FI + Choose | Clint Murphy | Episode 518

Summary

Episode Title: FI + Choose | Clint Murphy | Episode 518
Release Date: October 28, 2024
Host: ChooseFI
Guests: Clint Murphy

---

Introduction

In Episode 518 of the ChooseFI podcast, hosts Jonathan and Brad engage in a deep and insightful conversation with their longtime friend Clint Murphy. Building upon their previous interactions during community events, Clint shares his transformative journey towards financial independence (FI) and introduces the compelling concept of "FI and Choose." This episode delves into the nuances of achieving FI, the importance of intentional living, and the balance between ambition and simplicity.

The Power of Community and Shared Values

Clint underscores the significance of the ChooseFI community, highlighting how shared interests extend beyond mere financial goals. The strong bonds formed are rooted in mutual personal growth and the desire to improve various aspects of life.

Clint Murphy [02:38]: "We talked about personal growth, we talked about self-development, we talked about being a better husband, being a better father, being a better man. And all of that was so interesting to see how many people around the table had been through those journeys."

Embracing Simplicity to Maximize Enjoyment

A pivotal theme in the conversation is the pursuit of a simple yet fulfilling life. Clint shares personal anecdotes illustrating how minimizing expenses can lead to greater satisfaction and deeper connections with loved ones.

Clint Murphy [09:01]: "The realization that came out of that trip was just a simple life. We don't need all this money to do all these things. How much does it cost to go play pickleball for six hours? It's practically free and gives us hundreds of hours of enjoyment."

Brad echoes this sentiment, emphasizing how simple pleasures often bring the most joy without significant financial strain.

Brad [10:52]: "I left feeling very full. It was awesome because we didn't intend to spend much, but we ended up having maximal utility for minimal spend."

Balancing Ambition with Family Well-being

Clint candidly discusses the challenges of balancing financial ambitions with family well-being. His pursuit of "fat fire"—a high net worth aimed at achieving substantial financial independence—led to unintended stress within his household. This realization prompted a reevaluation of his financial strategies to prioritize simplicity and reduce familial strain.

Clint Murphy [19:34]: "I realized how much stress I was putting on my wife with the accumulation of wealth. It led me to the same path as you—maybe I should simplify our life."

Brad reflects on the importance of questioning one's motivations behind financial endeavors, urging listeners to consider the impact on their personal lives.

Brad [23:38]: "Am I trying to prove something to myself or others? If slowing down ambition still allows for a wonderful income and reduces stress, why not consider it?"

Introducing "FI and Choose": Redefining Financial Independence

Clint introduces the concept of "FI and Choose," a nuanced approach to financial independence that emphasizes maintaining purpose and engagement rather than adhering to traditional retirement stereotypes. Instead of withdrawing from meaningful activities, "FI and Choose" encourages leveraging financial freedom to pursue passions and intellectual stimulation.

Clint Murphy [37:11]: "FI and pivot means hitting a certain number that affords me freedom while shifting focus to purposeful entrepreneurship instead of full retirement."

Brad complements this idea by sharing his own journey of transitioning from a stable corporate role to entrepreneurship, aligning with the "FI and Choose" philosophy.

Brad [39:36]: "I believed in myself and bet on myself. That pivot gave me options, knowing I could always return to a stable career if needed."

Intentionality in Designing a Perfect Life

Intentionality emerges as a cornerstone of the "FI and Choose" framework. Both Clint and Brad emphasize the importance of designing a life that aligns with personal values and passions, ensuring sustained fulfillment beyond financial success.

Clint Murphy [45:40]: "When we choose FI, we gain the option to design our lives intentionally. It’s about doing what we love and maximizing our time with meaningful activities."

Brad adds that intentional living counteracts common fears associated with financial independence, such as boredom or unproductiveness.

Brad [48:05]: "Pursuing FI gives you the option to do countless things. It’s not about wasting time but about embracing the vast array of opportunities available."

Building Sustainable Relationships and Future Planning

The conversation shifts to the importance of building strong relationships and planning for sustainable business practices. Clint discusses his approach to partnership agreements, emphasizing fairness, mutual growth, and the foresight to navigate future transitions gracefully.

Clint Murphy [55:42]: "It's about being a good person, adding value to your partners, and building a company together. When the time comes to pivot, having these strong relationships allows for fair and reasonable transitions."

Brad highlights the necessity of such planning, using examples to illustrate how clear agreements can prevent conflicts and ensure long-term harmony within business partnerships.

Brad [56:51]: "Understanding how incentives work and building relationships over years sets the stage for fair future arrangements that benefit everyone involved."

Conclusion: Embracing Choice Through Financial Independence

The episode culminates with a reaffirmation of the "FI and Choose" philosophy. Clint and Brad inspire listeners to view financial independence as a gateway to profound personal choice and intentional living. By prioritizing meaningful activities and relationships over mere wealth accumulation, they advocate for a balanced and fulfilling life.

Clint Murphy [47:46]: "We choose FI to give us maximal choice. Once FI is achieved, we can choose how to live our lives each day."

Brad [53:22]: "Choosing FI isn't giving up; it's about gaining the freedom to live intentionally and pursue what truly matters to you."

Key Takeaways

• Community and Shared Growth: Engaging with like-minded individuals fosters deep connections rooted in mutual self-improvement and personal growth.

• Simplicity Enhances Fulfillment: Simplifying finances and prioritizing low-cost, high-joy activities can lead to a more satisfying life.

• Balancing Ambition with Well-being: It's essential to align financial goals with family and personal well-being to avoid unintended stress and maintain harmony.

• "FI and Choose" Philosophy: Financial independence should be leveraged to maintain purpose, engage in meaningful work, and embrace personal passions rather than traditional retirement.

• Intentional Living: Designing life with intentionality ensures that financial freedom translates into genuine fulfillment and ongoing personal growth.

• Sustainable Relationships and Planning: Building strong, fair relationships and planning for future transitions are crucial for long-term success and harmony in business partnerships.

Final Thoughts

Episode 518 of ChooseFI with Clint Murphy offers a profound exploration of financial independence beyond the conventional narrative. By introducing "FI and Choose," Clint and Brad encourage listeners to redefine what FI means to them, emphasizing purpose, intentionality, and meaningful living. This episode serves as a compelling guide for anyone seeking not just financial freedom but a life rich with choice and fulfillment.

---

Where to Find More:

• Clint Murphy's Platforms:

  • Website: TheGrowthGuide.com
  • Social Media: X (Twitter) and LinkedIn

• ChooseFI Resources:

  • Local Groups: ChooseFI Local
  • Financial Independence 101 Course: FI101
  • Episode 100: Welcome to the FI Community

---

Thank you for tuning into ChooseFI. Subscribe to the podcast and join the community to continue your journey toward financial independence and intentional living.

Transcript

[Brad]

Hello and welcome to Choose a vi. Today on the show, we have my good friend Clint Murphy back for another episode here on Choose a vi. He joined us previously in a book club episode and him and I have become really great friends in the intervening time and we just have these amazing conversations in real life and offline, and I wanted to bring one of those conversations here to the podcast. He's recently undergone some significant changes in his real life and he termed it Phi plus pivot. That was originally what we were going to talk about, but interestingly, we coined a new phrase on this podcast which is phi and choose or phi plus choose. And I think that is going to be an enduring legacy of this podcast episode. I think not only are we choosing fi, but when you get to some degree of fi, you have choice and you have almost unlimited choice. And yeah, we talk about that, we talk about simplicity, we talk about whether you actually retire or not and what a life looks like. This is really, really a wonderful in depth conversation. I think you're going to enjoy this. And with that, welcome to choose up by Glenn. It is so good to see you. It's been a couple of months, so we spent five plus days together in Breckenridge, Colorado at a retreat, which was just an absolutely amazing time. And it was just so cool that, like, I knew you from the online world and you flew in from British Columbia, I fly in from Richmond. And I think we both maybe struggled a little bit with the altitude, but man, that was a darn good time.

[Clint Murphy]

Amazing trip, good people, the conversations, the activities, it was all an absolute blast. And to be able to follow that up and jump on a recording with you today, I really excited to have this conversation.

[Brad]

Yeah, you and me both, my friend. And yeah, I think for everybody out there, why we've talked about five events and this wasn't a FI event, obviously. This was a group of friends getting together. But it was all people who knew each other through, in essence, through me and through financial independence. And what's cool about five events generally is when you have this one big thing in common. You have so many little things in common. And I think that's what I've found from going to Camp Fives and Chautauquas and Economy and going to the 5 Freedom Retreat in Bali. I'm leaving in 12 days from when we're recording this. And there's no trepidation for me when I go to these things because I know these are my people. And Clint, I mean, that was your first time ever, really hanging out with a group of five people.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah. And it immediately puts you at ease. So, you know, right away, I have things in common with the people that are in the room. What jumped out at me quickly was, largely to your point, how many other things we had in common. And it makes sense that if you pursue Fi, you're probably a person who's curious and a person who wants to improve in multiple areas of your life. So, to your point, we really didn't talk FI the entire time. No. But we talked about personal growth, we talked about self development, we talked about being a better husband, being a better father, being a better man. And all of that was so interesting to see how many people around the table had been through those journeys and were even running groups in sillery to personal finance. More along the lines of being a better person and being a better man and creating men's communities. There were at least two people there who had groups who did that or were involved in groups who did that. So that really jumped out at me, and it felt like that became a bit of a bonding point on the journey.

[Brad]

Yeah, agreed. And I think that's what's really wonderful about not just our community, but communities like ours where people are trying to improve. And I think there's this groundswell. Right. Like, it doesn't it feel like that? Obviously, you sometimes can look at the world and say things are going poorly, especially if you watch the news or spend too much time on Twitter or the like and the sky is falling. Right. But then you see millions of people in these little niche communities all across the world who are trying to get better in little ways. And it's amazing how many commonalities they have. And it just. It feels like something special is going on, and I just love being part of it.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah. In the example I would give, you know, at night, we're sitting in the hot tub and we're just having conversations. In certain of those conversations, normally when you're with a group of people that you don't really know that well, you don't steer into religion, you don't steer into politics. And not only did we steer into them, we made them central elements of the conversation.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Clint Murphy]

And so you have what did. We probably had eight to 10 people in that hot tub in or sauna in. The conversations we had in those areas were nuanced. They were reasonable, they were open, and to some extent, you'd even say vulnerable. And people were willing to have open and candid conversations on topics that would normally be offside. Let's not venture here, but because of the level of curiosity with the people around that circle, we were able to explore them in a nuanced way, coming at it from both sides of the aisle and probing and asking the hard questions in a way where I think everybody probably left with a bit of a. Hmm. You know, I hadn't maybe thought of that that way. Or I learned some things about that topic that I didn't know coming into the trip.

[Brad]

Yeah, totally agreed. And I think a word you used in there was vulnerable. I think, to me, this is a key word just for all of us in our interpersonal communication and our relationships, because I think so many of us are worried about being weird.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And I use that word very specifically. Like, I knew I grew up, like, not wanting to be, I don't know, different or strange or weird. That was always the word. And I know that. Who knows, maybe that's not like a PC word. I don't really care, frankly. But that's the word that's always resonated with me is weird. And I think what's so interesting as you get older and as you see the world is it's those little eccentricities that make people interesting. Right. Like, those are the good things.

[Clint Murphy]

Yes.

[Brad]

And we all hide them for so long and we just want to be seen.

[Clint Murphy]

You want to be able to show up as you are who you are and be respected for it. And, Brad, this is a fun one for a number of reasons. In the company that I did work for, the word that we always used was quirky.

[Brad]

Right.

[Clint Murphy]

And I think you and I would say quirky, weird. Like, there's some interchangeability there. Like, what are your quirks? Because those are what stand out and what a lot of people loved. On my finance team, there was about 33 of us, you know, in a company that probably had 80 people at head office, we were on a separate floor. It was almost an entirely different culture between the two floors. And I think on our floor, we celebrated the quirks. And maybe not celebrated, but we didn't admonish or we didn't make you feel less than for being quirky. Because we all have quirks and we let people show them, be them, live them to the point where in our new shop, it's a bit of one of our values. We sort of say, hey, it's not about what you wear. It's not about your hobbies. It's not your outward appearance. You're here because you live these values. You're here because you do these things. And if you have your quirks, you have your differences. Welcome home. We're okay with it because we all have ours, and we want you to come here and celebrate them and be a part of a team that's going to win and not feel like you have to hide who you are.

[Brad]

Oh, I love that welcome home. When you said that, I was like, oh, this energy shot through me. And that's what it feels like when people find fi and find our community is. It feels like you're being welcomed home to a home that maybe you didn't even know existed or that it was the right one for you. But, man, you found your people. And. Yeah, what's so cool again, just the little things. We had those amazing conversations. We had this whole. Like, when I initially thought of this trip, it was like this outdoor adventure trip, and we were going to do all these grand things every single day. And what was so beautiful was it turned into two hours at the coffee shop and then two hours in the evening in the hot tub. And, yeah, we played as. As you were the spearhead for. We played pickleball for hours every day. And we played the Monopoly deal board game, which became a favorite of all of ours. And it was just like, who could have envisioned that we would have so much fun playing Monopoly Deal? But it was. It was awesome.

[Clint Murphy]

It was awesome. And the newsletter I wrote immediately after it was, was my realization on the trip was just. I called it a simple life. And a realization that came out of that trip and it ties to Fi is how simple life can be and still be enjoyable. Like, we don't need all this money to do all these things. Like, how much does it cost to go play pickleball for six hours? You know, you and I were chatting before we started recording, and my son now loves it. He's 16. We'll go to the court for six hours together. It took a month of him showing me that he really wanted to play before I bought him his first paddle, right? And that's maybe 200 bucks. And the kids playing 10 hours a week with me, like, what's the amortization on that paddle? It's going to cost, like, 25 cents a use or a dime by the time the kid's done with that paddle. And all have received hundreds of hours of hanging out with my son for practically free because the court costs nothing. We go there. We. We buy a certain number of balls a year, and we buy a certain number of paddles a year and maybe running shoes. Like, the cost of that is almost Zero. And yet we're going to get hundreds, hundreds of hours of enjoyment. And that's the simple. Life is like where can we maximize utility or maximize enjoyment for as little spend as possible? In that trip was an example and I don't think any of us set out to do it that way. We were more than willing to say let's rent mountain bikes, let's rent paddle boards, let's rent this, let' that. To your point, like let's go on these adventures and somehow we just settled in to these activities that cost us almost nothing and gave us maximal utility. I don't know about you, but I left feeling very, to borrow the terms that the youngins use nowadays, I left with my cup feeling very full.

[Brad]

I didn't know there was a young un quote here.

[Clint Murphy]

It might not be. It might not be. But you know, I'm older now, Brad.

[Brad]

I hear you my friend, I hear you. But no, I same with me. I felt like reinvigorated. I just, I felt wonderful. And like you said, yeah, we didn't intend to do that by any means. I thought we were going to spend many, many hundreds of dollars more per person doing fly fishing and ropes courses and this and that. That would have been great. It would have been fine, you know, but what we did was special and wonderful and because it evolved that way and that was what was so cool about it. And yeah, you talk about that time with your son.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

I mean think about many decades from now when you look back on your life and you're going to say, wow, my 16 year old son spent hundreds of hours with me playing pickleball on his own volition. Yeah, right. And like we got to spend that time together. How many 16 year olds want anything to do with their parents? You know, I mean, there are a lot, many. But there are a lot that don't want anything to do with their parents. And your son, you told me, gets up with you at 6 or 7am on a Saturday and goes to the courts and plays pickleball for hours. That's wild.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, he doesn't text me. There's no random messages saying, yo dad, I love you or hey dad, how's your day going? There is a text once or twice a week that says, hey dad, I'm getting out of football practice early today. Do you want to play pickleball? You know, Brad, because your kids and my kids are similar ages, you're similar age to me. And we both have this realization we only have so many years left and one of the benefits of being an entrepreneur, being an owner, or running your own podcast as you do is you have the ability to say yes. So I'm not going to cancel a meeting that afternoon, but if I've got an open block, I can say yes to him. It gets dark by seven. I can come home and work after that. So I can say yes, son, jump in my car, head home, grab the gear, meet him at school, go straight to the pickleball court and be on there at 4 o'clock, play till 7, go home and have the night with the family and do some more work from the couch, or work late the next night and make up for the time I miss. But that is the only time he fires me. The text, it's never, hey, how's your day? It's, do you want to play pickleball? And I immediately look at my calendar and hopefully I can say yes. And then I go play.

[Brad]

Yeah, that's incredible. And you know something else you mentioned in there was about simplicity, right? And I know this is a through line for both of us and how we think about the evolving nature of fi. And I think as you get more financially stable and as you maybe get a little bit older, you start thinking about, how can I simplify, not necessarily optimize.

[Clint Murphy]

And.

[Brad]

Well, that's not true for everybody, of course. There are people who just love to optimize. I am in a massive simplification time period. I'm just trying to. I let complexity get the better of me in a lot of aspects of life. I mean, with Choose a Pie specifically is the most obvious one. I think Jonathan and I for years tried to. It was so easy to say yes to things and really amazing things. And I think we've realized, like, that wasn't what we wanted to build. And maybe we took our eye off the ball a little bit on what we actually love doing, which for me is this. It's the podcasting. I love doing this, Glenn. I love it. You know, and when you start building out this massive thing again, it's easy to say yes to things. And I know this is kind of an en vogue term these days. And I don't mean it in, like, the tech bro sense. I mean, in the exact opposite sense. But, like, Founders mode is something that I've heard of. And what's fascinating is, like, Jonathan and I are at this point getting back to founders mode, where Choose Ify is me and him, basically just through kind of attrition, etc. Over the years, we used to have a bigger team and it's kind of whittled down to more or less just me and Jonathan and we are having so much fun. Clint, like, I can't even tell you, like, you know, he's not on the podcast right now, but he might be coming back in the near future for a little bit at least. And we're just having fun together. It feels like 2017, like when we founded this and it was just so exciting and like that's what it feels like. And I think what's interesting is it's because of that getting back to simplicity and just him and I and we have an idea and he can build it and like he's this amazing computer coder now that he's like self taught. It's the craziest thing in the world and like he can just build it and like 24 hours we have an idea and he just builds something and it's just, it's just so much fun. I think that's what I'm, I'm loving. So I'm having that. I'm having simplicity in my personal finance world, like my own life. And it's just, I'm on this quest to just stop doing so many things and just trying to get down to what I love.

[Clint Murphy]

The path to simplicity can often be complicated, but as we age, what I tend to see from people who are wealthy is as they age, they seek more and more simplicity. You know, I'd always be. And we can debate this one ad nauseam, Brad, because you know, I pursue like fat fire, like the fattest fire. That's the goal, fat fire, you know, to get there. I've always been focused on net worth accumulation. And what that's meant is I was always pursuing higher and higher earnings and investing in a way that had high reward, which was real estate, but had heavy cash flow requirements. And my wife was always in charge of, I was in charge of net worth accumulation and the earnings to support it. She was in charge of managing the cash flows. And what I never thought to ask was, did that create complexity in a way that was a stress for her. And what I've learned in the last six to 12 months in quitting my job, buying a house, selling our dream house in quotation marks was how much stress I've been putting on her in the last five to 10 years with the accumulation. And so part of the promise I made to her tied to simplicity was, listen, from here on, the only investing I do is the business that will be my path to wealth, is the business I'm starting Once I start paying myself a salary, or we, me and my partners, once we start paying ourselves a salary, and then we get to the point where we're getting bonuses and distributions because we're closing homes, all of the cash that comes to me like it's yours for our life. Pay down debt, do what you want to do. My investment will be the business, you know, up till a certain number. And we'll agree with that number is. And beyond that, let's not get crazy. Let's just. Maybe we're reinvesting in the business, but that will be how we grow, reinvesting in the business. And that's simple. Like, I just keep putting money into that. The business grows, our net worth grows. Outside of that, you can spend. Like, I'm not going to tell you, hey, we're buying another rental condo or we're buying a vacation cottage. Like, you use all that money for us to live life in an uncomplicated way. And that could include, because I've always been such a fan of leverage right up until prime rate went to 7.35%. And then all of a sudden, floating rate debt wasn't as sexy as I used to think. It became complex. And for the first time in my life, I thought it would be really nice to have our home. And all of these rental properties have no debt on them. How nice would that be? Never until now, Brad, would I have told you I'd even have thought of that. I'd have always thought, how do I get another home equity line of credit? How do I get a line of credit on top of all these helocs? And how do I maximize every ounce of debt I can to get to that fatter fire faster? And now I'm like, hey, let's concentrate on growing the business to get there. And outside of that, let's pay down as much of this debt over time as possible so that we can live a simpler life. And it's the last two years or even the last year through having that conversation with her and realizing the pressure and stress she felt, which she just bottled up and probably went away and shed some tears that I didn't see until I really pushed it with doing so many things in such a short window of time that it kind of cracked the dam and it all came out. And maybe there was a little resentment there. Maybe she felt a little anger and a little resentment towards me. And it took me really being a nutter for her to let it all out at once. And it led me to the same path as you. Maybe I should simplify our life.

[Brad]

Yeah. Oh, man, there is so much there, Clint. And yeah, I mean, it's like lesson upon lesson upon lesson for people listening, you know. First, I don't know if you ever listened to this episode or. Thanks for listening to Choose a V and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Choose a VI is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a buy.com cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. I read the book, but Chad Carson, he's a great friend of the show. He was on episode 446. He wrote a book called the Small and Mighty Real Estate Investor how to Reach Financial Freedom with Fewer Rental Properties. And it was just the most aligned real estate and financial independence message and podcast that I've ever heard. It was absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend that for anyone who's even thinking about real estate investing just as a different point of view. Because, Clint, like you said, I think most real estate investors think leverage is their absolute best friend and it's the only way to go. And I'm not even saying it's a terrible decision. I'm kind of agnostic because I'm not in that world. But I think what's fascinating, hearing some of our really good friends who are high level real estate investors. I mean, Scott Trench is the CEO of BiggerPockets, Paul Lepants and Chad Carson. These are big names in that world. And all three of them have expressed on this show a sentiment of simplicity. And yes, what is enough? Not how many doors can I get? Can I have $1 billion on paper in fair market value? Who knows how much you have in leverage, Right? I mean, a lot of people, it's just how much, how much, how much instead of what is enough. Right. Yeah, I think it's just an interesting rethink. So again, just as kind of like another aspect of your mental framework, so highly recommend that. And yeah, you know, you and your wife, in that instance, it's fascinating because I think clearly during those years you were growing your net worth. That's right. That's what's so interesting about this journey is that it's not just this linear thing. It's not as my net worth goes up, my stress goes down in the same fashion. It doesn't work that way because we're human beings.

[Clint Murphy]

That's right.

[Brad]

Right. Like as you're Describing your wife, it.

[Clint Murphy]

Almost went up, right? Yeah.

[Brad]

And it certainly sounds like it did by this damn cracking. It went up a whole heck of a lot. And that was totally unbeknownst to you. That's right, because probably from your perspective, things were going great. But maybe you never had that overt conversation. Maybe you never realized precisely that there was even stress on her part, not less. How much? Exactly, Right?

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah. I thought, life is great. You know, I earn a lot of money. We have a high net worth. Life's great. What I didn't think, and part of it is, Brad, I live in a high cost of living city. And so if we're buying homes, even if we're buying a town home, Right. Your town home nowadays would cost you 800,000 to a million dollars for a town home. And if it's a million dollars and you're putting 20% down, that's 200,000 in cash. I pay 50% tax. So to get that 200,000, I need to earn 400,000. And if I'm trying to buy a property a year, that's a lot of dough to come up with. And she's the one who manages the cash flow. So all of a sudden she's saying, like, how am I coming up with $200,000 in cash a year to feed your plan? And I just thought, well, I'm earning a lot. Like, you know, you'll figure it out. And never thought to say, hey, like, are you okay? You know, is. Are we okay? You know, should I slow down my ambitions? That. That word right there is ambition. Like, what for? Like, what am I chasing? What am I driving at? What am I going for? Do we need it? And you raise that point, like, what is enough?

[Brad]

Yeah, it's hard because. Right. Like, do I slow down my ambition? When you said that phrase, I had, like, a natural little revulsion to it.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Interestingly enough, because it sounds very poignant when you say it that way. But then you immediately followed it with, but what am I doing this for? Right. Like, if I'm making my wife unhappy, if I'm adding stress to the household.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

Who am I doing this for? Am I trying to prove it to somebody? I'm not putting words in your mouth, but, like, am I trying to prove it to myself? Am I trying to prove it to somebody else? Am I trying to be quote, unquote, successful? Do I care what other people think about me? Or do I care what my wife and kids think? And the ambient stress level in my house? When the upshot of all of this is if you stop the ambition or slowed the ambition down, you would still have a wonderful income and an amazing net worth and you have dramatically less stress and you wouldn't need to keep doing this, right?

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, 100%. There's elements of all of that. And I've started this habit of writing these letters to my boys and eventually I want to record them and published them online in video and written word. And part of one of the questions was like, well, you know, like, I've been on this trip to Colorado with friends and I've experienced this simple life. So why am I doing all this? In a large part of it, I think does come down to there is a certain amount of ego, there's a certain amount of gamesmanship, because at some point it's just fun. It's just playing a game, which is scary because, like, I mean, this is real life, these are real dollars. But it's like playing a real life game of Monopoly to some extent. And then there's also the element of my net worth would support a very good lifestyle in certain cities. It won't support a very good lifestyle in the city I'm in, in the way my wife and kids probably want to live. Okay, so we're close to family and that's important to my wife. Okay, so we're saying we can't use Geo arbitrage. I can't move to the Prairies or I can't move to our version of the Midwest. I can't move to the Rust Belt and take a lot of money off the table and buy a home for a very affordable price. That immediately means, well, what if we rented? She would never conceive of renting. Okay, so now I need to own a home and I need to own it in this city. Well, right away that requires a certain amount of net worth just to do that. So I think part of it is saying, okay, well, if we're going to live in this city as a family and we're going to make that decision to be here long term, then I do need a certain base level of net worth to afford that. And do I think I need more because I need to set you and your brother up to eventually be able to afford it. Because it's the same thing here is you all see in all the headlines across the US like if you're in California or Let's compare it to that. Right? Let's compare it to California or New York and your kid ever wants a home, wow, it's almost out of reach without you or me helping them. And so to some extent, I think the thought exercise says, hey, it's not all ego and gamesmanship. Like there's a certain level of my wonderful partner and my kids, you all want to live here. And if we want to live here, then I need to provide a certain level of income and wealth in order for us to be able to do that. And so I didn't feel as bad after I went through the whole thought exercise of saying, hey, this is all for a reason. Otherwise if I didn't build the worth. Because we can see that it's stressful today, but 20 years from now, when we're in our mid-60s, I'm 46 today, 20 years from now, we should be close to mortgage free across the portfolio. And now all those properties are spitting out cash flow and you can say, hey, we've got a great life, but we wouldn't be able to afford that without the properties unless I kept working. Kind of the age old. You're basically working till you die. And that seems antithetical to what we're doing in the FI movement. So it's, let's bear the stress for a period of time so that in the future we don't have to bear the stress and you can still live in this high cost of living city that you want to live in.

[Brad]

Yeah, I hear you, man. You know, it's fun. There were probably seven things I wanted to instantly respond to as you were talking. That. No, no, it's great, it's great. It's, it's good stuff, but it, it's food for thought. And I think what's fun about a conversation like this and us recording it. This is a conversation we'd be having if we were on WhatsApp or sitting around in a. In Breckenridge Airport lounge. Yeah. As it may be for six hours in the Denver. But yeah, I mean, I think this is the age old fat FI thing and helping your kids is a decision. Right. Let's be clear. And that's right. You know, there's so many assumptions built in it. Like as you were talking about, and obviously I don't think this was meant as a bad thing and I'm not implying that it was a bad thing, but like the, you know, my wife and kids wouldn't want to live that lifestyle. Necessary. You know, just something paraphrasing like that. And it's like I was thinking like the intersection of A, your son playing pickleball with you and B, like the old thing of like when our kids were, like, 2 years old, and you'd get them this big fancy gift or present, and all they'd want to do is play with the cardboard box. Like, some weird connection was made with me as you were saying that of.

[Clint Murphy]

Like, a hundred percent.

[Brad]

Right. Like, I wonder what your kids actually want.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

And what's interesting is I think at the end of the day, they want you and your time and, like, I think your son. And I'm not saying you're not providing that, because it sounds like you certainly are, which is wonderful. But I think your son is showing you that by those texts after football practice of that. He's not sending it to his buddies or. Or a girl that he met. He's sending a text to his dad like, hey, let's go play pickleball together.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, that's true.

[Brad]

Like, it's true. That's the stuff, Clint. That's what matters.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah. For them, for the two boys, I don't think it comes down to, like, lifestyle. You're right. You're absolutely right. It's not lifestyle for them. It's. My oldest is in grade 11 now, my youngest in grade 8. They're now in the same high school together. And the oldest is like, hey, I want to graduate from this high school.

[Brad]

Okay?

[Clint Murphy]

And the youngest, by the time the oldest graduates, will be in grade 10, and he'll be like, hey, I want to graduate. So the way I've looked at it is, okay, I hear you both. Because, you know, I brought up the idea of moving to Vancouver island, which is where we're doing our real estate development on the island, and homes are more affordable there. We're downsizing. We've sold our home. We're downsizing into a townhouse. I could probably spend 75% of what I spent on the townhouse or will when we move in and buy a single family home on Vancouver Island. That would be a great home for the family, but then they would have to leave this high school that they're really bought into. And that's what I think as a family, we've agreed, you guys finish school.

[Brad]

Four and a half more years, and.

[Clint Murphy]

Then me and mom will figure out, you know, do we live in Vancouver or do we live on the island, or do we live in both? You know, we have an apartment here and we have a home there, and so we can. We can be in both places at a more affordable way.

[Brad]

Right. And what's so fascinating about what you've been up to, and you kind of alluded to this very much in passing is. I mean, you've made some wholesale changes in your life in just the last X number of months. And you've made tough decisions, right? Like, yeah, you were a cfo, very successful, making a really nice income. You literally built your dream home. And now you, like, in this, as you call it, five plus pivot. And I kind of want to. I want to hear you dive into that. I don't want to steal your thunder, but, I mean, you. You left a very stable job. You are now an entrepreneur. Along with business partners. You sold your dream home. I mean, these are. I don't know that you give yourself credit, frankly enough credit, because that's not easy. Whether you did the Geo Arbitrage to the Prairie, as you call it, you know, in Canada, like, you downsize significantly, you made a choice that would be really, really tough for a lot of people. And I don't think you give yourself anywhere near enough credit for it. And. And that's hard, but that's part of. I mean, honestly, I think that's part of the fun of life and how you view it of, like, this is something you want to do. You're so thrilled, like, to hear you talk about your. Your business and all the possibilities and the different developments you're going to do. Like, I got bought into it. Like, I wanted to learn more. You could tell. We talked about it for hours.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, that's true. And I give my wife a lot of credit for coming on the journey. Right. Because it's not easy for her to say, yeah, I believe in what you're doing. I believe that you'll be successful. Let's sell our house. And for those who are listening, like, when we say dream house, you know, of course, if it was dream, like, it'd probably be slightly to the west and it would be in a different.

[Brad]

It was pretty darn close to a dream home.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, pretty darn close. And I'd say dream because we actually designed it, right? We designed it in partnership with a design firm. But, like, our hand and fingerprint was, like, on every light, every door handle, so, so tied to us. And so, yeah, it was a dream home. And the decision. I probably did it all in the wrong order, Brad. And I learned that in hindsight. But, hey, it worked out. The decision was. And it was a hard decision at the firm I was at. I mean, I was getting close to seven figures in pay and bonus, and so that's hard to throw away, but I was a bit miserable. And part of that is when we Talked about at the start of the show, like, the curiosity, the personal growth, the self development. That is who I am at my core. Like, learning and growth are my number one value. It's all about learning and growth. And when you're in the same role for 11 years, that learning and growth kind of disappears.

[Brad]

It's Groundhog Day every day.

[Clint Murphy]

That's right. It's groundhog. I refer to it as, like, groundhog weeks or groundhog months. Right. Because it's like, week one, I do this. Week two, I do this. Week three, I review the cash flow. Week four, I have the cash flow meeting. Week five, you know, and so you kind of rinse and repeat the days, months, weeks, quarters, years. And so that became hard to do. And so the journey to entrepreneurship was to say, hey, what does FI and pivot look like? Fi and pivot is the concept that I'll hit a certain number that will afford me freedom. But a debate a lot of people have, and I'm a big believer in us having this conversation in the fire community is purpose, meaning, and how that ties into retirement. Because for so many of us, we don't actually want to retire, but we do believe we're part of the fire movement. We do believe that we're part of fi. We just don't want to retire for various reasons. And for me, one of the main reasons is I look at a lot of people in retirement, and I would say the majority of people I see in retirement seem a bit miserable, and they seem like they're on that slow path to death.

[Brad]

Is that standard retirement? Like people?

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, like, not necessarily in the fire community, because I think we probably approach life a little differently. But, like, you look at. Sorry, mom and dad, but, you know, you kind of look at mom and dad, and you're like, well, you kind of just watch TV all day, you know, like your excitement is coming to watch your grandkid play football. Like, where's the living? And I look at someone like Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett, Charlie passing away just shy of his 100th birthday. Warren, I think, is close to his 100th birthday. And I look at that and say, well, what are they doing differently? I don't think you'd say either is retired. I also don't think you'd say they're both working full time, but they're working in a way that gives them enough meaning and purpose that it keeps their brain engaged. And so what is that path that allows me in my 60s, 70s, 80s, to work a certain number of Hours a week with partners who I enjoy being around. That challenges me intellectually, allows me to maybe meet with young people in my industry and have those. You know, I have my lunch spot in a restaurant where I'm meeting with a young person for a couple hours a day, Just a talk shop, help them on their career. And I'm invigorated by doing it. And I designed my dream building, and it's like, hey, we sell the residential, or we have rental residential above. And then you have commercial at grade. And that commercial at grade includes a restaurant, our office, a gym with, you know, saunas and ice bath. So it's like you spend half a day there, half a day working, you get your workout in, you have lunch with young people, and then the rest of the day is with your family. And it's like, I think if I had that. And the amount of vacation you could take is kind of unlimited because you're at that stage in life where you're more of an active shareholder than an active manager.

[Brad]

Sure.

[Clint Murphy]

I think if I had that life, that could fuel me into my hundreds. If I retired and I had to come up with, like, what does my day look like? Every day from retirement on, I don't think I could last as long. And so I want to build a business that affords me that. And so that's why I say fi and pivot.

[Brad]

Yeah.

[Clint Murphy]

Like, we could geo arbitrage, go somewhere and be fine for the rest of our lives. Or I could pivot to entrepreneurship by selling the house and downsizing into the townhouse. What that allowed me to do, Brad, the decision there was I didn't want to approach entrepreneurship from a place of fear. So by selling the house and downsizing to the townhouse, we take a significant amount of debt off the table. For simplicity, say $1 million in debt gone. That's a lot of payments in a year that I don't need to make now. And we take a significant amount of cash and put it in our jeans. That cash will afford me not to have to work for a year. So I have at least one year to build up Runway, to get income from the business to support lifestyle. And then I probably have a further two to three years in my retirement savings accounts that I could draw down if I had to to allow the business to succeed.

[Brad]

Right. So you're giving yourself Runway.

[Clint Murphy]

I'm giving myself Runway. I think I've built three years of Runway with zero salary to grow the business.

[Brad]

Gotcha.

[Clint Murphy]

And that's what I wanted to do with all Those decisions. And that's why I'm not becoming an entrepreneur until 45. I want it to reach a level where I could say, I've got three to five years, and I think I could stretch it to five. I have three to five years where I don't need to earn income from the business and I will be okay. And that's kind of where we're at.

[Brad]

Yeah, I mean, I love the framework. You certainly know that. And I think, I think the pivot is. I mean, I. I did a pivot. It's similar, albeit, yeah, slightly nuanced, but similar in the sense that when I left my corporate job, I was not technically at financial independence. We were well down the path, certainly. But it was, it was not a burn the boats moment where I said, I'm going all in on entrepreneurship. I'm just starting a business from scratch and I'm going to figure it out. Right. For me, it was okay. I started to build a little personal finance site on the side. I realized, oh, I can help people with travel rewards using credit card points to travel and, oh, I can make a little bit of money from this. And, oh, what would happen if I had instead of four hours a week to do this or 10 hours a week if I had 40 to 60 hours a week?

[Clint Murphy]

Yes.

[Brad]

So I believed in myself. I bet on myself. So, I mean, to me, that is in essence this five plus pivot. And it gave myself options. I knew the worst case scenario was I could always go back to being a cpa. Right. Like, that was literally the worst case scenario. And you and I have both worked at similar firms. It's amazing how many similarities we have in our lives. But, you know, I think so. I think we're in full agreement on that. I think there's a semantic argument when it comes to, like, retirement. And I think this is why I think people, and not you and I certainly. But people get entrenched in their little camps of not understanding. And this goes back to, like, what you said about when we were in the hot tub and we're having these really deep conversations. And what's cool is when people actually talk, you can find common ground. And I think there's. What I get frustrated with these arguments on the Internet is we agree 99%. I had an argument about this recently. Rob Berger, who's the friend of the show, had a YouTube video, 7 Reasons to Never Ever Retire. And, you know, frankly, I didn't even look at it because it just seemed a little clickbaited. Even even though he's a very legit guy. But I responded in this Facebook post, and I said, with the entire universe of available options to you at FI, I suspect you can round down to approximately 0% of people who would pick their current job over every other thing they could possibly do with their time. It just defies all logic to think otherwise. No, I don't think you'll sit and be unproductive. But to think that of the billions of options for what you could do with your time, that you'd pigeonhole yourself to the one job for 40 waking hours a week out of 112 waking hours seems laughable. And to me, right, like, that's indisputable. Almost.

[Clint Murphy]

Almost no one would do that.

[Brad]

And I think this is one of my most frustrating things that I haven't come up with the right messaging for it, Clint, is people like to argue an anecdote, and it bothers the heck out of me. And again, I haven't come up with the right way that people understand this. But, like, to almost anything in life, there's half a percent or 1% of things that, that go against the other 99%. So in my mind, if 99 point X percent of things are true, then it's always true. In essence, I round down to zero for that because there's always anecdote for every. Every single thing.

[Clint Murphy]

Warren Buffett would say, well, no, I'll continue doing what I'm doing. And you're like, well, like, okay, like, fifth richest guy in the world who does whatever the heck he wants, right?

[Brad]

And he might love it, and that's great. And there might be a teacher, like, a teacher actually wound up responding to me. I was like, it's amazing that you love teaching. It is amazing that of the billions of jobs, you found the one that you are uniquely suited for, and that just lights you up. That is wonderful. But please understand how rare that is, because for the rest of us, we didn't just fall backwards into the Perfect job at 23 years old and stayed in it for our entire working career. Like, the world doesn't work that way, Right? So I think people are deluding themselves. Is my actual issue that, like, you might like your job, you might really like your coworkers. That's wonderful. I'm not arguing that every job is bad. I've never argued that. Never, ever, ever. But I think if you're intellectually honest and if you have any degree of introspection, that of the other billions of things you could do with your 112 waking hours that if you were to not work at that job, you know, if you went in and wiped your slate clean, there is no way that you would pick, of those 112 waking hours to pick 40 plus of them to work at that job. I find it laughably silly to even imagine that more than one out of a thousand people would. Would fit that bill. And that, again, rounds to zero for me. But it doesn't mean that we're being unproductive. Like, exactly what you described. Like, yeah, even your. Your little salon there that you described of like, I'm gonna build this thing. I'm gonna have younger people that I can mentor. I'm gonna work out, and I'm gonna go like, that's fantastic. That's not sitting around. It's this picture we have in our head of retirement being wasting away on the couch. Nobody wants to waste away on a couch. Nobody's arguing for that. If you think anybody's arguing for that, you're an idiot. Nobody is arguing for that. Right? Let's be clear.

[Clint Murphy]

100%. You know, maybe we can get some research on this from someone. If you look at anyone who's won a lottery over, let's pick an arbitrary number, $10 million. How many of them are still in the job today that they were in when they won that lottery? I would argue you're probably, to your point, close to zero. It just tells you right there. People win life changing money. And not surprisingly, we call it life changing money because they change their lives. And so for most of us, if we had life changing money in our bank account, and for everyone, life changing money is a different number. Right? And that's part of what you've talked about probably over the years so many times is like, what's your number? But a simple one would be to say, if you had $10 million, would you be doing tomorrow what you're doing today? And I think for the vast majority of people, the answer would be no. I'm 100% aligned with you on that one.

[Brad]

And to me, that's okay. Like, it's not. It's not giving up. It's not capitulating. It's not saying your life is bad. Listen, we're all working as a means to an end. And this, for most of us, it's financial independence. It's to get to the point where you can do what you want with your time. And that's great. And listen, I think, Clint, what a lot of people are worried about in that deep seated lizard part of their brain is they're worried about being bored. They're worried about being, quote, unquote, unproductive. Right? Like, they're worried about what are other people going to think. They're worried about having that backslide into sitting on a couch for 16 hours a day. Like, and I understand that, but to mean that because you're so worried that you're just going to keep working in a job that you're tolerating or maybe even, like, to some degree, it's fundamentally misunderstanding the amount of choice you have in life. There are so many things to do, and by pursuing fi, you have the option to do those things. And Clint, you see it in little ways, right? Like, yeah, you can go play pickleball with your son.

[Clint Murphy]

Totally. Yeah. Like, when I design my perfect day, like, that's a big part of it. And I'm going to do a little bit of a play on the name of the podcast in the idea of FI and pivot. Because what it really comes down to, Brad, is fi and choose. So we choose FI so that eventually when we hit fi, we have choice. And so people can fi and choose, and they can choose how they want to live their life on a daily basis. And it can be full retirement, it can be not full retirement, it can be barista, it can be coastal, it can be fad, it can be lean. It's all about getting to a number to give you choice and then choosing. And I think an important concept to you and me is this idea of intentionality, is doing the introspection, doing the deep thought to say, what does a perfect life look like to me? And I've realized for me, it's intellectual stimulation. So I want to have my podcast, I want to be writing my newsletter. I want to be going on trips with you and people like you, like we did to Denver, to have deep conversations to spur my thinking, to do athletics. Like we hiked a friggin Colorado 14er. That was like, it's not like we didn't do any athletic. Like, that was an adventure boarding. And I want to do that stuff and I want to travel the world with my wife and I want to see so many different countries and I want to learn their languages and live their culture, and I want to make sure that when I'm home, I do not choose to do that couch lifestyle. Which is why I've designed this idea of this half day adventure in this office that I've built. And then outside of that, I'm playing pickleball and I'm hanging out with my Family and I'm reading books and I'm talking to interesting people. That's all I want to do in life. And if I can do that for the rest of my life and I can build a wealth that allows me to choose that, that's the goal. That's the pivot, is fi and choose.

[Brad]

Dude, I love that. I think I want to rename the podcast at this point, because that's what it is. Yeah.

[Clint Murphy]

It's choose fi to give you maximal choice.

[Brad]

Yeah. You're both choosing fi. And then when you are fi or whatever you define it as, it gives you this amount of choice that you have never had in your life before.

[Clint Murphy]

A hundred percent.

[Brad]

Never. Never ever.

[Clint Murphy]

And you may choose. To your point, there may be that few percent of people out there who choose to do what they're doing.

[Brad]

Right.

[Clint Murphy]

And that's fine.

[Brad]

It's wonderful. It's really fun. It's amazing.

[Clint Murphy]

You were already in the right spot.

[Brad]

You hit the jackpot already. So if you're sitting out there and you're for some weird reason, grumbling and you want to write me an email, like, I'm that person and I love my job. Wonderful. Nobody's arguing about that. Like, you. I'm so thrilled for you. Right. Like, think about a world where you really essentially lucked into this job that you truly love. You're adding value. It's adding value to you. That's amazing. Never give that up. Nobody's arguing. You have to ever, no matter how many millions of dollars you have in the bank, do as much as you want of that. Like, you know, we've referenced Buffett and Munger. Like, they obviously weren't going to stop. They're worth more billions than you could possibly imagine. Why would they ever stop what they're doing? They've built a life that they love. It would be insane.

[Clint Murphy]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Brad]

And, you know, in a good natured way, I want to kind of push back on you as like a thought exercise maybe for outside of the podcast, is like, you've both described this. I think there's an intersection here of how you're describing, like, this ultra fat fire that you want, but the life that you actually want doesn't cost very much.

[Clint Murphy]

Quiet. I know. At all. I'm really battling that a lot lately. Part of it is I know that, like, when we go to Las Vegas and we're walking by the clothing stores and, I mean, it's going to sound so pretentious. Right. And so, like, I walk into, like, Xenia and I'm like, oh my God, these suits are so beautiful. And oh, I would love to own one of these. It's like, well, how many of them do I really need? I'm only going to wear so many clothes. Like, what if I bought two of them? And I only like to wear navy? So what if I bought two navy? Or a navy suit and a nice navy sport coat? Okay, that would set me back a lot of money. But I'm not going to do that every year. So again, even if I had these indulgences, do I need all this money? And the answer for sure is no. The answer for sure is no. So somewhere in there, I probably will hit a number and I may start the journey with my shareholders to go from active manager to active shareholder sooner. Somewhere in that 55 to 60. So I need to, with my partners, build a very, very successful real estate development company over the next decade. And in fairness, it's okay to do that because I actually enjoy it. Like building a company, building a culture, building homes. There's no issue with that. I enjoy it. But from a net worth perspective, I can probably get to the number that affords me the lifestyle I want to live for the rest of my life faster than I think. And it's probably a lower number than I anticipate. And if that's the case, maybe I stop sooner. Or to our point, if I've designed it, and this is the fun part, if I've designed it in a way where I love what I'm doing and I love going into the office and I love being involved in the business the way I'm involved, and as a shareholder, as an owner, as a partner with my partners, I talk about this intentionality with them a lot. I talk about as we grow the business, we need to design our roles in a way that we're doing. The aspect of the business, 80% of the time we're focused on what we love, and 20% of the time we'll deal with shit we don't want to deal with. Like that's life. But 80% of the time we're doing what we love. And if we can design our roles in that way, none of us will not want to do what we're doing. And then we hire around us to support the other stuff, Right? And so perhaps I get there sooner. But ideally, what I've done, Brad, is I've designed it in a way intentionally coming back to our intention. I've designed it in a way where I'm that rare person who's Emailing you and saying, well, Brad, actually, like, I love what I'm doing and I've built it in a way where I can go play pickleball and I can travel and I love it in the office.

[Brad]

Right. And I would love, obviously I get emails and message from you more often than this, but I would love to get that email from you, that proverbial email a decade from now saying, hey, I remember that recording we did back in October of 2024. I did it, like, how cool would that be? But I think, I think it's the intention that matters and that at its essence, is what we're talking about here. Because you are, with eyes wide open, trying to build this framework of a job where you and your partners can each work on a what you love and be presumably your zone of genius, if you will, like the area where you can add the most.

[Clint Murphy]

Exactly. Right, yeah.

[Brad]

Why would you ever want to leave a job like that? Because it's not a job. Then you've built something that's a passion of yours that you add value to, that you're earning a nice income from, obviously. And you're building something so you're getting significant equity from it. Like, what would ever possess you to stop that? If it's not infringing on your life, it's just part of a holistic life that you've built over a 15 to 20 year period. Like, it would be ludicrous to walk away from that.

[Clint Murphy]

And you do it in a way that's fair to each partner. So you say, hey, like, how do our hours tie to our pay? How do we set it up so that we can each do it by a certain age? Like, hey, I may be the oldest, but I'm not going to be the last. Right? So what is that age where we all want to do? And I learned this from a shareholder in my last shop where he called it, you know, maybe not retiring, but I want to work differently and I'll hit an age where I want to work less hours. And he's almost describing what I'm describing. And I'm getting that from seeing him do it. And I'm learning that there's a path, like I'm having these conversations with my partners now to say, hey, guys, like when I hit 60, somewhere in that 55 to 60, that'll mean I've been pushing hard with you guys for 10 to 15 years and pushing hard at this level for 10 to 15 years. And in fairness, I've kind of already been doing it for a Decade as a CFO of one of the larger development shops. When you push that hard for 20 to 25 years, you get tired, and you guys are going to get tired when you're there. So how do we set ourselves up so that we can do this? Because if I'm the first, then you'll benefit from the path I'm taking. If we set that path up in a fair and reasonable way, we're not only setting up a path for me, we're setting up a path for you and for you. And so let's have these conversations along the way so that when we get there, no one's surprised. And let's start with the end in mind, because that's the only way we've got to be intentional about the future so that we can work back to what we need to do today to get there.

[Brad]

Right. Start with the end in mind is so important. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is, like, when you do any type of arrangement or contract like this, if you will, operating agreement amongst partners, or even as people sometimes talk about with, like, prenuptial agreements, like, and that's kind of a side tangent, but this specifically with operating agreements or partnerships is you're trying to understand eventualities, how you want them to be, but also realizing things can go south and go bad in a lot of senses. And we, from this very sober and positive standpoint today, are trying to think through, like, things can work out different ways here. And we need to think about this because we're all, like, in your case, we're all not going to just merrily work 40 to 60 hours a week for the rest of our lives. Like, why would you build a business to do that? It doesn't.

[Clint Murphy]

It's crazy.

[Brad]

You're shackling yourself for no reasons. And, you know, it's funny. Friends of ours built a dental practice with this is years ago. And I'm not sure, hopefully this. This operating agreement didn't actually come to pass. But Laura and I were aghast when we learned about it. It was like they basically went off on their own to build this dental practice with two other partners. And they put into the agreement, the partnership agreement that they had to be actively involved until they were 64 years old. And at that point they were in their 30s. And I was like, are you out of your mind? Like, if you build this amazing dental practice and you're saying, like, you could hire a dentist to actually do your job for a fraction of it, and you want to just stop working at 48, 50, 55, even. Like you were literally, when you're in your mid-30s, writing into an agreement, you have to work until you're 64. Like, Clint, I've never. I had to bite my tongue, obviously, because you can't tell people they're acting irrationally. But, like, from my five sensibilities, I'm like, this is crazy. You have to rip this. This operating agreement. This makes no sense.

[Clint Murphy]

It's common. And I mean, in fairness, the agreement I have doesn't even have an age. It just has a requirement that as a shareholder, you have to be actively involved as an employee in the business or its affiliated companies. Now, I'm okay with that language because everything in agreement, in any agreement has the idea of add a comma and say, unless agreed otherwise, it's implicit in any agreement you ever sign. It's not in writing, but everything in any agreement ever is, unless agreed otherwise. Unless mutually agreed otherwise. So what, what does that mean? It means that one, don't be an asshole. Right. Two, add tremendous value to your partners, personally, professionally, and financially. Help them become better people, help the company become a better company, and help everybody get rich. If you do those two things, when you start to approach those periods in life, you can have those conversations to say, hey, here's where I'm at in life. Here's what I'm thinking. Let's come up with something reasonable and let's negotiate what the future looks like. And if your partners are wealthy and you've been a big contributor to that, and ideally, they've been a big contributor to you being wealthy, and you've all made each other better people, and you've all built a company together. That's amazing. Generally, if they're the right people, which ideally you sourced in creating your partnership, you're going to have that conversation that says, hey, let's be fair and reasonable people. What does a good future look like for you? Recognizing that I want same good future for me when I get there. So in my agreements with my partners that I have today, that language isn't necessarily there, but the conversations are happening. Let's say I'm 46. The next youngest is 40, 41. The youngest is 36. So we're all in a different stage, and that path will get to the same spot. So those conversations will happen over time, and I think hopefully in a way that allows everybody to fi and choose, and we choose to be together in various capacities. For example, maybe somewhere along the way, the development business is kicking ass, taking Names and we've hired great people. And then I say, hey, as we approach our later years, it'd be great for the three of us, four of us to have an income portfolio that pays us dividends. So if we do stop being in the day to day business, we have cash flow. Because part of moving from active management to active shareholder, maybe there is four hours a day of management. Well, it's fair that you're paid a lot less than the guy who's there every day. Okay, well, now my cash flow is gone. So what if I go build an income portfolio that replaces that cash flow. Now my job becomes managing an income portfolio and building out that world, which will be labor intensive for the decade that I build it. But once it's built, that world is a lot less labor intensive than a development world. So how about I build that with and for you guys and then I manage that in a 50% capacity still involved touching the development world. I'm more active in the income world, but it requires a lot less activity. What does that look like for all of us? So there are, there are ways to do it in a way that everybody wins.

[Brad]

Yeah, I love that. And while everyone listening, obviously is not in the real estate development world, but the lessons that you just passed along are the critical ones. Right. So it's a build relationships. Just be a good person.

[Clint Murphy]

Be a good person. Yeah.

[Brad]

Help people out, look to help like build those relationships over years, but then also understand the way that incentives work. And you're both doing things for you, but you're then setting the stage for, hey, this is going to help you out as well when it comes time for that to be your stage of life. So you're helping them in a stage of their lives where they don't even realize they're going to want that potentially. But you know, it's coming quickly.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah.

[Brad]

I think that you have five plus years. I think that is pretty, pretty darn cool.

[Clint Murphy]

Yes.

[Brad]

I love it. You've coined a new phrase. So. All right, my friend. I think to me that feels like the perfect stopping point. I think that just puts a bow on it. This was an amazing conversation.

[Clint Murphy]

That was fun.

[Brad]

I would love to have you back on as many times as you'll come back on. And yeah, that's what's so cool about fi about conversations like this is they can go any which way. And I mean, we have topics for many future days. So again, my friend, thank you for being here.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, I loved having conversations with you, like talking with you. Like we just did to your point is like when we're sitting in the airport and we did that for what, four, five, six hours together and we just did this, you know, we chatted for most of that time and it felt just like this. So this is a really fun and wonderful experience and definitely look forward to doing this more with you in the future.

[Brad]

Heck yeah. Big shout out to the Capital One Lounge in Denver Airport. We spent multiple meals there.

[Clint Murphy]

Super value. Get that card. I think there was a deal on it at the time we were in it. If I was American, I would have got the card in a minute.

[Brad]

Yeah, I use my Capital One Venture X as you get. Yeah, the Capital One Lounge. It's awesome. So anyway, Clint, where can people find you? So we've talked before. Twitter is your or X I suppose is now your big thing.

[Clint Murphy]

Yeah, X is the biggest. The number one spot is TheGrowth Guide. TheGrowth Guide, that's the website and that gives access to the podcast, the newsletter, the social media. The algorithm, as you know, is pretty crazy on x right now. LinkedIn seems to be a spot that's growing at a faster rate than Twitter and it's a lot less crazy over there. But we are on X and LinkedIn are our two biggest platforms.

[Brad]

Wonderful. And yeah, I can vouch certainly for your podcast and the newsletter. Those are can mess for me every week. So yeah, the growth guide. And we'll have that in the. In the show notes, certainly.

[Clint Murphy]

Yes.

[Brad]

All right, my friend, until next time.

[Clint Murphy]

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Choose a 5 community. If you haven't already. The best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player, just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning.

[Brad]

So just head over to choose if.

[Clint Murphy]

I.com subscribe and it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there and I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a vi local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to choose a vi.com local and you'll find a list of all of Those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. And if you're just getting started with FI, or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways choose a VI episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up. And it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence. What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then choose. If I created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free, just head to choose fi.comfi101 and again, thanks for listening.