3024: How I Hired The Best People In The World To Make Me Rich AND The Cr***y Couch Cacophony by Mr. 1500 of 1500 Days

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[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_00] Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep? That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep. Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations. And these affirmations aren't just comforting. They can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep. So press play on Good Sleep Tonight.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00] Because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app, and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Finance Daily, how I hired the best people in the world to make me rich, by Mr. 1500 of 1500days.com. If you own a business, you know how hard it is to hire good people. Heck, it's difficult to hire someone to mow your lawn these days.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00] The labor market is tight. Good humans are hard to find. With that in mind, I'm going to tell you something amazing. I have some of the brightest minds in the world working for me today. And my manager role is almost completely passive. I've never spoken to any of my workers. I've never even met any of them. It may further surprise you to hear their names because you're certainly familiar with some of them.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00] They are modern visionaries like Jeff Bezos and Mary Barra. How? The answer is simple. I buy stocks. What are you buying when you buy a stock? You're buying part of a company, and there's a lot that comes with that. If you buy Apple stock, you're buying a piece of Apple's buildings and other physical assets, their intellectual property, and profits because Apple shares them with a quarterly dividend.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00] And if I own Apple, I've hired Tim Cook to work for me. I expect him to manage the donut building, IP, and product lines. Tim Cook is a smart guy who works very hard. I would never want his job. Heck, I don't want any normal job ever again. However, the stock market allows me to benefit from the hard work and brilliance of Mr. Cook. Stocks and funds and plants. Oh my.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00] In the past, I bought individual stocks like Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Tesla. Through those purchases, I've hired Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk. You've heard of them, right? Now, I buy mostly index funds, which automatically manage my workers. Vanguard's total stock market fund, VTSAX, automatically promotes and demotes.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] Since VTSAX is market-weighted, if one of my workers outperforms her peers, VTSAX increases my allocation of her company. If the opposite happens, VTSAX decreases the allocation. I quite like the elegant simplicity of this arrangement. I don't have to pay attention to the day-to-day management decisions of Mary Barra or Tim Cook.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_00] And for this crazy good, hyper-efficient management, VTSAX charges me a fee of only 0.04%. If I give VTSAX a million dollars to manage, I pay $400 per year in fees. That's an incredible value. Take my money, VTSAX. If you're still unconvinced, JL Collins explains it far better than I ever could in The Simple Path to Wealth.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00] Before I wrote this post, I spent the morning working on my yard. I also studied my electrical panel to plan for solar panels. The plants will make the yard look better and the solar panels will eliminate our utility bill. This is the work I choose to do. The work I would not choose is securing supply chains for the next iPhone or figuring out how to fend Tesla off. Thank you, Tim Cook and Mary Barra of GM for taking care of that.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00] It gives me great satisfaction to know that some of the most brilliant leaders today are on my payroll. I get to pursue what I want and they fund it. They're toiling away in an office somewhere while I practice Spanish this afternoon. Life is good. The Cooey Couch Cacophony by Mr. 1500 of 1500days.com I was perusing Facebook last week and checked out the BiggerPocketsMoney group.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00] There was a post showing a very worn couch that amused me. Quote, I'm a millionaire. This is my sofa because I would rather invest my bonus than buy a new one. I might have a problem. End quote. Predictably, the comments were all over the spectrum. Many did not appreciate the well-worn piece of furniture. Treat yourself, laugh out loud. You don't have a problem, but I'm sure everyone that sits on it will. Yeah, man, buy a new sofa. Dude, go buy a new couch.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00] Others were more supportive. Dude, throw a decorative blanket over it and call it a day. I can barely see the duct tape job. Good work. It's got character. This one cracked me up. The padding on mine seems to have disappeared. Pull noodles to the rescue. Finally, this one provided some food for thought. Quote, It's a common problem many high savers have. The problem is that some view money as a treasure and not a tool.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00] Some value the game of investing and saving more than what it can do for them. There is more to life than saving and investing. Live a little and buy a new couch or at least get the old one reupholstered. Crapy couch cacophony. I have some thoughts on this situation. Choose your adventure. Situation one. You aren't financially independent yet. Phi has a load of value. Once you're Phi, life changes. My new boss is a jerk?

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00] Quit. I discovered a new passion for basket weaving and I don't have time for it with my job? Quit. My father is sick and I need to take care of him? Quit. I want to study Spanish and Mexico City is very nice and cheap? Quit. Then move to Mexico City. The value of Phi is that it gives you options. Phi allows for life pivots. You don't like your life? Great. Choose a new adventure. There's infinite value and freedom.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_00] And if you aren't Phi yet, I strongly encourage you to live with your c***** couches, cars, or phones. Situation number two. You're financially independent. The situation gets a little trickier here, but the first rule is easy. Don't do anything that would jeopardize your Phi status. This isn't difficult to understand. If your annual spend is $40,000 and you plan to live by the 4% rule, if you have a million dollars saved up, don't buy a helicopter.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_00] After you accumulate more money, it's okay to let loose a little. I did this when I bought a fancy car. But you have to be careful here too. I thought the NSX would bring me happiness and it didn't. At least not the car itself. I did find that it was fun to hang out with other owners. And I can hang out with fellow car people even if I don't happen to be driving a fancy car. So that's my outlet. I get the fun of talking to like-minded humans without the hassle of the car.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00] The NSX went to a new owner. After basic needs are taken care of, no matter how much money you have, it's still a valid exercise to practice mindful spending and restraint. A recent trip reminded me of the importance of the latter point. Being in a hotel, we ate at restaurants every day. This quickly gets old and the appreciation for the experience goes out the window. The first time, it feels pretty great. By the fifth meal, you feel bad.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00] So what should Mr. Couch do? My thought is that he should do whatever the hell he wants. If I was in this situation, I'd probably keep the duct tape monstrosity too. As long as the thing is comfortable, who cares? If people judge him based on the state of the furniture, those people can go find friends with nicer couches. But I wouldn't judge someone with nice furniture either. If your fi house is an order and a $5,000 couch gives you joy, go buy it.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00] Perhaps my main takeaway from this exercise is to not be judgmental. I've been guilty of this in the past and my thought now is this. Who am I to judge another human's choices? Their choices are accumulation of decades of experience that I have no knowledge of. You just listened to the post titled, How I Hired the Best People in the World to Make Me Rich

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00] and The Couch Cacophony, both by Mr. 1500 of 1500days.com. You sign up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends, then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, I just learned that 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, you can see all of your subscriptions in one place

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[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00] Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash OFD today. That's rocketmoney.com slash OFD. Rocketmoney.com slash OFD. I think Mr. 1500 makes some great points here on the benefits of separating your work from your finances. When we invest our money, we're putting it to work. And the great thing about money working for us is that it can do it 24-7.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_00] As mere mortals, we simply aren't capable of working that hard. And when we have our money working for us, it frees up time to do the work and activities we really want to do, regardless of how much it pays. I also found the observations on the worn couch interesting. While I don't see any benefit in judging someone else's decisions on what they buy or don't buy, I do think it's an opportunity to reflect on our own preferences.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00] The key for me is learning about the value I get from buying material possessions, and I found that I mostly get diminishing returns. I bought a new couch last year, and while it was very satisfying at first, now I'm used to it, and I don't think I get more benefit from having this new couch over my old one. Lesson learned. That'll do it for another edition of Optimal Finance Daily. Thank you for continuing to listen. Have a great start to your weekend,

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00] and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.