How to Build a Career You Won’t Regret (Before You Climb the Wrong Ladder) (SB1911)

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Hey, Stackers. Joe Saul Sehi here. What if you spend the next 10 years climbing the corporate ladder only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall? You know, you get the promotions, you earn the raises, maybe you finally land that job title you've been chasing. But what if you look back then and you think, man, I wish I'd done that differently? Well, today, we're going to help you avoid that. We pulled a fantastic Friday Roundtable from Mom's Basement Vault, featuring Paula Pant, the Len Penzo, Dr. Jordan Grummet, AKA Doc G. And I love this conversation because we don't just tell you to follow your passion. We're talking about real decisions. When should you chase a promotion? When should you say no to your boss?

And how do you figure out what you want your career to accomplish beyond just earning a paycheck? Len shares a regret about missing family birthdays for work. Doc G brings lessons from his years caring for hospice patients. And Paula challenges how we define success in the first place. Best of all, we're going to help you start making these decisions now instead of waiting 10 years to wish you'd done things differently. Here's what's cool. This conversation originally aired back in 2022. We're bringing it back for Greatest This Week because this is still a big, big, big thing, big trap we see people fall into, right? We've cleaned up most of the data references, although a few still might be hiding behind Mom's water heater.

Here's my challenge. After listening, write me, [email protected]. Tell me one career decision you're going to make differently. Maybe it's setting a boundary, pursuing an opportunity, or finally deciding what success actually means to you instead of just packing lunch and going to work. And if you've ever worked on the financial side of those decisions, we've got resources to help you at stackingbenjamins.com/guides. All right, let's head back to Mom's Basement where Paula, Len, and Doc G, well, they're about to help us build careers we won't regret and where Doug, apparently, is concerned about alien cow abductions. Just another Friday in Mom's Basement. Let's get to it.

Live from YouTube, it's The Stacking Benjamin Show.

I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and are you headed toward a life of regret? No, not today, mister or miss. Today, in Headlines, we're talking about how to not regret your career in 10 years. 10 years, I regret my career right now. Today is also the anniversary of the first reported UFO sighting in the United States. So maybe aliens will just come and end it all. But until then, today, we welcome a woman who is out of this world, Paula Pant. And a man who thought UFO meant unforgivable financial offense from lenpenzo.com. We welcome ET. Nah, it's just his look-alike, Len Penzo.

Joining us, of course, is also our very own little green man, Doc G.

Green?

And now, a guy who's here to probe your financial life. Oh, that's uncomfortable. To learn more about your species, it's Joe Saul Sehi.

Never thought we'd have more fun with the word probe at the beginning of the podcast.

It's just, it's an inherently funny word. You can't say the word probe and not giggle a little bit.

Not good. Let's probe into why that's funny, Doug. Hey, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Friday. Let me be the first one to welcome you. I'm Joe Saul Sehi, AverageJoeMoney on Twitter. And I am so happy we're going to be talking about this topic. We are diving in today to not regretting your career. And somebody who's regretted that he's been with us on this podcast the last 10 years, I'm sure it is Mr. Len Penzo. How are you, man?

I'm great, and I've regretted my career. Some of us are too old. Well, that's, it's too late for this podcast. This podcast is too late.

You can still help other people, Uncle Len.

Yes.

You can still help other people that regret their career.

Save me, somebody.

Yes. And another gentleman who, by the way, talks about regret in a new book coming up and not regretting your life, the author behind the soon coming out Taking Stock, Mr. Doc G's here.

Hey, it's great to be here. I'm regretting that pastrami sandwich I had for lunch. But besides that, not much regret today.

Don't make us regret it. No, we don't need any stomach gurgles. And how do I transition from stomach gurgles to? I got nothing. Paula Pant joins us. Happy Friday.

I do not have stomach gurgles, so there's the transition. Someone, speaking of people who don't have stomach gurgles, Paula Pant.

Yes, there it is. That's exactly what I should have done.

I thought Joe was bad at transitions.

Regret that transition already.

Even got Doug on that one. Well, we got a great show. We're going to talk about not regretting your career. We got a gentleman who just retired, a guy who was hospice doctor for a long time, and Paula. So there you go. Let's get this party started. But actually, before we get the party started. Well, you may know that chaos is the name of the game here in Mom's Basement. What with guests coming in and out, Cooper the Cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. The holidays make it even worse because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge, huge bookends. Well, that's where Factor comes in.

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Now, let's get a move on.

Today's piece comes to us from a blog called youngmoney.co. Len, I've never seen this blog before. Have you seen this before today?

Actually, didn't we already do one on this? I thought we did it. We already did one on Young Money. We, this was the second time I think we've covered a Young Money.

Well, it's funny because I don't remember youngmoney.co, but I do remember the name Jack Rains. So Jack.

Yeah. Jack, if. We've done, this is the second one we've done from Jack Rains.

How about that? Paula, do you remember it?

I, I do not remember.

Do not.

I don't remember the website. I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember any of it.

So much.

I feel like I've seen that layout of a blog post and the colors and everything. So I'm going to agree with Len. That looked familiar to me.

Yeah, something's going on. Well, maybe it's just a great piece and we're all excited that we're talking about it. Because we're talking about not regretting your career today and looking back 10 years from now and going, you know what? I made some great decisions. Paula, we'll start with you. He, he says in this piece, he starts off with, if you want to win the game of success. And in fact, I like the way he puts this. You've lost before you left the starting block. If you win the rat race, you're still a rat. Do you, do you agree with that sentiment?

Well, I think that's an awfully judgy way to say it. So I do not agree with that sentiment. No. But I do like, he, he has this analogy of the game of Tetris, which no surprise here, I have never played. But according to him, Tetris is a game that you cannot win. You can move up, you can have increasingly more interesting challenges. You can have, you know, various levels of success, but you can never actually, according to him, win the game of Tetris again. I've never played it. So I'm taking his word for it on that. And I think that that's a good analogy when you think about your career. Like oftentimes people might set out at the beginning of their career to be quote unquote, successful. But the definition of success is a moving goalpost and it's relative to where you currently are.

And based on your values, goals, priorities at a given moment in your life, your definition of success is going to be in flux. So don't make the mistake of believing that how you define success at the age of 22 or 25 or 30 or 40 or 50 will be how you define success 10, 20, 30 years down the road.

But Len, does it, does it have to be a moving goalpost? I mean, or is that just the nature of being human that every time we get a raise or promotion, we're always looking at the next one going, maybe the grass will be greener when I get the next thing.

You know, I, I guess it's, um, life is a long river. It's a long journey and there's lots of stops along the way. And there's lots of destinations that you should be planning for along the way. I guess you can call those your goals. One thing I will say is in response to your question, Joe, is, is that I got to a point about 10, 12 years ago, where I did not want to go up any higher on the la, on the corporate ladder. Because I looked at the people who were above me in those positions and I didn't want to be there. And I recognized it because it was too much, it would, it would have asked too much of me. And so I said, you know what? I'm happy where I'm at. I'm going to stay where I'm at because I enjoy what I'm doing. And I had made a conscious decision to stay where I was at and just do the best I could in my current position.

So there did come a point where I realized, you know, you don't have to go all the way to the top. You know, there's a place where you can be in your job and be happy and thrive.

You know, there's a couple of chemical reactions that happen in our brain when we achieve different things. We get a dopamine hit, right? We get that. There's also the serotonin rush that we can get. Did you feel this, this, uh, lack of, I mean, did you feel a little lost at first, Len, when you decided, you know what? Um, I'm moving off the corporate ladder. Did that feel bad at all that you're no longer going to get those dopamine hits anymore of, hey, I achieved the next rank up?

Well, no, I, what I did is I shifted where I got my dopamine hits from. So instead of the dopamine hits coming from, okay, I'm another run up the corporate ladder. It was the job I was responsible for. I had projects that had to be completed. And that's, I was deriving my dopamine hits from the successful completion of those long-term projects, you know, with the short, short goals in between. That's where I was getting my dopamine hits. I didn't need to get dopamine hits from moving up the corporate ladder.

The pride in doing the thing. I am really proud. I just got to say, guys, I am really proud of all four or five of us because we let Len go all the way through dopamine hits. And not a single one of us made a joke about some dude standing on a corner that he had to meet at like, you know,

to get his, get his dopamine hit.

We are really maturing as a show.

Good job, everybody.

I'm so happy you brought up how much we're maturing as, as a show and focused in on the fact that we didn't do that at all. We would never do that. We wouldn't even go there. Uh, he very bluntly in this piece, Doc G says that, uh, status is a lie. So going from what Paula talked about and what Len talked about, that the ladder is a lie and status is a lie. And you're going to regret your career if you go down that ladder. True or false?

I mean, I think it's mostly true. The problem with status is, as we were talking about, it's never enough. And you get on a treadmill of achieving a certain status or a certain promotion or even a certain raise. And you're happy with it all of a moment. And then you're happy no longer. And I think there's a few reasons. One is because deep down inside defining kind of our meaning and purpose by these status changes, there's no real there, there, right? There's other deeper things we ultimately have to start looking for to find happiness. The other thing is loss aversion. I think when you are fighting to get to this goal, this thing that's really important to you, once you get there, instead of being happy or content, usually you're immediately afraid you're going to lose whatever status you have.

And so the next thing to do is to start marching farther and farther up or trying to make more and more money. So I think in a sense, yes, some of this kind of status climbing is a sham because ultimately I don't think it's truly what makes us happy. It's just low hanging fruit. It's really easy to focus on these status changes and think that that's what life is really about.

Yeah, but I wonder, just based on what all of you are saying, Paula, let's talk about something you know a ton about, which is pro sports. I know you follow pro sports very, very closely. It's your.

Absolutely.

Yeah. But, but people like, people like Tom Brady, uh, who you may or may not know, guy named LeBron James, also you may or may not know. I mean, these people, you, you see them always going up the ladder. Tom Brady retired for a second and then unretired because he wants to go win another Super Bowl, chasing this status thing that Jack says in this piece is, is, is not the right way to go. I mean, is, should we call Tom Brady and tell him he's doing it wrong?

Well, first, we don't know his motivations. So we don't know if the reason that he unretired is because he's chasing status or because he enjoys the challenge of competition. He enjoys the, the focus that comes from having a clearly defined goal with a, with a very specific date. And a, you know, very tangible, measurable outcome, like winning the Super Bowl, right? Like there, there are many ways that a person could inherently enjoy the work itself.

He just wants some peace and quiet to get out of the house. I mean, he's got kids.

I was going to say, Giselle wanted him out of the house.

Us mortals, we usually just go spend an hour in the bathroom. Tom has a whole pro career to get out of the house.

So I guess the broader point is that from the outside looking in, there might be two people who perform the exact same actions. And so from the outside looking in, it might seem as though both of them are chasing status. But one might be motivated by status or ego, while the other might be motivated by the intrinsic love of the work.

You've got a book coming out. I don't know if you know this or not, Doc G. You've got a book coming out.

I do.

You do. Congrats. Yes.

Wow.

Be the first to congratulate. You better get writing because it's supposedly coming out very soon here. But you talk about people taking stock of their life and at the end of their life. And, and, and I think a lot of this has to do with not regretting the decisions that you made. Like how do we, how do we start to transition from, I'm just going to chase this ladder to nowhere into something that we look back on and we're happy with?

Well, I think we have to really start concentrating on these ideas of identity and purpose and connections way earlier in our careers. And I'll give you a simple way of doing that. I'm a hospice doctor, so I deal with people who are dying all the time. And one thing I consistently hear from people dying is at some point they'll start looking back at their life and doing what we call life review. And they'll say, I really regret that I never had the energy, courage, or time to do, you know, dot, dot, dot. And there's always something that comes after that. And that's a good concept to frame this idea of what's really meaningful to us and what gives us a sense of purpose. The problem is sometimes we chase things like status

or our career path or money and forget that those things are kind of easy to define, but don't necessarily meet that sense of meaning and purpose. So in a sense, we're spending our time doing those things as opposed to some of the things that might really be more meaningful to us or might be more important, especially as we get older and find that we have less time than we thought.

Are you with Doc Len that you, early in your career, should really think about meaning and purpose early and often?

Yeah, absolutely. But you know what? It's hard when you're younger. It, it's really hard. It's just, life is so different when you're younger. I mean, you just think you've got forever and time goes for everybody. As you get older, as I'm learning.

But I think it's also hard from a different way, Len. I think it's hard when you're just broke and you're thinking about the next paycheck and you're like, I'd love to think about my meaning and purpose, but I don't have any money. Like, I just have to get a paycheck. Like, I remember thinking that, that if I can just get beyond the next damn paycheck, so I can think, so I can actually start to plan, like, that's what I'm pushing for.

I was never really in that position ever, so I can't relate to that, but it makes total sense to me. But as I'm seeing it, I know we're focused around money, but really, the grand scheme of things, there's a lot of other things in life that, as I get older, I'm realizing, you know, it's not all about the money. It really isn't all about the Benjamins. There's so much more on the human side that, that I'm still figuring out mistakes I've been making, and I'm trying to change.

What is it, looking back on your career, Len, what are some of the things that you regret, that you wish that you'd done differently? I would imagine, you know, you've been retired a whole week, so you've been thinking a lot about the last.

Well, one thing I can tell you right now, that I wish I said no more to my work, there were certain, I was just, I was talking to the honeybee about this just the other day, it's like, I missed a couple of kids' birthdays, I missed a couple of my birthdays, because I had to go travel for work, and I did not tell my boss, no. And, you know what, looking back, it's like, why did I do that? You know, it's really, those are things you don't get back in time. And I was so focused on doing, you know, the job, that I should have been able to tell my boss, you know what, let's postpone that meeting for a week, or let's, you know,

you know, I've got personal things that I need to do, and I didn't. And so, those are kind of, those kind of personal things are what I regret.

We're hanging out, making the show on YouTube all summer long. If you want to join us for the recordings, we record Friday shows on Monday at 5:00 PM Eastern, do the math on where you're at. Carlos, hello. Amanda, hello. And James here. James says he agrees with the wizard. Who is the wizard?

Yeah, who's the wizard?

Does he?

Definitely Len.

Is he calling Len the wizard because of the long beard?

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I see it.

He's talking about dopamine hits. It's all very psychedelic. You know, in the last, I'll say, six to eight Fridays, we had a slightly different show, where we talked about your, finding your purpose in life. And we got very, the group of us got very esoteric about that. And I think, one of the places we landed, at least a couple of us, and I think Len and I were on the same page on this, not that we all had to agree, it's no fun if we all agree, but, was that, maybe you don't find your purpose in your job that generates a paycheck. Maybe your purpose is outside of that. So here, we're talking about how not to regret your career in 10 years. One perspective, or one approach to that is, don't

try to find your life satisfaction in your career. You guys, and what made me think of this, Joe, is you were saying, when you're young, you don't have any money, and you're thinking, I need the money, but gosh, should I also be doing something that makes me feel like I'm, you know, somehow serving the, the world at large a greater good? And that's a tall order. Maybe what you ought to do is, is to not regret your career, is, whatever your career is, that's funding the other stuff you want to get satisfaction from, whether it's your, you know, in your personal life, or some volunteer work you're doing, anything else, maybe that's your purpose, and it's not about your career. Like, you're, you may not regret it, because as long as it's not compromising your ideals and your morals and your scruples, it's paying the bills, and you're able to go do all those other

things where you really find satisfaction and fulfillment. And you don't have to even really put the two together in the same equation, other than one is helping fund the other.

Yeah, Doug, I, I actually agree with that 100%. I think the problem is that we're not intentional about purpose, so that we can make those trade-offs based on a rational understanding of what's important to us. You know, in the book, I argue, actually, there are three kind of general ways to financial independence, and only one actually is called the passion play, which is much more working at something you love. I think there are other paths to financial security in which you do exactly that. You understand that work can be a tool to make more money, which is another tool, which then can be used to accomplish some of your goals.

I don't want to dive more into that in the second half, but just to round off this first half, Doc G, from your career, I know, you and I've had this discussion, there's things, especially from early in your career, that you regret.

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, part of the work of becoming financially independent, and also writing this book, is I realized that I was so unaware of what my true meaning and purpose were. I thought that being a doctor was my purpose. It was only after I had enough money to start whittling away the things that I didn't like in my career, because I was so burned out, that I was left with the one thing that still felt good about my job, which was being a hospice doctor. If I had been more aware of this idea of meaning and purpose, I probably could have started my career as a hospice doctor. I probably would have never burned out. I might have made a lot less money, but then, I might have had a 40, 50-year career, and could have retired when I got to the end of that

incredibly impactful career for me.

And got more into the projects, like Len was talking about, and less into making great money.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Paula, how about you? Now, I know you've won a lifetime achievement award. You've had a long, fulfilling career.

For, for the, for anyone who's, who is wondering about that, yes, it's true. I won a lifetime achievement award at the age of 33, which I'm pretty sure is a very cloaked way of everyone telling me, get out.

Grandma. We're gonna, we're gonna start calling her grandma, Len.

You may have oversaturated the market, Paula.

So, um, but what was your question, Joe?

About, about, about regrets. Do you regret winning a lifetime achievement award?

I, I got very lucky, in that I chose my career, initially, out of college, I started writing for a newspaper. And I chose, I know, right? To anyone who's listening, who's under the age of 25, a newspaper is.

Grandma's teaching us about newspapers now.

Exactly. It's a print newspaper, and you open it at the, above the fold, there's column inches. No, um, yeah, all kinds of jargon. So, I went into the world of newspapers. Nobody goes into newspaper reporting for the money. It's not the type of thing that you go into for, for that, right? So, I chose that field, because I thought it was interesting. I thought that I would be skilled at it, and it would be fun, and it would, you know, and, and the reality of it, the day-to-day of it, was pretty good, you know, wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but I actually, I really enjoyed the work. But it became obvious to me that there was not going to be a future in print newspapers. And so, I pivoted, and created my own platform online, you know, understanding that the future of

media was going to be independent and digital. And I got lucky in that there was not a trade-off between, ultimately, over time, there was not a trade-off between doing what I loved, and doing the thing that would be lucrative. On the contrary, building my own business turned out to be far more lucrative than what I could have earned as a W2 employee. So, for me, the, you know, people often pit do what you love or make money as opposites, as though they're mutually exclusive, and I got lucky in that mine became a perfect Venn diagram overlap.

We're gonna end it right there. When we pick this back up, after this next segment, we're gonna talk about what Doug alluded to at the beginning there. How do we actually get that Venn diagram that Paula's talking about? We're gonna talk about an idea that's presented in the piece, about working backward, about inverting things. Is that kind of how we start? How do we start down this path? But before we get there, at the halfway point in every show here on Stacking Benjamins on Friday, we do a trivia question, where we have our three main contributors pitted head-to-head in an epic fight to the end of the year.

And to win, to win, you guys have heard of The Hunger Games, right?

We're changing things up this year.

That's, that's right. First place, you, you get to stay alive. The,

we, we have this epic trophy that OG has from winning last year. And Doc G, you're playing on behalf of OG today. So, OG, Paula, and Len are the three contributors in this game. Doc, you want the good news or bad news about where you sit?

Well, this is me and the trivia segment, so it's all bad news, regardless.

It's bad news for, bad news for, for OG. Doc G has a well-earned reputation by usually missing by a few million, even if the real answer is 12.

On a good day, yes.

Yes. OG and Paula, over the past couple of weeks, have been kind of reeling Len in a little bit. Len has nine, OG has seven and a half, Paula with six and a half, with her big win last week, could tie OG for second, which is a nice way to say tie for last. But, all right, Doug, you ready for this week's trivia question?

Let's do it.

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Okay. What is the deal with aliens for real? I like how the government was all like, oh yeah, we forgot to tell you they're real. And life on earth had gotten so crazy that we're all collectively like, yeah, what ifs? That's not even the craziest thing I've heard this week. I mean, here's an example. I thought I bumped into an alien last Tuesday at the Easy Mart. Turns out it was just Joe's mom after a chemical peel. Have you heard about aliens and cows? Like, what is the deal with aliens and cows? Aliens were blamed for doing all kinds of weird things to cows in the seventies. But I mean, like, really, who wasn't doing weird stuff in the seventies?

In 2009, according to Mental Floss, a rancher in Colorado connected strange lights in the sky with the death of one of his cows. And you know how much the price of beef has gone up? That rancher must have been pissed at those aliens. Here on earth, there's this rumor that climate change isn't only because of all those aliens driving up the price of jet fuel, it's also because of cow farts. But just like I'm always falsely accused of crop dusting here in the basement, cows are maligned because, and I keep telling the guys this about me, what's really the culprit is their breath. It's called enteric fermentation, basically the digestive process of animals with multiple stomachs.

Again, just like me, something else I've got in common with cows. So here's my question. You guys awake now? Here's my question. What percentage of total methane emissions are contributed through cow burps? I'll be back with the answer after I go put a mask over the cow we keep in the corner of the basement. We call it our cow. Our couch. That's what we, we call it the couch. Come on, Doc.

Is it a leather couch?

I even got Paul to laugh on that one.

I'm still trying to figure out the question.

What percentage of methane emissions are contributed by cows burping the alphabet?

So not farting, just burping?

No, because that's a myth. It's not their farts. I was thinking-

Most of it is coming from their farts.

Yeah, most of it comes from their breath, actually.

Their breath.

So here's the, I didn't think we were gonna have a question this week, Doug. I thought you were just on a cow.

There was so much information in there.

I thought that's what we were doing today. But, all right, that means, Mr. Penzo, you're going first. Emissions in cows.

Well, I don't want to milk this for too long because-

I have no idea. It's a percentage, right? So, so, okay, so that makes it, it's gotta be somewhere between one, right? You want a percentage. So it's gotta be-

I do.

Obviously between one and a hundred.

I can't believe this is-

It could be one in a thousand, Len. I've heard people say a thousand percent right.

Okay, well then, you hear that, Doug? That's probably good advice. I mean, I should say doc, that's good advice, Doc.

That would have been my answer, yeah.

Okay.

That would have been Doc's answer.

This puts me in the, on the horns of a dilemma because-

It just keeps getting better. It just keeps getting better.

But seriously, I gotta be careful here because I think the number's low, but that really makes it vulnerable for me to not have a, if I'm wrong, I'm really has no, have no chance this week. But I still think it's low. I'm gonna say, my goodness, this is crazy. I'm gonna say seven percent.

Seven percent. An utterly low answer.

Keep it going. I'm keeping it going, people.

Just trying to keep up. That means, Doc G, you're up next.

So I think he's too low. And I'm just excited because between one and a hundred, I can only be off by so much.

That's right.

I think it's higher, and so I gotta, I gotta go a number high enough that Paula's gonna have trouble Chelsea Brennan-ing me. So I'm gonna have to go with 35%, I think.

35%. Well, Paula, there's a conundrum.

Right, so it's clear that Len chose seven because he wanted to choose a number that was low enough that it would discourage me from Chelsea Brennan-ing him on the downside, right? Because if I chose six, then the range of possible answers that would be accurate, that would be correct if I were to choose the number six, you know, that it's a very narrow range. So Len chose seven in order to discourage me from Chelsea Brennan-ing him on the downside.

You'd roughly have a six 100 shot.

Yeah, it's not that Paula's vain, it's just that she figures everybody else is really focused only on her and how she's gonna guess.

That's all we've been thinking. We're just wondering, just like your question, if she is going to guess. That's what we're-

Well, I, I mean, my answer is going to be either six or eight. It's just to do I, do I-

Paula!

Of course, of course.

Now you Chelsea Brennaned me last week, and that cost me.

You got sandwiched last week.

Yeah, it was bad last week.

Does it help you, Paula, if my gut says go with eight? Maybe then you go with the opposite? I don't know.

Hmm, hmm. Let's see. And the question is, percentage of total methane emissions emitted through cow burps, correct?

Yes, more or less.

Jeez, okay, I know that cows do have quite a reputation for their contribution to the methane problem.

Paula, I'll pay you $10 to Chelsea Brennan Doc.

Could be a side hustle here, Paula.

More than the trophy, Paula.

You could buy your own trophy.

I'm, I'm gonna go with eight. I'm gonna go with eight.

Goes with eight.

Rascal.

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Len Penzo, you kicked it off with seven seemed like a good idea at the time.

I'm screwed.

Doc G, nobody went nearly as high as you. What is your number? 3,000?

35.

30, only 35, I'm sorry.

All I can say, all I can say is Len is screwed.

I'm so used to your guess being 6 million.

That I'm kind of shocked. And Paula, you've got eight. How are you feeling?

Well, now that both Len and Doc G have said that Len is screwed, I think the answer is going to be like four.

Cause that's the way it's worked most of the time when you feel confident, Paula.

Exactly.

All right, Doug. Doug's got the answer. Let's see who's going to win this one.

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and I'm back. According to a little boutique ag producer called Cargill, one surprising solution to the methane issue is seaweed. It's been found that seaweed can provide all of the nutrients without the climate change burps. Well, you know, if you get lost in this scientific jargon, by the way, a different type of red seaweed has been found to reduce methane emissions by 95%. And that's good because you know what percentage of total methane emissions are contributed by the digestive process of animals? 27%. That means Doc G is our winner.

What the hell's going on?

What is going on? My attempts to thwart OG have failed miserably.

What is going on?

Paula, Paula could have had 10 bucks and one. She had one and $10.

Could have had the side gig, Paula. You let it go. And once again, you felt confident, but you were on the right side of seven. You were on the right side of seven.

Correct. Yeah, absolutely.

Just not, just not close enough. And that means OG now eight and a half, only half a point Len behind you. We'll see.

Hey, it's hard to go first.

We'll see next week how this continues. So much excitement.

We're transitioning to the second half of this discussion and Doug hit the nail on the head. Maybe we should be thinking about other things. You know, it's funny, Doug, when you were talking earlier about what we should be focusing on, we were in, in this group that I'm a part of called Strategic Coach. My coach at our last meeting said, he said that there's a difference between your vision and what your goals are and, and your goals are going to be time-based, right? Smart goals are going to be time-based. They're going to have, you're going to know if you reach them or not, and you're going to cross the line with them. But your vision is much more beyond your business. It's beyond your career. And he said, what is your vision beyond your career for yourself? I mean, think about thinking, but

first time in my life, I'm 54 years old. I'm like, beyond my career, what is my vision? Like, holy cow. But Paula, does that kind of nail it? Is it really thinking bigger than your career, bigger than what you're doing the nine to five?

Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, your career is one element of your overall life. And certainly it's, it's a major defining element, but it is one and only one element of the vision, the big picture vision of the type of life that you want to create. So I completely relate to that concept that visions are not goals. A vision is big picture. It's broad, you know, whereas a goal is, as you said, time-bound, specific, measurable. So start with the vision. To quote you quoting Stephen Covey, start with the end in mind.

Yeah. Yeah. But and Len, I'm wondering, when it comes to the thoughts that you had about your career, when you messed up, like not telling the boss, no, like, I feel like working from a vision, right? Working from this is what my whole life is and not just my career, might give you the perspective to be able to say no more easily.

Yeah, that would help if you're, like I said, when you're younger, it's kind of harder to, to want to do that. But yes, if you can do that, you would greatly benefit. Try and take a look at the whole picture. Understand there's, there is more to life than just the career. You know, it's a big world out there. There's a lot, and there's a lot of impacts that we can all make outside of career. So yeah, it's hard. It's hard to take a look at all that stuff. And it really is. It's easier said than done.

Well, and that's what I'm thinking about. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, what is my big picture vision? Holy cow. That's a big question, right? That's a huge question to ask myself. And Jack, in this piece, the author of the piece that we're kind of riffing on today for inspiration, he quotes Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger, of course, the fantastic investor. Charlie Munger uses the term invert. He says, turn a situation or problem upside down, look at it backwards. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don't we want to go? And how do we get there? And so what he says, what Jack says in the piece, the corollary here is to ask ourselves, maybe an easier question, Doc G, what don't I want? Like, maybe we just start with, what am I sure I do not want to have

happen in my life? Is that a easier path?

I don't buy into that at all. There is a place for asking what I don't want, but usually the better question is, what do I want more? So that I can decrease what I don't want and fill it up with things that I do want. So I completely disagree. I think you have to really do some of that purpose and identity work earlier on so that you can figure what actually fulfills that sense and what doesn't. Now, again, that doesn't mean you that you leave your career or your job right away. This is all about trade-offs. And some, sometimes the trade-off is I do need to make money and that's okay. But in my opinion.

Your career could also be a part of that vision. Like Paula was saying earlier, that there can be a synergy between them.

I mean, I had the modeling of two parents who loved their jobs, but something happened when they got more and more financially well off, they just started subtracting out things from the job they didn't like. So every bit of friction, every client they didn't like, every project that was no longer, you know, fulfilling a sense of meaning and purpose, eventually they were able to get rid of it. So I do agree in the sense that once you have a better idea of what you think meaning and purpose are, then you can start subtracting out those things you don't like. But to indiscriminately get rid of what you don't like first is still going to leave a little bit of vacuum until you do find what is important to you.

Paula, you also disagree with Jack and Charlie Munger?

Well, I think that there are just different frameworks, different approaches for, for coming at the problem, you know, certainly defining what you don't like is necessary, but not sufficient. And similarly, identifying the trade-offs, identifying that you, you want X and you want Y, but which of those two do you want more, right? Which of those two of the things you want, are you willing to trade off? Because one of them is higher ranked than the other in terms of desires, values, principles, vision, right? I think both of those exercises are needed.

Is that what you're getting at, Doc G? Are you getting at like Tinder your goals? You take, you swipe left or swipe right on your different goals?

Well, here's the way I look at it. Like, we have a set amount of time on this earth. We don't know, we could die at 50, we could die at 80, we don't know. But each of us probably has a set amount of time and we can't commoditize that time. We can't buy it. We can't sell it. The only thing we can really do is really decide what activities to place in those time slots. So our goal as human beings, I believe, is to fill as many of those time slots with things that are meaningful to us and get rid of filling those time slots with things that we don't like. So however, we find a way to juggle that best to optimize those spaces so that they're,

they're filled with things that we want to be doing, the better. I don't know if it's that kind of Tinderization of swipe left, swipe right. I think it's a matter of deciding what the trade-offs are of doing the activities we do on a daily basis and trying to be very intentional about those.

Doc, I think you're right on. And here's kind of the irony of the thing is, you know, as you're, when you're younger, you don't know, a lot of times you don't really know what your calling is or what gives you purpose. It could take a decade or more to figure it out. When you're filling those boxes, as Doc's talked about, you're going to find out the things you like and the things you don't like, but that takes time. That takes part of your life experience. You're going to burn some years filling those boxes, figuring out what, what are the negatives and what are the things, the things you don't like and the things you do like. And then going back to the money issue, money is ultimately money. Here's where the money does come in. Money is freedom. The more money you have, the

more freedom you have. So sometimes you're going to have to sit through that job you might not like for a little while to get that money that you need, that will give you the freedom to walk away from the boxes that you've discovered that you don't like, and you can pursue the boxes of the things that you do like that might not pay money. Is that, is that kind of makes sense there?

You know, one point I just want to make though, is you said it takes time and it may take decades. Well, I work with dying people on a regular basis. And I'll tell you right now, most people actually never start thinking about meaning and purpose. And the reason is it's really hard. Yeah. And so this is the issue is that people just don't do it. We need to start doing this way earlier. And I think, you know, my theory on why people don't do it is this, because it's scary. I mean, to come to terms with the fact that there are these really important things in life and you need to start assessing them and thinking about them is also to come to terms with the fact that life is finite. You might never be there and one day you're going to die. And people don't like doing that.

You know what? Let me just, the old guy, one more time. I just got to say this, and I've sound like a broken record. I, when you're younger though, it's hard to see that. I mean, you just got so much life ahead of you. And as it's really, as you get older, only does that, at least for me, it didn't really come into focus till I got older and I'm going, geez, I've, that toilet paper roll, you know, how it unwinds faster and faster, the older you get, right? So, so you know, I'm at that point now where the toilet paper roll is really spinning fast.

Have you seen a gastroenterologist recently, Len? There may be a solution there.

Oh, the toilet paper of life analogy.

Gets me every time.

Just remember, just remember that that toilet paper roll may run out really fast. No, my dad died at 40. So if you put off thinking about some of these things, you may miss out on considering meaning and purpose and then may pass away unfortunately way earlier than you thought. And that that's one of the tragedies that I see on a regular basis.

I wonder if, and Joe, feel free to edit this out later as you do with most of my content, but

that made Paula laugh. I've been trying to get her to laugh the whole episode and that's what got her. Anyway, just so you know, Paula, you are my litmus test in every episode. But anyway, do you think that the reason Doc that people put that off and never do it is because we feel like we get one shot at picking what our purpose is and it must be, it should be something this huge lofty, broad impact kind of purpose that's going to have this positive impact on everybody's lives. Could we, A, start a lot simpler, something that is, you know, my purpose is just to have a great family or to volunteer my time at a local shelter or something like that. And then realize we get to revise it. We

get to change our vision. We get to change our purpose five years later, two years later. We don't get just, but I think it's almost like, I want to write a book. I'm a good writer. I want, but I, what do I say? I don't have a message I'm trying to deliver. So you never do anything.

I think there's another piece. Well, I think there's another piece of that, Doug. I feel like, and this is my regret, is that when you start walking down one path, you have this piece of you that feels like you're closing other paths. And it isn't the fear of walking down one. It's a fear that I might not get the other five. And so you do nothing because of the fact that you're trying to make sure you keep all your options open.

Yeah. I mean, there's nothing that says your purpose is set in stone. I mean, purpose can be something at

Doug's is.

What was that?

Doug's is. It is locked in.

Purpose can be something as big as solving climate change, or it can be something as small as learning martial arts. I mean, it can be short term or it can be a long-term life goal. Again, in my opinion, the only requirement for purpose for me is that if I was sitting there on my deathbed bemoaning my life, I would complain that I didn't have the energy, courage, or time to pursue whatever that thing is, that kind of stuff that comes up. And that can be small. That can be fixing a relationship that went awry. I mean, that can be making a trip to a place that had some type of significance to you and you can graduate from one purpose and go to the other. It's actually quite magical. I think

the opportunities are out there and, and I don't think we should limit ourselves to feeling that purpose is this one thing that has to be huge and has to be our life's work, so to speak.

I guess a great place for us to lock this in. I love the idea that it's not about the Benjamins as much as it's about finding what you value and focusing on that. Let's talk about what each of you guys are doing as we get ready to say goodbye to this episode this week. What a, what a great discussion. Doc G is our guest of honor. We'll have you go last. Mr. Penzo, you are in the spotlight first, my friend. What's going on at Lenpenzo.com?

Oh, I had a little fun this week. I jotted down the 10 things I love the most about credit cards and the 10 things I hate the most about my credit cards. And I put them all in one spot.

I thought it was going to be

Lenpenzo.com.

The 10 things you love most about credit cards and then you send it to Mr. Ramsey.

No.

No.

You should, you should tweet it to him. The 10 things I like about credit cards. Dave, you agree with number six? No?

Um, I don't know. You know, I'd rather send him my thing on that I wrote about is snowball, debt snowball method and why I hated that so much.

Oh, man. There's a topic for the future. Debt snowball method controversy. We're going to have people, money geeks up in arms all over the place.

Oh, no, you didn't.

Paula Pant, what's going on at the Afford Anything Podcast?

On the Afford Anything Podcast, Columbia University Professor Dr. Michael Sleppian talks about the psychology of secrets. All of us have secrets and many of them are related on this conversation around career. Many of them are related to career ambitions that we have or plans to change careers or to quit our jobs or to retire early or to start our own business, right? There are these things that we don't share with our bosses or our colleagues or our clients. And similarly, there are many things that we don't share about finances and money. And so the psychology of secrecy, the way that it affects us, the way that it affects us internally as well as our relationships, that's what we discuss on the Afford Anything Podcast, available wherever finer podcasts are downloaded.

I thought you were going to say that you'd tell us what it was about, what you talked about, but it's a secret. So you

That would be good.

Can't do it.

Geez, I'd tell you what this episode is about, but

She, you know, Paula did that so smoothly. I was going to say she really butchered it, but

Back to utterly butchered it? Is that kind of a cheesy comment? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's just now I'm butchering it. Save us, Doc G. Thanks for joining us again, man. And I'm so proud of you, my friend. Not only, it's like the grasshoppers growing up. Just you, you not only didn't miss it by a million, but you actually won today's trivia. I'm just very proud.

Yeah, I'm so excited. I might be speechless at the moment.

Well, don't be, because you got to tell us what's going on at Earn and Invest Podcast.

Earn and Invest. This Monday, we had an episode with Patience Merrimay Ball and Dr. Usheber. They are the writers of the XX Edge. And they tell us why investing in women is good business. It's an amazing episode, an amazing book, chock full of figures and logic about why having women involved in business decisions, having them part of Board of Directors, having them as financial advisors actually creates more wealth in our world. So it's a fascinating discussion and I hope y'all take a listen.

Another deeper dive on the Earn and Invest Podcast and also available where finer podcasts are distributed. All right. That's going to do it for today. Thanks for joining us, everybody. By the way, if you are in Phoenix, I'm in Phoenix tonight at Barnes and Noble, come see us. And then on Sunday, I'll be at the Barnes and Noble in Summerlin, just outside of Las Vegas. So we'll see you guys Friday and Sunday as we finally wrap up this book tour. Unbelievable. So the last two stops, we got to throw down Phoenix and Vegas. We got to make this a big old party. All right. That's going to do it. Doug, it's up to you, man. What should we have learned today?

Well, Joe, first, to prevent regretting your career, find your hell yeah and go all in. Second, your vision and goals don't have to change the world. They don't even have to be permanent. Just pick one and start heading in that direction. You can pivot if you need to later. But the big lesson? Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Oh, wait. No, that's not it. Wait, maybe, well, maybe it's this. Never leave your cows alone in a field with aliens. Yup. Nailed it.

Thanks to Doc G. Make sure you preorder Doc G's new book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor's Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regretful Life. Preorder on Amazon or wherever you buy books today. Thanks to Paula Pant for joining us. You'll find her podcast, Afford Anything, wherever you're listening to us right now. Thanks to Len Penzo for joining us. You can find Len at Lenpenzo.com/bovinelover. This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2022, and is written in part by Paulette Perhatch, who helps writers power their words, their work, and their earning potential with

her Powerhouse Writers Coaching Program, which starts in August. There are a few spots left, so act now. That's weird. She just told me there was no room for me. But anyway, find out more at PowerhouseWriters.com. Thanks also to our team who made today possible. Brooke Miller is our producer today and our amazing newsletter editor of the 201. Tina Eichenberg and Gertrude Smith are our social media mavens and Brooke also handles the show notes. Man, she's working hard on this one. Not only should you not take advice from these meatheads, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.

That's it for today, folks. We'll see you back here on Monday on Stacking Benjamins.

Welcome to the after show. We're having a party in the comments right now. Chris.

Doug.

Paulette is.

Paulette, what an amazingly well-written show.

Doug, all I can say is my name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father, prepare to die.

By the way, I had a friend tell me that that movie is great. It's obviously a classic, but the book is even better. You know, they always say the book is better. He said, no, no, no, the book's not a little better. The book is a lot better. So even as good as that movie is, and so we did it. We read it as a family when my kids were maybe eight. We were on a, we had a big, long road trip and Cheryl actually picked it up at a bookstore and, and read it to all of us. And we read it cover to cover out loud, like an audio book. It is fantastic. There's a whole chapter about him killing Inigo Montoya's dad. And the whole chapter goes into, and it's, it's a hilarious part of the, of the.

Did you do the voices though? As you were reading it out loud, did you do all the different?

No, that's why I only gave Cheryl three stars on Audible.

This is, this is not, not at all. But you know what? Today being the first day that we had a UFO sighting in the United States, right? Wasn't that today's holiday? Something? I don't know.

I made that up. I don't know.

All I know is I won.

Yeah, there's one thing.

I missed everything else.

We gotta stay focused. Uh, but it's a good time for aliens and, and ghosts. I mean, I think we've got to tell an alien or ghost story here, uh, because of the fact that we're celebrating this amazing holiday. Len, you've got a ghost story for us, I think.

Yeah. Secondhand, I was in Vegas with the, some of my cousins. Uh, two of them were brothers, by the way, and they were staying at a hotel. And I can't remember which hotel it was.

It was one of the newer ones.

Bates Motel.

No, it wasn't the Bates Motel. It was on the strip. I can't remember what the heck it was. Anyways, um, it was so long. It was probably 12 or 15 years ago. But we had all, you know, it'd been a late night and, and we all retired to bed. The, my two cousins who, they were sharing a room. I was in a different room. Um, the next morning at breakfast, they are like, oh, they are, they were just truly, they were scared. They independently were awakened at night in the middle of their sleep. They saw a person in a hoodie. He had a hood over his head or her head. I don't know. But this thing, this person or whatever ran in, they saw him run into the bathroom and they both looked at each other and said, did you see that?

And they said, and the other one said, yes. And they went in the bathroom and there was nothing there. There was absolutely nothing there. And they, to this day, they are certain they saw some sort of apparition or ghost. I mean, but it was fully formed and really wild.

Wow. You believe in ghosts, Paula?

I do not. No. I, I think ghosts are a fascinating metaphor for things that are unresolved, but I don't quite literally believe in them.

I think you're wrong. It's okay though. Uh, Doc G, how about you?

That's interesting, Paula, what you said about a fascinating metaphor for things that are unresolved. I actually now remember, I do have a kinda ghost story. My mom and dad, right when I was born, we moved the whole family because I was born. I was the third of three boys and they needed more space. So my parents lived in Chicago at the time and we moved to a suburb of Evanston. And my mom and dad fell in love with the house there. And one of the things, especially my dad loved about the house was there was this beautiful tree in the backyard. At some point they had a conversation where they laughed and, and my dad said, yeah, I, I wouldn't have bought this house except for that tree. It's what makes living here worth it. And so fast forward eight years later, my father dies unexpectedly.

We go on living in that house for four more years. My mom meets my stepdad. They decide to get married. But the problem was my stepdad had two children from a previous marriage and there were three of us. And they lived at a farther suburb. So this idea was, okay, we're getting married. We're bringing the families together. We really need to move to a bigger house and that bigger house probably shouldn't be in Evanston. It has to be farther north because the other kids went to school farther away. Uh, and this whole thing was disruptive as it was to all of us. And my mom and stepdad had found a house, but my mom was really struggling with taking us out of our childhood house and all the memories.

And my, my father dying and all those things. And it came to days and days of her struggling and not knowing what to do. And then the next day we got a funny notice. They had been checking the trees in the area and this was an elm tree. And it was diagnosed with Dutch elm disease, the tree in our backyard. And they told us it was going to have to come down. And in fact, they did cut the tree down and we moved.

So if they wouldn't have cut the tree down, you would have stayed? Is that the?

I don't know. I don't know. That's the wonder of life, right? It was the sign to my mom that it was okay.

That's the thing.

That we could move and that would be all right.

So this wasn't a ghost story so much as it was addressing Paula's comment about explanations for unresolved.

Or maybe it was my dad from beyond the grave telling my mom it was okay. That maybe, maybe getting remarried and moving and all of that. Maybe it was a, a, you know, a message from far away that she could move on with her life.

Paula, you don't believe in ghosts, right? But do you believe in bovine intervention?

That was bad.

I don't know. I mean, I think that was pretty good, actually.

That was so bad, it was good.

Yeah. Joe, I got, I've got two, if we have time.

Holy cow. I've got seven.

Let me just, let me just tell you mine and then I'll get out of the way and Doug can bring us home. My cousin went to a funeral of one of his best friends who had died in a, in a car accident. And on the way home from the funeral, his, uh, it's, it was him and another friend. And all of a sudden, all the power went out in their car. The car just died. They pull off to the side of the road. Obviously they kind of coast to the side of the road, get it out of the road. And just as it coast to a stop, everything comes back on. And they didn't have the radio on beforehand. The two of them were just talking about their friend who had passed away. And not only when the car starts again, is the radio on, it's blaring their friend's favorite song, the guy who died.

Oh, wow. I know. It's pretty hard to ignore some of those things. That's really, it's really crazy. Actually, my first story, Joe, is similar to that, only in the sense that, so I was on a business trip in Milwaukee and there's a famous old hotel there. That is allegedly haunted called the Pfister Motel. No, we're not gonna, yeah, we're not gonna talk about that.

Motel. That's way past motel material. That's hotel.

Yeah. Did I say?

You said motel, the Pfister Motel.

Oh, it's out on Route 11.

Cheaper version.

No, but, but, and it's supposedly haunted. And in the middle of the night, the TV comes on blaring super loud. And it happened to be on, it came on to HBO, which, and I, we got in late. I didn't even watch TV. I went straight to bed. And they didn't even have the TV on earlier. So it's not like I had a channel to choose or anything. And it's almost going where you're hoping it's going, Joe, but it's, it's not going there, but it did go on to HBO and there used to be a show on.

I thought this is your excuse with your wife.

Why the porn came on?

All of a sudden this ghost tunes in a porn channel.

No, but it was, it was a show on HBO years and years ago called Taxi Cab Confessions and it, Confessions. And it was pretty raunchy. And of course it comes on blaring right in the middle of a really raunchy section. And there was a guy in the room next to me who I was on the work trip with and I got grilled about that one at, in the next morning at breakfast.

Just came on.

Yeah. It just happened to come on at four in the morning or whatever it was. So I don't, you know, that could have been an electrical problem, but it was in a hotel that is kind of famous for being haunted. And then the second story though, is a little bit creepier for, for us, but we moved into an older home, not super old. I mean, it was built in 1941. But after we, we moved in, uh, we got to talking with neighbors and the people who live right behind us were an older couple. You're just kind of over the course of a year or so, we're getting to know them and we kept inviting them over for, you know, let's have drinks or, you know, let's, let's grill something. And they would never come over. They always made an excuse. And then over the course of that time, I'd found out that the man actually grew up in our house.

I think he moved in when he was, you know, 12, 13 years old or something like that. And then found out a little while after that, that his mother had died in the house. And that's why he wouldn't come in the house. Well, set that aside for a second. Since almost the beginning of when we'd moved into the house, it always felt a little bit weird when you'd be in the basement and you'd be walking upstairs. And after that happening a few times, and I just got this weird feeling, I said to my wife, ever feel like something's watching you and you're going upstairs from the basement? And she said, yeah, actually I have had that happen a few times. So we get to know our neighbors over the course of the next three or four years.

And I, I finally got the gumption up to ask the wife, I know you told me that your husband's mother died in the house. Any chance, anything that was an untimely death? And she said, yeah, she fell down the basement stairs. We never saw her. We never saw any apparitions or anything like that, but there was just always a feeling and only in that one spot in the house when you were coming up from the basement stairs.

That, that's definitely something to ruminate on.

I don't think we need Paulette anymore. We just gotta bring in Len.

I'm like, and scene, and we're done. That's good. I was gonna go back to Paula and say, Paula, come on. Got all this evidence.