of my rich life.
Speaking of Cali, being able to afford to live right where I live in the South Bay, in Southern California, that is 100% part of my rich life. 100% part of my best life. Y'all know how I feel about the weather.
Y'all know how much I love it here. This is just like a, it's a, what is the word? Um, non-negotiable. So non-negotiable.
Having my dream car, which is a Jeep, right? Some people's Jeep dream car may be a Maserati or whatever. My dream car has always been a Jeep. I wanted to have a Jeep and live by the beach. It just felt like a light life.
It felt like a fun life, and I'm gonna tell you it is. It 100% is. I didn't know that it was gonna be green, right? I, I didn't go to the, to the, I didn't have a vision of it being green. I didn't go to the dealership wanting green. Um, I went there and the car chose me. It chose- Peggy chose me from the lot.
The next one here, and this has recently, you know, entered my rich life. This is in the past three years, which is being able to play as much volleyball as I want. I, we said earlier, my, my best life, being able to do what I want, when I want, with whoever I want, for as long as I want, and I wanna be able to play as much volleyball as I want. I freaking love it. I'm obsessed with it, and it's definitely part of my rich life.
Second to last one, zero worries about paying for Rupert. Whatever he wants, which is not much. Dude just wants to sleep all the time, but the food and just anything he may ever need, I don't wanna have to worry about it or like be like, I gotta like move money around. Like there's, it's whatever he wants. Dude got it.
Um, and then lastly, being able to go home when I want. Being able to go back east. Cause I know I didn't want to stay living on the East coast, but my family is there and they like it there. Um, so the ability to fly back at the drop of a hat if needed or if I, you know, when I want, was very, very crucial to me and very important to me, and part of living my rich life, part of living my best life. And 100%, I have that, I'm actually gonna go home in July for, uh, I borrowed this idea from Jill. Um, she does Christmas in July with her family. And so we're doing Thanksgiving in July. Cause I don't go home for Christmas. Um, I go home for Thanksgiving.
But we're adding another, like get together time in July and so I will be back for then.
So that is the list of my rich life and as I am looking at everything, um, in, in life, but I did an episode about this as well, I don't like the question, where do you see yourself in five years? I like to reframe that and say, would I be okay doing this in five years? Would I be okay with these exact same things in five years? And the answer is yes. And that to me is kind of the the check for like, is this your rich life? Is this your best life? If you're like, nah, man, I gotta get rid of all this shit. Okay, cool. Then we start putting the things in place to make that change.
But I would absolutely be fine doing exactly what I'm doing right now in five years.
I will say that if I was to write down my quote unquote dream life, which to me is different than rich life. Cuz the dream life to me is it's not something that I have to have. It'd be like, okay, it's nice, it's cool if it happened.
But I also realize that in order to get that dream life, I would have to change what I'm doing currently and I'm not willing to do that, right? I'd have to work more. I'd have to play volleyball less. I would have to change my savings. I'm like, I don't want that. I do not want that. But the dream life if would be having a three bedroom, two bath house, standalone house with a backyard here.
I've spoken in past episodes how that may not necessarily be great for, um, the area. I'm sorry if you're listening to this and you can hear the goddamn mower that's outside. That's somebody that has a backyard, although I don't even know who, cuz no one has grass around here. I think it's probably a leaf blower.
Um, but, sorry, I'm not, I'm not stopping the episode. We're gonna keep going cuz we're gonna get this done. Um, but having a three, two with the backyard here would be a dream life. And the only reason that I would like this, or ya know, it would be nice, was because there's no concern of it being sold. Like I rent and I love renting, but I'm like, are you gonna sell this thing?
Like, eh. I don't think they are. Um, my landlords are great, but also like maybe. And also it would gimme the space for guests because I do work from home and so then the second bedroom is my office. And so when people come to stay, I'm like, okay, I guess gonna record all my podcasts like the week before.
Um, yeah. In this house I would 100% have an Eames Lounge chair, Herman Miller. And I would maybe have an ox blood, Chesterfield sofa, depending on space. But those are the things that are not, and honestly, I could afford both of those things now. They just don't, wouldn't look good in this apartment. They kind of wouldn't fit either.
Um, but those are the things that would be cool. They would be, you know, fun, but they're not, I don't need them to be happy. And that's been an important distinction for me in terms of like living and, and really sitting and like, what are my, my goals, my dreams, my wishes, the things that I actually need to be happy versus like, that'd be cool, but like, I don't actually need that.
Second part with the dream life would be no student loan debt. Yes, I still have student loan debt. A hundred percent. Um, I went to Georgetown and I went to NYU and I lived in New York City while I went to NYU. So, um, majority of my student loan debt is from grad school. Um, but I'm really partial to cash flow, so I'm paying off, I don't have, uh, you know, the minimum payment. Um, I make too much money to be like on an income driven repayment, but, um, I am partial to having cash flow. So yes, I could throw more money at it. I get it. I'm paying more with the interest, especially, you know, the dollar amount that it is, like it's a lot with the interest rate there.
Um, but it's the only debt that I have. I don't have credit card debt, I don't have any other debt. It's just literally the student loans and my credit score is great, so I am fine with that. If that changes, then I'll put things in place such that, you know, getting rid of that debt becomes from my rich life.
Then I will make the necessary changes for that. Right. But the, but as it currently stands, having that three, two, having, you know, no student loan debt would require a significant change in my current lifestyle. It would require me to drain my savings, work more, play less volleyball, and I'm not willing to do that.
So, I'm living my rich life and I'm okay with things as they currently stand. If it changes, it changes.
The reframe that I wanna offer you here as you go to think about, hopefully you start thinking about your rich life, is if you're like, ah, but the money part feels weird. One, use the resources I talked about before, cuz money is a part of the life that we're living.
But the reframe here is from an episode that I did with Laura Jean, um, which I'm not sure it has come out yet on her podcast. Um, but we reframed it to harvest, right? We talked about profit, um, but we can talk about, think about harvest instead, right? What kind of harvest do you want? If you're growing something, what would it look like?
And that's gonna include what things do you wanna grow? How do you wanna grow 'em? How much of it do you wanna grow? Do you wanna be like canning shit in the winter? Meaning like, where do you wanna live? You wanna live in a place where you can just grow at all time, even though there's seasonality, but you just grow different things, like what does that look like for you? What is your harvest look like?
So if you need to reframe, there it is.
Um, the action item for this episode, I know it's a longer episode, so thank you for tuning in this whole time and, and listening. Um, the action item here is what does your rich life look like? What does your best life look like?
Remember, this isn't just about money, but money is a tool to help you acquire and achieve that life and actually live and experience that life. The definition that Ramit gave us, gonna read it to you again. A rich life is your ideal life. Your ideal life. One where you look at your relationships, your personal relationships, your finances, and your ordinary days and say, wow.
I want that for each and every one of you, I want you to look at your ordinary days. You see me doing it in my Stories, and that's why I share it. Cause I want this for other people who want it, obviously. I want you to say, wow. Life is short, man. I want you to say, wow, about the days that we do have. So take some time, think about it, write it down.
What does your rich life actually look like? And if the spirit moves, you share it with me. I think ya'll think I be getting more messages than I actually am. I wanna hear from you. Text me 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. DM me @themovementmaestro. Leave a comment on YouTube or in this instance if the spirit moves you, you can email me at info@themovementmaestro.com.
I may not respond to every single one, but I promise I will read all of them. All right. This is a long one. Thank you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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