How To Waste Your Life (or hopefully, not) SB1710

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show – "How To Waste Your Life (or hopefully, not)" [SB1710]

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Stacking Benjamins Show
• Host/Author: StackingBenjamins.com | Cumulus Podcast Network
• Description: Renowned as the Best Personal Finance Podcast by Bankrate.com and Kiplinger, The Stacking Benjamins Show strives to make financial literacy enjoyable. Hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG discuss personal finance, saving, investing, and money trends in a friendly and humorous manner, engaging with experts and listeners alike.
• Episode: How To Waste Your Life (or hopefully, not) SB1710
• Release Date: July 18, 2025

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Introduction and Setting the Stage [01:01 – 03:17]

The episode kicks off with a jovial exchange between the hosts and their guests. Joe Saul-Sehy welcomes listeners with his characteristic enthusiasm, introducing the episode's theme: examining "Six Insanely Popular Ways to Waste a Life" based on a blog post by Mark and Angel. The goal is to explore these common pitfalls and provide actionable insights to avoid them.

Key Participants:

• Joe Saul-Sehy: Main host
• OG: Co-host
• Paula Pant: Guest from Afford Anything
• Jordan Grumet (Doc G): Guest from Earn and Invest

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Exploring "Six Insanely Popular Ways to Waste a Life" [04:22 – 15:06]

Joe introduces the central topic by referencing the Mark and Angel blog post, highlighting its relevance and timelessness despite being published in 2016. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding time-wasters to maximize productivity and personal satisfaction.

Doug's Segment: Doug, the hosts' quirky neighbor, provides a humorous interlude, setting a lighthearted tone for the discussion.

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1. Meaningless Distractions [15:08 – 19:29]

Discussion Highlights:

• Joe: Shares an anecdote about a woman at a baseball game engrossed in her phone, illustrating how distractions can detract from meaningful experiences (15:42).
• Paula Pant (15:53): Discusses the escalation of distractions with the advent of platforms like TikTok, referencing Cal Newport's insights on fragmented attention.
• Jordan Grumet (16:54): Suggests practical solutions, such as taking regular breaks to reset focus and limiting notifications to reduce interruptions.

Notable Quotes:

• Paula Pant: “The more that we get into the habit of having fragmented attention, the harder it is to sustain attention in any one thing.” (16:07)
• Jordan Grumet: “Our lives are filled with distractions, but are you going to do the things that are meaningful for you?” (18:42)

Strategies Discussed:

• Paula: Utilizes iPhone's Screen Time feature and the Freedom app to limit social media usage.
• OG: Implements background noise tools like Coffitivity to enhance focus.
• Joe: Employs browser extensions like Coffitivity.com to simulate a productive environment.

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2. Being Overwhelmed [Skipped]

Joe mentions the second point—wasting lives in a state of overwhelm—but opts to briefly address his personal approach, such as prioritizing essential tasks by “cleaning his plate” of non-essential activities. Detailed discussions on this point are minimal, keeping the focus on more pressing topics.

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3. Constant Indecision [27:33 – 32:50]

Discussion Highlights:

• Joe: Introduces the challenge of constant indecision, emphasizing its impact on productivity and goal achievement.
• Jordan: Highlights the importance of momentum in bridging the gap between planning and execution, advocating for taking action to overcome analysis paralysis.
• Paula Pant: Recommends categorizing decisions based on their reversibility and stakes, using a simple matrix to prioritize actions (28:22).

Notable Quotes:

• Paula Pant: “If a decision is reversible and/or low stakes, then 80/20 it and move on.” (28:37)
• Jordan Grumet: “Momentum is key here, and I think it's the antidote to indecision.” (28:21)

Strategies Discussed:

• Jordan: Advocates for compartmentalizing decisions to reduce fatigue and streamline the decision-making process.
• Paula: Utilizes a decision matrix to evaluate the reversibility and stakes of each choice, enabling quicker and more efficient decision-making.

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4. Fearing Failure [34:40 – 55:40]

Discussion Highlights:

• Joe: Introduces the fourth point—fearing failure—and explores its connection to hustle culture versus process-oriented purpose.
• Jordan: Differentiates between hustle culture (grinding without passion) and process-oriented purpose (enjoying the journey), arguing that sustainable progress requires loving the process rather than merely chasing outcomes.
• Paula Pant: Emphasizes communicating goals with integrity and focusing on continuous progress to mitigate fear of failure.

Notable Quotes:

• Jordan Grumet: “Hustle culture is about hustling, grinding, often doing things you don't want to do in celebration of a goal you could possibly make.” (51:02)
• Paula Pant: “If a decision is reversible and/or low stakes, then 80/20 it and move on.” (28:37)

Strategies Discussed:

• Jordan: Encourages aligning daily activities with personal passions to naturally reduce fear of failure.
• Paula: Suggests breaking down goals into micro-goals to maintain motivation and reduce the intimidation of large, singular objectives.

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5. Lack of Self-Discipline [55:40 – 62:25]

Discussion Highlights:

• OG: Challenges the notion of lacking self-discipline by highlighting personal discipline in established habits, arguing that discipline is context-dependent.
• Jordan: Views self-discipline as accepting agency over one’s decisions, rejecting societal definitions of productivity.
• Paula Pant: Continues the conversation by emphasizing efficiency versus effectiveness, advising listeners to evaluate tasks based on their alignment with personal goals and ROI.

Notable Quotes:

• OG: “I have such little fear about making decisions that it doesn't even resonate with me when people are like, oh, what if you make the wrong one?” (37:15)
• Jordan Grumet: “The real self-discipline is saying, I have agency to do or not to do, and no one else can define that for you.” (58:59)

Strategies Discussed:

• OG: Advocates for maintaining discipline within personal routines while dismissing external judgments of productivity.
• Paula: Highlights the importance of focusing on high-ROI activities that align with personal missions, distinguishing between being busy and being productive.

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6. Being Busy but Not Productive [Skipped with Brief Mention]

The sixth point is briefly touched upon, correlating to being busy without meaningful progress. The hosts link this to earlier discussions on focus and prioritization, emphasizing the importance of aligning daily activities with overarching goals to ensure productivity.

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Trivia Time: Discontinued US Bills [39:32 – 44:15]

Segment Overview: The hosts engage in a lively trivia competition, challenging each other with a historical finance question:

Question: If you added up the face value of all the bills that were eliminated in the summer of 1969, how much money would it have been?

Participants' Guesses:

• OG: $16,500
• Jordan Grumet: $600,021
• Paula Pant: $621,000

Correct Answer Revealed by Doug: $16,500, encompassing the discontinued $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills.

Notable Quotes:

• Joe Saul-Sehy: “And I have quoted what you're about to hear about five bajillion times...” (35:48)
• Doug: “The correct answer is $16,500.” (47:29)

Discussion Highlights:

• OG correctly answers $16,500, winning the trivia round.
• Jordan discusses the relevance and rarity of higher denomination bills, questioning their circulation status during the 1960s.

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Closing Discussions and Final Thoughts [55:40 – 68:59]

Additional Topics:

• Jordan Grumet: Shares his insights on hustle culture, ADHD coaching, and the balance between passion and process in business (65:08).
• Paula Pant: Highlights her upcoming interview with J.L. Collins on the Afford Anything podcast, promoting financial literacy and effective wealth-building strategies.
• Celebrations: The hosts and guests celebrate Jordan’s birthday, adding a personal and festive touch to the episode.

Notable Quotes:

• Jordan Grumet: “The real self discipline is not about what you do or don't do. It's about accepting agency...” (68:59)
• Paula Pant: “There's a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Are you efficient or are you effective?” (60:09)

Final Takeaways:

• Alignment with Personal Goals: Emphasizes the importance of ensuring daily actions align with long-term objectives to avoid wasting time on non-productive activities.
• Agency and Self-Discipline: Encourages listeners to take ownership of their decisions, defining productivity on their own terms rather than adhering to societal expectations.
• Continuous Improvement: Advocates for breaking down large goals into manageable tasks, fostering a sense of progress and reducing the fear of failure.

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Key Moments and Insights:

• On Meaningless Distractions: Paula’s discussion on the impact of social media and fragmented attention underscores the modern challenge of maintaining focus in an increasingly distracting world.

• On Constant Indecision: The conversation highlights how over-analyzing decisions can impede progress, advocating for practical frameworks to enhance decision-making efficiency.

• On Fearing Failure and Hustle Culture: By distinguishing between passion-driven purpose and relentless hustle, the hosts and guests promote a balanced approach to achieving financial and personal goals without succumbing to burnout.

• On Self-Discipline and Productivity: Emphasizing personal agency, the episode encourages listeners to define their own metrics for productivity, aligning their actions with intrinsic values rather than external pressures.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Joe Saul-Sehy: “When you clear that time, are you actually going to use it? That's what you're saying?” (18:42)

• Paula Pant: “The allowable distinction between efficiency versus effectiveness. Are you efficient or are you effective?” (60:09)

• Jordan Grumet: “Momentum is key here, and I think it's the antidote to indecision.” (28:21)

• OG: “I am choosing to say I am going to do me. You do you now, I can't complain about me...” (58:59)

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Conclusion:

In this engaging episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG, along with guests Paula Pant and Jordan Grumet, delve into common pitfalls that can lead to wasting one’s life. Through thoughtful discussions and practical strategies, they offer listeners valuable insights on managing distractions, overcoming indecision, combating fear of failure, and redefining self-discipline. The episode blends humor with substantive financial advice, maintaining the podcast's signature lighthearted yet informative tone. Whether you're striving to enhance your financial literacy or seeking personal growth, this episode provides actionable steps to ensure your time is spent meaningfully and productively.

Transcript

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I look out my window and I.

[Jordan Grumet]

See my neighbor Doug.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Poor, lazy, deplorable Doug.

[Doug]

Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin show shows Mom's neighbor Doug. And all week long we've been helping you set goals and take action. Today we'll examine one blogger's take on how to waste your life on stupid sh. This is my kind of episode. It's about time we covered this hack. Wait, wait, what? Oh, he was being sarcastic. Oh, that's a bummer. It appears this is a great episode. If you don't want to waste time, we should have just said so up front. But that's not all. OG's pulling away in our big year long trivia competition. Can the other participants rally? Let's hope that rally starts today. And now, here comes a guy who spends less time keeping up with the Joneses and more time investing in the Stackers. It's Joe Saul cehai.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Hey there Stackers. And happy Friday to you. And yes, we are investing in you all week this week as we help you here in the second half of 2020. Get moving man. Get moving on Monday. We began the week by going through all the amazing mentors we had on this show that helped you and hopefully gave you some hints to start working on some of the cool hacks that they provided. And then On Wednesday, Gary McDermott talked about how to set a goal that you're going to achieve. I mean, the Navy uses it where he worked, the multinational corporations use it. And yet we talk about goal setting. People go, yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna really set some goals. So today we're going to get a little sarcastic. Doug, as you mentioned by talking about six insanely popular ways to waste your life. And here are three people they're gonna waste the next hour with us. No, we're not wasting any time. The guy across the card table from me, he doesn't waste time. Mr. OG's here. How are you, man?

[OG]

I never ramble. Now only have cogent points. Exactly. Bullet pointed every single time.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It is. And the woman whose points are always fungible, Paula Pan from Afford Anything is.

[Paula Pant]

Here I put the fun and fungible.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We know people gotta listen to an Afford Anything episode to understand what we're talking about. How are you, Paula?

[Paula Pant]

I am doing great. How are you doing, Joe?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I'm fantastic. You know why I'm doing great, Paula?

[Paula Pant]

Why is that?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It is because it's our third participant's birthday today. He is spry and young from Earn and Invest Doc G AKA Jordan Grubbit joins us. Happy birthday, man.

[Jordan Grumet]

Thanks. I, I get two birthdays, right? My real birthday today when we're recording and then when you play this, it'll be like my birthday all over again. I'm going to tell all my family we're going to go for a steak dinner tonight and on the air date.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Of the show, two steak dinners to celebrate. Well, I think you get to a certain age and there's not enough room for birthday candles. Two steak dinners kind of makes up for it, don't you think?

[Jordan Grumet]

Yes. After I stopped counting on one hand, we pretty much got rid of the candle. So yeah, no more.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It is over. Yeah. So we are going to go to a piece that is frankly to me, a timeless piece. This is from the Mark and Angel blog. I had to look again because I knew it was Mark and Angel, but when I first saw it, I'm like Mark and Angel. But it's Mark and Angel blog as they hack life. This is a timeless piece. It's from 2016. But as I read through this, I went, you know what? These are six insanely popular ways to waste a life here. And clearly, Doug, as you mentioned, we're not trying to waste time. We are trying to make sure that you don't waste time. So we're going to dig into the six insanely popular ways to waste a life in just a moment. But first we have some sponsors that make sure we can keep on keeping on. You don't pay a dime for any of these amazing people and their opinions we're going to hear from them and then we're going to dig into how to waste your life. Let's get that rolling. You know it doesn't belong in your epic summer plans Getting burned by your old wireless bill While you're planning beach trips, barbecues and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. That's why I made the switch to Mint Mobile. With Mint, you could get the coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. So while your friends are sweating over data, coverage and surprise charges, you'll be chilling. Literally and financially. Say bye bye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along along with your existing contacts. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of unlimited service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. If you've been either online in our basement community or you've been in any of the financial forums, you know how much we love Mint Mobile and you also know that it's going to be very difficult to to beat this deal with this quality of service this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsb that's mintmobile.comsb upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to 15amonth limited time new customer offer first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See bitmobile.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. With Navy Federal's car buying service powered by Truecar, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory. Compare models and you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy federal. Visit navy federal.org truecar to learn more. Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA Credit and collateral subject to approval. This piece I really really thought was a great way to cap off a week of getting moving. I think about Paula, the first line or one of the first lines that Mark talks about in this piece. He Says, how often are we stuck in a cycle of worry, fear, and other forms of overthinking? How often are we aimlessly distracted and how often do we participate? Well, I'm thinking for me, Paula, that's about 60% of the time. But seriously, when it comes to money, I feel like the stakes are so high, we make it even bigger. Like it's. I think it's worse when it comes to worry, fear, and overthinking.

[Paula Pant]

Right. And, you know, the challenge with overthinking is sometimes you don't quite know where the line is. Like, what is the line between prudent consideration versus overthinking? It's a continuum. It's a slippery slope. There is no specific point. And I think that's what makes it so difficult to know how to stay in the 8020 of efficiency.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula makes a good point, birthday boy, because sometimes you overthink, and there's other times somebody will tell you they made a decision, you're like, did you think about that for just a second?

[Jordan Grumet]

I'm going to be the thorn in the side today. And that's because I've been thinking about this a lot. So it's interesting. You said, this is a timeless piece. And so I went to ChatGPT and I said, chatgpt, tell me, when was the height of hustle culture? And it said, the height of hustle culture was between 2015 and 2019. This was written in 2016. I think this article is a lot about hustle culture, and I actually think it fits really well into that time period, a time where people were really big into efficiency. This was before the pandemic. Efficiency isn't all that it's cracked up to be. And overthinking and daydreaming are sometimes when some of the greatest, most amazing things happen in our lives. And so I think for this point, as well as a lot of the other ones, you can make a real aggressive argument on the other side that we're not wasting our life or wasting our time at all. Sometimes meaningless distractions are actually fantastic.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Okay, let's set the rubric here. Let's set the bar on what we're going for here, Jordan, which is my birthday. It's your birthday, and I shouldn't fight with the birthday boy.

[Jordan Grumet]

I get the rubric.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But who we're addressing specifically are people who show up and they've heard all these great ideas on the Stacking Benjamin show for the last six months, and they go, that sounds great. I should do that. I should do that. I Should get started on that. I should do something. And often the problem is, and this is why I like this point about overthinking, often we get stuck in this. Yeah, okay. If I just get a little more information, right? If I just sit on this a little longer, if I ruminate, if I maybe draw out the mind map, then I'll get moving. That's who we're really talking to today.

[Jordan Grumet]

I hear you. I could disagree with some of that. I mean, if you are listening to podcasts and thinking, I should do that and years pass and you don't do it, maybe you don't really want to do it, maybe something else would actually get your fancy. Maybe it isn't the right thing for you. I get it. I get that there's analysis paralysis. And for anything, even something someone deeply wants, yes, maybe they are putting it off and they're getting stuck in analysis paralysis and they're getting too much information and not moving. But I think historically and actually the context of a lot of what this is saying does kind of fall in a place where I think we can question the basic concept a little bit. But I will play along. I will play along with the rubric and I will say, yes, it's easy to get caught in analysis paralysis. It's easy to get caught in distractions like social media, et cetera.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

For sure, we can do that as we go. And feel free to be the birthday boy of reason today.

[Jordan Grumet]

Did I mention it's my birthday?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But, oh, gee. The reason why people hire a financial planner a lot of the time is because they know they should be doing stuff. I get that sometimes you're like, yeah, maybe I wasn't destined to do that thing. Maybe I didn't really want to run the marathon or I really didn't want to do the extreme workout or whatever it might be. But, man, too often when I was a financial planner, I saw people not get anywhere because they just didn't do anything.

[OG]

Well, I think in talking about the analysis paralysis type thing, I think that's really unique to a certain group of people. And what I mean by that is we all process information differently and we all make decisions with a different set of requirements. For example, if you know somebody who's super analytic, maybe they want to see lots of spreadsheets and lots of sourced proof on how to make a decision about something. And then there's other people who want to see the process. You know, they want to see, well, how does this all piece together? I don't necessarily need to get into the nitty gritty of it. But I need to. I need to see how this flows into it. And that's how they make decisions. Some people make decisions by trying things out first. So the idea for me, when I hear, like, analysis paralysis, I'm like, who has that? Because I'm a ready, fire, aim type of person. I make decisions by testing things. I go, well, hey, let's try that. Let's do that, let's do that, let's do that, let's do that. And then. And then adjusting on the fly of. And for me, that's supernatural. But other people might look at that and go, what are you doing? You don't have any information. How are you making a decision to do that? Because to me, it makes the most sense to take the next step. What I think as it relates to financial planning, where this helps in thinking about, like, progress on the goals. When we're working with clients, it's like, let's just do something. I don't care if you, you know, yeah, your goal is to retire and you have all this, you know, this big giant thing that you're trying to do, right? But the old, you know, how do you eat an elephant Type of thing, right? The first thing is, you know, you got to set up your 401k. So let's just do that. Let's just set up your 401k and do the match and just put it into an S and P fund and we'll deal with all the efficiency stuff. That has to come later, but let's just move the ball one square down the board. That sort of stuff. That momentum, to me, makes a lot of sense now to other people. They would. They might look at that and go, well, hold on. Before I do that, shouldn't we evaluate how this fits into cash flow? Shouldn't we evaluate how this works in our tax plan? Shouldn't it? And yeah, that's true. You have to do all those things. But I think where we've been successful from a planning standpoint in working with people over the years has been we're action oriented. And doing something a lot of times is better than doing nothing and waiting for the exact right time.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

When I would work with engineers, engineers were always worried that I truly didn't know what I was talking about. And so I would have.

[OG]

We're also very worried about that. I have been for 16 years. It's a very common theme.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I would have to prove to them that I could go as deep as they could go. Before I said, you Know what? This is irrelevant, though. And then once they knew I could go as deep as they could go, then they go, you're right. I just got to get moving.

[OG]

Yeah, because you're matching their processing of information, Right? You're saying, hey, I recognize that for you to make a good decision, you need to have lots of data, and that's totally cool. Let me give you lots of data. I'm not saying that your way is right and my way is wrong. I'm saying, like, let me get you to the spot where you can make a decision.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I read this. I thought all six of these were truly waste of time. I can't wait to see what Jordan comes up with. Tell me that I'm wrong.

[OG]

I'm gonna go back and forth. I'm gonna side with Jordan one of these just to. Just to screw the rubric.

[Jordan Grumet]

That's because all those points I won.

[OG]

I don't know what a Rubik's Cube has to do with anything.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, he's not sure what Rubik's Cube has to do with anything. And you're right. I think he owes you.

[OG]

Jordan, you can have half the trophy.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But today, Jordan, you're gonna be playing for Jesse. But let's not. That's foreshadowing to the middle of the show. Let's start off, Paula, with number one here. He says that a great way to waste your life is we waste our lives with meaningless distractions. I was at a baseball game recently, and I'm sitting behind a woman who has paid good money for these wonderful seats. She spent the entire game. And when I say the entire game, I'm not kidding. On her phone, barely watching the game, she's playing a video game that she could play anywhere. And she paid for seats. And I thought, you know, which one is the distraction?

[Paula Pant]

Right?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Is the game distracting her from the video game, or is the video game distracting her from the game? I don't know. But I think we see this more and more. All around us is there's so many, you know, brands pulling for our attention.

[Paula Pant]

Right. You know, it strikes me this article was written in 2016, and it's only gotten worse in the nine years since this article came out. Before the TikTok ification of our brain.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, my goodness. And TikTok got me, too. That thing has my number.

[Paula Pant]

The deeper that we think, I mean, the phone is a convenient scapegoat, but it goes beyond just our phones. Cal Newport talks about this. The more that we get into the habit of having fragmented attention, the harder it is to sustain attention in any one thing. So it becomes harder and harder to watch a baseball game or to watch a movie, especially if it's one that requires, like, really paying attention or to read something that's difficult. But the other side of that is the more you practice by doing those things, the more you say, I'm going to sit down and read something that's kind of a difficult read, but, like, really. And I'm going to spend an hour pushing myself through this difficult read. The more you do that, the easier it becomes. It's like a muscle.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. Catherine Price, one of my favorite writers and thinkers. She has a book called the power of Fun. She has another book called how to break up with your phone. She talks about how not only does the phone distract you from stuff that she calls real fun because when she goes through the scientific data, it's not real fun, but it also makes it harder for you, to your point, Paula, to have real fun because you're always distracted because you're so used to this quick change that happens on your phone, this whatever. So when you're should be and could be experiencing real fun, you don't. All right, Jordan, I'm coming to you next. Can't believe I'm doing this.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

No, before we get your negativity.

[Jordan Grumet]

No, I was going to give a real positive. I'm on this one.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, hold up. Let me tell you what he said that he does, because I really like this. He said, to overcome this, I do my best to eliminate distractions, but sometimes they still pop up. Right. So I have a ritual where I pause once every 30 minutes and take a deep breath and stretch for 10 seconds. By taking this break, I'm able to catch myself. When I've gotten lost again, then I'll clear the distraction, close any unnecessary windows, noise, and just have one task in front of me and try to stick with it until it's finished. Do you like that?

[Jordan Grumet]

I do. I think it's good advice. And look, the American Times survey is a continuous study done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US and it shows that your average person has between, like, 4.5 and 5 hours of leisure time a day. And so we're a society where everyone says, I don't have time for anything. And the truth of the matter is, we have plenty of time. I love the word he uses meaningless distractions. Right. Because I would argue that almost everything is a distraction, whether you're watching a baseball game, which might be a great use of your time, or whether you're going through TikTok when you should be watching the baseball game, which is maybe a meaningless distraction. The point is, our lives are filled with distractions, but are you going to do the things that are meaningful for you? And I think that's what he's really pointing to.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

When you clear that time, are you actually going to use it? That's what you're saying?

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, because you're going to have this four and a half to five hours of free time a day. Are you going to get lost in something that's meaningless or are you going to do something that feels a little more meaningful to you? And so I think that's actually a really good suggestion. It's like if you find yourself down the rabbit hole of TikTok and you're like, this has no meaning in my life, then, yeah, take that break at 30 minutes and realize, hey, I'm wasting my time here. I could be doing something at least more meaningful. I'd still call it a distraction, but at least it's more meaningful.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, I love that because sometimes you start off on the right task and 20 minutes in, you get down this rabbit hole that's going the wrong way. And so if I set the alarm and pause it 30 minutes, then I.

[Jordan Grumet]

Bring it back, it's the damn notifications. The notifications get you. You're like, you're doing the good thing and then all of a sudden you get an email notification and next thing you know, you're looking at an email and you're gone.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I love you say that about notifications because I blocked all my notifications. Block them all. Because if I get on something good, I don't want to be notified. Oh, gee, you took that a step further. You've pretty much signed off of most all social media. Katherine Price, in her book how to break up with your phone talks about she couldn't believe how much time she had when she stopped paying attention to her phone. Have you found the same thing where all of a sudden you feel like, I've got this time that I quote, didn't have when I was jumping on my phone to check Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?

[OG]

Well, it's been some time, so it's hard for me to remember the time where I was. But I remember there being a considerable amount of time between when I said, okay, I'm not going to go on social anymore, until. And I remember always grabbing my phone. You know, you grab your phone and what do you. What's the first thing that you do? Swipe up because it's. Unlock it. And then your thumb, like knows the thing, right? It's like, over, over, down, over, down, click. And that's where Instagram is, right? Or that's where TikTok is or wherever. It's like, you know where it is on your. You go, I'm going to bury it in a folder on the third page. I'll never find it. It's like wrong. Over, over, down, over, down. You know it's there. Like, you just know where it is. I stopped going on socials in November. I don't remember what year. 2022 or 2021 maybe, but it's been a while and it took the better part of four months before I would grab my phone and do something other than navigate to where the folder was for socials. I don't know that I've done something good with that time. Instead, I can't promise that I did that. I'm sure I just replaced it with some other nonsense. So I don't feel like I've got this time where I just sit at my desk, like where everybody else is on TikTok and I'm like, gosh, I have nothing to do right now. I'm just going to sit here and daydream. I do find stuff to do, but I think it's really important, you know, the author here put some restrictions in their calendar or in their, you know, whatever to say, hey, at 30 minutes, there's a lot of, again, back to systems that you can do to make it so you can work on this deep stuff for a period of time. And you know, one of it, Joe is just turning off all your notifications. If you, if you have notifications on your phone, I have no idea why you would, other than like immediate family emergency type stuff. But even then, not. But 25 years ago, that wasn't a thing. And we managed to all get here to this point without like having find my. Or alert me when my child leaves school. On your phone, like you just. It's a benefit, but I don't know that you need all that stuff on there. But the other thing that I found recently is there is a tool on my computer. It's on a Mac where it's meant for people that have distraction, you know, like they can't focus and you can turn it on and it's just background noise, like ocean waves or something like that. Yeah, you can look up how to do this. I don't know. It's on my computer. It's crazy how like in the zone you'll get with just like. Like this white noise in the background. And then when you turn it off, you're like, holy crap, it's so quiet. What is going on? You know, because just. It's like the surround sound of background noise. So I use that quite a bit to just go, all right, I need to work on this until I get done with it. Whether it's an hour, two hours, or three hours, I'm going to turn this. I don't have anything else on. It's just me and the computer. And a big piece of that is, from a distraction standpoint, like eliminating it as much as you can. My desk right now is a mess, so it's not a great example, but it's so much easier to work, right? Like, how many times do you go, hey, I'm going to take my laptop, go to the coffee shop and knock this out. Why do you do that? Because the coffee shop's a background noise. The clanging of stuff. You have nothing else to do except drink coffee and work. You know, you can't go, oh, hey.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I haven't read that book yet. Well, and I love that you brought that up and that you brought up that app, because there's one that I use that's a Google Chrome extension, which is coffitivity. Coffitivity.com which. It makes noises like you're in a coffee shop and you can choose between different coffee shops. And as somebody that works from home, I will turn on coffee tivity. I can't pronounce that word, but coffativity.com will link to it in the show notes. And I'm in that technology to defeat technology. It is. It's so funny, Doc.

[Jordan Grumet]

It's interesting because what we're really talking about, although we're not saying it, is you're really talking about flow. Right? So the opposite of distraction is being in a flow state where you're doing your best work, where you're just so deep in it, you're not noticing time pass. I personally believe that winning the game is spending as much time and flow as you can. Right. I think it's just nurturing and good for you, and distractions take you away from that. And I think that's a lot of what we're talking about. That's when the coffee house noise or the app that plays the music or whatever it is, you're trying to really get your brain into that place of healthy work.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, let's stick with you for a second. What do you do because you have to spend a fair amount of time on social media. How do you make sure you don't get distracted?

[Jordan Grumet]

Jordan, I'll give you an example of writing. One of my favorite things to do is write, and especially when I'm in the midst of writing a book. And so when I'm writing a book, I'll put my headphones in, I'll put on. I always have the same exact classic music I play for writing. It's like an hour and a half, two hours of classical music. And it just does something for me. I zone into my computer, all my distractions are off, all my notifications are off. And usually I'm either locked in my office or I'll go to, like, a hospital cafeteria or somewhere where there's a lot going on around me, but I don't know anyone. And that's how I kind of approach a flow state.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You and I have had chats before where you were in a hospital cafeteria.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We were doing work on our house too, so there was lots of noise.

[OG]

Food's amazing.

[Jordan Grumet]

It's just an easy space for me. I can walk to.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula, how about you? Avoiding distractions.

[Paula Pant]

I've got two apps on my phone. One is native to iPhone and it's the one in which you can limit the amount of time that you spend on given apps in a given day. So I've got mine set so that I can spend a maximum of, I think, five or 10 minutes on Instagram.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I didn't know this thing exists. This is native to the iPhone.

[Paula Pant]

It's native to iPhone.

[OG]

Like screen time, right? Is that what it is?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's what it's called. It's something.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah.

[OG]

We use it for our kids or used to.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. So I use that in order to limit my Instagram time daily. And then for Twitter and threads, I've installed the Freedom app. I've blocked myself from being able to access both Twitter and threads during any time of day other than 8pm to 9pm that's the window. And usually what happens is 8pm rolls around and I'm not thinking about it. It's not like I've set an alarm like, oh, I gotta go on.

[Jordan Grumet]

You're like, yeah, it's 7:57.

[OG]

Like, it must be Twitter time.

[Paula Pant]

So what will often happen is that window of time will pass. And I'm like, oops, I missed my Twitter window for today. Now I can use Twitter on desktop. I just tend not to. But if it's the middle of the day, And I want to, like, respond to messages or whatever. Like, I can access it there, but I think the addictive behavior tends to happen on the phone. And so that's where I put most of my safeguards.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Don't worry, Stackers. We'll link to all of these because we're going to go on to another one here. I'm going to skip number two. I'm going to mention all six, but I'm going to skip number two for today, unless you guys really have a lot to say in it. We waste our lives in a state of overwhelm. By the way, he says about that, what's worked for me is instead of thinking, oh, my goodness, there's too much on my plate, I ask, what if I start started over again with a clean plate, then which of these things that are overwhelmingly would I actually now knowingly put back on my plate? So he literally cleans his plate and goes, how much of this is really relevant? Turns out that you may be working on the wrong things. But I want to focus here on number three on his list, which is we waste our lives with constant indecision. And. And Jordan, this is kind of where I was going with who we built this episode for. People that are. They hear all these great things like, yeah, I should. Yeah, I want to, but they're in this indecisive state. Like, how do we. I feel like sometimes we're so busy trying to make the perfect decision that we have trouble making any decision.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. I mean, I think there is a bridge between thought, like, I want to do this thing, or I have this plan, or I have this idea and then success. And so we have thought on one side, success on the other. And I think the bridge is momentum, which is doing stuff. And sometimes you need some type of momentum, even if it's the wrong type of momentum. Right. And so I think we get stuck in this thing where we figure the first step has to be so right that we never take it. I'm a big fan of momentum. I think what OG was also talking about this idea of, okay, let's try it and iterate and see what happens. And so I think momentum is key here, and I think it's the antidote to indecision.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula.

[Paula Pant]

I think if a decision is irreversible and has high stakes, it deserves to have a lot of thought put into it. But if a decision is reversible and. Or low stakes or both, then 80, 20 it and move on. Just do something and move on. And so I think the first Question to ask yourself when you're facing any decision is is it reversible or is it irreversible? And is it low stakes or high stakes? And then using that two by two matrix, go from there.

[OG]

That's a really good way of looking at it, Paula. I think if you recognize where the important decisions are. There's also a piece about when you're thinking about money in particular. Most of the time, at least in my experience, it's the last thing that you're dealing with. Like most people go to work, you know, you get up. If you have kids, you got to deal with that. And then you get to the office and you deal with work and then you have lunch and then you deal with more work and then you have to commute home and then you have to deal with kids and family and da, da, da. And then you go, oh crap, I also have to do the stupid insurance thing or I also have to, I have to dang it, this to do of meet with estate planning attorneys. Been on my sticky note for the last six months because it's the last thing that you get to. And so there is a very real thing about decision fatigue that happens later where you just are tired of processing information. Just tired of trying to think through everything and just go, I'm going to kick it down the road. And it's a form of procrastination. It's a form of what did shoot, what's that? Steven Pressfield, what's he call it? Resistance in the War of Art. So I think that's a form of it. And if you can simplify that or outsource the decisions or just be okay with not making a decision, those are basically your choices. Because effectively not making a choice on something is making a choice. It's just a choice of not doing whatever it is. But I think Jordan said we have lots of time and there's tons of space in our calendar and that sort of thing. My son, this is a great example for us. My son is going to college this fall. This past week was his orientation. At the orientation he gets to pick his classes and register and do all these things. And he called me very seriously and was like, dad, what do I do in school? And I said, what are you talking about? I mean in school it's like a class. Like it'll be a big room. And he's like, no, no, no, no. On Monday I go to school from 3 to 3:50. That's it. That's my only responsibility on Wednesday. Looks a lot like Monday and Friday looks like Wednesday and Monday. So I have 50 minutes of actual class time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday, it's a really busy day. I go from 10:45 to 12:30. Like, what do I do? I have no idea what I'm gonna fill my time with. I mean, how great is that? To be in the. In his. In your youth and have the world as your oyster. And I'm like, well, you can work out, you can go eat, you can get a job, you can do, you know, all these things. He's like, I could work, like, two jobs, dad. I'm like, yes, you could. You know, give that a whirl. We have so much stuff going on, and I think maybe this is the thesis of this whole article here, is it's hard to delineate what the important stuff is unless you're being very intentional about saying, this is what's important to me. It's like, if it's important to you, it's important to you. If being healthy and exercising is important to you, you have 168 hours. There's plenty of people who run successful businesses who are jacked and tan. There's just not. They have the same time.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, I think, Jordan, I like the part that OG said about maybe, maybe if you're indecisive for too long, maybe it's not meant to be. Maybe you got to get behind. Like, why am I so indecisive?

[OG]

You okay with going, I'm just not making decisions?

[Jordan Grumet]

I really connected also with what OJ Said about decision fatigue. I mean, I think we're constantly dealing with decision fatigue. So multiple, often small decisions, also surrounded with some really big decisions. I think one thing we can do to help ourselves is compartmentalize our decisions. So instead of making decisions all day long, try to sit down in a quiet place and make some of those important big decisions at once. I think there's also a hierarchy of decisions. Sometimes it's actually the big decision you have to make. And once you make the big decision, the little decisions fall in place.

[OG]

All the rest of them are easy.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to fund my 401k. That's like the big decision. And then you can start looking at the little decisions, like, am I going to do a target date fund or an S&P 500? Am I going to roll it over when I leave my job? All those are kind of smaller decisions that flow from the big one. Sometimes it just gets so overwhelming you don't even make the big one. And Then the small ones start feeling just incredibly difficult.

[OG]

I like what you said there about compartmentalizing it. I was thinking about this also, and I forgot to bring it up earlier. I've made a life decision. I make no decisions about food. I don't want to be asked where to eat. If we go out to eat, if we go to a place that I've already been, I already know what I'm going to eat. But if we go to a new place, I just go, oh, what's your favorite? I don't want to have any. And if they go all dead, I go, no, no. What's your favorite? What's the chef really like to make? What's the best thing that they do here? And they'll go, oh, well, the chef really likes the.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Whatever.

[OG]

I'll go, bang, do it. And they're like, what if you don't like it? Like, it's probably fine. I'm not allergic to anything, so there's no risk of, you know, for some people, that is. Right. Like my son does peanut allergy. I don't have a risk of any allergies. My biggest risk is I might not care for it that much. You know, I'm still going to get fed, I'm still going to eat. It just might not be my favorite, which is a risk I'm willing to take.

[Paula Pant]

It's a low stakes decision.

[OG]

Yeah. People look at me like I'm crazy. They're like, what do you mean? You don't have an opinion? I go, I do, but I don't.

[Jordan Grumet]

I just.

[OG]

I don't want to waste the energy on this. I think Ramit said he had this about food. If you're trying to decide between two things, just get both. Just take some leftovers.

[Jordan Grumet]

That's what I like. Because you made the decision once, and once you made the decision, you've made one decision and it's covering everything.

[OG]

And now I got food for two days. They're like, sir, you want the steak, fish and chicken? Yeah, yeah, Just. Just bring it. But bring boxes. Because I'm bringing half this stuff home.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And that's why I'm overweight right there. I just can't make a decision. So I get both.

[OG]

I actually pay for everything. That's my rule. I. If we go out to dinner, I pay, but I just don't make the decision of where to go. It's just so much easier.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The good news, by the way, I found out, I did check my, my bmi. Seriously. And I found out that my BMI is Perfect. My body mass index is perfect for a guy who's 9 foot 6. So it turns out that I'm not overweight. I'm actually under height. Yeah, that's the deal. Paula, you were going to say something serious, though.

[Paula Pant]

I was just going to say the decision to not make decisions about certain categories reminds me of Steve Jobs wearing the black turtleneck every day just so he could eliminate the decision of what do I wear.

[Jordan Grumet]

I do that too.

[OG]

I don't wear that, but I find like a polo shirt brand that I like, and then I just buy like 10 of them. I go there, good. Now I have 10 polo shirts. They all, you know, they're same brand, so they're all going to be color.

[Paula Pant]

Right.

[OG]

Consistent with their other brands, basically. So it's like whatever. They all basically match. So I'm fine either way.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I did the same with these hiking shirts I wear almost every day. They're comfortable. Yeah, they look good.

[OG]

So by 10, and if you happen.

[Jordan Grumet]

To go hiking, and if I go.

[OG]

Hiking at a moment's notice.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Right. But then my body mass index won't be good for a guy 9 6, and I need to keep growing. So what do you do? There's another take here about indecision. This is a podcast that I normally don't listen to. I happen to catch this one episode. It's called the Rich Roll podcast. Dr. Ellen Langer, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard, said this to Rich Roll. And I have quoted what you're about to hear about five bajillion times over the past 12 months since I heard her say it. And here she is.

[G]

Rather than waste your time being stressed over making the right decision, make the decision right. Randomly choose. Now, you can randomly choose if you want an I'm, Joy or Snickers. Nobody's gonna care, right? It's the exact same thing about getting married or not taking the job or not. You can only live one life. If there were some magical way that I could live a life as somebody who's had three kids and somebody who hasn't had kids, maybe I can make a comparison. But you don't have that available to you. So I say to my students, should you go to Harvard or should you go to Y? So they made a decision to go to Harvard. So let's say it's terrible. Oh, I wish I had gone to Yale. There's no way of knowing that Yale wouldn't have been worse. Better the same. And that's why regret is so mindless. Because the choice you didn't take you're presuming would have been better.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's pretty powerful to me.

[OG]

Instead of wasting regret his mindless Sounds like something I would say.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, instead of wasting time OG overthinking this decision, make the decision and then spend 100% of your time making it right. Make this decision the right decision. Spend a lot of time backing up the thing that you chose instead of wasting all this mental energy.

[OG]

Yeah, I have such little fear about making decisions that it doesn't even resonate with me when people are like, oh, what if you make the wrong one? I'm just like, who cares?

[Jordan Grumet]

I mean, in a sense, philosophically, there are probably people who just don't think much about it, like, oh gee, and then there are people who obsess over it. But that probably has nothing to do with the decision itself. It has to deal with some bad thing that happened in the past where they made the wrong decision and now they're still kicking themselves.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Right? We're spending so much time regretting the fact that I didn't go to Harvard or I didn't go to Yale or I didn't go to whatever.

[Jordan Grumet]

Now every decision in the future becomes clouded.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I love Jordan, her thing that you're presuming you knew how that outcome would have gone and you have no idea how that outcome would have gone. So stop wasting your time on worrying about the outcome that didn't happen or thinking that quote would have been better when you have no clue what would have happened. It could have been way worse. Who knows? What's never worse though. How about that for a transition is taking a little pause here at just beyond today, just beyond the halfway point and and focusing on our year long trivia competition. If you're new to the Stacky Benjamin show, this is the part of the show where we pause in the middle to see which one of our three frequent contributors is going to prevail over the other two when it comes to this meaningful trivia. Trivia time and man, the score not looking good. Although, God, we had a bright spot last week. Jesse actually won last week for OG and Paula, neither of which were here.

[Paula Pant]

The coalition. The coalition victory.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, Jesse and Paula have had a coalition and ever since then. Doc G's won about 15 points for OG while he was gone on his family holiday. But OG, as you come back here, you're leading with nine. Jesse has six and a half. Paula with five and a half. Doc G today, if you can win for Jesse the way you won for og, we'd Appreciate it very much, Paula. If you can win, you and Jesse now tied, and which would be rare.

[OG]

Fighter score again. I missed it. I wasn't paying attention.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, we're not going back.

[OG]

I really didn't hear it, but I'm guessing I'm in the lead by a considerable margin based on everybody's attitude.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, you can rewind the tape. Hear that later. But, Doug, you've got today's trivia question. Let's see who's going to win this week.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and here's a big financial event that happened this week in US history. Earlier this week, back in 1969, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve announced that several former US bills were being discontinued immediately. The US Mint hadn't made any of these bills since the 1940s, but they were still accepting them until this moment. So here's today's question. If you added up the face value of all the bills that were eliminated back in the summer of 69, when I got my first real six string and you cashed in one of each of the bills at the last moment, how much money would it have been? I'll be back to see if a wooden nickel really is a thing. Joe's mom always says don't take any wooden nickels. Maybe they. They were discontinued in 69. We're about to find out.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

All right, OG you go first on this competition. Several different bills were discontinued. But if just before that, you cashed in one of each of the discontinued bills, how much money would you have?

[OG]

Basically every bill I get, I just put it in the discontinued pile.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The Verizon bill, all my bills are.

[OG]

Discontinued, just like the service on everything that those bills provided.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Isn't it weird?

[OG]

Sir, your water has been discontinued. I'm like, great, no more bills.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I can't believe one follows the other.

[OG]

All right, so I have a pretty strong idea about this. I'm just trying to decide if one of them was for reals or not. This is a gamble. I have two answers in my head, and I think one of the two are correct. So I'm going to guess on one. The question was, if I cashed in every one of the bills, just one of them each, how much would I have cashed in?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's right.

[OG]

Of the discontinued ones. So I'm going to say the answer is $16,500.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

$16,500. So which bills do you think were discontinued?

[OG]

Not answering that question for them to Decide, obviously, the $16,500 bill was discontinued.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doc, what are you thinking?

[Jordan Grumet]

I think it's much higher than that because I'm going to vaguely guess that there's some really high value bill that was discontinued. So as opposed to playing the game, I'm just going to give you what I actually think it could be. I'm going to say $600,021.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

$600,000.

[OG]

This is obviously the $600,021 bill.

[Progressive Insurance]

Exactly.

[Jordan Grumet]

There's just one of them. And they discontinued it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, it's the $600,000 bill, the $20 bill, and the $1 bill, which Doc hasn't had in his wallet in a long time. Paula, you've got 600,021 and 16,500. What are you thinking?

[Paula Pant]

Okay, I'm trying to piece together the logic here. So it's obvious that OG believes that there was a $10,000 bill, a $5,000 bill, a $1,000 bill, and a $500 bill. That's how you would arrive at $16,000.

[OG]

Or there was an $8,000 bill, a $7,000 bill, $750 bill, and two $250 bills. I don't know.

[Paula Pant]

Okay, let's see. So then Doc Chi must believe that There was a $500,000 bill, a $100,000 bill, and there used to be like a doll. I'm not. I'm losing the logic a little bit on Doc G's guess. Other than the 500,000 and the $100,000.

[Jordan Grumet]

Bill, what was my. I thought I said 621,000.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, you said. I thought you said 600,021.

[Jordan Grumet]

No, 621,000.

[Paula Pant]

621,000. So you believe that there was a $500,000 bill, a $100,000 bill, a $20,000 bill, a $20000 bill, and a thousand and then a thousand dollar bill. Well, given that these bills existed in the 1940s when money was worth a lot less, I'm going to bet that the bills were not that big. I'm going to take the under at 16,499.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Ah, so you think he's off on one of those bills then?

[OG]

That's $99 bill. The off to use 400 bill also.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Right. All right, we got 6,500, 6,499 and 621,000. Let's see who's right. We'll be right back.

[Progressive Insurance]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash. Progressive makes it easy. Just drop into some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Progressive Insurance]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Offer, all lowercase oh gee, you opened this up with $16,500. Paula thinks you had a $10,000 bill, $5,001,500. Would she be correct?

[OG]

Yeah, the question that I have is because I know those are all bills. I don't know whether or not the author of the question is also assuming the $100,000 bill, which was only used for interbank transfers. So the question leads me to believe that the author does not believe that because he said if you could turn it in, which a person could not have turned it in because a person could not have a $100,000 bill, only banks could have it. So that's why I eliminated that. If we do include the 100, then I think there was $100,000 bill also that was discontinued. So then the real answer would be plus 100.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doc, how you feeling? You think he's making all this up?

[Jordan Grumet]

I don't know. I took a wild guess. I think that there have been some large bills made. I don't know if they were in circulation. Maybe it was AI and they never existed. But I have nothing to lose here. I've A, it's my birthday, and B, I've won a bunch for Josh or. Oh, geez. So I've got nothing to lose here.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But you need to win for Jesse. The goal is to win for Jesse.

[Jordan Grumet]

You know, I'm not your trick pony. I can only do so much.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And Paula, you took the under.

[Paula Pant]

Well, if we go by the logic that these were the olden days, I think the under is a safe bet.

[Jordan Grumet]

But.

[Paula Pant]

But I don't know. We'll see.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Really? 1969. I mean, who was born then? Oh, my God, I was. All right, let's. Let's see. Going back to the olden days, I just, I want to flip Paul off right now. Let's see who's right on this one. Doug.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm coin collector, but also the guy who's not buying your wooden nickels. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Several bills were last printed up on the US Mint's copier machine or, you know, whatever they use way back in 1945. But it was earlier this week in 1969, when they shut the whole shebang down. But if you turned in just one of each of the bills that had been discontinued just before they were no longer legal tender, how much cash would you have had in your hand? Because There was a $500 bill, a $1,000 bill, a $5,000 bill, and a $10,000 bill that you would have had in your hand. The correct answer is $16,500. And I am sick to my stomach as I say that makes OG our winner.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Perfect.

[Jordan Grumet]

Wow. Nice.

[OG]

But technically. So I would also very. Should I walk myself out of the win based on the reading of the answer. Technically, they are all still legal tender. So if you have a thousand dollar bill, you're still welcome to use it. You'd be a fool because they're worth so much more to collectors.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Sure.

[OG]

And There was also $100,000 bill only used for interbank transfer, which is why I didn't include that.

[Paula Pant]

Who is on the thousand dollar bill?

[OG]

McKinley, I believe. No, no, McKinley was on the 500. Like maybe Hamilton.

[Paula Pant]

Shouldn't we be stacking these?

[OG]

Yes.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Grover Cleveland was on Cleveland.

[OG]

Yeah, there you go.

[Paula Pant]

Cleveland was on stacking Cleveland's.

[OG]

Look up real quick. The five and ten thousand dollar ones.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

While you're at it. Was on the five. Oh, you don't think I just came up with that?

[OG]

Nope, I don't.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

500 was McKinley.

[OG]

500 is McKinley. Yep.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And the 1,000. Or wait, what am I looking up.

[OG]

The 5,000 and 10,000.

[Jordan Grumet]

The hundred thousand was Woodrow Wilson.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Wilson 5,000 was James Madison, obviously. And the 10,000 was Salmon P. Chase, whoever that is, on the most common ten thousand dollar bill series. So there must have been more. He was a politician, former Chief justice, United States, and former Secretary of the Treasury. So there you go. Same Pete Chase.

[Paula Pant]

Is he the Chase of Chase bank? Is he Mr. Chase?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I don't know. Was he the Chaser or the Chase?

[Paula Pant]

I know.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The Chasey or the Chasey. All I know is we're going to chase this down with the second half of today's discussion, which we are going over. For those of you with short term memory loss, we are going over the top six ways to waste a life. A number four on here is something that we've kind of talked about in passing, Doc, which is we waste our lives fearing failure. We're afraid. And we brought this up on the whole, you know, overwhelm with indecision about decision fatigue. But we fear failure. How do you get around this fear that this is all going to end up failing?

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to fail is not to try, right? So I guess you can assure failure by not even trying to. Or you can try and you might succeed. You might fail. I mean, as we all probably have thought about before, often getting to the goal isn't what makes us happy. A lot of times it's kind of the valiant fight in between to get to the goal. So it's actually in the trying that I think we live through some of our greatest moments.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Are you saying hustle culture would be really productive because we're trying more often?

[Jordan Grumet]

I don't think hustle culture and trying are the same thing. Hustle culture. So again, if you really want to get into this, what we're talking about is the difference between what I would call little P. Purpose, process oriented purpose, versus hustle culture. In process oriented purpose, what I call little P. Purpose, you love the process. It lights you up. The problem with hustle culture is most of the time you actually don't like the process. Hustle culture is about hustling, grinding, often doing things you don't want to do in celebration of a goal you could possibly make. And so process is important, but the question is, does the process light you up or does it exhaust you? And that's my problem with hustle culture. So I think the process exhausts you.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I 100% did want to get into this, which is why we invited you today. We talk about fearing failure as you're describing little P Purpose, it also becomes very apparent that if you love the process, Jordan, the fear of failure goes away because who cares?

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Right. You want to fill your life with things you enjoy doing. You can. And I always tell people this and they never get it. I always say that little P Purpose is process oriented, not goal oriented. So people are like, I can't have big goals. No, of course you can have big goals. You can have even big audacious goals. But if you don't enjoy the process of doing whatever you do to have to get to that goal, if you hate the process, then you're wasting your time.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula, you put a lot of stuff out there that is meant to help a large number of people. It doesn't always resonate. Like, how do you avoid just fearing that this won't go over the way you'd hoped?

[Paula Pant]

Well, I think the question is whatever it is that I'm stating, am I stating it from a place of integrity? Am I stating it from a place of honesty? And am I actively working on the skill of being able to communicate as clearly as possible? So long as I'm doing those things, then I think it's all stemming from the right spot.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That also kind of eliminates the fear of failure because you're just doing your best to help people.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. Yeah. Well. And I think also with fear of failure, so many goals have an ambiguous benchmark of achievement that rather than have one very specific fixed quantitative benchmark, if you just think of the goal as the quote unquote goal, as like a series of little micro goals or mini goals, there is no failure because you're continually making progress. You know, there are very few things short of winning a competition where there is a very delineated winner or loser. For most things, you make an impact in a zone. There's never a done and there's never really a loss so long as some impact has been made.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Was there something else you were going to say? I think I cut you off when you were getting ready to jump in on Jordan.

[Paula Pant]

Well, I was actually going to question Doc G on some element of what he said because for anything that you do, there are going to be aspects of the process that you dislike. Like, I'm never going to enjoy checking email ever, but for pretty much anything that I would ever want to do, email is going to be part of it. So how do you deal with that?

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a matter of is it worth the gain you get from doing the thing you don't like, Right. So I love podcasting. For me, podcasting is little p. Purpose. I don't always love editing, but the overall joy I get from making the podcast, putting it together, and getting it to people makes editing worthwhile enough. Now, if it ever got to the point where I hated editing so much and the process of doing it was so bad that it overshadowed the overall good of enjoying the process, then I'd stop doing it. But it's a continuum for sure. And so I think there is nuance in the sense to say that we're going to all spend our lives only doing things we love is pretty silly. Sometimes in service of something we love, we may spend some time doing things that we don't love. But overall the balance should be that you're generally doing things you like. And as you get older and more wealthy and more successful, the things you don't like doing should decrease, decrease, decrease. And the things you love doing should increase, increase, increase. So when you are financially independent or you are the head of the firm, you can hire someone to do the things you don't like.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

If.

[Jordan Grumet]

If I'm Joe Rogan, I'm hiring someone to edit my podcast. Right. That's the goal. And I think it is a continuum.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The last one I want to cover on this list. And by the way, there is one more number six on the list we won't cover today, which is we waste our lives with a lack of self discipline. And I think that mirrors a lot of things that we already talked about today. But I do want to end today's discussion on this.

[OG]

I would say, hold on, I'm going to, I'm just going to jump in on that one.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Sure.

[OG]

I think that you already have the discipline. You're just disciplined to do other things.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, it's funny you say that, OG because guess the one I want to focus on says we waste our lives being busy but not productive. Which sounds like kind of where you're headed.

[OG]

Well, I was just going to say when people say like, well, I just, you know, I lack the discipline to do it or somebody points out you just, you don't have any self discipline. It's like, no, I'm very self disciplined into my existing habits, you know, which. Which includes rising at 7:45, at the crack of 7:45 every day. You know, it's like, well, you know, you're just not self disciplined in the morning. Like bs man, I get up the same time every day. I just don't get up at 5:30 some people would look at getting up at 5:30 as man, look how late you're getting up. You're not self disciplined. You know, 3:30 is what time you should be getting up to go do your. I have a friend of mine who was training for a triathlon down here in Texas and he got up at 3:30 in the morning so that he could run in the middle of the night because it's so effing hot during any, any other part of the day that the coolest part of the day where it's only 89 is from 3:30 until sunrise. And so he would bang out his three hours of running in the middle of the night and then he would sleep, take a big long four hour nap during the middle of the afternoon. Somebody might look at that and go, what a lazy sob. Sleeping during the middle of the day. So anyways, you're self disciplined into your existing habits, I think.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, and this is Jordan. I'll come back to you Josh, in a second. But Jordan, this is 100% what you're talking about, about loving the process versus the hustle. Hustler culture is, you know, sleep when you're dead, get up at 3:30. OG's point is I love sleeping till 7:30. That's discipline.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. And again, you know, to bring it full circle, I think this is what initially bothered me about the article and this idea of hustle culture is it's someone else pretty much defining what self discipline is for you. A lot of people are saying that they're busy all the time. And then this gets back to what OG said is, well, you're busy doing what you've planned to do. Now that might be productive, quote unquote or non productive, but it's what you've chosen. But only you can decide what productive is or not. Society has this idea of what productive is and I think it's wrong. You decide what's productive. There are a lot of people who actually want to do some things and never get to it because they say they're busy. But that gets back to the American Times survey. I think people have this idea that they're busy but they're just distracted, acted.

[OG]

I was just gonna say Jordan for that. Ultimately the biggest piece out of all of this is that you have to take the ownership and recognize that you're in charge. And as soon as you do that, as soon as you say I am choosing to, you have complete control over everything. I can't say, well, there's just not enough time for me to work out, like, you know, I just have to be fat. It's like, oh, that's B.S. i'm just choosing to spend my time watching TV. And you know what? If that's what I want to do and that's what brings me joy and I'm okay with the consequences of that, cool, man. You don't owe me an explanation. I don't owe you an explanation of what I do. But I think some of this, what you're talking about, and I think maybe frustrates you, Jordan, about some of this stuff is it's like other people's vision of what your life should look like. And it's like, no, man, I'm going to do me. You do you now, I can't complain about me and say, well, it's not my fault that I'm fat.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Right.

[OG]

It's like, well, hold on a second. You can't have it both ways. Right? You can't be. I'm going to sit around and take ownership of not doing anything, but then also be mad that I'm out of shape. If you're going to take some, you got to take it all.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. I mean, I think what it comes down to, at least for me, is the real self discipline is not about what you do or don't do. It's about accepting agency, which is exactly what you're saying. The real self discipline is saying, I have agency to do or not to do, and no one else can define that for you. And this is always the problem I have with hustle culture. Someone else has decided what a societal belief of what self discipline is and what you should be doing and you should be hustling towards it. And that's where I kind of go awry.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And Paula, doesn't this whole thing like busy versus productive isn't productive mean it's in pursuit of your goal? So if you start with the goal and work backwards, you can discern what's productive and what's just busy and what's not. Because I feel like when I'm busy but I'm not productive, it's because I'm doing a bunch of crap that doesn't meet my value system of where I see myself headed.

[Paula Pant]

You know, in your question, I'm thinking a little bit about the distinction between efficiency versus effectiveness. Are you efficient or are you effective?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You can be efficient but not effective.

[Paula Pant]

Right. I think the two kind of. That echoes what you've also asked about busy versus productive. Because, yeah, I think that ultimately the question is, all right, what's the Goal, what's the mission like? What are we working towards? What are we trying to achieve here? And then every subsequent question is not just, does this have any benefit? But is this the highest ROI way to approach that?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah.

[Paula Pant]

A lot of times you can be doing things that might hypothetically have some conceivable benefit towards it, but that doesn't mean that it's the optimal use of your limited resources as you pursue that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Mark says in this piece, when I catch myself busily working on the wrong things, I stop and ask myself what my most important tasks are for the day. Your point you just made. I go back to wiping my plate clean of everything but the essential. Sometimes there's this one key task project, and sometimes there's a few. But in any case, I ask myself, am I working on it? The answer is no. It's time to get back on track. Which assumes, by the way, that we actually put a plan together ahead of time. Right. That we actually took the time to go. This is truly what's important, and that's what's not. And that's what we spent this entire week trying to get at, which is focus on those things that are most important.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. You know, I just want to make the point, though. If you are continuously finding that you're not doing the most important task and you're filling your life with busyness, you got to flip that around and say, why is that the most important task? And maybe there's a reason I'm avoiding it. Because again, I think as we go through life, you eventually want to align what you spend most of your time with with also being the most important to you. And so this is the luxury of, hopefully age and wealth and some of the freedom we get as we get older. Those two things should really start looking the same. And if they're not, then maybe the goal for the day is what's wrong and not that you're busy doing other things.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. Swim back upstream and see if the goal setting is actually accurate.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah. And again, I agree. You know, you're 22 years old or 23, you just got married, you have a little baby. Yeah. Sometimes the goal for the day is make money, even if it doesn't light you up. But hopefully, as we get a little bit older and we get a little bit more well off, we can start aligning those things much better.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think it's a great place for us to leave it and leave this week that started off with going back through the last six months of some of the great mentors We've had some of the great messages and asking, are you actually working on any of these things? And then on Wednesday talking about setting goals using the smart goal system that we've all heard of. And it works for the Navy and it works for big companies. But we go, yeah, this smart idea, I don't know. I don't know. Gary really puts it into perspective. And then I love Jordan, actually. You bring in birthday boy. I love you bringing in the Hulsa culture. And I think we were able to avoid that, but still go, am I doing what truly lights me up? What lights me up is hearing about the brilliant work that all you are doing. Let's start off with, oh, gee, big plans this weekend, my friend.

[OG]

Oh, I am in lost wages this week. It's a great time to be there. It's the summer in the desert. I mean, who doesn't want to be there July 17th or whatever the day is? Nope. Got a, a little bit of a conference that I'm at and gonna come home tomorrow.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Excellent.

[OG]

And then we're going to Park City, which is a different side of the mountain, which.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, right.

[OG]

Even better.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, I hope you're winning lots of money while you're in Vegas.

[OG]

Oh, no casino trip for me. Nope. This is a work trip. Sorry. Unfortunately, no fun. This is all bidness, all hustle.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Paula, what's going on at the Bidness Casino? We call. I'm trying to do these segues that are not working called Afford Anything. What's going on there?

[Paula Pant]

We have a two part interview with J.L. collins, the author of the Simple Path to Wealth.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Never heard of him. Jael who?

[Paula Pant]

Exactly. The guy who pretty much coined vtsax and chill. So we've got a two part interview with him on the Afford Anything podcast. We talk for a total of almost two hours between the two episodes.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

He's a guy that even at two hours, I feel that's not enough. I'm like, I could talk to that guy for seven hours.

[Paula Pant]

Right?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So fantastic. So tune in to a great two parter with Paula on Afford Anything. Jordan, Happy birthday again, my friend.

[Jordan Grumet]

Yeah, I've just decided today that it's going to go from being my birthday day to my birthday week. So that's what I'm going to do this weekend is we're going to celebrate me the whole weekend.

[OG]

I do birthday month, Jordan, so I don't blame you.

[Jordan Grumet]

Might as well be a birthday year like every year.

[OG]

Let's not get crazy.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. Oh, gee, Apollo, don't you feel like he made it his birthday day today on the show. I mean, he totally did.

[Jordan Grumet]

You know what I want for my birthday? That $500,000 bill.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's.

[Jordan Grumet]

That's what I really want, along with the $100,000.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think you want the $621,000 bill that you quoted earlier.

[Jordan Grumet]

I would have been just as close to right with that one than the 500.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, it's good to see you're back to your old ways on your birthday of missing it by a factor of a lot.

[Jordan Grumet]

500,000.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. What's going on at Earn and Invest?

[Jordan Grumet]

You guys heard me mention hustle culture here. It has been on my mind because I did a 10 things episode about hustle culture in preparation for my interview of a lady named Sky Waterson, who is an ADHD coach. And so she coaches people on how to build businesses and how to survive corporate America when you have adhd. And some of that is hustle. And that's why I wanted to talk about hustle culture. Some just been on my mind a lot lately.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Way a lot of people undiagnosed adhd. I think that's good for anybody. I mean, we all get distracted, even if you don't have adhd. And I know listening to some of those podcasts have been so very, very helpful and partially just to know there's other people out there that have the same. What, squirrel thing? That. Yeah.

[Jordan Grumet]

I mean, and it's always hard to differentiate, right? We know at the extremes, anything is bad, but for some people, ADHD is a feature and not a bug, right? That's what helps them jump from thing to thing to thing and can make them incredibly successful entrepreneurs. On the other hand, being incredibly successful entrepreneur is also being organized and hiring and firing people and running a business. And sometimes that doesn't always go so well with adhd.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who hung out with us today on YouTube. We didn't announce we were coming on a day later than usual. Normally we're here, well, Wednesdays or Thursdays, late in the afternoon Eastern time. So come join us. It's always fun seeing who's with us. Unfortunately, we didn't spend a lot of time talking to people today, but they were certainly chatting with us a little bit. El Winda's here and said, I just logged on. Paula, what's that amphibious beast in the water next to you? You had a guest who is a little silent today.

[Paula Pant]

Ah, this is my turtle. His name is Joffrey. He's a yellow belly slider turtle. So, yes, he's right here in the tank next to us with, you know, he's been part of this taping.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's what we call OG the yellow belly slider. Yeah. Carlos says hello from Damn from Baltimore, but he says it's Damn from Balmer because the T is silent. OG Much like in the word often, which you have to be a Stacky Benjamin's fan to know about the often Sl. Often debate that we had here.

[OG]

Doug say it wrong? Is that what he's talking about? I have selective memory.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doug called it off tin and it turns out you said that. No, that's not correct. And Dan agrees with you. And Bjorn is here with us and says Doug is awesome. Brandon, let's go, OG Congratulations, OG And Jeff likes watching the sausage get made and likes it when he sees behind the scenes when I go. 3, 2, 1. Mike hanging out. Happy birthday to Doc G. Leisure enthusiast. Yo, Doc G. Just realized you write some great articles for Psychology Today. Had to ask my wife. Is this the same Doc G that frequent Stacking Benjamins?

[Jordan Grumet]

And it is, it is. In fact, I was just in the Psychology Today magazine. They did a big push on purpose. There's a side column with all the ideas about Big P and Little P purpose. So check it out if you happen to get Psychology Today magazine.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Lots more discussion, but come hang out with us. Everybody had a great chat today and we thank you guys for hanging out with us on YouTube as we made it. All right, Doug, you've got it from here, man. What's stacked up on our to do list today?

[Doug]

So what's stacked up on our to do list for today? You know what? I'm gonna have our contributors step in and do a little of this heavy lifting.

[Paula Pant]

A rocking horse is always in motion, but it never gets anywhere. And that's what it is to be busy but not productive.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I don't think you actually said that, but you should have said that. Hey, birthday boy, what's that thing that you said that was so amazing earlier in the show?

[Jordan Grumet]

Oh, boy, I said so many amazing things, I can't remember any of them. I think what I said is that agency is the real self disobedience. We need to take hold of responsibility for our decisions, whether we want to call them productive or not.

[Doug]

Thanks, guys. But the big lesson, when talking about money, don't share with Joe's mom all the money that's no longer in circulation because she'll demand that the 20 you owe her from last week's trip to the Sizzler gets paid back pronto. On an unrelated note, oh gee, how about slipping me a 20? You know man, help a brother out. Thanks to the birthday boy Doc G for joining us today. You'll find fantastic money discussions at Earn and Invest. We'll also include links in our show notes@stacking benjamins.com thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You'll find her fabulous podcast Afford Anything along with a whole bunch of really big words. Where wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning help? Head to stackingbenjamins.comog for his calendar. This show is the property of SP Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Josal Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug and we'll see see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.