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welcome to the best interest podcast where we believe Benjamin Franklin's advice that an investment in knowledge
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pays the best interest both in finances and in your life every episode teaches you personal finance and investing in
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simple terms now here's your host Jesse Kramer hello everybody and welcome to
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episode 61 of the best interest podcast my name is Jesse Kramer cool episode for
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you today the featured guests is a man named Jordan grummet otherwise known as doc G he's a personal finance podcaster
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mainly that's how a lot of people know him through his awesome podcast earn and
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invest he's also a doctor he's a hospice doctor and we'll get into exactly what
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that means being a hospice doctor but long story short Jordan has a really interesting set of experiences and he's
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got interesting viewpoints when it comes to life and death and then you add in his personal finance expertise and he's
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got some really cool thoughts when it comes to life death and money living a fulfilled life planning for the end and
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how money should act as a tool to get you where you want to go in between and before we really get into
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Jordan and Jordan's interview today I want to talk about something that I wrote a couple summers ago I wrote it
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June of 2021 which interestingly for me at least was before my career transition
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it was certainly something I was thinking about actively but I hadn't yet switched careers and I wrote this
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article in June of 2021 we will throw a link into the show notes and the article
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is called this is where life happens you're going about your life maintaining
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the status quo you're in what I call the pit of ignorance now don't worry we'll
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Define what that means but then one day when you're down in the pit of ignorance
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you learn about something called the big idea and the big idea it blows your mind
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you feel like the world is your oyster you're filled with this motivation and
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it makes you want to achieve a new goal and in that moment of excitement you're
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at the peak of Enlightenment but unfortunately you're only there momentarily because you then realize
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that the goal is harder than you thought it's going to take a lot of time to get
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there there's no substitute for that time and the hard work that is entailed
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to get you to your goal and so a long period of relative monotony ensues you have to slog through what I call the
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valley of drudgery and it is a long slog days months and years can go by and eventually you do start making progress
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and the excitement returns to you you start slowly ascending the slopes of soon as I call them and the closer you
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get to the goal the more excited you get and eventually yes you hit your goal you
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have mounted goal Summit now I encourage you guys to look at this article because
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in my nerdy Excel engineer way I I plotted this landscape out using Microsoft Excel using a spreadsheet
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using a graph from a spreadsheet and you can kind of see what I mean how your excitement varies over time when you
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think of some really cool goal and then eventually reach that goal you do get this short burst of excitement early on
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but then any goal worth pursuing takes a long time takes a lot of hard work and there often isn't that much excitement
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during that stretch of time until eventually you kind of get closer to the goal and a lot of your excitement
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returns to you now most people have lived this experience at some point in their life but the question that I ask
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myself and I think the question that you should ask yourself is how do we avoid that long slow boring Valley of drudgery
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as I call it how do we avoid that that long period of monotonous day after day doing the same thing how do we fill that
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time period with some sort of Joy now I think that little landscape it applies to many goals that the big idea the big
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exciting idea that you have it could be anything it might be a new weight loss plan you know Fitness losing weight
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that's exciting but the execution as we all probably know can be painful there's
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a long slog through that Valley of drudgery one pound at a time before the results really start getting exciting
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for you another example entrepreneur they get big ideas for new businesses but then actual entrepreneurship
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involves years of grinding away little wins along the way they certainly help but it takes a lot of time and effort to
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reach the eventual entrepreneurship goal and there's a lot of failure just outright failure along the way too and
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yes this plot certainly applies this idea applies to personal finance to retirement planning to saving money the
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fire Community Financial Independence and retiring early that is a perfect example they should know all about this
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landscape learning about fire the idea that you might be able to retire at age 40 or 45 or 50 it's a really cool
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mindblowing idea that excites you when you learn about it and for a few weeks maybe even a few months it might consume
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you and you start thinking about all the ways that you can reach fire sooner it's
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really cool but that excitement wears off after a few months and what remains in absence of that excitement is a
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simple truth it's hard to rush fire you can only save so much money and you you
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can't really choose how the investment markets will make your money grow it's
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going to take years and years and years before you reach your fire goal the important details and the important
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knowledge you can learn all of that in a few weeks and then maybe it takes another week for you to create your
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master plan and and you're really there at the peak of Enlightenment early on
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but then it might take 15 years of repetitive plotting to execute that plan it really is a valley of
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drudgery so maybe by now you've caught my drift peaks of Enlightenment are short-lived goal Summits at the end
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they're rewarding but fleeting and instead most of life is spent down in the valley of drudgery that right there
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that is where life happens and we might think that's kind of depressing our life happens down at
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the bottom of the valley of drudgery but I think we need to wait we shouldn't cry
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a river just yet because I have good news or at least good news that's helped
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me in my life because we each have a choice the drudgery can be boring if we allow it to be we can get stuck in the
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dolrs there or to continue our watery puns we can flood the valley of drudgery with the Simple Pleasures of life and
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set sail we can take our life's boat across on a higher plane the daily mundaneness it fades Into Obscurity it
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disappears and a sea of Simple Pleasures keeps life fun and and fresh now full disclosure flooding your Valley it it
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certainly can be a struggle I wish personally that I was this ever-flowing Fountain of of flowers and butterflies
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and happiness we actually talked about this recently on episode 59 of the podcast about the power of positivity
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but but also the limits of positivity and the fact that we can't all be positive people all the time that's just
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not realistic it's also probably not even healthy we all have bad days I certainly suffer days of sluggish
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boredom but most of the time I'm able to make drudgery fun as oxymoronic as that
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sounds you know everyone I know has to Traverse this landscape in some way shape or form you probably do too and
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that means that dayto day that tedium is either going to grind you down or you're
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going to have to find a way to let it fill your sales you know to quote Andy duin from the Sha Shank Redemption
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I guess it comes down to a simple Choice really you're busy living get busy die one of the earliest posts I wrote
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here on the best interest features my really good friend Tyler soash such a good friend in fact that Tyler was the
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efficient in my wedding last September Tyler hiked 7,000 mi in 13 months Once Upon a Time he covered the Pacific Crest
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Trail that goes from Canada down to Mexico then he did T aroa that's the north the South Continental Trail across
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New Zealand and then he flew back to Atlanta and did the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine he did that all in
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13 months again 7,000 miles now I'm sure that planning the trip was super exciting for Tyler I mean who doesn't
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like planning a big trip he I'm sure was flying high on the peak of Enlightenment
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and we know that finishing a good hike you know that the final steps along that long Trail the the last few steps up to
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the summit of a mountain that's really exhilarating it's such a good feeling
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it's truly summiting your goal but then I think about the other 7,000 miles did
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Tyler spend most of that 7,000 miles deep down in the the depressing Valley of drudgery no way there's no way he was
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floating on a sea of Simple Pleasures he was exploring new worlds and sleeping under the stars and yes he was eating
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bowls of oatmeal to fend off hiker hunger meeting new friends along the way and and so-called Trail angels that
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Journey the journey itself the 7,000 miles that's where life happens and if each step is a chore you're probably
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never going to make it the final mile is really nice but that's just this fleeting book end to what otherwise was
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a long challenging Journey back in that article I wrote I said summoning Mount Kaden at Trail's End will feel great for
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about an hour hour but the glory will wear off you'll be left with either the
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memories of wildf flower prairies and wild horses or with the regret of Sword legs and grimy
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discomfort so back to today do you want to get rich do you want to retire early maybe you just want to get out of debt
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that's awesome you should get after those goals take them one step at a time
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and make sure you enjoy the sites along the way now it's funny again I have to
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go back to episode 59 of the podcast cuz I'm about to talk about 5 a.m. Jo I've
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learned a ton from 5 a.m. Joel who was on episode 59 and then we also spoke Once Upon a Time on episode 7 of the
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best interest podcast if you don't know him Joel's an Aussie he's living in Los
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Angeles he he's run his own personal blogs in the past and now he he does a lot of writing for the very well done
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how to money newsletter and the how to money podcast and I bring up Joel here because of his boundless optimism Joel
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for many many years sent an email to his readers every single day at 5:00 a.m. it
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was short and sweet it usually only took 30 seconds to read and each day he had some sort of inspiring message or just a
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little drop from Joel's personal sea of Simple Pleasures a story about Cooper
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his dog a picture of a Blooming Garden some quick anecdote just about bringing some simple joy into the world and the
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best part at least I found was that his emails filled my C as well and at at zero cost to Joel optimism is freely
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shared and a rising tide raises All Ships Joel was clearly enjoying his journey high above the valley of
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drudgery he shared that with us and he helped us all out as well you know Joel it turns out is a everyday normal Joe
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personal finance Superstar with savings somewhere between you know Barista fire and actual early retirement but he
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barely ever mentions that he's too busy surfing he's too busy walking Cooper
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it's the Simple Pleasures in life and I know I've been bleeding dry these water
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references maybe I'm just thirsty but here's one more and this one comes from
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one of my favorite speeches that you've heard before here on the best interest
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podcast David Foster Wallace's this is water he says there are these two fish
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swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says morning boys how's
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the water and the two young fish they swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and
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goes what the hell is water the message from the speech is exactly what we're
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discussing today it's all too easy to swim through life while forgetting that
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we're surrounded by life itself this is life the journey itself is everything in
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his speech David Foster Wallace explained to the graduating seniors at Kenyan college that life will eventually
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drag them down into the valley of drudgery unless they realized they had a choice that choice is how to think how
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to view the world how to see their their fellow men and women will they see The Simple Pleasures hiding in plain sight
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our quote unquote default setting as Wallace says is to view ourselves as the protagonist of the world think about it
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there is no experience you have had that you were not at the absolute center of the world as you experience it is there
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in front of you or behind you to the left or right of you on your TV or your monitor and so on but the world doesn't
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have happen to us we're not the main characters in some TV show even though it's hard to fight that feeling it
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happens with us it happens around us we're each just a minor character in someone else's play so try as you might
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you should turn off that default setting and tune into the simple experiences occurring around you you might be upset
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at me mounted here high on my seahorse so I'm going to steal another one of David Foster Wallace's lines right here
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again please don't think I'm giving you moral advice or that I'm saying you're
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supposed to think this way or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it because it's hard it takes will
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and effort and if you were like me some days you won't be able to do it or you
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just flat out won't want to sees rise sees fall and the Sea of Simple Pleasures is no different I've had
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plenty of bad days especially at the time when I was writing this over the last year of covid covid was really hard
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on a lot of people including me but when my cup runs dry I've found reprieve in
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the simple things the end of the journey will eventually come I'm working hard to
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Summit my goals but if I don't quite make it work I'll be okay why because
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this is water this is where life happens and life itself is our buoy now speaking of finding purpose in
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life one of my favorite things about Dr Jordan grummet is his three words saying
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purpose identity and connections it's a quick easy way to remember that which is
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important life or at least that which we should try to prioritize in life and we
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do dive into that in this conversation that you're about to hear but first a
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little bit about Dr Jordan grummet or doc G he's a medical doctor who loves his family loves side hustles
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contemplating retiring early and the philosophy of financial Independence he hosts the popular earn and invest
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podcast which has won a plutus award as the best in-class podcast that's kind of
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like the Oscars for personal finance content I'm pretty honored that the best
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interest the blog my writing was nominated for a plutus award on the writing side last year and back to
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Jordan ulyses press recently published a book that Jordan wrote called taking stock a hospice doctor's advice on
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financial Independence Building Wealth and living a regret-free life a book that incorporates doc G's experience as
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a hospice doctor working with dying patients and his expertise in personal finance doc she shares a unique and
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Powerful perspective on personal finance and investment and how you should think about it in
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your [Music] life all right Jordan doc G thanks for being here I I'd love to start the
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conversation with the end of your book's subtitle living a regret-free life what exactly does that mean to you
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it's a great question and and part of the reason is it's going to mean something different to everybody but
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what I found both in my financial career and as a hospice doctor is that when people get to the end of life it's
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incredibly clarifying and they look back at their life and they say well what did
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I do what didn't I do what are some of those things I didn't accomplish or what
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dreams didn't I live up to and so living a regret free life is actually trying to
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address those things before you get terminally ill start thinking about them today as opposed to putting them off to
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some other time which may or may not come we don't know how many days we have
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left on this Earth hopefully we have many many but you could be like my father who died suddenly when he was 40
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and so the idea is to start thinking about what are those things that are deeply important to you now and maybe
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pursuing them sooner than later that's interesting that that okay the idea of
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how many days do I have left something I was thinking about over the last couple
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days Jordan preparing for this conversation one of my struggles that you made me realize as I listen to some
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of your other podcasts I struggle with what I call zero days or or maybe near zero days in short some days I feel
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inspired and motivated and efficient and I just I squeeze the marrow out of life
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but then once in a while and it might even be like once a month usually on a weekend I'll have some sort of slow Lazy
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Day that just feels like a complete waste and I bet a hospice patient someone that you might be seeing on a
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regular basis would see me living that day and they'd grab me and shake me for
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the opportunity that I'm wasting and so I'm just curious from your experience as
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a hospice doctor do you have any advice or lessons when it comes to seizing this
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this one and only life we have I think sometimes we get too CAU up on the should ofes like I should have spent
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that day doing something I think when it comes down to it when I talk to these dying patients it's not that they did or
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didn't do on what day it was more these large swaths of things that they didn't
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do it's actually my same problem with bucketless items people are like boy I
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really dream of going to Australia and living in Melbourne for for a week and and that sounds great it's like a bucket
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list item those aren't those things that people regret like not taking the time
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to do that one thing or that one trip it's more these big swats of I wish I spent more of my time traveling or
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seeing the world or doing these things that felt very purposeful and the truth of the matter is part of our purpose is
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rest too so I don't think you're missing out because of one day or even one week
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now if you spend years and years putting things off and doing nothing then it's a
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problem but we're really talking about these larger ideas these larger activities it's not what we do today or
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tomorrow but it's what really fills our time over long periods that I think is
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more important so then what are some thoughts or exercises that you found successful that
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you might recommend someone who is younger and healthier some exercise that they start doing right now to identify
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those big large swats in life that are going to bring them long-term Joy prevent some sort of regret on their
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deathbed are there any tactics you recommend so what we're really talking about is is finding a sense of purpose
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and identity and that is a long-term thing right you don't just say tomorrow
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I have the day off I'm going to figure out who I am and what I want in life but
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there are most most definitely some techniques that can be used I talk about this in my book taking stock one of them
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is the Life review so we do a Life review with dying patients and what that is is a structured series of questions
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in which people can look back at their life and digest it right what was important to me what wasn't important to
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me who are the important people what were my greatest moments what were my worst moments what did I accomplish what
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do I wish I had accomplished so doing a Life review is actually a fantastic way for a young person to start thinking
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about what is purposeful for them to day there are all sorts of Life reviews you
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can find them if you go searching online the one sentencer that I say people can
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always start with is if I found out I was going to die in the next few months what would I really regret never having
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the energy courage or time to do and so really meditating on that I think is a very very good start there are a bunch
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of different other techniques everything from starting to look back at your childhood right often we have these huge
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dreams in childhood and we eventually start ignoring them as Society tells us what we're supposed to do who we're
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supposed to be and specifically what we can't do like that's not something
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grown-ups do how many kids hear that right and so they let go of these childhood dreams so some of it is
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actually going back to your childhood and say well what lit me up what were my happiest moments I love to ask people
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when was the last time you woke up in the middle of the night excited by an idea and you couldn't go back to sleep
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what happens for most people when that occurs usually they wake up the next day they're groggy they're tired have work
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they have the kids they have everything on their schedule and they forget about it and they move on and that thing that
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had them so enthralled in the middle of the night is gone my goal is to get people to start thinking about these
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things again and I've even evolved as I've been talking about these things
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even after I wrote the book you start realizing that purpose isn't something
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you per se find it's something you create so what you're really looking for
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what are these threads of things that seem important to me and then how can I start creating a life or a sense of
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purpose around them if none of that works there's the Old Spaghetti method which is you take the
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spaghetti through it against the wall and see what sticks which means you put yourself up for all sorts of new
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activities experiences that you've never done before and see what gratifies you
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so let's dive into that I've heard a few times now Jordan you have some wonderful
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I call them three-word phrases one of yours is purpose identity and connections another one that you just
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mentioned was energy courage and time so let's dive into really quickly to purpose identity and connections I think
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if I slow down and think about them one not one by one I know exactly what you're talking about but right there you
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you just mentioned purpose and you mentioned I think slowing down to really try to identify your specific purpose
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over the long run and you even started to to say that recently or maybe over the past few years you've done a better
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job with that maybe do you mind sharing your story of kind of honing in further and further on your purpose and then if
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we have time we can expand to Identity and connections from there there yeah and and I like to start the conversation
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by saying that purpose doesn't have to be a big thing it can be a small thing
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and your purpose can change from time to time and you can have many purposes so when I was little seven years old my
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father died and he was a doctor and I decided that cosmically I could make the world right by becoming a doctor like
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him it could somehow make up for the fact that he died way too young and it made no sense and so for a very
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beginning of my life becoming a doctor was very purposeful for me and it actually filled me up it brought me lots
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of Joy it pushed me to study really hard and really for the first 20 30 years of
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life that was my singular purpose because it was my purpose it became also my identity the sense of who are you
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well I'm the guy who's going to become a doctor and eventually I was the guy who
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did become a doctor as time went on though and I started practicing medicine I realized that that purpose wasn't
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serving me I was getting burned out I wasn't enjoying it as much as I wanted
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to and I started realizing that the sense of purpose and identity wasn't fitting because I wasn't really
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identifying as a doctor like I would feel uncomfortable in the hospital cafeteria hanging out with the other
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doctors when I went to parties I wouldn't want to tell other people what I did for a living it was only later on
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that I realized that that outward shell of a purpose and an identity that I had around me didn't fit how I felt
00:24:15
internally internally I was a lot more creative and I was a lot more interested in communication I loved writing I loved
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public speaking all these things that I never gave myself permission to do because I somehow told myself that isn't
00:24:27
something you do for a living so I had been writing on the side i' had been writing a medical blog for years and I
00:24:33
would do it during like weekends and nights and lunch hours I mean I was so busy with my life that I often didn't
00:24:39
edit it so I would get all these comments about how bad my grammar was but the point was it was so important to
00:24:45
me to fit that in but I never thought maybe that those things identify me are more purposeful for me than being a
00:24:52
doctor only when I realized the Boon of financial Independence and that I had enough money to do whatever I wanted did
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I give myself permission to put that identity of being a doctor down because it wasn't serving me and start thinking
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well if I'm going to start identifying myself different a big part of that is
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what is purposeful to me and I had to really look at myself and I started going back to Childhood and these things
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that I was doing that I was squirreling into these little moments I'd been writing poetry since I was in high
00:25:20
school or middle school I had been spending my time writing a medical blog whenever I could fit in the little bit
00:25:28
of extra time these were the things that were speaking to me and so I started exploring those and actually found what
00:25:35
I would call a much more durable sense of purpose in creating these conversations delving deeply into why we
00:25:42
do what we do forming a podcast writing a Blog doing a bunch of public speaking eventually writing taking stock that was
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a purpose that fit me better and because it fit me better it felt better and I often talk about purpose ident identity
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and connections but they're really very connected right because we end up identifying who we are based on what is
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important to us what our sense of purpose is and purpose and identity eventually if you find what fits you
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leads to connections so I had talked about this fact that I didn't feel comfortable around other doctors I
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hadn't really built a community or built some of those deeper connections but
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when I discovered that what I really wanted to be was a communicator and I loved podcasting and blogging and
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writing I found myself going to conferences and meeting other people who felt that same sense of purpose and
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identity and I automatically connected with them I mean in a way that I had never connected with doctors I had spent
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a decade or two around doctors and and had almost no doctor friends I went to some of these Financial conferences met
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other bloggers and podcasters and I have more deep friendships and connections over the last few years than I've ever
00:26:51
had in my life that's amazing and I can relate to some extent Jordan now I think
00:26:57
many listeners probably know this you you might not know this I spent six years of my late teens early 20s
00:27:03
preparing to be an engineer then spent seven years the first seven years of my career focused on engineering but then
00:27:11
in my brain I always had a love for Education my parents are both teachers I spent a lot of time in college being a a
00:27:17
teaching assistant teaching some courses also had this passion for personal finance and investing and so I pivoted a
00:27:24
year and a half ago I pivoted well really four and a half years ago is when I started this blog started the podcast
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like you I just love communicating I really love educating and then a year and a half ago professionally I pivoted
00:27:36
so now I'm working at a fiduciary you know wealth management firm helping clients educating clients on how better
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to invest how to do their long-term Financial plans and I feel much more fulfilled I feel like my my daily
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purpose is much more aligned with something deep inside that that I've been seeking out so can totally relate
00:27:57
to how good that feels and you know let's add in another layer to this you and I like talking about money but
00:28:04
notice how money didn't really income into this conversation maybe you could
00:28:06
have made a lot more as an engineer but you're finding yourself more fulfilled and what I learned in
00:28:12
medicine is even though I could make a lot of money doing it I was less fulfilled and that led to burnout and
00:28:18
burnout actually led to a very short career when I listen to stories like yours you realize that you may get to
00:28:25
that Financial place you want to get a touch slower M but your career trajectory will be much longer because
00:28:31
you're actually finding a sense of purpose and identity now in the work you're doing and you're creating a life
00:28:36
for yourself you don't want to escape from so this idea of I I have to retire
00:28:40
really quick so I can live the life I want to live that disappears and you're
00:28:44
like wait I'm living the life I want to live regardless if I'm retired or not
00:28:48
but in the meantime you can build this beautiful Financial framework around that to support freedom and retirement
00:28:54
and all those things when you're ready for them and I think that's the ultimate
00:28:59
goal I completely agree with you Jordan the way that I got involved in the whole
00:29:04
personal finance investing fire movement part of it had to do with I'm working as
00:29:09
an engineer not really loving my dayto day I want to look for a different way to do things fire financial Independence
00:29:16
retiring early was one of those paths that clicked with me it made sense to my mathematical mind I'm going for it it
00:29:23
didn't necessarily make me any happier to see my fire day get closer and closer
00:29:28
nothing like that and eventually I realized I just don't enjoy my day-to-day work it's not that I really
00:29:35
want to retire I just want to do something else other than sit in a cube and working as an engineer I haven't
00:29:42
really thought about fire over the past year Financial Independence I still think will happen I still have good
00:29:48
personal finance habits that will bring fi into my life sooner than maybe the average person the re portion not really
00:29:56
thinking about it at all and I think that's again going back to you know purpose and identity I think that's a
00:30:03
really big reason why our money is supposed to support the life we want to live what we're starting to realize now
00:30:10
is that the life we want to live can support our financial needs so it can go the other way around and I think those
00:30:18
of us who started in that really traditional fire movement didn't see that we just saw
00:30:25
work really hard make as much money as you can and buy your freedom I don't think we realized a lot of us that we
00:30:32
could actually start creating our freedom and our purpose now and have our money serve us on that
00:30:40
pathway as opposed to waiting until we got to some net worth number and I think it's fine if you want to do things that
00:30:46
way but all of us know someone who hit the retirement date and a week later got diagnosed with a cancer or something
00:30:53
else you just don't know how long you have I think it's sad had this idea of
00:30:58
if you keep on putting off happiness or keep on putting off the things that are purposeful for you at some point you may
00:31:05
miss the boat and that's in fact what we often talk to hospice patients dying
00:31:10
patients about and my goal is to keep us all from getting to that right that's
00:31:14
what we really mean by no regrets is living the life you want to live today so that whenever death comes you can
00:31:20
feel like you did those important things I had a former cooworker of mine Jordan
00:31:25
who was one of if not the most respected engineers in our facility of you know three or 400 Engineers this guy you know
00:31:32
top 1% 30-year career scientist extremely smart very kind individual retired a little bit early I think he
00:31:41
retired around 55 or 57 and within six months of retiring after a hike had a catastrophic heart
00:31:49
attack and died you know died before he hit the ground that kind of thing and it
00:31:54
really just brought into Focus that tomorrow isn't promised and I I do think
00:31:59
he got a lot of joy out of his work but still the fact that retirement was probably a goal of his and he reached
00:32:07
that goal and six months later it was done was a really impactful moment for me yeah I I have a funny not funny but I
00:32:16
have actually the best role model for this my father who died at 40 yeah he loved his job he loved photography he
00:32:23
loved travel that guy pursued his pth passions all the way up to the moment he died in
00:32:29
fact when he got done with his Fellowship he got offered a very prestigious high-paying job he was a
00:32:34
cancer doctor oncologist in a private practice and he turned it down to work at the Veterans Affairs Hospital
00:32:40
connected to the university which paid almost half but he had a lot more time to
00:32:46
himself he got to teach other students and residents it was his dream job and he gave up the money to do that looking
00:32:54
back knowing that he died at 40 he lived his life to the fullest he enjoyed every
00:32:59
moment he felt purpose in his activities and as I got older and realized that I was not nearly as passionate about being
00:33:05
a doctor as he was it really kind of clicked that maybe I should be spending my time doing some other
00:33:13
things this is a a personal and unplanned question Jordan and and if you don't want to answer it or or by all
00:33:20
means we can edit it out I'm just curious are you are you older now than your your father was when he passed I
00:33:26
assume you are yeah so I turned 52 days ago and my father died when he was 40 well happy recent birthday to you I'm
00:33:34
just curious I mean either around the time you were approaching your father's
00:33:39
age when he passed or when you passed that date or that birthday or now that you're older than he was did that have
00:33:46
some sort of concentrated effect on these topics that we're talking about today and your mentality towards them
00:33:55
interestingly enough it didn't and the reason why is I've spent a lot of time
00:34:00
thinking about my own mortality one of the stories I tell about my father is he actually had a premonition he was going
00:34:05
to die early and he told my mom this when he got married to he said you know what I'm going to die young it just is
00:34:10
what it is I think it's part of the reason that he actually lived life to its fullest while it was happening
00:34:15
because I think he kind of knew that he didn't have a long trajectory I felt
00:34:19
exactly the opposite I always thought that I was going to live a longer life and so I believe it or not wasn't is
00:34:27
worried about grinding it out young in age cuz I figured I had a pretty long trajectory so I looked at things a
00:34:33
little different so yes it's strange knowing my internal feelings and saying
00:34:39
I'm 50 years old my dad died at 40 because I only have the picture of him of a seven-year-old like my picture of
00:34:45
my father is this person who is much older than me and they were very adult and I was very little and so as a
00:34:51
50-year-old now to look back and come to terms with the fact that I'm older than
00:34:56
he was and I've accomplished some of the things he did and and so that that's
00:35:00
what's kind of the disconnect for me but I kind of lived with a much different
00:35:05
feeling about mortality and so it didn't affect me I think as profoundly as it
00:35:09
might have affected someone else got it that that makes sense that makes sense I
00:35:13
want to Pivot back a little bit to some of your experiences as a hospice doctor and now my my kind of segue into this
00:35:20
question so at work for me or through my blog or through the podcast even at like
00:35:25
you know the family Barbecue the friends barbecues now people know kind of what I
00:35:29
do where my passions are I hear people talking or people come up to me and say things like I want to earn $200,000
00:35:37
that's my goal or I want to retire with $3 million that's my goal you know money
00:35:42
is the goal they're measuring in terms of dollars but I'm curious could you
00:35:46
share some of your experiences as a hospice doctor and and maybe first just in 20 seconds explain what a hospice
00:35:53
doctor does in case some of our listeners aren't aren't familiar but then how many many of your patients
00:35:57
share their Joy or regret of life in terms of dollars by hitting monetary goals right so hospice doctor is a
00:36:06
doctor who takes care of patients in the last six months of their life the care is not oriented to cure or fixing the
00:36:13
problem it's really oriented to making people comfortable and helping them prepare for this idea that they're dying
00:36:20
and so I deal with a lot of people at the end of life and almost no one says I wish I had hit a higher net worth almost
00:36:29
no one says I wish I worked more nights and weekends when people do talk about money it's usually a regret that they
00:36:37
didn't have enough just to cover some of the basic things they needed or a wish
00:36:42
that they could have left more to their children which is more about I wish I could leave more of a legacy to my
00:36:47
children and not necessarily about money itself and so usually money is not something people specifically talk about
00:36:55
and if you think about it it makes sense you know I've said in my book and I've
00:37:00
written about this extensively on my blog you know money is really a mirage we give it all sorts of characteristics
00:37:06
as if it's this big important thing and that thing unto itself has meaning or
00:37:12
value but we all really kind of know money is a construct it's something that
00:37:17
helps us do other things and it's those other things which are important not the
00:37:21
money itself money is a tool and people forget it's just one of many tools it's
00:37:26
it's a very effective tool if you have lots of money it can provide space and
00:37:31
time for you to explore those other things that are purposeful to you but it's just one of many tools and so it's
00:37:38
really hard for a person at their deathbed to look at money and that be the regret because money signifies other
00:37:46
things and so the real question is what does money signify in your life and how can we start working to those towards
00:37:53
those other things whether you have the money today or not because again A lot of times we have other tools at our
00:37:59
disposal that can help us get there you might not have had enough money to fire the day that you realized that you'd
00:38:05
rather be doing what you're doing today as opposed to being an engineer but you
00:38:09
had your knowledge your skills your knowhow and your passion and those were some other tools that you could use to
00:38:15
start living a more purposeful life that day as opposed to waiting till you had enough money to bail you out to do it
00:38:22
and so people make the mistake they think oh boy we need lots of money and money is going to solve all our problems
00:38:29
it solves some problems but not all and a lot of people find themselves quite depressed and disconcerted when they
00:38:35
actually get to their goal Financial number and realize that all their life problems still exist they just don't
00:38:41
have any financial problems anymore but they still maybe don't know who they are
00:38:44
or what's important to them or they're still chasing after this concept of
00:38:47
happiness and they haven't quite figured out what that is yeah you're you're
00:38:51
exactly right I think the day I decided to switch jobs and then the day I eventually did switch jobs my financial
00:38:58
metrics took a hit my salary decreased my eventual you know retire early date if I wanted to do that got pushed out to
00:39:06
the Future just across the board the financial numbers took a hit but from a life enjoyment point of view or just
00:39:14
from a efficacy of my time point of view what used to be this 9h hour block a day
00:39:19
of essentially negative space time that I either felt was completely committed to my corporate employer time that I
00:39:26
didn't feel like I owned time that I really didn't enjoy got replaced with
00:39:31
you know maybe 10 hours a day at the new job but where I'm enjoying what I'm
00:39:35
doing I'm getting to have conversations like this one and many other conversations with people that are
00:39:41
really helping them in their life and therefore giving me meaning in in my life more meaning so finances took a hit
00:39:49
you know you could objectively say negative yet somehow overall a huge positive impact on my life and that's
00:39:56
because I I need to measure change in something other than just the financial aspect and this is a perfect example of
00:40:03
how I think we should be thinking about money so what you did is you Ed the art of subtraction you took what you loathe
00:40:08
in your life and you subtracted it out but then you Ed the art of addition which is then taking things that were
00:40:14
joyful and purposeful and started adding them into that open space that was now available what was the role of money
00:40:22
well money is a tool so if you were moderately successful as an engineer and you had enough money to take that
00:40:27
Financial hit it definitely allowed you to move to that next step but the money itself didn't solve any real problems it
00:40:35
just gave you a touch of margin so that you could subtract out what was bad and add in what was good but you needed a
00:40:41
lot more than money you needed other tools you needed something you were passionate about you might have needed
00:40:46
some connections in the community to get a new job or just to learn how to do the
00:40:50
things you now wanted to do you might have needed energy right and passion and all these other types of tools that you
00:40:57
had at your disposal money was just one of them but the money really again wasn't the important thing and this is
00:41:03
the mistake we make when we think that net worth is what our true goal is money was a tool along the way living the life
00:41:10
full of purpose that's the real goal totally agree and and the connections part we haven't really
00:41:17
touched on the connections too much yet that was a really big part of my transition and it was something I think
00:41:23
I undervalued as an engineer but now I see more and more every day the value of connections and that can be family and
00:41:30
friendly connections on the personal side it could be you know more of like a business connection and or or you know
00:41:36
I'm thinking of what you and I are doing here Jordan right podcasting blogging
00:41:40
the people that we've met here in this personal finance content community and
00:41:44
the amazing opportunities that have come out of those connections it is something
00:41:48
that depending on who I'm talking to when someone's kind of explaining some
00:41:52
of their struggles in life that's now one of the things that I spend a lot of
00:41:55
time think about is is this person struggling at all on the connections side so do you have any thoughts advice
00:42:03
regrets of the dying that you can share with us when it comes to Connections in life let me State something that I've
00:42:10
probably never stated in this way before but nonetheless is exceedingly true connections is the most part of this
00:42:17
journey and it's all the so the one you should spend almost no time thinking
00:42:21
about and this is why purpose and identity if you pursue them avidly and find what is your purpose and
00:42:32
get in touch with your own identity the connections will naturally flow without you thinking much about them the goal of
00:42:40
all of this is not purpose the goal of all of this is not identity the goal of all this is community and connections I
00:42:46
actually believe that that's what makes us feel good in life and probably leads
00:42:50
to our greatest Legacy after we're gone or the people we've touched who continue
00:42:56
that's how we live on after we die that's our True Legacy but I think you should spend not
00:43:03
a moment worrying about that I think if you develop your sense of purpose and identity the connections naturally will
00:43:08
follow they certainly did with me when I started being a person more in touch with my own sense of identity and
00:43:15
started doing things that I was purposeful about I couldn't help but forming a community when I started
00:43:20
podcasting I had all these people on my podcast and they became my friends and they also helped and pushed me and said
00:43:28
one of my friends who I had on the podcast a few times said hey you really need to write a book and that was
00:43:33
actually a big portion of purpose for me but I was afraid to do it before I had all these worries about failing and I
00:43:40
had no idea how to really get it done and how to get it professionally published but because I had built a
00:43:45
community this Community member not only gave me the courage to do something I really wanted to do but then also had
00:43:51
the KN how because he had published a book before and so it's cyclical it all
00:43:56
Builds on itself so if you work on purpose and identity the rest I truly believe will take care of itself that's
00:44:02
the Nugget of gold that that not not that the rest of this conversation hasn't been
00:44:07
terrific really no it really has been it's been an awesome conversation but that's something that I I don't think
00:44:13
I've ever really thought about that or heard it put in that way Jordan phrased
00:44:17
in that way but I can see it making sense like pursue your unique identity find your unique identity pursue your
00:44:27
specific passions and you'll find the right Community to fall into or a community will form around you or you'll
00:44:34
meet new people who have those same passions and purpose as you do and and that will end up being your community
00:44:40
essentially you don't have to try for it is what you're saying it'll it's a
00:44:44
function it naturally flows from pursuing your purpose and identity I love it and it will lead and this is the
00:44:52
other part of it it will lead to a greater Legacy and so let me tell another story I've been telling a lot
00:44:58
lately about when I was in elementary and middle school I was a pretty dorky kid I didn't have a lot of friends I
00:45:06
didn't feel like I got along I always felt different my dad had died all these
00:45:09
things I had a learning disability when I was little I didn't feel like I fit in
00:45:12
at all but I loved baseball and I loved collecting baseball cards down the street from me about a
00:45:20
mile right by my middle school was an antique stealer and that antique stealer one day bought a bunch of antiques and
00:45:29
one of the things that was part of this a lot of antiques was a bunch of baseball cards he knew nothing about
00:45:34
baseball cards he was selling off the Antiques in his store a snarky high school kid came in and said hey how much
00:45:40
you want for those baseball cards he was like 10 bucks guy said sure 10 bucks gave him 10 bucks spread the cards out
00:45:46
on the counter and said this one this one and this one are worth $100 total and the rest of them are worth about
00:45:52
another 50 this antique stealer wasn't pissed off off he was actually enthralled he started buying and selling
00:45:59
baseball cards he loved it it actually made his time in the antique store much more enjoyable he had been finishing off
00:46:05
furniture stuff he liked but the Antiques really spoke to him he was living a life of purpose he actually
00:46:11
started making more money but the reason why I'm bringing this up is this guy was
00:46:16
living his purpose he had figured out his identity he knew what he liked but he also created a space where the dorky
00:46:22
kids could come kids who didn't have Community kids who needed mentorship and
00:46:28
people like me would show up and he became kind of our Mentor we would open up packs of baseball cards I spent
00:46:34
countless afternoons in that store looking back that was the beginning of building confidence that
00:46:41
was the beginning of where I learned how to socialize this guy had a profound impact
00:46:47
on me and I don't think he was meaning to do that I think he was enthralled just as much as we were in the baseball
00:46:53
cards he had started Living a life of purpose he got in touch with his identity but by doing that he changed a
00:47:02
generation of young kids who lived in the area he actually got testicular cancer and the store had to close and I
00:47:09
assume it was you know spread and who knows I don't know if he lived or died I
00:47:13
hav't I I don't know but let's say God forbid that he had become one of like
00:47:17
one of my hospice patients yeah after he was long gone there was this generation
00:47:23
of kids who felt more confident who had learned how to socialize who had the positive effects of a mentor and
00:47:31
they probably eventually became professionals and had kids and maybe they introduced baseball cards to their
00:47:36
kids and so if we think about Legacy purpose and identity lead to Connections in community connections and
00:47:43
Community lead to changing the people around you and those changes last long after you're gone maybe for Generations
00:47:52
as generations and generations of fathers and mother mothers teach their kids about baseball cards and that
00:47:58
creates Community for them and changes the world and so ultimately I think this is how we create our biggest Legacy and
00:48:06
it has nothing and I'll say it one more time it has nothing to do with money a rising tide lifts All Ships I
00:48:14
mean that gentleman was a rising tide in in your life Jordan and and and the the
00:48:18
community of you know young men around you and you're acting as a rising tide
00:48:23
in many ways for for your listeners for your readers so interesting actually now with this
00:48:29
antique store owner his community was very much iners and known to him and and known to you it was right there in front
00:48:37
of you it was tangible your community and maybe to some extent my community I don't know all my readers and listeners
00:48:44
and it's very interesting that especially you I think with the earn and invest podcast with your book taking
00:48:49
stock you're likely having an impact in some ways that you're not even fully
00:48:54
aware of it on a a day-to-day basis it's funny the difference between local and Global impact my theory is
00:49:03
actually if you have local impact it eventually spreads so you're talking about a rising wave I love the the ocean
00:49:10
metaphor but for me it's more like a pebble dropped in the middle of the ocean creates a displacement a ripple
00:49:16
that can carry on for huge distances and so that's how I think about how we impact people locally now in the world
00:49:23
we live in today that's much more virtual we have the internet I can make a podcast in my home isolated with just
00:49:30
talking to a few people but that can go out to thousands and thousands more I think we can have that same ripple
00:49:37
effect that we used to only think Could Happen locally but now it has a little bit more of a global impact but I don't
00:49:43
think the theory is any different yes I locally create Community with people I know for instance when I was collecting
00:49:51
baseball cards as a podcaster I create communities of other podcasters and people I have on my show
00:49:58
and people I meet through it but you're also correct in the sense that there is
00:50:02
a more hidden or invisible Community to me of people listening and feeling a part of the podcast that I don't
00:50:08
necessarily interact with every day but I don't know if that necessarily lessens
00:50:12
the impact I think if I didn't have any local community if I didn't interact
00:50:18
with people and meet through people through the podcast and go to conferences and get to be in the same
00:50:22
room with them something would be definitely less but that doesn't take away from the
00:50:27
impact of those hidden communities that we're forming that maybe we're not as
00:50:31
aware of I think as a content creator we're in a different bucket in a sense
00:50:35
than lots of people because most people aren't content creators so they do all
00:50:39
these things but usually they're impact as much more local I think those of us
00:50:44
who create content sometimes have a little bit farther of a reach but I don't think it changes anything per se
00:50:50
no I I don't think so either I agree with you and if anything I think it's an
00:50:54
important thing for you and I to remind ourselves that there probably are a lot of relatively silent but still impacted
00:51:02
listeners and readers out there who maybe we only hear from them maybe we only hear from one in 100 or one in 10
00:51:08
or one in 50 but then there's another 49 in 50 that are getting a great impact
00:51:14
and we're helping them out in some little or big way we might not never know and and that's interesting in its
00:51:19
own way yeah what I always tell people is like when you try to sell something on your podcast or you offer course or
00:51:25
you offer something even if you have a pretty engaged audience you suspect that 3 to 5% of people might actually take
00:51:34
action and do something about it right so if you're getting an email here or
00:51:39
there imagine that you could multiply that by 20 is the true impact right so every time I get an email and someone
00:51:45
says hey your book really spoke to me or I love this episode you just did I kind
00:51:49
of in my mind multiply that by 20 because a very small number of people and this is this is Insider talk for
00:51:55
Content creators as opposed to everyone else but a very small percentage of people
00:52:01
actually take action based on what you say and let you know about it maybe they take action based on what you say but
00:52:07
very few people will actually go and write you an email so if you an avid listener of a content creator or reader
00:52:13
of a content creator this is the message to you your messages back to us mean something and it's nice to hear that
00:52:21
kind of we're not just sending this stuff out in The Ether because sometimes
00:52:24
it feels like it exactly right this is this is our plea for you guys to send Jordan a message send me a message let
00:52:31
us know that you just heard us speaking and we would greatly appreciate it well Jordan I mean terrific conversation I've
00:52:38
enjoyed it I know our listeners will enjoy it I've mentioned a couple times your podcast and your book and I want to
00:52:44
make sure that listeners know where they can listen and where they can check that
00:52:47
out so where where can people find you so the easiest way to find me is to go to Jordan grommet.com that's J R
00:52:56
dgme.com the reason why is you can find links to everywhere I create content there so number one the book taking
00:53:04
stock a hospice doctor's advice on financial Independence Building Wealth and living a regret-free life the links
00:53:10
are there to Amazon or wherever you want to buy it there's also links to my medical blog called in my humble opinion
00:53:16
which I wrote from about 2004 to 2018 my financial blog diversify dcom and the earn and invest podcast I spend
00:53:24
most of my time on earn and invest and so you can find that all at Jordan grommet.com
00:53:29
excellent all those links will be in the show notes everybody Jordan grummet dog
00:53:34
thank you for coming on the best interest podcast thank you for having me I appreciate
00:53:39
[Music] it thanks for tuning in to this episode of the best interest podcast if you have
00:53:46
a question for Jesse to answer on a future episode send him an email at Jesse bestin interest. blog again that's
00:53:53
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00:54:02
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00:54:07
next episode of the best interest [Music] podcast the best interest podcast is a
00:54:15
personal podcast met for education and entertainment it should not be taken as Financial advice and is not prescriptive
00:54:22
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