Stoic Money Wisdom for a Chaotic World.

Stoic Money Wisdom for a Chaotic World.
With Will Young and Samia Bano

Feeling #financialstress? Want to know how to make smarter #financialdecisions with calmness?

Listen now to this interview with Will Young, #CertifiedFinancialPlanner. Will connects #finance, #psychology, and #stoicphilosophy to show how social proof, media-driven fear, and the emotional traps derail investors, while revealing how #discipline, #mindset, and behavioral psychology #protectyourpeace and your portfolio.

Will shares his “effective forecasting” approach, teaching how mental preparation, #emotionaldiscipline, and long-term thinking help people #staysteady through fear, uncertainty, and #marketchaos, and so much more!

Connect with Will at his team website.

https://www.ameripriseadvisors.com/team/liberty-wealth-management/

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#Stoicism #FinancialWisdom #MindsetMatters #WealthWithPurpose #ConsciousCapitalism #FinancialFreedom #InnerPeace #EmotionalIntelligence #PersonalGrowth #SuccessMindset #LegacyMindset #LongTermThinking #SelfMastery #MoneyMindset #PurposeDrivenLife #MindfulLiving #MentalResilience #LeadershipMindset #BusinessPhilosophy #AbundanceMindset

Here's the audio version of this episode:

Full Video Transcript

SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry! It's really, really good to be with you again. And I know you'll be very glad that you have joined us today because we have a very interesting guest with us today, and that is Will Young, who is a certified financial planner. Welcome, Will...

WILL: Hi. Thank you for having me on the show. It is an honor. I enjoy getting a chance to talk to different audiences and have an opportunity to share my story and also hear about you as well. And hopefully people can take learn a little bit about what's important to them from this and help harness, you know, some type of information out of this nutrient dense information dense podcast.

SAMIA: Indeed, indeed. And on that note, well, actually, please tell us more about who you are and what you do.

WILL: Okay. The certified financial planner is an important designation in terms of doing comprehensive financial planning, but I think we're all more than just what our work is. And over the past 20 years, I've developed a behavioral psychology strategy, and I do market forecasting, and I use a lot of that comparatively to stoicism. And stoicism is something, a philosophy I've been studying, practicing, and living for over 15 years now. And I often with my investors or in life, I use comparisons to stoicism. And I surf and I surf a lot. And I like to use those ideas to give people a better mental picture of we don't control the oceans, we don't control the markets, we don't control the winds, the rain, the temperatures. But we can control our decisions we make. And I really want to help investors, I want to help people in general across the board make better decisions and also learn from other people as well. So I continue to make better decisions. So that's really my focus is behavioral psychology and finance. And my book that I have coming out is really about cutting down that noise and harnessing your focus on what's really, truly important, which is typically just a handful of things. And that's something I think we need clarity in a world with so much noise.

SAMIA: Wow. There's so much we can dig into with what you just shared. My one question just in terms of making sure our listeners are clear on some of the definitions, just in case they're not familiar. Can you tell me a little bit more about what is stoicism. Sorry, I'm mispronouncing it...

WILL: Stoicism...

SAMIA: Stoicism. Yes.

WILL: Well, there's obviously several different brands. Philosophy stoicism, I would say, is similar to Buddhism in the way that it's really a philosophy, a way of life, more so than a Religion. And they came about at the same time. Roughly, the early philosophy for the Greeks was, you know, 4 or 500 BC, whereas Buddhism came out around 600 BC. So they're very similar in terms of knowing there's suffering, knowing the world is going to have a lot of issues, and learning what we can control. So stoicism essentially is a philosophy that breaks things down into three things. One, knowing what is in your control, and that is morally being virtuous, and knowing you have things that are in your control and outside your control. Those are the critical pieces. The second part of that is having the wisdom, the wisdom to understand that what is outside of our control, we cannot get angry and mad at. It's like getting mad at the wind, the rain, or the snow or the oceans. It doesn't help. And then knowing that if something is in our control, there's nothing to worry about. And then lastly, the third part is Apatheia, which is critical, is not allowing external events to determine our life, that the external events are just simply external events that everyone deals with. Whether it's the loss of a family member, losing all your money, a bankruptcy, a bad business, a friend that does something wrong, a spouse or lover or whatever, people are always going to wrong us. And there's nothing new about this. And going back to the very first part, they talk about four pieces. Temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom. To be more calm. It's not going to help. If you're sailing a ship and it's the 1400's and there's storms about and you're panicking, you're going to have to learn to be a better sailor, so to speak. And that's the same as we have to be better citizens and global citizens. I say to that because we're all in this world together now. We have differences in terms of religion and culture and ethnicity, but ultimately we all really want the same things. We all want justice for everybody. We all want to love each other. We want people to be kind to each other and be virtuous. None of these things changed. And so that's essentially. It's just the human nature of us to work together because we're in this world together. And that is the critical piece. Being in this world together means understanding the importance of everyone. What's good for the bee, good for the hive. A lot of people don't realize that or forget they're. They start to become very selfish. And it doesn't mean we don't desire nice things periodically and stuff like that, but what it does mean is it means we have a duty to do what's right, not what is easy. And this type of philosophy, by practicing it, keeps us in line. Because like anything, if you walk every day, you become a good walker. Walking is how you, you know, achieve things. Just slow and steady. And that's essentially, it's practicing the mind to be cognizant of what's really important because ultimately it's, you know, it's a way of life, I guess, hopefully, if I explain that well.

SAMIA: Oh, you've done a wonderful job. I had only, you know, had some familiarity with stoicism before. And I feel like the way you just explained it has, I mean, it's really, really wonderful. Like, you know, this is... There's some especially, you know, the ethics around being aware of the fact that, you know, we are part of this greater whole that all impacting each other. You know, that analogy of what's good for the bees, good for the hive. That is such a valuable perspective to have. And I, you know, it sort of, for me, it points to the golden rule of, you know, love for others, but you love for yourself or do unto others what you would have them do unto you. And, you know, some variation of the golden rule present in pretty much every tradition. I think it sort of actually points to this reality of our interconnection and our interdependence. And so it's so important for us to keep in mind, and especially like when it comes to us dealing with our finances, dealing with our money, it is so easy for us to lose perspective on this. And it can cause a lot of the challenges that we end up facing, not just at a personal level when dealing with our money, but at the level of the systems that we have to deal with when it comes to money. And that has always been one of my concerns, honestly, and why I've hesitated for a long time to really, like my, you know, like, we did this personality profile thingy, and in that personality profile it was all related to how do you relate to money? Like, what's your relationship with money in general? And in my profile, it came out that I'm a money monk.

WILL: Huh. Money monk...

SAMIA: Yeah. So it's sort of like, you know, that mindset of the money monk is like, oh, I don't care about money. You know, and sometimes on the unhealthy side, like, you know, there's a healthy side and an unhealthy side to everything. So if you're a money monk and you have the unhealthy side of the mindset, you'll be like, oh, money is the root of all evil, and I hate money, and, you know, like those kinds of negative thoughts. And I used to have a lot of those, actually. And so for a long time, I was like, I just don't want to deal with money. I just don't want to deal with money because it's evil and causes all these issues in our lives. But it's sort of like when I had that attitude, it really caused so many limitations in my life, and especially when I wanted to start my own business, my own coaching training practice. It was like, oh, I cannot, I cannot hold on to that kind of perspective and continue to thrive in my life, and particularly in the context of being a business person.

WILL: Yes, yes. Money. And we often don't even know what capitalism is. Capitalism isn't what we see today in the United States. That's more of a blend of communism and socialism for the rich. As some of the biggest beneficiaries, like Amazon, get tax credits from the US Government. So oftentimes, Amazon, one of the biggest corporations in the world, doesn't pay any federal tax. Yet they want to use our roads to drive on, and so they're not paying for the roads that they're using. So we wind up the worker winds up who? The worker is the profit creator. Without workers, you had no profit. We wind up being the ones who put all the money out, and then they take that wealth since they're not putting in, and they wind up taking it. It's like... And people have used this many times before. It's like having 100 bananas and one person's got 90 of them and the other 30 people are splitting the rest. You know, there's no culture where that would work. Yes, you could have a couple more, but, you know, why should one person have a hundred bananas and everybody else have one? It has nothing to do with real growth or capital. And capitalism means you take money, you invest that money into things to grow it, and you hire people. But what they do is they have what's called reinvestment wealth. They're not actually taking the money and investing it for growth. They're just compounding the balance sheet. And that's why often we're meta capitalism. And that's not the issue. It's that it's not productive wealth, meaning the money's not reinvested into taxes. And then the government can spend it on things like SpaceX. SpaceX gets all their money pretty much from US Government contracts. And we paid a billion dollars for every rocket to blow up. No private business would have done that because they can't afford to lose it, but the US Government could. And you and I paid that. And they're like, well, we don't like socialism. I'm like, that's exactly what that is. What do you think that is? We're paying something for the greater good. And you're taking money out, but you're not putting anything back in through taxes. So that's why I think oftentimes we're getting an unfair sense of what real wealth is because we're hearing about these oligarchs, but we're seeing all these other people left behind. So it's leaving a taste as if this is bad. It's not bad. What's being done is bad. It's like, hey, we all like bananas, but why should one person have all the bananas? And I think we need wealth for the sense of financial independence, and it also helps grow a society, but we don't need what's currently going on. That's why there was that big win with more money. People can't afford food, they can't afford, you know, a car, they can't afford rent. That's not capitalism. That's just massive wealth inequality. That's the same thing.

SAMIA: Yeah. Yeah. So there, so there are a lot of issues, let's just use it, say, put it mildly, with the system that we are in. So tell me a little bit more about your, you know... It's, so tell me a little bit more about your approach that you talk about in your book, The Enough Equation. That's the title of your book, I believe. What are you addressing in the book?

WILL: The book starts off essentially talking about somebody who's a traitor, essentially. And her friend dies, and he decides to go to the funeral. And they don't talk about your wealth. They talk about the person, who are you? What do you stand for? Did you help anybody? Now, wealth is a vehicle to allow us to. I rescue animals. I went and rescued orangutans last year, and I went and rescued dogs. Wealth allows me to do that. That, to me, is something positive. But the book essentially is reminding you that no one's going to say on your tombstone, they died with a lot of money. And it was a common thing where Alexander the Great, when he conquered places and he died, he said, when I die, I will be buried in the same place as my mule driver. There's no value to having massive wealth per se. And this harnesses you just to remember the important things. The conversations you have with people, the daily walks you take. Now, obviously, you got to have enough money for health care and food, those types of things. I don't really address that in that sense, but I'm addressing all of these things are coming at us. And you have people who will spend all their money on sporting events and then say they have no money for health care. Spend, you know what I mean?

SAMIA: Yeah.

WILL: People prioritize the wrong things. And that was a common thing in stoicism. Seneca was walking from the Colosseum. Now, there wasn't one Colosseum. It was over 300 coliseums in Rome. And he's like, these people are worked up in a frenzy, all excited and agitated, to see a gladiator get eaten by a lion. That's no different than today. Those are distractions from what's important. No one's gonna... Now, I've enjoyed going to a game with my dad, and I'll remember certain things as long as I live.

SAMIA: Yeah.

WILL: But most of the time, they're just brainless activities that occupy our time. Like, no one says, oh, how many been on your tombstone? It's not going to say, she binged 10 consecutive seasons in a row on Netflix, or he won his fantasy football tournament. Big deal. So it's again focusing on what's really important. And there's a spot where they're in the boat. All these crazy things are going on. And it's one person's calm, the other person's not. Being uncalm isn't going to help. Panicking. And it's easier said than done. It works, practice. And in the markets, I bring this up because we often. And at the beginning of this year. Look, I don't like Trump. I don't like liars. I don't like people who do bad things. I don't like it. That is the first step in virtue. And I also understand here that in Marcus Aurelius and stoicism, we often have to forgive people, which can be hard for me and other people. So I'm getting to your answer here. We have to learn to forgive people, but we don't have to forgive the con artist. We have to forgive the con. Like the preacher who's preaching the bad stuff, he's the con artist, technically, could be hurt too, but you get my point. And, but the people there are being brainwashed, so to speak. So stoicism's always been that way. Marcus Aurelius realized that, Seneca realized that, that the crowds can be easily persuaded by seductive language. And so Cicero, which wasn't necessarily a stoic, but he was a very good orator, and he knew that people could be swayed. So in my focus, I want to get people to save their money, to do smart decisions with their money, and help guide them so that they can be financially independent. And leading back to the beginning of this, Trump has done a lot of ridiculously crazy things, and the market has fluctuated a lot, and a lot of people said, I want to get out of the market, and they've made bad decisions. Not my clients. But again, I'm focused on events, and there's always events. But the reality is Apple should be around a year from today, and Google should be around a year from today. So we can't allow all these distractions. That doesn't mean we shouldn't protest. It doesn't mean we shouldn't. But we have to not pay too much attention to the daily things because we often miss the three, the six, the nine to 12 months or three years out. We have to work for that, but at the same time, live presently, but not be overwhelmed by the present. And there's a lot of bad news. So I think there's many layers to this, and I think guide people along so we make smart decisions.

SAMIA: Yeah.

WILL: And see a clearer picture. Because I think oftentimes we need a microscope to look close, but then we also need a telescope to look far away.

SAMIA: Yes. I really appreciate that about your approach. You know, when I think about helping people learn about how to be happy at The Happiness Expert, you know, we face a similar dynamic that we need to deal with that. On the one hand, you need to pay attention to details, but on the other hand, there's also a simultaneous need to not lose your perspective on the bigger picture. And there is, I don't like to say the word, the word balance is not quite right in this context, but it's that you need both. You need to have both. In terms of being able to make good decisions, you need to both have a sense of some of the details, paying attention to the details, but then at the same time, don't lose focus on the bigger picture. And that can only happen a lot of times when we're talking about not losing focus on the bigger picture. It's these life principles, as it were, that's part of the bigger picture, you know, that we need to maintain focus on. And so that is one of the reasons why I love and appreciate that we started our conversation where we did because we're highlighting for people some of the principles and ideas that you need to keep in mind always. And make sure even when you're in the details, you still stay consistent with these values and principles.

WILL: To do that, though, requires practice and is one of the hardest things for people to do.

SAMIA: Yeah.

WILL: And I always recommend get up, walk the dogs if you have dogs, or go to the gym and walk on the treadmill, or do something where you have a set routine and that you can practice these. It's very hard to do them at night because most of us, once the night comes on, you are mentally tired, you get decision fatigue, right. I mean, as the day goes on, you know, you're not going to be as sharp if you've been awake for 12 hours as you were in the beginning. So pick an hour or two. I get up at 4 and I usually do all my stuff till 8. I run typically 7 or 8 miles every morning. I get these things out so that I have the sense of accomplishment and the meditations so that when the rest of the day happens, I'm prepared. Now, if you have kids and other things, you can't necessarily do that, but you can set aside 15 minutes to prep yourself or 30 minutes to walk or exercise or something. We all need something, and I think that is one of the principles. Because if you just get up and you turn on the TV, you turn on your phone right away, the first thing is you're right back in this mess of information. And that isn't good. It isn't healthy, it's too much noise. So that is what I preach to people, and they're like, well, how do you get your news? I said anything after 15 or 20 minutes as news, it's just talk.

SAMIA: Yes. And a lot of times, you know, when it comes to… you're so right. Like if you listen to news channels a lot, which I don't by the way, but I have people in my family, like some uncles for example, who love to just put on CNN or other news.

WILL: All day long. Yes.

SAMIA: And they just have it on all day long. I sometimes like when I'm visiting, one of my uncles right now who particularly loves CNN. I like listening, listen for a few minutes and then I'm like, wait, they're just kind of repeating themselves a lot.

WILL: Yes. All they do is just their gossip shows, and I tell people that if you have five different people, they just want to keep you there. That is the essence of stoicism. That's like listening to the crowd screaming at each other or just people arguing. There's no benefit to that. And for me, that's what I try to share with people. And I know when the markets are a little crazy, they turn on the TV, and the Dow Jones is down this or that. And so they then turn on financial news and they get agitated or concerned or off track. I often say we just, you know, it's a hurricane right now. We pulled the sales down. We're just taking our time. I know what I'm doing, and we're going to navigate through this and the hurricane will be over. And they often ask, what happens if it's the end of the world? I said, well, if it's the end of the world, it only happens once, so it won't matter.

SAMIA: Yes. You know, the fact that it's just so... The fact that the markets fluctuate as much as they do, it's because people are not willing to stay the course in terms of, okay, we have created this financial strategy for ourselves and we're going to stick with it. You know, like, particularly in the context of having like a long term financial strategy. You know, there's just so much reaction in the markets to short term news. It's like what's happening today? Why did like what's the big news of the day today? And so based on that, we're going to react and we're going to buy or we're going to sell and it's just...

WILL: Well, I do like to trade in it, and it is fun for me, but it's not fun for most people. Like, not with, it's like 90 or 92 or some crazy number of people trade every day. Lose money.

SAMIA: Yes.

WILL: And I don't. But that is not easy. And that requires extraordinarily discipline. A discipline where most people can't do that. And that's why it's just too much. You can make smart decisions, but it is very emotional too, especially. And that's why I got into behavioral psychology. When you lose money, it's such a bad taste in people's mouths. It's three times worse than winning money. And then you have two types of people, people who keep throwing more in and they become gamblers, which is very dangerous. Or you have people that never want to get in again. And that's dangerous because you need... You don't realize that you're buying companies. And if it's like, if you bought, I'm sure Chick Fil A's are popular in LA. Or maybe so if you got. If you invested in a Chick Fil A and a Hardee's and a Chipotle and, you know, a Burger King, well, maybe Chipotle and Chick Fil A did well. And then two of the other ones. That's just part of investing is not everything's going to do great either, because that's part of the diversification. But we all know there's a Chick Fil A in it everywhere. And they're always busy, I can tell you that. Have you been to Chick Fil A? Oh, they're always busy. It's crazy...

SAMIA: I have been to Chick Fil a few times.

WILL: They'll have people ramped around and great service. And so you're essentially investing in businesses and you want to invest in great businesses. And once people kind of have understanding, like, just don't look at it, Dilly. Chick Fil A is going to be here a week from today. They're going to sell sandwiches. Don't worry about it. You know, like, okay, okay, okay. I was like, you're using your iPhone to get here. You know, you're using Google Maps. Google's going to be around YouTube earlier, I'm pretty sure. And so you talk to people about that, so they get kind of an idea. And I often say the greatest opportunities happen under duress. And that's how I've achieved significantly outperformance. Not on purpose, let's say, like, I'm not chasing returns. But because when things occur, having the ability to become and make an a decision, an investment when everyone else is panicking is very lucrative because you're doing the opposite of the crowd. Yeah, psychology. You have what's called social proof. People heuristic where their friends are doing it and then they hear it on TV a lot. So you have your social proof for your stick and your availability, meaning it's all over the News to buy GameStop, if you remember that one. And so they buy it and then they don't know really what they're doing and it goes up. So they buy a little more and then it comes crashing down and they lose a lot of. And there's all kinds of feelings that can be created from this and that's why it's so important not to get caught up and either. Or whether it's booms or busts, because long term, you can make really frightening decisions under duress. And you know that that happens. Earlier this year the markets went down quite a bit and I know people were scared, but Amazon was going to keep selling products Amazon, you know, was going to keep... So it's easier said than done when I say that there's a lot of work. But I think when, if you're, you're coaching people. But I think where we really align is I call it effective forecasting. It's a talent where you give people 3, 6, 9, 12 months out ideas on what can happen and help calm their nerves and calm their emotions so that they can make better decisions. And you're effectively helping them emotionally in the future because you know certain things are going to happen. You're going to have a bad day, you're going to have someone say something that you didn't like or you're going to have a boss holler at you, or you're going to have a kid hurt themselves or someone's going to treat them like all these things are going to happen. So the better you can effectively forecast this stuff and paint that picture, the more prepared they can be mentally. And I think that's a major component. And why, why I try to use behavioral psychology and everything, because it works.

SAMIA: Yeah, that makes sense that it goes back to that idea of maintaining your perspective on the long term, even as you pay attention to the detail. And one of the other principles we talked about earlier that I would love to come back to also.

WILL: Okay.

SAMIA: In this case is, you know, just the idea of like really keeping... So like, you know, for example, when you give the example of somebody who hears in the news, oh, buy this particular stock and everyone's doing it. And so I'm going to jump in and do it. And it's sort of like. Well, but what about the principle of, of like, you know, you really want to stay consistent with your values? What are your values? You know, so it's like. First of all, the stock that people are talking about, what do you know about that company, that industry, that business, is it in alignment with your values in general? Like, you don't want to be just investing in anything and everything just because it's popular. Like, for me, it's really, really important that if I'm going to invest in a business, I want to make sure it's aligned with my values. You know. But beyond that, it's like, what do I know about that business? Because you know, it's... And this was something I learned from reading one of the books on investment where they were talking about the investing strategies used by Warren Buffett.

WILL: Yes.

SAMIA: And so he talks about that, you know, you really, really need to educate yourself about the business that. Because it's like, you know, because he advocates investing in companies for the long term. And so how do you know that a company is going to be around for the long term? You really have to do your homework and make sure that, you know, their products are solid, that they're likely to stay in demand, but also that the people who are in that company, who manage it, who make it work, you know, etc. That those are good people, solid people that can be depended on to continue to do good work and so forth. And so like, for me, that made a lot of sense because like, that is another. Rather than just going off of, oh, this is what everyone's doing. And I'm just going to follow the crowd saying, no, let's, you know, make sure we are doing things in a way that allows us to stay aligned with our values and these big principles of wise investing.

WILL: It can be hard to off find everybody. Like, if you buy something, I might have aligned with Apple. And now Tim Cook has really kind of kissed up the Trump. And so to me, a lot of those values have changed. Or an @tnt where you find out who they're donating to. I do hear you on that and that can be hard. But then you also realize, like, that person could leave and someone else could come on board as well too and change that. So I do understand because I think about that like when you have somebody who, like a Jeff Bezos running around spending all that money on a wedding and then not paying any taxes and you know, getting all these government handouts from us. I don't align with that. But at the same time I also realized that maybe will have a reversion back to the principles that I like under different administration, so that there's so many pieces to that that I agree with you on. It's also challenging too because you know, morally I don't like seeing this extraordinary wealth where people, 10 people or 6 people have more than 50% of the wealth. They're like a person hogging all the bananas and saying everybody starve. And they got rich here. Why didn't they get rich in eastern India or why didn't they get rich in Sub Saharan Africa or North South Africa or not? Why didn't they do it in North Korea is a great place, I hear because they needed us and the systems we built and the investments from the previous generations. They needed that investment, they needed that taxes for communication, exploration, education, research and medicine. And without that they wouldn't be able to do it because no one is self made. It requires everybody. And that's part of the principle. So even when I'm stuck with somebody against my principles, I teach them my principles because I want them to shift.

SAMIA: Yes. And you know, that's the thing that it's like even to recognize that nothing is perfect in this world. None of us are perfect in this world. We are all, you know... We can, flawed in some way or the other. And so to give each other some grace, some time and space. That is all really good. Like one of the principles you mentioned in Stoicism is forgiveness. And I really believe in that, you.

WILL: Know, and it's hard though.

SAMIA: Yeah. But that aside, the thing is that if at the very least we have a value for. You know, doing the best that we can.

WILL: Yes.

SAMIA: To, you know, to make decisions that are good for the whole, that we are part of, then we can move things along in the right direction. I think a lot of the problems that we are seeing in the systems that we have that you and I are agreeing well, that we don't align with a lot of those problematic aspects of our systems have come into being and are not being corrected or being changed because the overall mindset is not one that is, oh, you know, what I want to love for others, what I love for myself. It's a mindset of, oh no, I'm going to rig the game so that I can get as much as I can and I don't really care about what kind of suffering or lack that might cause for others. And so it's a very, the fact. So I hope part of what people get from hearing you, learning from you, hearing our conversation right now is, you know, the more like you also said this Will, that really the production happens because of the workers. The real...

WILL: Yes, we are the workers...

SAMIA: Exactly.

WILL: Change the adjectives and the words we use so that people understand it's not a regulation, it's a protection for people to not pour coal into the water. That's not a regulation, that is an environmental protection. Reframing it. The power of the word is so important.

SAMIA: Yes. And the thing is, that's the thing we forget that we do have the power. I think this is one of the big lessons that you know, we learned. I'm an Indian, right. And so for us, Gandhiji, you know, one of the fathers of our modern Indian nation in terms of like modern India. And you know, this was one of the core lessons that we learned because like he used nonviolence as both of. Yes, that's right. So not only was nonviolence his philosophy at a personal level, but he used it as a strategy at a political level to create change, to literally free the country and so forth. And this was like one of the big lessons that he taught the people is that. You have the power. We are brainwashed into thinking that we are the little guy, that there's nothing we can do that the people who are holding the institutional power, their institutional positions, they're the ones. Who have it, who get to decide what happens. But actually we like, but actually we are the ones who are enabling them by not realizing and recognizing and exercising the power that we have. And so it's like for example. When Walmart realized that oh, there's a demand and people. Organic eco friendly products, they got on board with the idea of carrying more organic eco-friendly products and whatever their motivations were, like they might not have been purely for the sake of promoting environmental good, but the point is that when people. Made them aware of what our values are and the direction we want to move into, I mean even these big companies and so forth will listen, you know, and, but it's so, it's like we cannot just give away like our power that you know, like we can't be like, oh, there's nothing I can do.

WILL: Yeah, yeah. There we can change, we can affect change. We need more people to gather, have conversations, spread it. And we realize that we need a certain percentage of people. One of the things I learned when I do the effective forecasting is that there's two types generically speaking. There's the structure, strict father, parent model. That means it's always God over man, man over wife, parents over children, corporations over people. Like there's that hierarchy of people here. And then I know this is us egalitarian. We're more like, hey, let's be equal and fair. We're much more diverse. Whereas the other side of people all want their information from one person. They just want to be told what, where we're looking to collaborate and improve. And I think that helps also when we're working and talking to people and trying to win them over or trying to teach, understanding how much they need dominance or how much they need from certain things is very important. So anyway, yeah, you know, Gandhi did a good job of being egalitarian and being out there and he fought the authoritarian regime, which is very similar to every regime. You eventually win, but you need to win people over. Like similar to Martin Luther. So, yeah, it is the right strategy. It's just a longer strategy, I think, but it's the right strategy. It took a long time for him to win people over.

SAMIA: Well, you know, it actually depending on the perspective that you take, like, you think about India as a country was under colonial rule for just over 200 years.

WILL: That's crazy.

SAMIA: And Gandhiji came in and when he took the lead in terms of becoming significantly involved in the movement. It took... He was involved in the movement for like what, four decades or so. And so if you think 200 years prior to about 160 or some odd years of armed struggle, people trying to use like different strategies, and then he comes in 40 years, he's able to effectively. I mean, I'm not saying, I mean, obviously you didn't start from scratch and so forth. But you know, what I'm saying is from one perspective, 40 years can seem like a long time. But from another perspective, like people who had been struggling for 160 years.

WILL: Yeah, but they were dead though. I will say that. So a lot. It really matters, I guess, who was alive. Because if it happened during your lifetime, it's great if it didn't happen, you know. But yes, I do understand your perspective.

SAMIA: The progress that was made, you know, it's not just about who was alive. Like so many of the people who participated in the non-violent resistance and change creation, they died. They literally also lost their lives. As a matter of fact, Gandhiji himself lost his life. He was shot by an extremist. That's how he died, you know. And this was after India won its independence. So it's that even the people who were fighting the fight in the context of a non-violent struggle, they lost their lives. So it wasn't that non violence mean what. Being part of non violent struggle doesn't mean you get to save your own life. It means that it's like Gandhiji said, there's many causes for which I'm willing to die, but none for which I'm willing to kill, you know.

WILL: Yeah.

SAMIA: And so it's like, for me it's like taking that kind of mindset in terms of other areas of our life. Like if you're going to build wealth to like do the best we can, again it's not going to be a perfect effort, but do the best we can to make sure that we are not killing as it were, the potential and the possibilities or even the reality of what other people have to experience for the sake of our own short term gain, you know. And so it's like, no, let's do things in a way that we're like, you know what, I'm going to do my best for me and I'm also going to do my best for the whole that I'm a part of. The what's good for the bee is good for the hive.

WILL: It is, it's true, it's true. You work together to improve everybody. It doesn't mean anyone suffers. It's just the way you, that's the right way to think and it's the right way to do things. And that's again where philosophy comes in. It reminds you that these words and the wisdom has always been there. Human nature doesn't change. Heraclitus, which was a king before, you know, I think before Socrates and so forth, he said no man steps in the same river twice because the river's changed and the man's changed. And that's true.

SAMIA: Yeah.

WILL: And you have an ability to change. And I think it's our duty to try to get people to change. And when we do that, we're also changing ourselves because, you know, we're giving a piece of ourselves to that person, and we're also learning from that person. So it's fun to see who you can become and then become it. And I think and say I can even achieve more anyway. But you know, wealth is the path to allowing you to be able to do things outside of your work and allowing you to achieve things and not be dependent on others. Which is why it's so important to save and invest and also have a philosophy that aligns with you, but also to make sure you're not overwhelmed by all the things happening that because you know, again, any year it could happen. But this year people wanted to get out of the market. They're scared. And if you were to go back now, you can see things are positive. I'm not saying things are good good in terms of how people are being treated. But market wise investing is different than personal experience in living. Living is not the same as investing. So anyway...

SAMIA: Oh gosh, Will. I could keep talking to you for ages and ages and when I look at the time like, oh, we gotta wrap up for today.

WILL: Yes, we definitely need to wrap it up. But we had a lot of positives and hopefully get some positive feedback on that. And I'll send you a copy of the book so you can read.

SAMIA: Thank you so much. I'll be sure to include the link to your book and whatever other links you will share with us to share with the audience. The audience, please make sure you check the show notes so that you can continue to learn, connect with them and get the help and support you need whenever you're ready for it. So until we connect next time, I wish you luck and lots of peace and joy... :)