Want to be rich and happy, and maybe change the world?
… then you should listen to this half-hour call I did with Tim Brownson, life coach extraordinaire and guy who is unable to start the recording on his own conference call service.
Tim and his co-author John Strelecky wrote a book called How to be Rich and Happy and decided on an ambitious goal and an unusual way of reaching it: They decided that they wanted to get a million copies of the book into people’s hands, and would do so by reverse tithing almost all of the money that came from sales of the book back into producing new copies.
In this interview, we talk about values, philanthropy, why Tim and John decided on an admittedly sensationalistic title, and how to get what you really want — but suspiciously little about dolphins and/or ratatouille:
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So how can you help? Well, you can listen to the audio. You can spread the word on your blog, in your newsletter, and on Twitter. And lastly, you can and should buy the book. Remember, nobody is making money on this, if that makes a difference — not me, not Tim, and not John. We just want to make a difference, because it’s a good cause.
I’m relaxing my kung-fu grip
So the point of my “Your Goals Suck” post was supposed to be that you’ve gotta be clear about what you really want when you define success and accomplishment in life, because the default is to define those things in terms of dollars when in fact the dollars may not be necessary.
But instead, I realize I kind of came off wrong, and that it almost looks like I’m advocating creating actual value in life over materialistic things, or some other hippie bullshit.
Okay, so it’s not bullshit. But I don’t want anyone thinking I don’t like me some good materialism now and again. Just because money has been everywhere from some fat tourist’s sweaty pocket to a stripper’s butt crack, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still want to fill a bathtub with it and roll around in ecstasy.
(And furthermore, since that post ended in the suggestion that I’m going to be launching a new product soon, I don’t want some Robin Hood asshole suggesting later on that I’m a hypocrite when I charge for it. YES, I will want your money when I launch that thing. NOM NOM NOM NOM tasty sexy dirty money.)
Look, I think everyone today has money issues. And I don’t mean issues like you can’t make the car payment and that mutant freak circus from Operation Repo is going to come and take your car away, but more like we kind of all have issues around money, like shrink issues, like lay down on the couch with a wad of bills while some guy with a goatee and a notepad says, “Hmm, and how did that make you feel?” issues.
Like, I think these past few years have been rough on all of us, and what we’ve all kind of learned deep inside is that money equals a common means of exchange (nobody lets you pay your electric bill with a goat anymore) and that the more you have, the better, and moreover that if you have some, you’d better grip it tight and be prepared with some kung fu shit if anyone tries to take it from you.
You know, the scarcity mindset.
I’m trying to break this mindset myself, because I do have issues with money. Money tries to control me; it gets all passive-aggressive with me; when something comes up in my marriage, it’s usually because growing up, my money didn’t love me enough. I lived the past few years in a state of chronic panic because I owned real estate investments in Cleveland, where the market dropped so fast that it actually collapsed in on itself and formed a series of interconnected black holes that now provide superior transportation to what is available via the RTA train.
Live like this for a while, with every cent you earn and a few thousand dollars more flying out the window each month, and see what it does to your hoarding tendencies. In theory, I wanted to give money to the Red Cross, but in reality, let’s see them try and pry a buck out of my hands. The local kids’ clubs would be outside the grocery store collecting for this or that and I’d be like, “Dude, get your own.”
Then I started this business that I’m doing today. And over the course of this past year, things have eased up. That hideous phase of my financial life is finally coming to an end, but now it’s like I want to hang on to my dollars for dear life anyway, and never, ever let them out of my sight.
So, to combat this, I did what most wise people do when faced with financial psychological issues. I decided to become a good tipper in restaurants. You know, to practice.
Flash to my thrilling Saturday night.
We live kind of out in the country, with the “kind of” meaning that although we do have neighbors, those neighbors have sheep out in their yard. So when we go to the areas where there are restaurants, the best places are 35 minutes away.
That’s what we did on Saturday. We drove those 35 minutes, to go to Sam’s Club to stock up, and then to go out to eat.
On the way home, the kids were asleep and so I could woo Robin by showing her how I still knew all the words to “Ice Ice Baby” (”girlies on standby waiting just to say Hi… did you stop? No, I just drove by”) but on the way out, the long drive essentially just gave my daughter Sydney a nice long time to play her favorite new car game.
It sounds like this:
She says, “Daddy.”
And you’re in the middle of a sentence, so you ignore her.
And she repeats, a bit more urgently, “Dad-day!”
And so you stop your discussion and you half-turn and say, “Yes?”
And she goes, “Birdie.”
So you tell her how that’s the most amazing thing ever and resume your adult conversation. As many as ten seconds will pass and then again she’s interrupting you urgently, like, “Dad-day. Dad-DAY!”
So you ignore her a bit, because this is like the tenth time already.
“DAD-DAY.”
So maybe you go like, “Quiet.”
“Dad-DAY!”
“Sydney, knock it off.”
“DAD-DAY! DAD-DAAAAY!”
“What? What is it? What could you possibly want?”
And she returns to her normal voice and says, “Car.”
It goes on like that for like a half hour, and then we get out and buy a bunch of stuff at Sam’s Club, and when we’re done, when we’re leaving and getting really hungry, it sucks because the Girl Scouts aren’t selling cookies yet at the exit, and that’s not cool because I want to buy some of those damn cookies already and I’m HUNGRY, and all of this despite the fact that I pre-ordered 13 boxes through my gym (and don’t even get me started on the notion that this happened at my fucking gym) and Sydney is still like “DAD-DAY!” every two seconds and Austin keeps hopping off of the shopping cart so that I run into his foot and then we try to go to this hibachi place but it’s full out the door and we end up at Ruby Tuesday and I just want some damn food already and to sit down and relax a bit, and we’d promised Austin ice cream earlier (to coerce him into skipping a sledding run we didn’t have time for) and I decide I want an ice cream sundae too at the end, because I’m tired and because the Girl Scouts are entirely too slow on delivery.
But the waiter tells me that the sundae bar is $3 for all-you-can eat, and I’m like, “I just want like one little sundae.” See, I’m getting my winter fat on, and honestly, all I need is all-you-can-eat. Plus, I’m having disproportionate concern over that $3 because, you know, every cent is vital to my family’s continued existence on the planet.
So the kid, this waiter who’s already been really attentive and generally cool and in really positive spirits despite handling a table of like a billion behind me, he says kind of on the sly that he can bring me a single-serving sundae for like $1.19 if he rings it up as the kids’ version.
For some reason, this offer is super-awesome to me. Because I’m tired and because $1.79 is apparently some huge amount of money.
I eat, I enjoy. It’s winter; give me a break.
Five minutes later, the check comes and our total is $40.14 and I mentally calculate, okay, maybe I put down five bucks for the tip.
But then I think, “Dude, this kid did right by you. And you’re not throwing money down the investment black hole anymore.” And frankly, I have this notion that being awesome and not bitching about life should be rewarded, and maybe it’s time to pay attention to that idea myself, for a change.
So I put down $50 and told him I didn’t need change.
Okay, stop here for a second, because this may sound like I think I’m some great philanthropist or martyr or something because I’m giving a few more bucks on a tip. I don’t. But… wow… paying extra for something? You get down to a tip, where it’s up to my discretion, and I give more than I have to? Wow, that’s foreign. That’s a mindbender. You get in this mindset where you pay what you’re asked, and if you aren’t asked, you don’t pay.
Remember the Red Cross and the kids outside the supermarket? They were trying to get me Lucky Charms. That wasn’t cool.
But now I think that a natural part of growth is to start circulating some goodness where you can, even if it’s in small ways like leaving a few extra bucks on a tip or tossing something in the coffee can the kids have outside of your supermarket. Like when that thing comes in the mail for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, maybe you finally write them a check. Maybe you try to remind yourself that you don’t need to hold each dollar in a death grip, so that your brain figures out that you truly believe more will come.
You know, the scarcity mindset. Like, this is how you fight it.
And a few minutes later, after the waiter kid has presumably run our check, he comes back and kind of in a low voice thanks me again, like seriously and earnestly this time. Like you get the impression that not many people tip more than 10-15%.
And I’ll admit it; that felt good. It wasn’t much, but it did feel nice to reward this hard-working kid who was pleasant and friendly and good at his job, and probably kind of needing every dollar that he makes.
I really do love the idea of charity. You read shit like this (last subhead near the bottom) and you think how awesome it would be to do. I know Naomi felt really good after that, like it did her good to do it as much as it helped the kids who’d attend the school she was going to build.
I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as a selfless good deed, because people who do good deeds are ultimately doing them to make themselves feel better, to feel noble, or to alleviate their own uncomfortable feelings about seeing the suffering of others. But I don’t see it that way. That’s too nihilistic. I keep talking about win/win thinking, and this is just one more example of win/win. The recipients of charity win. The giver wins. Everyone is happy.
There’s not really a lesson to this story. I was stingy as all hell for a long time, and I wasn’t going out of my way to over-tip even when the waiter or waitress was really awesome. I wasn’t giving to anyone, so I’m not exactly casting a moral imperative as I write this now.
But if you’re hanging on to each buck, consider that maybe there’s a possibility that you don’t really need to be doing so. Maybe you’re not in the dire straits you think you’re in, deep down.
If that’s the case, then tossing a ten or a twenty into the can when the Salvation Army is out collecting might just do you a world of good.
Something to think about.
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I want to join Fight Club
Like any responsible and loving parent, I always look for as many opportunities as possible to get away from my children. So this past weekend, my wife Robin and I dropped Austin (5) and Sydney (almost 2) off with my mother and checked into a hotel for four days.
When we do this, we get a room with a giant hot tub and spend most of the weekend in it. And we get to do things that we’re not normally able to do, like read books without pictures in them and watch movies that aren’t animated.
When you read in a hot tub, you need a light book so that you can hold it above the water. I was working on Stephen King’s Under the Dome at home, but it’s like 1300 pages and hardback, so instead, I brought along my paperback, 200-page copy of Fight Club, which I hadn’t read in a while.
If you haven’t read Fight Club, do yourself a favor and go buy it now. (And no, having seen the movie doesn’t count.) If you like reading my stuff, you’ll like that book. It’ll put ideas in your head. Bad ideas. Rebellious ideas.
It’s about a group of guys who discover that they’ve been living very sterilized, materialistic lives. You wake up, you go to work, you come home to your IKEA furniture that you just had to have and that felt very important, and you repeat. You behave, you become soft, your emotions and reactions and behaviors dull to the predictable, and soon you realize that the things you own, they actually own you.
What the narrator does — and this is a complicated setup, so I’m simplifying — is that after months of insomnia, and after months of attending support groups for diseases that he doesn’t have just so that he can feel alive enough to sleep, he meets a guy named Tyler Durden. They’re both learning that the things in life they thought were essential, that maybe they’re not essential after all. It starts to feel like the only way to be reborn is to hit rock bottom. But society teaches you to live a safe life. A predictable and behaved life, where you do not only what you’re told, but what is expected of you.
Neither of them have ever been in a fight. So they go into the parking lot, and they take turns hitting each other as hard as they can. Who are you fighting? They ask. My father. My boss. My life.
Well, it goes on from there.
I’d read Fight Club several times before, but I found myself reading it this time and thinking, “I kind of want to join a Fight Club.”
Not literally, I mean. The fights in the book take place barefoot on a concrete floor, two guys to a fight, and the fights go on as long as they have to. Everyone ends up with knocked-out teeth, gashed lips, and broken bones. So yeah, I’m not quite antiestablishment enough to want to actually do that in its full glory, but I’m intrigued by the concept.
Now, try to see beyond what may be an initial reaction to this all as a bunch of macho bullshit, and get what’s behind it: What do we fight (no pun intended) to avoid in our day to day lives?
What is the standard of beauty and order that we’re upholding at all costs? What are we afraid of, and what would happen if we did that thing that terrifies us?
Life used to require exertion and threat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m digging the fact that I don’t have to fight daily to keep my woman and my cave, but would it really be the end of the world if I had to fight? And how would I do in a fight, anyway? What am I made of at a deep, deep, deep and primal level?
I’m not saying that fighting is a good thing. I am, however saying, that most of us are afraid to find out if we could hold our own, because of the threat of pain and discomfort. Again, don’t go thinking I’m saying that we should get in fights to find out. I’m not saying that at all. But I do find it interesting that we’re so very afraid of it.
These guys, these stockbrokers and waiters and customer service representatives in the book, they find out that they can be hit and that they can hit back and that still, life doesn’t end. They’re not as fragile as the world has caused them to believe they are. They find out that they’re different people than who they thought they were. Harder. More resilient. Confidence carries over into every other area of their lives. The petty aggravations that used to upset them can no longer faze them. They sleep well. They have explored that darker side of themselves and found out what’s in there, and it’s like they’re magnified, in person and in personality, as they go about the rest of their daily business.
And all I find myself asking is, Are we really so intent on living and dying a safe existence?
And at this point, I could easily slip into a lot of the themes I’ve been writing about lately, about doing something crazy and breaking the rules and being abnormal. I’ll let you make that connection for yourself, but… you know. There’s the whole “What are you really afraid of?” thing to consider here.
The guys in the book, they decide they don’t want to die without any scars.
I have a pretty fucking badass scar. It’s on my left forearm, and I got it doing a 205 lb. Olympic clean and jerk at my gym a few years ago when at the bottom of the clean, my elbow hit my knee, hard.
That was gross. It was also expensive, and one hell of an inconvenience. I don’t recommend it. But it is an awesome story to be able to tell, I won’t lie. I like that scar. It’s proof that I’m not living my life wrapped in protective bubble wrap.
Some of you ladies reading this are likely disgusted by the testosterone in this post.
Except Jess Commins. I’ll bet she really likes it.
(Oh, and on a side note, when Sonia Simone interviewed me for the Third Tribe, she described a certain masculinely pushy internet marketing technique as “masturbatory,” and I was like “Yeah, it’s awesome, right?” and then I realized she meant it in a negative way. Women.)
I’ve built a career out of saying what’s on my mind whether it’s stupid or out of context or embarrassing or what. And so I’m telling you, whether you think it makes me a macho jerk or not, that part of me wants to get into a fight, for once. To see what I have in me. To take a peek at some aspects of myself that I’m never allowed to let out. To explore my id. To take and overcome a trial.
So maybe I’ll join some sort of a class. Like mixed martial arts (what the Ultimate Fighters do) or Krav Maga, which is supposed to be one of the few self-defense things that actually works in real life. I’d be wearing pads and wouldn’t get the shit beat out of me, but maybe it’s close enough.
I think the essence of pretty much everything I’ve been doing lately is this, to make a point out of this whole Fight Club thing:
I ask myself, “What am I afraid of?”
And then, if I can find a version of it where I won’t die or risk major injury or other huge ruin, I do that thing.
Maybe this is all too macho for you. Maybe a safe life is just fine, in fact. But just for the hell of it, ask yourself what you’re most afraid of, and ask why it scares you.
You try one thing that seemed impossible or terrifying and suddenly, it’s like you’re a new person. You’re bigger and better and stronger and bolder than you thought you were.
All I really want to know is who I truly am.
Is this another rule I should break?
I’ve written a few times lately about my revelations re: seeing through the bullshit and kind of noticing that the emperor who is supposedly standing there wearing his expensive new clothes actually has his ass hanging out. It’s occurred to me lately that society tells us that we’re supposed to do a lot of things that kind of really don’t apply to all of us, all the time, and that sometimes (maybe often), it’s okay and it’s cool and it’s best to break those rules.
What I’d like y’all to know is that this isn’t me sitting on some philosopher’s cushion and declaring from on high that I’ve had some esoteric, metaphysical realizations that you might want to try.
This is me living my life and realizing — in a very, very visceral way — that a lot of things have been presented to me that aren’t necessarily true or right, and starting to defy them. To actually do, in my daily life, what I’m writing about here.
However, despite that Cool Guy intro, I’m running into one thing that has me stumped. One convention that is begging to be defied, but which I honestly don’t know if I should maybe just bow down to anyway.
Maybe you can help me decide what I should do.
As some of you may know, I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. Since 13 days before my 13th birthday (I love that stat), I’ve been monitoring my blood sugar, injecting insulin, watching the things I eat. That is absolutely no big deal to me; it’s simply part of who I am at this point.
But since I moved out of my mother’s house… and here comes the rub… I’ve also been paying for health insurance to cover myself, as a diabetic.
Every year, the rates go up. Almost always significantly.
I got my new renewal rates in the mail a few weeks ago. And I found out that they’ll be going up almost 50%… again. And once that happens, I’ll be paying around $800 per month to insure myself.
And that’s JUST myself. My wife and kids have a separate policy. And by the way –that $800 policy? It’s the worst one I’m able to get. It has a $5000 deductible, meaning that I’m essentially paying for everything out of my pocket anyway.
Now, let’s go back to the rules thing, and to fear.
Society tells you (tells me) that you (I) must have insurance. Plenty of people don’t, but almost all of those people wish they did, and are only uninsured out of ignorance or lack of funds. But the vast majority of those people want insurance. They feel they need it. Because… what if something happens?
But “what if something happens” coverage for $800 per month for the shitty policy, and rising fast? Really?
And so here we come to my rule-breaking question: Can I decide not to have insurance?
I don’t like the idea — not one little bit. It bothers me that I could have an accident, or a sustained illness, and I wouldn’t be able to pay for it. And currently, while it feels like I’m being robbed at gunpoint if I pay $800 per month, I could do it. But what happens next year, when it’s $1100 or $1200? And what happens the year after that, when I turn 35 and move into a new risk bracket, and things really start to change?
What happens when I’m 65? Will the insurance company be asking me for $5000 per month by then?
I’m fucking 33 years old and am in stellar health. I’ve broken a bone one time and was hospitalized only when I was diagnosed with diabetes. I’ve done everything right; I’ve taken care of myself; I’ve done everything the doctor told me to do. But am I being rewarded in any way? Or am I, instead, being lumped in with the people who eat cake all day, don’t check their blood sugar ever, and have a foot amputated every spring?
Am I being treated like — and charged as part of — a demographic that I don’t really match? Am I being punished for the negligence of thousands of people I don’t know?
Do I maybe have a far better chance of costing less than they do as a medical patient — of costing less, even, than what I’m paying in for insurance?
Yes, I could get hit by a bus.
But am I being financially raped each month simply because my fear of a catastrophic event outweighs the likelihood that it will actually ever happen?
I’m really not trying to talk myself into this. I’m trying to raise questions, and see if it makes sense or not. So we’ll see.
But here’s something to think about:
Insurance companies know the odds. They pay actuaries large salaries to determine how much any one type of person is likely to cost for medical care. To them, you are a number. And on average, they know that if enough of your type of people pay in and and then cost what the actuaries tell them you will cost, they will make a lot of money.
In other words, the game is fixed. If you have health insurance, you’re essentially betting against the house. The average person in each demographic will always pay more in to insurance than they will get out of it.
That’s not conspiracy theory. It’s fact.
The question then, is, are you willing to pay in more — to bet against the house — on the chance that enough bad stuff will happen that you will “beat” the odds?
It feels to me like I’ve been lumped in with a shitty group. I don’t think I match the odds of most diabetics — not by a long shot. If their lifetime costs are X on average, I’m going to be a small fraction of X.
So if you’re betting against the house with your insurance, I’m apparently hoping to hit the Powerball.
I’ve gone 20 years without any of the traumatic “diabetic costs” like hospitalization, retinopathy treatment, fancy foot care, amputations, renal failure, etc. etc. etc. Yes, I do have ongoing needs for medications and supplies, but beyond that, I have the medical expenses of a nondiabetic.
Or, I’d wager, I probably cost less even than the average nondiabetic, since most Americans are less active than I am, eat more poorly, and so on.
I insure myself out of fear. We all do. The question will be whether or not the fear is justified. Whether it’s possible to honestly mitigate that risk well enough without insurance (or with some crazy insurance alternative), or whether doing so is a foolish gamble.
So let me pose the question: Should I break this rule? Should I consider dropping my insurance now, while the rates are only moderately fucking ridiculously insulting?
Alternatively, what else can I do?
- I’m self-employed and am not about to go get a 9-to-5 so that I can get on a health plan.
- I already have the worst plan offered. I cannot opt for a plan with a higher deductible because there is none.
- Isn’t there some coverage I can get cheap, even as a diabetic, that says, “If you have expenses over $20k or something, we’ll cover it, but otherwise, you’re on your own”?
- I do have substantial ongoing monthly costs. I pay around $150 per month for insulin, but that’s not even covered by my current plan, so I’m paying that anyway. I also have other stuff (testing supplies, supplies for an insulin pump and real-time blood glucose monitor) that is apparently pretty costly but that I now get for free as part of a diabetes management plan. Basically, by giving me this stuff free, they reason that I’ll use it and not have kidney failure later. If I ditch insurance, I have to start paying for all of it myself.
- I haven’t calculated that cost yet, but have a really hard time believing it’s EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE to $800 per month.
- My other costs are minimal. Doctor’s visits are infrequent and cheap. Lab work is infrequent and not hideously expensive. Knock on wood, I’ve only had one traumatic medical event, when I broke my arm at the gym while weightlifting.
- This one’s the kicker: If you don’t have insurance for a period of time and then want to get it again later, the company does not have to cover you at ANY price. So if I ever don’t have insurance, I can probably forget about ever having it again down the road, thanks to my rather expensive preexisting condition.
All ideas, thoughts, opinions, alternate means of covering my ass are welcome. I honestly don’t know what to do.
Ultimately, the question is: Is $800 per month (and likely to increase by at least 30% per year going forward) a fair price to pay for “just in case” coverage? Or should I maybe just put that same $800 per month into a bank account, and draw from it when needed?
Ugh, I don’t know. Fucking stupid insurance.
