July 17, 2024 • 54 mins
You might be tempted to think that an alternative name for this episode could be “emotionless investing”, but there’s a lot more to Stoicism and finances than that! We’re excited to be joined by Darius Foroux – he’s a prolific author, entrepreneur, and productivity expert known for his work on personal development. Much of his writing can be found over at his site, DariusForoux.com, where he focuses on wealth building, productivity, and finding meaning in work which are all topics we discuss today! Darius has written several books, including the newly published "The Stoic Path to Wealth," which blends ancient Stoic philosophy with modern financial wisdom. We cover how to create distance between you and your money, gaining a sense of calm, forming the habit of investing, building your career on top of your strengths, and much more!
Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:
- Knowing your ‘money gear’ is a crucial part of your personal finance journey. Start here.
- Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
- Join a thriving community of fellow money in the HTM Facebook group.
- Find the best credit card for you with our new credit card tool!
- Massively reduce your cell phone bill each month by switching to a discount provider like Mint Mobile.
During this episode we enjoyed a Field Trip by Monday Night Brewing! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!
Best friends out!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt and today we're talking the Stoic Path to Wealth
with Darius Feroux.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
So you might be tempted to think that an alternative
name for this episode could just simply be Emotionless Investing,
but there's a lot more to Stoicism and finances, specifically
investing than just that. And we're excited to be joined
by Darius Feroux. He is a prolific author and entrepreneur
and productivity expert known for his work on personal development.
(00:50):
Much of his writing can be found over at his
site by the same name dariusferux dot com, where he
focuses on wealth building, productivity, and finding meaning and work.
And these are all topics that we're hoping to cover today.
And Darius has written several books, including the newly published
literally was just published yesterday, The Stoic Path to Wealth,
which blends ancient Stoic philosophy with modern financial wisdom. And
(01:16):
that's what we're mainly talking about today. It turns out
Marcus Aurelius, he's got something to say about your four
win k. But Darius, thank you so much for speaking
with us on how to money today.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, thank you for having me really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It of course. Yes, interesting subject and you're the expert
on it. So looking forward to this combo, Darius. The
first question that we ask anybody who comes on the show, though,
is what do you like to splurge on? Because Matt
and I we like to spurgeon craft beer, and we
figured that's a good release anybody, even if they're doing
the stoic the whys the smart thing saving investing for
their future, they got to have something to spend on
(01:50):
in here now too. What's that for you?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah? So the thing that I splurge on is Apple products,
something that I struggled with for a long time because
I always try to talk myself out of it, saying, oh, yeah,
do I really need to have a new iPhone And
the answer is no because the previous one works perfectly,
But deep inside I just love to play with those
(02:13):
gadgets and my house looks like an Apple store. So
that's something that I splurge on and fortunately doesn't happen
that often, but still I really enjoy using the products. Nice.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Okay, So were you happy or disappointed with the new
headset that came out last year?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, that's the only product probably that I don't have, okay,
because that was just a little bit too much for me.
But yeah, I honestly I have of course the phone,
the iPad, the MacBook, the iMac. I even got a
MacBook Pro. I have two laptops. Who needs two laptops?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, the only the biggest problem I think with anything
Apple or just the biggest electronic gadget that people replace
more frequently than they want to now the earbuds, like
I figure with Apple calls them, but I have the
cheap kind myself. But think about those, there's like one
hundred and twenty bucks or something like that, maybe even more,
and they lose, they fall out of your ear like
it's those to me here. I don't know the biggest
(03:14):
problem right now with electronic waste.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I had some issues with the first one, but
now since I have the Pro or not the big one,
I don't have those either, the Max but the in
air earbuds. Fortunately I bought them once and they still work,
so nice. I've been lucky with those, very nice.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Darius is an Apple fanboy. We want to hear a
little bit about your background, Darius. Though your family it
sounds like they basically mean y'all started from nothing. So
can you just kind of share with us the impact
of leaving like a war torn country basically, and then
the impact that it had on you and your family.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, definitely. So I was born in nineteen eighty seven
and Tehran, and at the time there was a war
between Iran and Iraq, and my parents fled the country
to the Netherlands in eighty eight when I was one,
and they basically had to start from zero. We almost
had no family, and my father had to go to
(04:12):
school and get educated and have a start a career,
and he always worked blue collar jobs, and my mother
stayed at home to raise me and my brother, and
we always lived paycheck to paycheck, and my parents always
did their best to make sure that we didn't know
(04:34):
the height of the financial struggles in the house, but
it was always present, you know, we could just feel
the energy even as kids. So that was something that
really created a sense of urgency in me, because as
a child, I knew that I had to become wealthy
because I just didn't want to go through life worrying
(04:56):
about money. So that was really something that really my
outlook on money.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, you said that your parents tried to kind of
guard you. They try to protect you from knowing kind
of what they're going through. And I think most parents,
the best parents, try to do that, but even still
it's insufficient. Like kids are perceptive and they're going to
pick up on the things that are going on behind
the scenes, even with parents trying to do their best
to make sure their kids aren't impacted by it. Yeah,
(05:23):
and I'm curious you mentioned how that kind of sets
you up for desiring financial security in your own life. Yeah,
how did kind of what was going on with your
family's finances impact your career path, your view on money,
and then this kind of belief that you needed financial
security for yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So when I was like twelve or thirteen, my friends
started to have jobs, and I went to my parents
and I said, look, everybody has a paper route or
works in a supermarket. I need to have a job
because I want to start making money. And they said, no,
you should focus on getting your degrees, focus on school
(06:01):
because if you get distracted, you might risk doing what
we did, which was to not educate it because in
my direct family, no one ever went to college, and
that's what my parents wanted for me, so I struggled
with it because I always saw my friends not only
(06:22):
it wasn't really about having a little bit of income
for them, but it was more that they had this responsibility,
and I felt like I was kind of missing out
on something. But looking back, I'm really glad that my
parents always encouraged me and my brother to focus on school,
because when I finished high school, they said, okay, fine,
(06:44):
just go and work during the summer, and that's what
I did. So I got a job at a call
center and I worked almost every day for the entire summer,
and I basically saved everything that I made. So looking back,
I think that was a good experience for me to
wait for so long until I could have my first job,
(07:06):
and then they really saved that money because at that time,
I was still thinking that you need to just hold
on to everything that you earned because that's how you
get wealthy. And of course I had no clue about investing.
And I did watch the movie Wall Street in my teens,
so that's one type of education exactly, so I did.
(07:29):
So I already knew at that stage, Okay, I need
to somehow become like Gordon Gecko I just don't want
to end up in jail. But I need to become
a stock trader or investor because that's where all the
money is. But yeah, it took me a long time
before I really figured out how to get into that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Darius learned the exact obbsos lesson of what they're trying
to portray, which is like, look at this terrible, wretched
human being. Yeah, Garius is like, I want to be
that exactly my hair in that same beautiful way. So
how do you bridge the gap then? From being frugal, like, hey,
I see my parents struggles. They stress the importance of
(08:11):
education that way I can make a solid income.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But then I need to be an investor. I need
me building wealth and the Gordon Gecko thing that seems
like it's like the seed of something. But then how
did you become an educated investor? And what was that process? Like?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so I have my first taste of investing in
two thousand and seven. So at the time, I was
in college, and this is before the financial crisis. So
I was twenty years old and you could have a
side job at a bank, and I started in the
personal banking division, just handing out credit cards and processing
(08:46):
applications for credit, et cetera. And there was a position
to become a mutual fund advisor and all you had
to do was get a four week training and then
you could just call clients of the bank and offer
them the latest mutual funds. So my Gordon get go
(09:08):
censor goes off and I'm like, yeah, this is what
I need to do, and almost instantly I think I'm
this genius. So I also start to invest with my
own money, and I bought stocks of the bank that
I worked at ing and within a year, of course,
the financial crisis happens and I'm down like sixty percent.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Tough time to get invested in the market for the
first time, Yeah, exactly. It.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I honestly bought at the height of the market. Yeah.
So that experience taught me a very important lesson that
money and investing is very emotional because it felt like
a gut punch. And I didn't sell at the bottom
because at that time I was still learning and I
(09:59):
knew that you shouldn't sell during these moments. However, I
didn't know what else to do because I was picking stocks,
which in hindsight wasn't a smart thing to start with
but I stayed in the market for a few years,
and then I just couldn't handle it anymore because every
time I looked at my account it was just down
(10:22):
and I wanted to stop the pain. So I sold
and I said, look, I need to figure this thing out,
and when I figured it out, I'll come back to investing.
And I just started on this educational spree. I went
to business school and specialized in finance and started reading
all of these investment books and yeah, still nothing really happened.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
To be honest, I'm sure that was a period of
time where you wish you would have had a degree
of stoicism in your life that you would have been
able to abide by. But I guess on that note,
I feel like, generally speaking, it feels like stoicism. It's
a little bit more in Vogue's days. I'm sure Ryan
Holliday probably has a lot to do with that's the
resurgence of the stoics. But why have you found that
(11:08):
that approach to life resonates with you so much?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, so fast forward to twenty fourteen fifteen. At that stage,
I was still trying to figure things out of my career.
I had started a business after I finished grad school
with my dad, and it was in the industrial laundry equipment.
I wasn't really passionate about that industry. And then I
(11:32):
started a corporate career in London. I worked at Gardner,
this IT research firm. I realized this is also not
for me. I want to start a business for myself,
but I didn't know what. So I moved back to
the Netherlands and I thought to myself, I need to
figure it out. I need to get started with something
(11:53):
because I have no clue what I'm doing. And at
that stage I discovered stoicism. Because every time I feel
like I'm overwhelmed or confused, I always turned to books
and I remember reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim
Ferris and he had this small chapter or section on stoicism,
(12:16):
and I found that really helpful. So I started reading
all of the original works. And what I love about
the philosophy is that you can just explain it in
one sentence, which is focus on what you control and
ignore everything else. And it gave me a lot of
clarity because I honestly had no clue what I wanted
(12:37):
to do with my career, and I thought to myself, well,
now that I have a little bit more clarity and
I can stop worrying so much about my future, let
me start writing a book. And that's when I wrote
my first book. And around that same time, I also
(12:59):
thought to myself, well, I'm reading these works from these
philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and these
folks wrote about all of these ideas for better living
twenty three hundred years ago. But all that I'm thinking
is how can I use this knowledge to become a
(13:20):
better investor. So I was lucky that my book and
the first few articles that I wrote resonated with readers,
and I started to see a path to earning a
living with writing books. And that gave me this opportunity
to really study the stoics more and see how I
(13:43):
could finally figure out how I could apply it to
manage my emotions better, not only in my personal life,
but also with investing. And then slowly the seeds started
to grow for what I call stoic investing.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Because I feel like in the personal finance space, I've
seen a pivot in the opposite direction, which is to
talk about a lot of things that we can't control,
and the problem is that's a really deep thing, like
there are a lot of things we can't control, and
it's really we could spend hours and hours and hours
talking about a laundry list of those subjects and the
(14:21):
ways in which we're impacted by things that we can't
really have any sort of impact on the outcome of. So, yeah,
talk to me. Stoicism the way you're describing it, and
kind of the historical approach is it's a holistic life,
the way of approaching life. You talk about it specifically
about the intersection of stoicism and money. What does stoicism
(14:44):
have to do with wealth building in particular?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, So stoicism is a philosophy that really promotes indifference
to everything that you don't control. And when it comes
to investing and personal finance, you don't control. Like you said,
like ninety nine percent of what people talk about. We
don't control the economy, we don't control inflation and so forth.
(15:12):
That list is obvious. So basically everything that they talk
about on CNBC. But when you look at our actual
investments that we make, we also don't control the outcomes.
We all know that the S and P. Five hundred
has annualized returns of around ten percent over the past
(15:33):
fifty years. Everyone who's into personal finance knows this, But
the thing is that it's not within our control. Maybe
it's eight percent moving forward, but it shouldn't matter to
you as a stoic investor or as a person. I
feel like because the stoic's really promoted indifference towards outcomes.
(15:58):
So when you really applies stoicism to your personal finance
and investing strategy, you'll learn to create some distance between
yourself and your money. And I feel like that's the
best thing that you can do for your mental health,
but also for your career, because when you have some
indifference when it comes to your money, you can just
(16:21):
relax and focus on your career and your family and
your job and everything else that is important while you
are still doing your best. Because epictetis one of the
most stringent philosophers, said that you should demand the best
of yourself every single day, and to me, that means
(16:43):
that every single day I just need to perform my
duties as a human being and not complain and try
to become better not only in my career but as
a human being. So if I'm so obsessed with money,
I can't do those things. And that's something that I
personally experienced because I would say my entire life up
(17:08):
until around twenty seventeen when I finally started to apply
all of these lessons, because I discovered it like twenty
fourteen fifteen, but it took me a few years to
really apply it in my own life. But when I
started to apply it, I realized that I was too
obsessed with money and that caused a lot of friction
(17:32):
and anxiety and mental blocks. And when I resolved those things,
I could really focus on the act of investing, which
is actually just nothing more than a habit. Just like
we work out and eat healthy, et cetera, investing is
also a habit. So when you remove all of the friction,
(17:55):
you can just do it. You can invest without wasting
your time and energy and just focus on living a
good life.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, you're talking about cultivating the sense of indifference, and
I like what you said about creating some distance between
you and your money, but like, how do you practically
go about that. I feel like we're kind of getting
into more of the meat of the intersection of stoicism
and investing or your wealth. But like you said, CNBC,
that's all they talk about.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
All they're talking.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
About is the noise. It's the things that you can't
really control. So is it as simple as creating like
an information diet right where you're limiting the inputs that
are having an impact on your life.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I'm not a fan of information diets, and I'm also
not a fan of the common investment advice of become
a passive investor and never look at your portfolio. I
love John Bogel, and John Bogel, the founder of Vanguard,
of course, basically made this whole ETF investing possible. And
(19:01):
one of the things that he said was, yeah, just
invest your entire career and just never open your brokerage account.
But I feel like you should be able to open
your account without getting swayed. You should be able to
look at CNBC. You should be able to read the
Wall Street Journal without thinking to yourself, oh, okay, what
should I do? Maybe should I I should sell or
(19:23):
maybe I should buy n Video stock or whatever? Right,
And I think that's the ultimate goal as a stoic investor,
that you become indifferent to all of the noise and
you can just handle everything that people throw at you
and the media throws at you, because you have the
sense of calm and you know what you are doing,
(19:45):
and you've eliminated like ninety nine point nine percent of
the investment strategies, and you know what you're doing, and
you're fine with everything that basically is happening because you
don't have to react.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Something you're getting to here, I think is being able
to trust yourself. And like one of the things is, yeah,
maybe you don't like zone out and watch CNBC for
like six hours, Like you're probably setting yourself up for failure.
I'm assuming that a good stoic investor probably isn't doing that.
But you're also not saying I can't watch at all,
or I can't even open, you know, the homepage of
(20:23):
the Wall Street Journal and read a few things without
without feeling swayed. So how do you You mentioned too,
that you found stoicism in twenty fourteen but found yourself
practicing not until like twenty seventeen. What was the gap
there and what does it look like then to incorporate
more of that those stoic approaches into your life.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, So one of the pieces of advice from the
stoics is to start small where you want to start
practicing stolicism. So I think also Epicthetis says something like,
start with a cup. Let's say your favorite gup falls
and bread. You should just say to yourself, oh, okay,
(21:02):
this is just a cup, and then you can slowly
build it up. So for example, I remember getting in
a fender bender around that time, and I was really
worked up. While it wasn't that big of a deal,
but I was just like the emotions and the anger
(21:24):
within me was like starting to get a little bit
out of control. And later on I realized what am
I doing? Like I have insurance or it's not even
my fault. Why am I getting worked up about this?
And I feel like emotions are normal. I still get angry,
for example, when I injure my back or something. You know,
(21:46):
that's something that I'm kind of prone to because I
used to play basketball in college and I have this
lower back issue since then, and every few months or
sometimes a few years can go by without having issue,
but then it pops up, and then every time it happens,
I get frustrated at first. And the key to stoicism
(22:07):
is that in the beginning, you might be stuck in
that emotion for a few days. But the more you
practice and the more you build it up from a
cup to a fender bender, to an injury to maybe
at some point losing your job or losing some money
in the stock market, when you start to build it
(22:27):
up that way and practice shrugging it off, which is
also a classic technique of the Stoics. They literally said,
and this is something Marcus Aurelia said, when bad things happen,
shrug it off. Simply just the act of doing that
will put you more at ease. And after a while
(22:51):
I noticed that I was able to snap out of
my negative mindset or anxious mindset quicker. So now my
rule is that I can be stuck in negative emotions
or being frustrated for a few hours, or I can
(23:12):
give you an example. I actually injured my back last week.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
This is why this one is fresh in mind, because
you're feeling it right now.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, I'm feeling it. And it happened on a Tuesday,
And it was like at three after three pm. I
ordered some some some dumbbells for my home gym, and
I picked them up from the box and I felt
it in my lower back and I started cursing, and
I was angry, and you know, talked to my partner
(23:42):
and she was like, yeah, don't be so worked up.
And I stayed that emotion for a few hours, and
then by the evening I finally was able to snap
back by just remembering the stoics. And a misconception about
stoicism is that you shouldn't have emotions or it should
(24:02):
be numb. That's not true at all. The thing is
that you should be able to detect what you are
feeling and react accordingly. So translating that to investing, it
means that let's say a crash happens, you can look
at it. You don't have to run away from it.
(24:23):
You can maybe even explain it and understand it if
you have some historical context, which I always think helps,
because let's say you're a writer or a dentist, you
don't really have to have historical background into your profession,
but as an investor, it really helps. Knowing a little
(24:44):
bit of history of the stock market and you know
how crashes happen and corrections, et cetera. But let's say
you can look at all of that, and your goal
as an investor is to respond accordingly, and for a
long term investor, the response is nothing, just stick to
your strategy. So that was really what I was going
(25:08):
through in that timeframe, to really internalize the philosophy, see
how I could apply it in all areas of my life,
and then actually do it, you know, because I love
to write about the things that I've successfully accomplished myself,
and to be honest, I did write about personal finance, etc.
(25:31):
But it wasn't until after the COVID crash that I
felt comfortable to come out and talk about stoicism and
investing because even though I was applying this stuff since
twenty twenty seventeen, I felt like I needed a stress test,
and that happened in twenty twenty and then, of course
(25:54):
the market is down by thirty percent or something and
what felt like a matter of days, but I was
finally calm. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't think to myself, oh, yeah,
this is a good buying opportunity. I have to be honest.
Of course, in hindsight it was. But my biggest win
came because I just stayed the course right, and that
(26:17):
was my biggest, biggest win. When I looked at my
personal life, because my first try didn't work out because
I sold in twenty ten, and then we all know
what happened from twenty eleven, you know, went on a
crazy bull run.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
So yeah, the market blew up. Yeah, there's a big
difference between having that head knowledge and then actually implementing
that into your life and controlling your behavior. And I
like what you're saying here about how does it we
should be experiencing our emotions, but to not be distracted
by those emotions. And I'm looking forward to talking about
some of the different ways, some of the additional ways
(26:55):
that were able to implement some of the principles of
stoicism within our financial lives. We'll get to all of
that and more right after this.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Our way back from the break, still talking with Darius
Faru talking about stoicism, how it impacts your ability to
build wealth, your finances, and it will have a direct
impact has even just Darius example, selling in twenty ten,
not selling during the COVID crash, big difference than in
your net worth at the end of the day. And Darius,
I think it feels like basically what you're saying, if
(27:29):
I'm boiling it down correctly, is that that emotions or
your ability to at least respond appropriately to your emotions.
It supersedes knowledge. So tell me if I'm wrong here,
and then how much in depth investing information do we
need to consume to then be stoic investors? Is it
more about our behavior or is it more about the
things that we need to learn in order to be
(27:50):
great investors?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I feel like it's a little bit of both,
and more focused on the emotional plot because knowledge is important,
but it's not the most important thing. Because if that
was the case, as Warren Buffett said, historians or librarians
would all be rich. The key is really to know
what you're doing and have enough confidence in that knowledge
(28:15):
that you were able to stay the course. And one
of the most practical ways that you can do that
is by investing with money that you really won't miss.
Because there was another big mistake that I made, you know, seven,
was that I basically poured all of my savings at
the time into the market in the hopes of becoming wealthy.
(28:41):
And I think so many young investors or new investors
start out with investing a big chunk or maybe even
all of their savings, and then they start looking at
that portfolio with laser eyes and they just can't look away.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It sounds like an early story for Met's life. Honestly, Actually,
when you opened up the roth Ira Matt for real
and ye.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, I certainly neglected my savings and I was left
in an unfortunate position of needing to tap those savings
and I didn't because I didn't have that liquidity on hand.
I drew down on losses and ended up with less money.
But Darius earlier, actually, I want to kind of circle
back around here because you talked about forming the habit
of investing right, and I've heard you talk about how
(29:27):
it can be helpful to eliminate goals from your life,
so to you know, essentially think less about becoming a
millionaire as opposed to being like identifying that you are
an investor. This is something I'm going to do. I
do day and day out, say the course. But I'm
curious to hear your thoughts on that because I know
for a lot of people, having a big goal can
be incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's something that they're looking ahead to oft in the future.
It's this thing that they're like, Okay, this is why
I'm sacrificing. Now, this is why I'm spending less, is
because I want to be able to achieve some sense
of financial independence. Talk about that sort of balance it
might take to be able to do both.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Well, yeah, that's really a good point, because if you
think about it, we all invest to have a better future.
But if I really take the ideas of the Stoics
and apply it to investing, which, by the way, the
Stoics were not against money, they were also indifferent to it,
(30:23):
but they said, if you can make money by remaining
honest by all means, do it. I love that because
it really doesn't judge money, and it's okay to have
goals to become wealthy, become rich. Now, there's another way
to look at this, which is by looking at the
present moment. So we all get the math. Okay, invest
(30:48):
five hundred bucks or invest a thousand bucks, and then
in thirty or twenty years you'll become a millionaire. But
we really don't think that far head. I think the
biggest benefit of investing and living a frugal life is
that you just become a more complete human being today.
(31:11):
To me, that's why I actually invest and why I've
always lived below my means and why I've actually haven't
upgraded my lifestyle in like six years or so, still
live in the same apartment.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I think it's a really good point, Darius. Like I
think lots of times people see it as a means
to an end. It's like, oh, I can't wait until
I'm able to like drive a BMW and live in
the fancy house. But then ultimately they get to that
point and they realize that's not very fulfilling either, and
that maybe they were.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
We all look back on fondness some of those like
poor college or post college days, or that first high
school job where we were making six bucks an hour,
and we're like, but like the freedom that came with
just having some money in our pockets. So yeah, I
don't know, Talk to me. Then, what's the point of
building wealth if you're not planning on upgrading your lifestyle?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yea, The point is really freedom, right, because having all
of that wealth just gives you more freedom. And the
funny thing is that you don't really have to have
that wealth to already feel free. I feel like I
already felt emotionally free in twenty nineteen, when I was
still on the path, and I wasn't technically financially free.
(32:24):
And when I achieved a seven figure net worth a
year and a half or two years ago, I could say, Okay,
you know, if I quit working now, I can live
off my wealth and that's fine, right, so technically I
don't have to work. But the thing is that even
(32:44):
if you're on the path, you're saving, you're living below
your means, you have good financial habits, you enjoy your life,
you enjoy the simple things, and you are content. I
think you can already count yourself mentally free because it's
just a matter of time. And if you live a
life like that, nothing can break you. What's you know,
(33:06):
what are the threads that you're going to buy a
Mercedes S Class because you're driving E Class or something.
You know, Like it's like that that those are the
common pitfalls of people who constantly upgrade because there's there's
no end in sight. It's not like they're ever going
(33:28):
to say, Okay, you know, like I live in this
four bedroom house, maybe let's buy a two bedroom condo.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Right, it never goes in reverse?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah exactly. Yeah. So, like the best way to have
a happy and content life is just to not get
on that treadmill. And if you are on a treadmill,
it's always possible to get off it. The thing is
just that you can't get on it anymore if you
want to just be in control of your life. Because
(34:00):
one I think one of the most important things that
I learned in my career was that, sure, I can
earn a good living even with writing and doing courses,
et cetera. I can earn one hundred or two hundred
or maybe even three hundred K a year. Can I
earn a million bucks a year? Is unlikely because there
(34:22):
are not a lot of folks who do that. And
the beauty is you don't even have to do that.
You can have a good income with a job that
you love. Combine that with healthy habits, financial habits, and
a solid investment strategy. You know what else do you need?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You're still going to win financially just by implementing those
proper habits. And like what I hear you saying is
and what you're recommending is for folks to find like
a level a sense of contentment. And you kind of
alluded to this before as well, but it sounds like
you've just been able to put money in its proper place.
And I think a large part of that is finding
(35:01):
in discovering your true desires, and that's something that you
that you talk about or that you've written about as well.
But how would you recommend because essentially it's difficult to
remove money, I think, from your mind unless you are
sort of like doing the Indiana Jones golden statue swap.
At the same time, you know, like at the very
(35:22):
moment you have because if you take it off, like
there's a vacuum, there, there's a void, but some you know,
you have to replace it with something. And you talk
about the true desires, how would you recommend for folks
to discover what those are in their life.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, that's a really good question because Stolicism is also
not about living a very stringent life. I still want
to buy a new iPhone every two years, you know,
but the thing is that I'm not going to eat
out every week, and I you know, I live a
simple life and go on vacation once a year, and
(35:57):
you know, save on other things. So I feel like
if you have a balance, while there are certain things
that cost money but give you a lot of satisfaction,
and at the same time, also is something that really
enriches your life without going broke. I feel like that's
a great way to keep things fun, because, as you said,
(36:21):
we all need money and we have to be honest
and practical about it, and that's one of the reasons
that we work and earn and save and all of
these things. But I really believe there is a middle path.
And when I started to research Stoicism, I discovered that
(36:43):
Stoicism was actually the philosophy of the middle path or
the golden mean. Because at the time in ancient Greece
and Rome, there were two primary schools of thought. There
were the cynics cynicism, and there were the Epicureanists. And
(37:06):
the cynics said life is hard and you need to
endure it and that's it. No pleasure, no fun, no nothing.
And the epicurean said life is hard and the only
way to forget it is to seek pleasure. So both
of them said that life is hard, but their mechanism
(37:26):
of dealing or coping was different. Now, the Stoics came
and said, well, life is hard, we need to deal
with it, we need to be tougher, but at the
same time, we don't need to punish ourselves. So that's
why I think the philosophy has remained popular all these
(37:48):
years in centuries, because I feel like it's the most
practical philosophy and something that, as you can see, can
apply to every area. Like I took the philosophy and
apply it to investing, I guess because my subconscious mind
was always focused on investing in the stock market. So
(38:10):
as soon as I picked up the Stoics, I started
to think about how I could apply it to investing,
and other people who wanted to use stoicism to improve
their personal lives and mindset or relationships use it that way.
(38:31):
And I think that's really the beauty of this philosophy.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, I love that you've kind of taken it at
those time tested truths. You've adapted it kind of for
the way you live the things you're interested in, And
it's really cool to see how malleable that philosophy is
and how it can serve people thousands of years later.
We've got a few more questions we're going to get
to with you, Darius, including I'm talking about self development
and stoicism when we're talking about our career path. We'll
(38:55):
get to a few questions on that. Right after this.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
We are back for the break, we're talking with Darius
Faru about stoicism, and Darius, in your book, you've got
a chapter about how valuable skills. Essentially they're they're better
than money. And I'm sure there's a lot of folks
out there who are thinking, Okay, I'd much rather have
a whole lot of money, you may.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Five million skills.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, oh, this is easy for
you to say. It even makes me think back to
as you're like some of the examples you're you're giving,
I forget which philosopher, but like, start with a cup,
allow the cup to break, and then shrug it off
and realize over time you can kind of build up
your resilience to losses. But like, I feel like an
(39:44):
argument to be made against that is like, well, sure,
that's an easy argument to make if you've got a
lot of cups. Well that's an easy argument to make
if you've got a lot of money that like, oh no,
what you really need instead are skills, not money. But
make an argument for that, for the ability for us
to better ourselves as individuals.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah, Well, what you said about preferring money is something
that Seneca also said. He said, if someone told me,
would you rather be rich or poor? I would of
course I I'd rather be rich. But if I would
be poor, that's also okay. And that's the key to stoicism.
I think they look at all situations as fine. If
(40:26):
this is my life and this is my situation that's
been given to me, that's okay. Here's how I'm going
to deal with it. And the reason that I started
this book with a chapter on skills is that that's
where I started. This is where I feel everyone who
starts from zero, or who's not born into wealth should start,
(40:50):
because you can make money with nothing else than your skills.
And if you are starting this journey towards wealth and
to financial freedom, it can be very overwhelming. And that
was also the case for me. When I started, I
thought to myself, Wow, you know, I need to make
(41:12):
a few hundred thousand dollars a year. How can I
do that? I don't know if I can ever do that,
you know, Like, especially when I started writing and my
first book just sold maybe like two hundred copies in
the first year or the first six months when it
came out, I thought to myself, Yeah, there's no way
(41:33):
I can do this full time. But over the years,
the numbers, of course kept growing, and if I look back,
the reason or one of the things that really inspired
me the most was this idea to work with your
natural abilities, or to focus on your strengths, simply put,
(41:57):
and to build your career on top of your strength
and to get world class at the things that you
are already good at, because if you try to become
good at the things that you're not good at, you
might become average. And that's great. But if you want
to earn more than average, you need to be great.
(42:18):
And that's the thing that sounds very obvious, and it's
very obvious, but I feel like not enough folks are
really living. And that was true for me. It was
really true for me until I discovered stoicism, where I
finally realized, you know, like I just need to forget
about everything else. You know. Having this family business is great.
(42:39):
I love it, but it's not really aligned with my
strengths because I don't love this industry. Climbing the corporate
ladder is great, but I'm an introvert. I don't like strangers,
I don't like people. I just like to be alone.
So being a writer is perfect for me because.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
We get it, Darius. We'll let you go in just
a second.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Okay, that was my message, and I'm just kidding this interview.
But the thing is, like my strength is just to
sit alone in a room for like hours and days
on end. I can just do that for a very
long time. You know. I have close friends who say
(43:22):
that sounds like the worst thing ever.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
We're opposite human Yeah, we're opposite people.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Right, So when I tell them what I do, they're like, oh, man,
I wish I would never I never have to do that.
And I think this is why I became a writer,
because I finally had permission, let's put it that way,
from not only the stoics, but also like management thinkers
(43:53):
like Peter Drucker, who famously said that that you should
improve your strengths and ignore your weaknesses. And I really
took that advice to heart. And as I started to
become better at writing and only focused on writing, I
also got better rewards from it and better reach. And yeah,
(44:17):
now this is my eighth book, so I feel like
that that was a good decision to ignore everything else
and and just focus on writing.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Very nice, So for you the skill, Like we're literally
talking about the skill of writing and how you were
able to improve there. And yeah, are there some general
skills for folks out there that kind of go across industry,
across different jobs that you think individuals should likely develop.
Do you think there's some different practices that you think
are undervalued when it comes to our ability to just
(44:49):
not only become better human beings, better people, but also
just to make more money too.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah. I think one of the best income generating skills
is actually every day writing, not writing books or articles.
But I feel like the better you are at translating
your thoughts into words, the better you will become at communication.
So writing is a meta skill. And I'm a little
(45:14):
bit afraid that more and more people will think that
writing is for ai But wow, yeah, you know that's
something that I wish people would not think, because writing
is really just communication. It's just translating your thoughts, which
are almost always abstract, into clear and concise words. And
(45:38):
if you want to become a better communicator or leader, storyteller, salesperson,
someone who wants to ask for a raise at any job,
I feel like the better you are at that process
the more odds of succeeding in your career.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yeah, I think that's advice, and I think you're right
that the human process of organizing our thoughts our minds
can be a big jumble mess sometimes, and writing can
help you put those things out in order so you
realize what you think, why you think it. If you're
able to write down those those thoughts, you're able to
bring clarity to yourself and then hopefully to others at
some point too.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
And it's as simple as just journaling, right, It's just
as simple as journaling daily, And just that practice of
journaling will really improve your writing. So a lot of
folks think, oh, how should I do that? You know,
I don't want to go to writing workshops. I don't
want to, you know, take courses. I also don't think
that's necessary. Just taking or buying a physical journal or
(46:38):
opening your notes app on your phone is enough to
just start translating your thoughts into words every day. And
if you do that every day, you'll automatically get better
at it.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
What other ways, Darius, have you seen stoicism impact your life?
You kind of gave some examples of whether it's maybe
how you treat other people right, So the fender bender
sort of scenario that maybe allows you to kind of
keep your cool there when it came to personal injury
as you hurt your back. Like, have you seen other
areas of your life where you've been able to apply
(47:12):
the principles of stoicism other than personal finances and growing wealth.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, So in my relationship with my partner, it's been
one of the most important things because when we met,
she was not familiar with stoicism, but of course it
was one of the first topics that came up where
we met, and yeah, she really enjoys the idea and
(47:38):
slowly started applying it as well, to the point where
she reminds me to be stoic in certain situations when
I'm not. So I feel like, if you have a relationship,
I think it's a great way to keep each other accountable.
And yeah, when it goes both ways, it's an extra
(48:00):
a layer of or an extra reminder to just not
get get too emotional and not get out of control,
because yeah, life is already so hard, you know, Like
life is complex and we all have these responsibilities and
(48:20):
I am definitely one of those people who tends to
or has this natural tendency to make things harder, and
stoicism helps me to combat that feeling.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Darius, there's been a great conversation. Man, love the book,
and I love kind of what you're putting out there
into the world. Where can How to Money listeners find
your book and purchase it if they're interested?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So the best way to find out more about the
book is to go to stoicpath to wealth dot com
or on DARIUSFORU dot com. Very nice.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
We'll link to both of those in our show notes. Darius,
thank you so much for talking with us today.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, thank you for having me really what this all right? Matt?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I love conversations like this because you and I behind
the scenes were always talking about how the truth about
personal finance is there's always so much you can learn,
and the truth about like our the depths of our
human emotion and reactions to things or like limitless and
the more we can control those. Yeah, a healthy amount
of knowledge is good. But at some point, like the
(49:24):
biggest thing we have to control in our lives as
human beings is ourselves, and market's gonna do what it's
gonna do. We'll build wealth over time, but we have
to be able to control our reactions to do that.
So I love this conversation. Was what was your big
takeaway from it? So I think this is what do
you call it recency bias?
Speaker 3 (49:41):
But it was right there at the end when he
was talking about journaling and he was specifically talking about
writing because we were taking I had asked him about
skills and I'm thinking, okay, networking or never burning bridges,
I don't know, just different things that you want to
keep in mind when you're out in the world, out
in the business world, regardless of the industry that you're in.
And he immediately started talking about writing, and so that's
(50:02):
why I kind of clarified. I was like, well, what
about for everybody, like, aside from you, obviously you are
a writer, and he kind of doubled down. He was
just like, no, I actually think I think for everybody,
everybody should likely be journaling, they should be writing more.
And the reason that he gave for that, I think
was so true, which is that we need the ability
to process our thoughts. And you know what I immediately
made think of was like, over the past couple of years,
(50:24):
everyone's been talking about the vibes, right how the vibes
are off. But like vibes is what is vibes? Nobody
really knows. It's just like this collective feeling. Yes, it's
like this amorphous thing. And it almost feels kind of
lazy if you think about it, right, because it's like, well, no,
what is vibes? Like you need to identify what that
is and communicate better to me what you're feeling or
(50:44):
put your finger on it. And I know sometimes it's
hard for us to put our fingers on things, but
I think it also comes at the expense of us
not taking the time to process what we're thinking about things,
how we're feeling about things. And I totally agree with
what he's saying here. I have looked back at different
times in my life and I feel like I've had
the most clarity when I have written the most in
my own journal, which is I don't think it's something
(51:06):
we've ever really talked about here on the show, but
it is the synthesis and the formation and the processing
of your own ideas and the more that you are
going to be able to do that and to distill
that down and communicate that to others in your life,
regardless of what it is that you do. I think
you're going to find yourself in a much more successful position.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I have like some intuitive thoughts about personal finance for
a long time, but until I started like writing those down,
formulating those things, it was just kind of helter skelter.
And then it's like, wait, but what do I actually think?
And I think that's true of so many things.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Yeah, so very non money related takeaway for me, but yeah,
what about for you.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
I love when you said, like, put some distance between
yourself and your money, so good, and I think it's
spot on. I think we need a healthier detachment from
our money, where we're doing the right things. We're making
sure that we're growing the gap, we're funneling money into
those retirement accounts, we have enough set aside in saving,
but that when it comes to the outcome and the results,
(52:02):
maybe we're obsessing about those things a little too much.
And I think maybe he's right, like, we don't have
to blind ourselves from the outcome, but the more we
can become zen with whatever happens, realizing that hey, the
rest of twenty twenty four might be like the first
half might be awesome, or the stock market could experience
like some big tantrums like we don't know who knows?
But and then part of that is what's your goal.
(52:24):
If your goal is as a long term investor, not
even doing anything with this money until decades down the road,
then it doesn't even matter. And so I think that
healthy detachment is so crucial to handling money. Well, I
feel like it's been harder for me as I think
of myself as a fairly emotional dude. But the more
I've been able to kind of take motion out of
(52:46):
some of my money, it doesn't mean I'm emotion less,
but it just means I'm not putting as much of
my emotional focus on what's going on with my money
at that particular moment.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah, you're not denying your feelings, like feel the feelings,
but just know what it is you need to continue
to do having also field the feelings. But uh, yeah,
that's good man. But let's introduce the beer that you
and I enjoyed during this episode. It was a field
Trip wheat beer. This is by Monday Nights Brewing.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You. What are your thoughts on it? Joel?
Speaker 1 (53:14):
I thought it was refreshing, had a light lemon zest vibe.
It had a nice mouthfeel, which wheat beers often do
bring to the table. So this it's laid back in
some ways, but in other ways it's got like it's
got a little bit of that pepper spice going on too.
It's got some interesting flavors going on that you might
not get and just kind of your basic run of
the mill person.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
I feel like the entire time I was enjoying this,
I kept looking at the cane because it's got mushrooms, yeah,
all over it, And so I wasn't necessarily picking up
on like earthy, wet soil kind of vibes or anything
like that. It really was pretty light and citrusy and bright,
and I didn't taste any fun. Guy, Yeah, I didn't either,
and so I wouldn't. I was trying to figure out
why it is that they stuck mushrooms on here, other
than the fact that they look really cool, and maybe
(53:54):
that's all they looked cool. Maybe that's all they're going for.
But uh, yeah, glad that you and I got to
enjoy the one today. This is a local brewery Monday
night brewing here in Atlanta, but that's going to be
it for this episode. Listeners can find our show notes
up on the website at howdomoney dot com. And so
until next time, best Trinds out, best Friends out,
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt and today we're talking the Stoic Path to Wealth
with Darius Feroux.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
So you might be tempted to think that an alternative
name for this episode could just simply be Emotionless Investing,
but there's a lot more to Stoicism and finances, specifically
investing than just that. And we're excited to be joined
by Darius Feroux. He is a prolific author and entrepreneur
and productivity expert known for his work on personal development.
(00:50):
Much of his writing can be found over at his
site by the same name dariusferux dot com, where he
focuses on wealth building, productivity, and finding meaning and work.
And these are all topics that we're hoping to cover today.
And Darius has written several books, including the newly published
literally was just published yesterday, The Stoic Path to Wealth,
which blends ancient Stoic philosophy with modern financial wisdom. And
(01:16):
that's what we're mainly talking about today. It turns out
Marcus Aurelius, he's got something to say about your four
win k. But Darius, thank you so much for speaking
with us on how to money today.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, thank you for having me really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It of course. Yes, interesting subject and you're the expert
on it. So looking forward to this combo, Darius. The
first question that we ask anybody who comes on the show, though,
is what do you like to splurge on? Because Matt
and I we like to spurgeon craft beer, and we
figured that's a good release anybody, even if they're doing
the stoic the whys the smart thing saving investing for
their future, they got to have something to spend on
(01:50):
in here now too. What's that for you?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah? So the thing that I splurge on is Apple products,
something that I struggled with for a long time because
I always try to talk myself out of it, saying, oh, yeah,
do I really need to have a new iPhone And
the answer is no because the previous one works perfectly,
But deep inside I just love to play with those
(02:13):
gadgets and my house looks like an Apple store. So
that's something that I splurge on and fortunately doesn't happen
that often, but still I really enjoy using the products. Nice.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Okay, So were you happy or disappointed with the new
headset that came out last year?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, that's the only product probably that I don't have, okay,
because that was just a little bit too much for me.
But yeah, I honestly I have of course the phone,
the iPad, the MacBook, the iMac. I even got a
MacBook Pro. I have two laptops. Who needs two laptops?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, the only the biggest problem I think with anything
Apple or just the biggest electronic gadget that people replace
more frequently than they want to now the earbuds, like
I figure with Apple calls them, but I have the
cheap kind myself. But think about those, there's like one
hundred and twenty bucks or something like that, maybe even more,
and they lose, they fall out of your ear like
it's those to me here. I don't know the biggest
(03:14):
problem right now with electronic waste.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I had some issues with the first one, but
now since I have the Pro or not the big one,
I don't have those either, the Max but the in
air earbuds. Fortunately I bought them once and they still work,
so nice. I've been lucky with those, very nice.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Darius is an Apple fanboy. We want to hear a
little bit about your background, Darius. Though your family it
sounds like they basically mean y'all started from nothing. So
can you just kind of share with us the impact
of leaving like a war torn country basically, and then
the impact that it had on you and your family.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, definitely. So I was born in nineteen eighty seven
and Tehran, and at the time there was a war
between Iran and Iraq, and my parents fled the country
to the Netherlands in eighty eight when I was one,
and they basically had to start from zero. We almost
had no family, and my father had to go to
(04:12):
school and get educated and have a start a career,
and he always worked blue collar jobs, and my mother
stayed at home to raise me and my brother, and
we always lived paycheck to paycheck, and my parents always
did their best to make sure that we didn't know
(04:34):
the height of the financial struggles in the house, but
it was always present, you know, we could just feel
the energy even as kids. So that was something that
really created a sense of urgency in me, because as
a child, I knew that I had to become wealthy
because I just didn't want to go through life worrying
(04:56):
about money. So that was really something that really my
outlook on money.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, you said that your parents tried to kind of
guard you. They try to protect you from knowing kind
of what they're going through. And I think most parents,
the best parents, try to do that, but even still
it's insufficient. Like kids are perceptive and they're going to
pick up on the things that are going on behind
the scenes, even with parents trying to do their best
to make sure their kids aren't impacted by it. Yeah,
(05:23):
and I'm curious you mentioned how that kind of sets
you up for desiring financial security in your own life. Yeah,
how did kind of what was going on with your
family's finances impact your career path, your view on money,
and then this kind of belief that you needed financial
security for yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So when I was like twelve or thirteen, my friends
started to have jobs, and I went to my parents
and I said, look, everybody has a paper route or
works in a supermarket. I need to have a job
because I want to start making money. And they said, no,
you should focus on getting your degrees, focus on school
(06:01):
because if you get distracted, you might risk doing what
we did, which was to not educate it because in
my direct family, no one ever went to college, and
that's what my parents wanted for me, so I struggled
with it because I always saw my friends not only
(06:22):
it wasn't really about having a little bit of income
for them, but it was more that they had this responsibility,
and I felt like I was kind of missing out
on something. But looking back, I'm really glad that my
parents always encouraged me and my brother to focus on school,
because when I finished high school, they said, okay, fine,
(06:44):
just go and work during the summer, and that's what
I did. So I got a job at a call
center and I worked almost every day for the entire summer,
and I basically saved everything that I made. So looking back,
I think that was a good experience for me to
wait for so long until I could have my first job,
(07:06):
and then they really saved that money because at that time,
I was still thinking that you need to just hold
on to everything that you earned because that's how you
get wealthy. And of course I had no clue about investing.
And I did watch the movie Wall Street in my teens,
so that's one type of education exactly, so I did.
(07:29):
So I already knew at that stage, Okay, I need
to somehow become like Gordon Gecko I just don't want
to end up in jail. But I need to become
a stock trader or investor because that's where all the
money is. But yeah, it took me a long time
before I really figured out how to get into that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Darius learned the exact obbsos lesson of what they're trying
to portray, which is like, look at this terrible, wretched
human being. Yeah, Garius is like, I want to be
that exactly my hair in that same beautiful way. So
how do you bridge the gap then? From being frugal, like, hey,
I see my parents struggles. They stress the importance of
(08:11):
education that way I can make a solid income.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But then I need to be an investor. I need
me building wealth and the Gordon Gecko thing that seems
like it's like the seed of something. But then how
did you become an educated investor? And what was that process? Like?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so I have my first taste of investing in
two thousand and seven. So at the time, I was
in college, and this is before the financial crisis. So
I was twenty years old and you could have a
side job at a bank, and I started in the
personal banking division, just handing out credit cards and processing
(08:46):
applications for credit, et cetera. And there was a position
to become a mutual fund advisor and all you had
to do was get a four week training and then
you could just call clients of the bank and offer
them the latest mutual funds. So my Gordon get go
(09:08):
censor goes off and I'm like, yeah, this is what
I need to do, and almost instantly I think I'm
this genius. So I also start to invest with my
own money, and I bought stocks of the bank that
I worked at ing and within a year, of course,
the financial crisis happens and I'm down like sixty percent.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Tough time to get invested in the market for the
first time, Yeah, exactly. It.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I honestly bought at the height of the market. Yeah.
So that experience taught me a very important lesson that
money and investing is very emotional because it felt like
a gut punch. And I didn't sell at the bottom
because at that time I was still learning and I
(09:59):
knew that you shouldn't sell during these moments. However, I
didn't know what else to do because I was picking stocks,
which in hindsight wasn't a smart thing to start with
but I stayed in the market for a few years,
and then I just couldn't handle it anymore because every
time I looked at my account it was just down
(10:22):
and I wanted to stop the pain. So I sold
and I said, look, I need to figure this thing out,
and when I figured it out, I'll come back to investing.
And I just started on this educational spree. I went
to business school and specialized in finance and started reading
all of these investment books and yeah, still nothing really happened.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
To be honest, I'm sure that was a period of
time where you wish you would have had a degree
of stoicism in your life that you would have been
able to abide by. But I guess on that note,
I feel like, generally speaking, it feels like stoicism. It's
a little bit more in Vogue's days. I'm sure Ryan
Holliday probably has a lot to do with that's the
resurgence of the stoics. But why have you found that
(11:08):
that approach to life resonates with you so much?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, so fast forward to twenty fourteen fifteen. At that stage,
I was still trying to figure things out of my career.
I had started a business after I finished grad school
with my dad, and it was in the industrial laundry equipment.
I wasn't really passionate about that industry. And then I
(11:32):
started a corporate career in London. I worked at Gardner,
this IT research firm. I realized this is also not
for me. I want to start a business for myself,
but I didn't know what. So I moved back to
the Netherlands and I thought to myself, I need to
figure it out. I need to get started with something
(11:53):
because I have no clue what I'm doing. And at
that stage I discovered stoicism. Because every time I feel
like I'm overwhelmed or confused, I always turned to books
and I remember reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim
Ferris and he had this small chapter or section on stoicism,
(12:16):
and I found that really helpful. So I started reading
all of the original works. And what I love about
the philosophy is that you can just explain it in
one sentence, which is focus on what you control and
ignore everything else. And it gave me a lot of
clarity because I honestly had no clue what I wanted
(12:37):
to do with my career, and I thought to myself, well,
now that I have a little bit more clarity and
I can stop worrying so much about my future, let
me start writing a book. And that's when I wrote
my first book. And around that same time, I also
(12:59):
thought to myself, well, I'm reading these works from these
philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and these
folks wrote about all of these ideas for better living
twenty three hundred years ago. But all that I'm thinking
is how can I use this knowledge to become a
(13:20):
better investor. So I was lucky that my book and
the first few articles that I wrote resonated with readers,
and I started to see a path to earning a
living with writing books. And that gave me this opportunity
to really study the stoics more and see how I
(13:43):
could finally figure out how I could apply it to
manage my emotions better, not only in my personal life,
but also with investing. And then slowly the seeds started
to grow for what I call stoic investing.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Because I feel like in the personal finance space, I've
seen a pivot in the opposite direction, which is to
talk about a lot of things that we can't control,
and the problem is that's a really deep thing, like
there are a lot of things we can't control, and
it's really we could spend hours and hours and hours
talking about a laundry list of those subjects and the
(14:21):
ways in which we're impacted by things that we can't
really have any sort of impact on the outcome of. So, yeah,
talk to me. Stoicism the way you're describing it, and
kind of the historical approach is it's a holistic life,
the way of approaching life. You talk about it specifically
about the intersection of stoicism and money. What does stoicism
(14:44):
have to do with wealth building in particular?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, So stoicism is a philosophy that really promotes indifference
to everything that you don't control. And when it comes
to investing and personal finance, you don't control. Like you said,
like ninety nine percent of what people talk about. We
don't control the economy, we don't control inflation and so forth.
(15:12):
That list is obvious. So basically everything that they talk
about on CNBC. But when you look at our actual
investments that we make, we also don't control the outcomes.
We all know that the S and P. Five hundred
has annualized returns of around ten percent over the past
(15:33):
fifty years. Everyone who's into personal finance knows this, But
the thing is that it's not within our control. Maybe
it's eight percent moving forward, but it shouldn't matter to
you as a stoic investor or as a person. I
feel like because the stoic's really promoted indifference towards outcomes.
(15:58):
So when you really applies stoicism to your personal finance
and investing strategy, you'll learn to create some distance between
yourself and your money. And I feel like that's the
best thing that you can do for your mental health,
but also for your career, because when you have some
indifference when it comes to your money, you can just
(16:21):
relax and focus on your career and your family and
your job and everything else that is important while you
are still doing your best. Because epictetis one of the
most stringent philosophers, said that you should demand the best
of yourself every single day, and to me, that means
(16:43):
that every single day I just need to perform my
duties as a human being and not complain and try
to become better not only in my career but as
a human being. So if I'm so obsessed with money,
I can't do those things. And that's something that I
personally experienced because I would say my entire life up
(17:08):
until around twenty seventeen when I finally started to apply
all of these lessons, because I discovered it like twenty
fourteen fifteen, but it took me a few years to
really apply it in my own life. But when I
started to apply it, I realized that I was too
obsessed with money and that caused a lot of friction
(17:32):
and anxiety and mental blocks. And when I resolved those things,
I could really focus on the act of investing, which
is actually just nothing more than a habit. Just like
we work out and eat healthy, et cetera, investing is
also a habit. So when you remove all of the friction,
(17:55):
you can just do it. You can invest without wasting
your time and energy and just focus on living a
good life.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, you're talking about cultivating the sense of indifference, and
I like what you said about creating some distance between
you and your money, but like, how do you practically
go about that. I feel like we're kind of getting
into more of the meat of the intersection of stoicism
and investing or your wealth. But like you said, CNBC,
that's all they talk about.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
All they're talking.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
About is the noise. It's the things that you can't
really control. So is it as simple as creating like
an information diet right where you're limiting the inputs that
are having an impact on your life.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I'm not a fan of information diets, and I'm also
not a fan of the common investment advice of become
a passive investor and never look at your portfolio. I
love John Bogel, and John Bogel, the founder of Vanguard,
of course, basically made this whole ETF investing possible. And
(19:01):
one of the things that he said was, yeah, just
invest your entire career and just never open your brokerage account.
But I feel like you should be able to open
your account without getting swayed. You should be able to
look at CNBC. You should be able to read the
Wall Street Journal without thinking to yourself, oh, okay, what
should I do? Maybe should I I should sell or
(19:23):
maybe I should buy n Video stock or whatever? Right,
And I think that's the ultimate goal as a stoic investor,
that you become indifferent to all of the noise and
you can just handle everything that people throw at you
and the media throws at you, because you have the
sense of calm and you know what you are doing,
(19:45):
and you've eliminated like ninety nine point nine percent of
the investment strategies, and you know what you're doing, and
you're fine with everything that basically is happening because you
don't have to react.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Something you're getting to here, I think is being able
to trust yourself. And like one of the things is, yeah,
maybe you don't like zone out and watch CNBC for
like six hours, Like you're probably setting yourself up for failure.
I'm assuming that a good stoic investor probably isn't doing that.
But you're also not saying I can't watch at all,
or I can't even open, you know, the homepage of
(20:23):
the Wall Street Journal and read a few things without
without feeling swayed. So how do you You mentioned too,
that you found stoicism in twenty fourteen but found yourself
practicing not until like twenty seventeen. What was the gap
there and what does it look like then to incorporate
more of that those stoic approaches into your life.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, So one of the pieces of advice from the
stoics is to start small where you want to start
practicing stolicism. So I think also Epicthetis says something like,
start with a cup. Let's say your favorite gup falls
and bread. You should just say to yourself, oh, okay,
(21:02):
this is just a cup, and then you can slowly
build it up. So for example, I remember getting in
a fender bender around that time, and I was really
worked up. While it wasn't that big of a deal,
but I was just like the emotions and the anger
(21:24):
within me was like starting to get a little bit
out of control. And later on I realized what am
I doing? Like I have insurance or it's not even
my fault. Why am I getting worked up about this?
And I feel like emotions are normal. I still get angry,
for example, when I injure my back or something. You know,
(21:46):
that's something that I'm kind of prone to because I
used to play basketball in college and I have this
lower back issue since then, and every few months or
sometimes a few years can go by without having issue,
but then it pops up, and then every time it happens,
I get frustrated at first. And the key to stoicism
(22:07):
is that in the beginning, you might be stuck in
that emotion for a few days. But the more you
practice and the more you build it up from a
cup to a fender bender, to an injury to maybe
at some point losing your job or losing some money
in the stock market, when you start to build it
(22:27):
up that way and practice shrugging it off, which is
also a classic technique of the Stoics. They literally said,
and this is something Marcus Aurelia said, when bad things happen,
shrug it off. Simply just the act of doing that
will put you more at ease. And after a while
(22:51):
I noticed that I was able to snap out of
my negative mindset or anxious mindset quicker. So now my
rule is that I can be stuck in negative emotions
or being frustrated for a few hours, or I can
(23:12):
give you an example. I actually injured my back last week.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
This is why this one is fresh in mind, because
you're feeling it right now.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, I'm feeling it. And it happened on a Tuesday,
And it was like at three after three pm. I
ordered some some some dumbbells for my home gym, and
I picked them up from the box and I felt
it in my lower back and I started cursing, and
I was angry, and you know, talked to my partner
(23:42):
and she was like, yeah, don't be so worked up.
And I stayed that emotion for a few hours, and
then by the evening I finally was able to snap
back by just remembering the stoics. And a misconception about
stoicism is that you shouldn't have emotions or it should
(24:02):
be numb. That's not true at all. The thing is
that you should be able to detect what you are
feeling and react accordingly. So translating that to investing, it
means that let's say a crash happens, you can look
at it. You don't have to run away from it.
(24:23):
You can maybe even explain it and understand it if
you have some historical context, which I always think helps,
because let's say you're a writer or a dentist, you
don't really have to have historical background into your profession,
but as an investor, it really helps. Knowing a little
(24:44):
bit of history of the stock market and you know
how crashes happen and corrections, et cetera. But let's say
you can look at all of that, and your goal
as an investor is to respond accordingly, and for a
long term investor, the response is nothing, just stick to
your strategy. So that was really what I was going
(25:08):
through in that timeframe, to really internalize the philosophy, see
how I could apply it in all areas of my life,
and then actually do it, you know, because I love
to write about the things that I've successfully accomplished myself,
and to be honest, I did write about personal finance, etc.
(25:31):
But it wasn't until after the COVID crash that I
felt comfortable to come out and talk about stoicism and
investing because even though I was applying this stuff since
twenty twenty seventeen, I felt like I needed a stress test,
and that happened in twenty twenty and then, of course
(25:54):
the market is down by thirty percent or something and
what felt like a matter of days, but I was
finally calm. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't think to myself, oh, yeah,
this is a good buying opportunity. I have to be honest.
Of course, in hindsight it was. But my biggest win
came because I just stayed the course right, and that
(26:17):
was my biggest, biggest win. When I looked at my
personal life, because my first try didn't work out because
I sold in twenty ten, and then we all know
what happened from twenty eleven, you know, went on a
crazy bull run.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
So yeah, the market blew up. Yeah, there's a big
difference between having that head knowledge and then actually implementing
that into your life and controlling your behavior. And I
like what you're saying here about how does it we
should be experiencing our emotions, but to not be distracted
by those emotions. And I'm looking forward to talking about
some of the different ways, some of the additional ways
(26:55):
that were able to implement some of the principles of
stoicism within our financial lives. We'll get to all of
that and more right after this.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Our way back from the break, still talking with Darius
Faru talking about stoicism, how it impacts your ability to
build wealth, your finances, and it will have a direct
impact has even just Darius example, selling in twenty ten,
not selling during the COVID crash, big difference than in
your net worth at the end of the day. And Darius,
I think it feels like basically what you're saying, if
(27:29):
I'm boiling it down correctly, is that that emotions or
your ability to at least respond appropriately to your emotions.
It supersedes knowledge. So tell me if I'm wrong here,
and then how much in depth investing information do we
need to consume to then be stoic investors? Is it
more about our behavior or is it more about the
things that we need to learn in order to be
(27:50):
great investors?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I feel like it's a little bit of both,
and more focused on the emotional plot because knowledge is important,
but it's not the most important thing. Because if that
was the case, as Warren Buffett said, historians or librarians
would all be rich. The key is really to know
what you're doing and have enough confidence in that knowledge
(28:15):
that you were able to stay the course. And one
of the most practical ways that you can do that
is by investing with money that you really won't miss.
Because there was another big mistake that I made, you know, seven,
was that I basically poured all of my savings at
the time into the market in the hopes of becoming wealthy.
(28:41):
And I think so many young investors or new investors
start out with investing a big chunk or maybe even
all of their savings, and then they start looking at
that portfolio with laser eyes and they just can't look away.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It sounds like an early story for Met's life. Honestly, Actually,
when you opened up the roth Ira Matt for real
and ye.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, I certainly neglected my savings and I was left
in an unfortunate position of needing to tap those savings
and I didn't because I didn't have that liquidity on hand.
I drew down on losses and ended up with less money.
But Darius earlier, actually, I want to kind of circle
back around here because you talked about forming the habit
of investing right, and I've heard you talk about how
(29:27):
it can be helpful to eliminate goals from your life,
so to you know, essentially think less about becoming a
millionaire as opposed to being like identifying that you are
an investor. This is something I'm going to do. I
do day and day out, say the course. But I'm
curious to hear your thoughts on that because I know
for a lot of people, having a big goal can
be incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's something that they're looking ahead to oft in the future.
It's this thing that they're like, Okay, this is why
I'm sacrificing. Now, this is why I'm spending less, is
because I want to be able to achieve some sense
of financial independence. Talk about that sort of balance it
might take to be able to do both.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Well, yeah, that's really a good point, because if you
think about it, we all invest to have a better future.
But if I really take the ideas of the Stoics
and apply it to investing, which, by the way, the
Stoics were not against money, they were also indifferent to it,
(30:23):
but they said, if you can make money by remaining
honest by all means, do it. I love that because
it really doesn't judge money, and it's okay to have
goals to become wealthy, become rich. Now, there's another way
to look at this, which is by looking at the
present moment. So we all get the math. Okay, invest
(30:48):
five hundred bucks or invest a thousand bucks, and then
in thirty or twenty years you'll become a millionaire. But
we really don't think that far head. I think the
biggest benefit of investing and living a frugal life is
that you just become a more complete human being today.
(31:11):
To me, that's why I actually invest and why I've
always lived below my means and why I've actually haven't
upgraded my lifestyle in like six years or so, still
live in the same apartment.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I think it's a really good point, Darius. Like I
think lots of times people see it as a means
to an end. It's like, oh, I can't wait until
I'm able to like drive a BMW and live in
the fancy house. But then ultimately they get to that
point and they realize that's not very fulfilling either, and
that maybe they were.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
We all look back on fondness some of those like
poor college or post college days, or that first high
school job where we were making six bucks an hour,
and we're like, but like the freedom that came with
just having some money in our pockets. So yeah, I
don't know, Talk to me. Then, what's the point of
building wealth if you're not planning on upgrading your lifestyle?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yea, The point is really freedom, right, because having all
of that wealth just gives you more freedom. And the
funny thing is that you don't really have to have
that wealth to already feel free. I feel like I
already felt emotionally free in twenty nineteen, when I was
still on the path, and I wasn't technically financially free.
(32:24):
And when I achieved a seven figure net worth a
year and a half or two years ago, I could say, Okay,
you know, if I quit working now, I can live
off my wealth and that's fine, right, so technically I
don't have to work. But the thing is that even
(32:44):
if you're on the path, you're saving, you're living below
your means, you have good financial habits, you enjoy your life,
you enjoy the simple things, and you are content. I
think you can already count yourself mentally free because it's
just a matter of time. And if you live a
life like that, nothing can break you. What's you know,
(33:06):
what are the threads that you're going to buy a
Mercedes S Class because you're driving E Class or something.
You know, Like it's like that that those are the
common pitfalls of people who constantly upgrade because there's there's
no end in sight. It's not like they're ever going
(33:28):
to say, Okay, you know, like I live in this
four bedroom house, maybe let's buy a two bedroom condo.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Right, it never goes in reverse?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah exactly. Yeah. So, like the best way to have
a happy and content life is just to not get
on that treadmill. And if you are on a treadmill,
it's always possible to get off it. The thing is
just that you can't get on it anymore if you
want to just be in control of your life. Because
(34:00):
one I think one of the most important things that
I learned in my career was that, sure, I can
earn a good living even with writing and doing courses,
et cetera. I can earn one hundred or two hundred
or maybe even three hundred K a year. Can I
earn a million bucks a year? Is unlikely because there
(34:22):
are not a lot of folks who do that. And
the beauty is you don't even have to do that.
You can have a good income with a job that
you love. Combine that with healthy habits, financial habits, and
a solid investment strategy. You know what else do you need?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You're still going to win financially just by implementing those
proper habits. And like what I hear you saying is
and what you're recommending is for folks to find like
a level a sense of contentment. And you kind of
alluded to this before as well, but it sounds like
you've just been able to put money in its proper place.
And I think a large part of that is finding
(35:01):
in discovering your true desires, and that's something that you
that you talk about or that you've written about as well.
But how would you recommend because essentially it's difficult to
remove money, I think, from your mind unless you are
sort of like doing the Indiana Jones golden statue swap.
At the same time, you know, like at the very
(35:22):
moment you have because if you take it off, like
there's a vacuum, there, there's a void, but some you know,
you have to replace it with something. And you talk
about the true desires, how would you recommend for folks
to discover what those are in their life.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, that's a really good question because Stolicism is also
not about living a very stringent life. I still want
to buy a new iPhone every two years, you know,
but the thing is that I'm not going to eat
out every week, and I you know, I live a
simple life and go on vacation once a year, and
(35:57):
you know, save on other things. So I feel like
if you have a balance, while there are certain things
that cost money but give you a lot of satisfaction,
and at the same time, also is something that really
enriches your life without going broke. I feel like that's
a great way to keep things fun, because, as you said,
(36:21):
we all need money and we have to be honest
and practical about it, and that's one of the reasons
that we work and earn and save and all of
these things. But I really believe there is a middle path.
And when I started to research Stoicism, I discovered that
(36:43):
Stoicism was actually the philosophy of the middle path or
the golden mean. Because at the time in ancient Greece
and Rome, there were two primary schools of thought. There
were the cynics cynicism, and there were the Epicureanists. And
(37:06):
the cynics said life is hard and you need to
endure it and that's it. No pleasure, no fun, no nothing.
And the epicurean said life is hard and the only
way to forget it is to seek pleasure. So both
of them said that life is hard, but their mechanism
(37:26):
of dealing or coping was different. Now, the Stoics came
and said, well, life is hard, we need to deal
with it, we need to be tougher, but at the
same time, we don't need to punish ourselves. So that's
why I think the philosophy has remained popular all these
(37:48):
years in centuries, because I feel like it's the most
practical philosophy and something that, as you can see, can
apply to every area. Like I took the philosophy and
apply it to investing, I guess because my subconscious mind
was always focused on investing in the stock market. So
(38:10):
as soon as I picked up the Stoics, I started
to think about how I could apply it to investing,
and other people who wanted to use stoicism to improve
their personal lives and mindset or relationships use it that way.
(38:31):
And I think that's really the beauty of this philosophy.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, I love that you've kind of taken it at
those time tested truths. You've adapted it kind of for
the way you live the things you're interested in, And
it's really cool to see how malleable that philosophy is
and how it can serve people thousands of years later.
We've got a few more questions we're going to get
to with you, Darius, including I'm talking about self development
and stoicism when we're talking about our career path. We'll
(38:55):
get to a few questions on that. Right after this.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
We are back for the break, we're talking with Darius
Faru about stoicism, and Darius, in your book, you've got
a chapter about how valuable skills. Essentially they're they're better
than money. And I'm sure there's a lot of folks
out there who are thinking, Okay, I'd much rather have
a whole lot of money, you may.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Five million skills.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, oh, this is easy for
you to say. It even makes me think back to
as you're like some of the examples you're you're giving,
I forget which philosopher, but like, start with a cup,
allow the cup to break, and then shrug it off
and realize over time you can kind of build up
your resilience to losses. But like, I feel like an
(39:44):
argument to be made against that is like, well, sure,
that's an easy argument to make if you've got a
lot of cups. Well that's an easy argument to make
if you've got a lot of money that like, oh no,
what you really need instead are skills, not money. But
make an argument for that, for the ability for us
to better ourselves as individuals.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah, Well, what you said about preferring money is something
that Seneca also said. He said, if someone told me,
would you rather be rich or poor? I would of
course I I'd rather be rich. But if I would
be poor, that's also okay. And that's the key to stoicism.
I think they look at all situations as fine. If
(40:26):
this is my life and this is my situation that's
been given to me, that's okay. Here's how I'm going
to deal with it. And the reason that I started
this book with a chapter on skills is that that's
where I started. This is where I feel everyone who
starts from zero, or who's not born into wealth should start,
(40:50):
because you can make money with nothing else than your skills.
And if you are starting this journey towards wealth and
to financial freedom, it can be very overwhelming. And that
was also the case for me. When I started, I
thought to myself, Wow, you know, I need to make
(41:12):
a few hundred thousand dollars a year. How can I
do that? I don't know if I can ever do that,
you know, Like, especially when I started writing and my
first book just sold maybe like two hundred copies in
the first year or the first six months when it
came out, I thought to myself, Yeah, there's no way
(41:33):
I can do this full time. But over the years,
the numbers, of course kept growing, and if I look back,
the reason or one of the things that really inspired
me the most was this idea to work with your
natural abilities, or to focus on your strengths, simply put,
(41:57):
and to build your career on top of your strength
and to get world class at the things that you
are already good at, because if you try to become
good at the things that you're not good at, you
might become average. And that's great. But if you want
to earn more than average, you need to be great.
(42:18):
And that's the thing that sounds very obvious, and it's
very obvious, but I feel like not enough folks are
really living. And that was true for me. It was
really true for me until I discovered stoicism, where I
finally realized, you know, like I just need to forget
about everything else. You know. Having this family business is great.
(42:39):
I love it, but it's not really aligned with my
strengths because I don't love this industry. Climbing the corporate
ladder is great, but I'm an introvert. I don't like strangers,
I don't like people. I just like to be alone.
So being a writer is perfect for me because.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
We get it, Darius. We'll let you go in just
a second.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Okay, that was my message, and I'm just kidding this interview.
But the thing is, like my strength is just to
sit alone in a room for like hours and days
on end. I can just do that for a very
long time. You know. I have close friends who say
(43:22):
that sounds like the worst thing ever.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
We're opposite human Yeah, we're opposite people.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Right, So when I tell them what I do, they're like, oh, man,
I wish I would never I never have to do that.
And I think this is why I became a writer,
because I finally had permission, let's put it that way,
from not only the stoics, but also like management thinkers
(43:53):
like Peter Drucker, who famously said that that you should
improve your strengths and ignore your weaknesses. And I really
took that advice to heart. And as I started to
become better at writing and only focused on writing, I
also got better rewards from it and better reach. And yeah,
(44:17):
now this is my eighth book, so I feel like
that that was a good decision to ignore everything else
and and just focus on writing.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Very nice, So for you the skill, Like we're literally
talking about the skill of writing and how you were
able to improve there. And yeah, are there some general
skills for folks out there that kind of go across industry,
across different jobs that you think individuals should likely develop.
Do you think there's some different practices that you think
are undervalued when it comes to our ability to just
(44:49):
not only become better human beings, better people, but also
just to make more money too.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah. I think one of the best income generating skills
is actually every day writing, not writing books or articles.
But I feel like the better you are at translating
your thoughts into words, the better you will become at communication.
So writing is a meta skill. And I'm a little
(45:14):
bit afraid that more and more people will think that
writing is for ai But wow, yeah, you know that's
something that I wish people would not think, because writing
is really just communication. It's just translating your thoughts, which
are almost always abstract, into clear and concise words. And
(45:38):
if you want to become a better communicator or leader, storyteller, salesperson,
someone who wants to ask for a raise at any job,
I feel like the better you are at that process
the more odds of succeeding in your career.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yeah, I think that's advice, and I think you're right
that the human process of organizing our thoughts our minds
can be a big jumble mess sometimes, and writing can
help you put those things out in order so you
realize what you think, why you think it. If you're
able to write down those those thoughts, you're able to
bring clarity to yourself and then hopefully to others at
some point too.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
And it's as simple as just journaling, right, It's just
as simple as journaling daily, And just that practice of
journaling will really improve your writing. So a lot of
folks think, oh, how should I do that? You know,
I don't want to go to writing workshops. I don't
want to, you know, take courses. I also don't think
that's necessary. Just taking or buying a physical journal or
(46:38):
opening your notes app on your phone is enough to
just start translating your thoughts into words every day. And
if you do that every day, you'll automatically get better
at it.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
What other ways, Darius, have you seen stoicism impact your life?
You kind of gave some examples of whether it's maybe
how you treat other people right, So the fender bender
sort of scenario that maybe allows you to kind of
keep your cool there when it came to personal injury
as you hurt your back. Like, have you seen other
areas of your life where you've been able to apply
(47:12):
the principles of stoicism other than personal finances and growing wealth.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, So in my relationship with my partner, it's been
one of the most important things because when we met,
she was not familiar with stoicism, but of course it
was one of the first topics that came up where
we met, and yeah, she really enjoys the idea and
(47:38):
slowly started applying it as well, to the point where
she reminds me to be stoic in certain situations when
I'm not. So I feel like, if you have a relationship,
I think it's a great way to keep each other accountable.
And yeah, when it goes both ways, it's an extra
(48:00):
a layer of or an extra reminder to just not
get get too emotional and not get out of control,
because yeah, life is already so hard, you know, Like
life is complex and we all have these responsibilities and
(48:20):
I am definitely one of those people who tends to
or has this natural tendency to make things harder, and
stoicism helps me to combat that feeling.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Darius, there's been a great conversation. Man, love the book,
and I love kind of what you're putting out there
into the world. Where can How to Money listeners find
your book and purchase it if they're interested?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So the best way to find out more about the
book is to go to stoicpath to wealth dot com
or on DARIUSFORU dot com. Very nice.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
We'll link to both of those in our show notes. Darius,
thank you so much for talking with us today.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, thank you for having me really what this all right? Matt?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I love conversations like this because you and I behind
the scenes were always talking about how the truth about
personal finance is there's always so much you can learn,
and the truth about like our the depths of our
human emotion and reactions to things or like limitless and
the more we can control those. Yeah, a healthy amount
of knowledge is good. But at some point, like the
(49:24):
biggest thing we have to control in our lives as
human beings is ourselves, and market's gonna do what it's
gonna do. We'll build wealth over time, but we have
to be able to control our reactions to do that.
So I love this conversation. Was what was your big
takeaway from it? So I think this is what do
you call it recency bias?
Speaker 3 (49:41):
But it was right there at the end when he
was talking about journaling and he was specifically talking about
writing because we were taking I had asked him about
skills and I'm thinking, okay, networking or never burning bridges,
I don't know, just different things that you want to
keep in mind when you're out in the world, out
in the business world, regardless of the industry that you're in.
And he immediately started talking about writing, and so that's
(50:02):
why I kind of clarified. I was like, well, what
about for everybody, like, aside from you, obviously you are
a writer, and he kind of doubled down. He was
just like, no, I actually think I think for everybody,
everybody should likely be journaling, they should be writing more.
And the reason that he gave for that, I think
was so true, which is that we need the ability
to process our thoughts. And you know what I immediately
made think of was like, over the past couple of years,
(50:24):
everyone's been talking about the vibes, right how the vibes
are off. But like vibes is what is vibes? Nobody
really knows. It's just like this collective feeling. Yes, it's
like this amorphous thing. And it almost feels kind of
lazy if you think about it, right, because it's like, well, no,
what is vibes? Like you need to identify what that
is and communicate better to me what you're feeling or
(50:44):
put your finger on it. And I know sometimes it's
hard for us to put our fingers on things, but
I think it also comes at the expense of us
not taking the time to process what we're thinking about things,
how we're feeling about things. And I totally agree with
what he's saying here. I have looked back at different
times in my life and I feel like I've had
the most clarity when I have written the most in
my own journal, which is I don't think it's something
(51:06):
we've ever really talked about here on the show, but
it is the synthesis and the formation and the processing
of your own ideas and the more that you are
going to be able to do that and to distill
that down and communicate that to others in your life,
regardless of what it is that you do. I think
you're going to find yourself in a much more successful position.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I have like some intuitive thoughts about personal finance for
a long time, but until I started like writing those down,
formulating those things, it was just kind of helter skelter.
And then it's like, wait, but what do I actually think?
And I think that's true of so many things.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
Yeah, so very non money related takeaway for me, but yeah,
what about for you.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
I love when you said, like, put some distance between
yourself and your money, so good, and I think it's
spot on. I think we need a healthier detachment from
our money, where we're doing the right things. We're making
sure that we're growing the gap, we're funneling money into
those retirement accounts, we have enough set aside in saving,
but that when it comes to the outcome and the results,
(52:02):
maybe we're obsessing about those things a little too much.
And I think maybe he's right, like, we don't have
to blind ourselves from the outcome, but the more we
can become zen with whatever happens, realizing that hey, the
rest of twenty twenty four might be like the first
half might be awesome, or the stock market could experience
like some big tantrums like we don't know who knows?
But and then part of that is what's your goal.
(52:24):
If your goal is as a long term investor, not
even doing anything with this money until decades down the road,
then it doesn't even matter. And so I think that
healthy detachment is so crucial to handling money. Well, I
feel like it's been harder for me as I think
of myself as a fairly emotional dude. But the more
I've been able to kind of take motion out of
(52:46):
some of my money, it doesn't mean I'm emotion less,
but it just means I'm not putting as much of
my emotional focus on what's going on with my money
at that particular moment.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah, you're not denying your feelings, like feel the feelings,
but just know what it is you need to continue
to do having also field the feelings. But uh, yeah,
that's good man. But let's introduce the beer that you
and I enjoyed during this episode. It was a field
Trip wheat beer. This is by Monday Nights Brewing.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You. What are your thoughts on it? Joel?
Speaker 1 (53:14):
I thought it was refreshing, had a light lemon zest vibe.
It had a nice mouthfeel, which wheat beers often do
bring to the table. So this it's laid back in
some ways, but in other ways it's got like it's
got a little bit of that pepper spice going on too.
It's got some interesting flavors going on that you might
not get and just kind of your basic run of
the mill person.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
I feel like the entire time I was enjoying this,
I kept looking at the cane because it's got mushrooms, yeah,
all over it, And so I wasn't necessarily picking up
on like earthy, wet soil kind of vibes or anything
like that. It really was pretty light and citrusy and bright,
and I didn't taste any fun. Guy, Yeah, I didn't either,
and so I wouldn't. I was trying to figure out
why it is that they stuck mushrooms on here, other
than the fact that they look really cool, and maybe
(53:54):
that's all they looked cool. Maybe that's all they're going for.
But uh, yeah, glad that you and I got to
enjoy the one today. This is a local brewery Monday
night brewing here in Atlanta, but that's going to be
it for this episode. Listeners can find our show notes
up on the website at howdomoney dot com. And so
until next time, best Trinds out, best Friends out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.