Why do you act in this world?
I act to be able to provide other people with inspiration for them to be able to follow their dreams and their passions and become what they want to fundamentally be in this life without any restraints financially.
What makes you think that you make a difference?
These are deep questions.
They are, I didn’t say it would be easy.
What makes me think that I make a difference? I think that if I can reach at least one person—if that is all, just one person—then I made a difference. Obviously I would like my story and my message to get out to as many people as possible, but frankly if I can just change one person’s life, then I’ve made a difference and I happy with that.
What would you change their lives to?
Well, because I am focused on personal finance, it is really around them getting a handle on their finances and realizing that money doesn’t buy happiness and realizing that the point of life is to have the freedom to do what you want.
What gives you hope for the future?
Well I think that I am an optimist. You know, if you look at the news… that’s one reason why I don’t look at the news very often, because it is always fear mongering, it is always negativity, and it is always about what’s wrong with the world. I am a hopeless optimist in thinking that the world really is an inspiring place, and whatever situation we as humans gets ourselves into, whether it be climate change, or national disasters, or financial crisis, we are always resilient enough to get ourselves out of those situations. So I like to just look at history and see that we have come this far; so to think that the future is going to be any different, and to think that we are not going to overcome barriers and challenges in the future is illogical. That is what gives me hope for the future.
What about the Mayans, who’s civilization suddenly collapsed, or the people of the Easter Islands, where they cut down all the trees to build giant stone statues, and died because there were no more trees? I am just trying to challenge your thinking, because I use the same argument myself.
think of those stories as anecdotes, because I think of the world as a whole. We are just a blip on the radar of the world and the universe. We are right here, right now. It is a beautiful thing that we are going to be able to be on this planet for a really long time, because we are resilient creatures and we will overcome anything that is thrown our way. We will make do with whatever situation we are in.
If you were to condense what gives you hope into three words or a very, very short sentence, what would it be?
Love… Humility… And Action.
So when you mentioned what gives you hope for the future, you didn’t mention love and humility. What role does love and humility play in terms of hope?
I think when it comes down to dealing with whatever crisis or challenges we have in this world. It is always love and humility, that gets us to take action. I think it is like second world and third world countries, where they are not in the same place that first world countries are in, but we are there—as the US, as a first world country—to help those other countries. Just as you see here at WDS all of these efforts are under way to provide clean drinking water and provide orphanages and provide schools for these other countries, that don’t have the same stability. That is really where love and humility comes in; knowing we have enough and that there are other people that don’t have what we have; people that don’t have their basic human met and we can provide that via love and humility.
When I have a sad Sunday and don’t know what to do, if you could make me do one thing on Sad Sunday, what would it be?
I think it would be to practice gratefulness; to look at your current life and write down—right then and there—during your sad Sunday, the five things you are grateful for.
Thank you!