Latest / Financial Survival Network / What Really Matters After Wealth? - Rick Rule #6417

Transcript

What Really Matters After Wealth? - Rick Rule #6417 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Cary Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else. To
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: thrive in today's trying times, you need the Financial Survival Network,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: now more than ever. Go to financialsurvivalnetwork.com and get your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network, now.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: More than ever.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Welcome. This is Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Cary Lutz.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Rick Rule is with us now.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: You know him well, the consummate resource investor and one
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: of the most successful at the game. But today we're
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: going to talk about something a little bit different. You know, markets,
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: precious metals, we all see what's happening. But Really, the
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: question is, more importantly than that, the fundamental question is
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: purpose of your life, what really makes you.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Happy, and how do you come about it?
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: And for Rick, for you, I think you're in an
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: excellent position to tell us your wisdom in markets, in
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: resource stocks, as I've personally profited from it, and I
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: think many of you out there have. But why are
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: we doing all this, Rick? What's the point of it?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Well, in my particular case, it's fun, Terry. If you
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: describe work as a distasteful task that you engage in
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to fund your material lifestyle, I haven't worked since I
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: was in my early 30s. I put in a lot
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: of time doing what I do for a living or
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: at least doing what I do professionally. But the truth
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: is I'm eager to get up in the morning and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: start work, and I sometimes resent having shut down. So
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the first thing I need to say is that I
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: really enjoy what I'm doing. I enjoy, too, using the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: skills and knowledge that I've gained in the course of
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: my life to benefit other people. I like the fact
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: that I've helped entrepreneurs build businesses. I've helped savers and
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: investors live a better lifestyle. The fact is that in
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: addition to the fact that my work is fulfilling for me.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Intellectually, I.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Believe that what I do is good for everyone who
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: touches me.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: And I enjoy that. I get benefit from it. I.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not very good, Kerry, at what people describe as
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the work-life balance.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Because– I didn't know there was one.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I enjoy what I do so much that
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: one of my most spectacular failures has been retirement.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I am a very unsuccessful retiree. I mean, Kerry.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Should you ever choose to retire, as an example, do
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: not start a bank. Starting a bank is not a
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: retirement activity.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: It involves an awful lot of effort.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: And for me, the effort, at least after we got
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: our charter, has all been pleasant. Yeah. So I hope
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: that rambling answer helps. I genuinely enjoy what I do.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I genuinely enjoy helping others. I genuinely enjoy getting paid
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: for helping others. We talked before we went on the air.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: about the fact that my wife and I, upon the
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: second to die, hopefully not soon, are giving basically our
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: entire estate, 99% of it to philanthropy. But I fight
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: like hell to pay less tax, not because I want
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: to eat more steak, but rather because I want to
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: decide what happens to the money. I want my priorities
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: to benefit. from the money that my wife and I
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: have made in the.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Course of our lives.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: But I also want to leave your audience with the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: sense that money that's obtained in voluntary exchanges suggests that
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the person who paid you to buy a good or
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: service from you valued that good or service more than
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: they valued your money, which suggests that if both people benefit,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: making money is prima facie evidence, uh, of a life
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: lived that benefited others. Uh, and I certainly hope my
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: contributions will be viewed that way.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: So you haven't worked since you were 30, uh, as
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: you say, work in quotes, because it doesn't feel like work.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Work does have a negative connotation of, uh, forced effort to, uh,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: to earn sustenance, to, uh, to basically, you know, survive.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: And so going back to that 30-year-old Rick Rule, if
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: you could still remember him, I mean, it's decades ago.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: I look at myself, yeah, 30, when I was 30,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: that was, that's 39 years ago. What would you tell yourself,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: that young Rick Rule who no longer had to work?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I would do a lot of things the same. My wife, Bonnie,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: gave me license, actually. I had worked myself. Going back
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: a little bit, I was extremely successful in the 70s.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: I confused a bull market with brains. When that bull
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: market busted and I ended up with a net worth
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: below zero, I found out just how smart I was,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: which is to say not very. But I learned some
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: very important lessons about the fact that markets work. And
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: as I clawed myself out from under, Certainly not being
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: broke was very important to me. I was working extremely
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: hard and not everything I was doing was particularly pleasant.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to be broke. I wanted the freedom
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that money brings. And after I got my head a
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: bit above zero, my then girlfriend, who became my wife, said,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: stop focusing on money. Start focusing on doing what you
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: want to do. in other words, focus on the task
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: as opposed to the reward, it carried within 90 days
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: of making that decision, focusing on the product, if you will,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: my intellectual capital, as opposed to focusing on getting paid.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: The impact on my income and net worth, the positive
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: impact on my income and net worth was dramatic.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: In other words, by taking.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: My eyes off the prize, But rather focusing my eyes
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: on the creation of the prize, the prize began to
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: grow exponentially. But the second thing that happened is that
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: my life improved dramatically.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: There were a.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Lot of things that I was doing that were focused
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: on the transaction as opposed to on the creation of
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: value that didn't add value, in fact, deleted value.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: And that were unpleasant.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I also learned, and I should have learned sooner, that
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: there are certain things that I enjoy and I'm good at,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and there are other things that I don't enjoy and
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not very good at. And as a younger man,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I would suggest control issues. And as soon as I
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: learned that I had to allocate my time to the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: things I enjoyed and what I was good at, and
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I had to endure the outcomes beyond my control that
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: were sometimes substandard, but by enduring substandard outcomes around administration
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: as an example, I could add more value myself. When
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I came to that realization, that was extremely important. It's
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: an issue I continue to struggle with. You know, I
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: was on the Sprott board for years after I should
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: have left when Eric Sprott, when the guy whose name
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: was on the door, left the Sprott board and The
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: idea that I stay on was pretty stupid. I thought
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: because I was a 10% shareholder that I somehow owed
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: it to myself and my clients to be on the
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Sprott board. And I remember looking in my day timer,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: seeing that board was spelled B-O-R-E-D. That's indicative of the
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: fact that there was a lot of things that were
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: happening on that board that while they were important, weren't
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: suited to my skill set. And A lesson that I
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: wish I would have learned earlier was to confine my
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: efforts to those tasks where I believed I could make
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a valuable contribution. And there's a lot of things I've
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: done in my life that I did because I sort
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: of thought I was supposed to, as opposed to because
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I was good at it or I added value. And
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I think having the self-honesty to know the difference would
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: have benefited me had I acquired it earlier.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: I think that there's a real lesson there, and that
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: is that the journey, it's about the journey. I hate
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: to get new agey with you and all that, but
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: but if you're not enjoying the journey and you're just
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: working for the outcome, oftentimes the outcome isn't what you
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: wanted or expected or really isn't that fulfilling. So how
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: do you learn to enjoy the journey? You know, just
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: like you talk about how you analyze a resource company.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: How do you analyze your human capital and your self-worth
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: in a rational kind of way?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's one of the things that money
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: does for you, actually. I enjoy helping build Battle Bank.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: The growth that we're enjoying in Battle Bank tells me
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: that we're doing a good job. As you point out...
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: The money that I make from Battle Bank will be
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: inconsequential to my material standard of living. It will swell
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the amount that I'm ultimately able to give to philanthropy.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Probably Battle Bank will contribute to making some politicians' lives
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: much more miserable.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: You can only hope. And for me, that's a real benefit.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: I'm getting much stingier with my time when Frank Trotter,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the CEO of battle bank asked me to do certain things.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I say, you know what, Frank, I am absolutely certain
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: that there are better people for that task than me. Uh,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: and even if you aren't certain, I refuse.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Uh, and I think that's, that's.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: That's very useful. It's something that's been very difficult for
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: me to wrap my head around, but I also think
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: it's very useful.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Learning to say no, right. That is like the hardest
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: thing in the world. Um, in business and in life, right?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I would say that one of the things that I've
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: been pretty good at is understanding that failure is part
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: of the price of success. As a speculator, as an example,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: most of the decisions that you make end up being wrong.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: The wonderful arithmetic of speculation, though, is that one successful
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: speculation where you make 10 or 15 to 1 amortizes
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of 25% or 35% failures. Many people
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: are so failure adverse that after two or three 25% failures,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: they quit. I remember watching the best speculator I know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Eric Sprott, in the period 2010 to 2014. His portfolio
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: melted down by at least 85%.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: At least.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And I will say he spent four or five weeks
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: sort of in fetal condition, feeling sorry for himself. But
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: then he dusted himself up, got up, said, a market
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: that you understand that's down 85% is awfully cheap. There
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: is much more statistical upside than downside. And I watched
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: him come back and make back all of the money
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: he lost, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. And the lesson there,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I think, is that if you develop expertise, you need
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: to understand that pushing the button, that accepting failure is
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: an integral part of success.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I always say that you learn way more from
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: your failures if you have any self-awareness than you'll ever
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: learn from your successes. Successes, they're just, they feel good.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: But there's a guy, Scott Adams, passed away the... cartoonist. And,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: you know, he wrote a book called Failing His Way
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: to Success. And, you know, you should embrace your failures,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: like not enjoy them, not like them or be happy
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: with them and not accept them as the status quo,
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: but rather understand that they're a stepping stone. You know,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: the old saying, it's always darkest before the light. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: You know, our whole society and especially our educational system
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: is really about avoiding failure rather than embracing it and
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: understanding it, that it gives you.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: The tools for success. Agreed completely.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: And I wish, well, the truth is I experienced a
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: massive failure early in my career, one that took me
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: from being a very wealthy young man to one where
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I had a net worth substantially below zero. Coming back
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: from that, in retrospect, was one of the best things
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: that's ever happened to me. You couldn't have convinced me
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: of that at.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: The time, by the way.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: But understanding that working one's way through failure, and as
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: you say, embracing the lessons. For me, the lesson in
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: capital-intensive cyclical businesses was that markets work. I believed in
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the decade of the 70s because resource prices just went up.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I became a believer in the Malthusian equation, which is
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to say that we were permanently short of resources and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: that these things were going to go to the moon.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't recognize that markets work, that the cure for
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: high prices was high prices and the cure for low
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: prices was low prices. Once I came to understand that,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: and unfortunately, I had to be beaten rather severely to
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: come to understand that, But once I came to understand that,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the course of my life was set. It was that
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: one realization, in my case, that if you find a
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: commodity that's priced below its production cost, where the ongoing
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: availability of that commodity is essential for the material well-being
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of humankind, that only one thing can happen, that the
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: price of the commodity has to rise to the point
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: where the industry itself earns.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Its cost of capital.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: And that one realization that in capital-intensive cyclical businesses, you
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: are either a contrarian or a victim.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Or put differently, that markets work.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: In combination with coming to understand Pareto's law, the fact
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: that some people are better at things than other people.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Those two things, I think, were instrumental in whatever material
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: success I've enjoyed.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: So- So you had effectively an opportunity mindset rather than
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: like an entitled kind of mindset where you start to
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: believe your own hype. And anytime you do that, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: pride cometh before a fall, effectively. It's happened to me
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: even recently, like silver. I did take some money out
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: of it off the table, but not enough. And, you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: and I just didn't learn that lesson. But, I mean,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I was so far ahead, it didn't matter that much.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: And at this point in life, the kids are all
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: on their own. College is behind me. It's just me. And,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: you know, but that lesson that you talk about is
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: so hard to learn. And I'm the living, breathing proof
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: of it. And how do you stop making the same mistakes?
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: That's what I like. AI can't tell me, but maybe
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Rick Rule can.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I doubt that.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: AI, by the way, in my hands.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Is artificial ignorance.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Parading is artificial intelligence.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that you have to accept the
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: fact that you're going to make mistakes, but probably you
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: need to define mistake more correctly. You talked about the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: fact that you sold some silver, but not all. Bernard
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Baruch had a wonderful quote about trading. He said, the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: only guy who ever bought at the bottom and sold
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: at the top was a liar.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: It didn't happen.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: So the fact that you got the trade mostly right
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: is something to be mostly happy about, not sad about.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I sold 80% of my silver. Why didn't I sell 100%? Well,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I was too lazy. The
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: stuff that was physical in vaults that required some effort
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: to sell, I didn't sell. And the stuff that was
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: in the Sprott Physical Silver Trust that I could sell
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: with a click of a mouse, I did sell. And
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: by the way, I sold at 75, not 115, which
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: is to say I didn't sell at the top.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Do I care? You know, I mean, I.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Bought the stuff below 20. I bought it because it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: was hated. For me, when the reason that you bought
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: something is no longer true, you've got to take a
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: real hard look at selling it.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: So true.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Bernard Baruch also said, I got rich letting the other
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: guy make the last.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: 10%, right? Yep.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And me usually more.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Than the last 10%, but that's okay.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: You don't get the top, you don't get the bottom,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: but if you cut yourself a big fat slug out
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: of the middle sometimes.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: It all works out. Yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: So undervalued assets, the biggest undervalued assets really that most
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: people possess are their own human capital, right?
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So true. So true.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I tell people, usually unsuccessfully, that they ought to focus
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: on doing something that they like so well that they
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: do it for free if it didn't pay so well.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: The problem is that a lot of people like doing
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: things that don't create value for other people. So that becomes,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: in one sense, disingenuous. you know, a disingenuous recommendation. I'm
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: very lucky in that I consider investing the same way
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: other people can, the same way that people think about
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: chess or backgammon or something like that. It's a game
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: that Fascinates me endlessly. So I'm very lucky in regards
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to that. But I do wish that people would spend
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: a little more time in self-examination and see if there's
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: some task that is of benefit to others that they
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: find pleasant. Growing up effectively on Wall Street, I was
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: competing with young people who were smarter than me and
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: worked harder than me. Well, maybe not too many that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: worked harder than me, but a lot that were smarter
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: than me. And they were focused on, as an example,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: buying a Lamborghini. I was more focused on, if I
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: was going to do anything, owning a Lamborghini dealership. And
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: what that meant was, while I was focused on getting
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: my job done, they were focused on the Lamborghini. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: it might be that the difference in attitude between them
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and me didn't matter the first year. or the second year,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: or maybe the third year. But by the seventh year
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of my focusing on the task and them focusing on
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the Lamborghini, I was so far ahead of them that
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: they couldn't catch me. The second thing that you say
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: is also true within yourself, but within yourself should extend
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: to your community and your seer of contacts. A life
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: well-lived Exposes you to friends and members of a community
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: that you create. The great science fiction writer described it
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: as a file, something that Doug Casey has used, where
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you cause to occur somehow circles of contacts around yourself
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: that you share aspirations and value with. that you benefit
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and benefit you. Our mutual friend Porter Stansbury told me
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: once when I was looking to hire somebody, he said,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: the person you want is in your file, Rick. They're
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: already subscribers of yours. You don't need to go to
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: an agency. You need to go to a group of
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: people who already are interested in what you do and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: already like you. And it's important, I think, that you
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: recognize that one of the things that really enhances your
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: sense of well-being is your community. And your community doesn't
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: need to be defined, in fact, probably isn't defined geographically.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: But I think you need to continue to work on that.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You need to continue to work to find interesting people
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and interact with them as much as you can, both
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: in terms of your material well-being But also in terms
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: of your psychological well-being, we visited a little bit before
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: taping over the fact that my wife and I are
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: changing our residence from where we are in the middle
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: of nowhere in Northwest Washington, which we love, to South Florida.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that made that easy is
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that when we began to compare notes, my wife and I,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: we found that we had almost 40 people in South
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Florida who we considered to be part of our community
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and friends, which will.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It's not going to ease our arrival into South Florida.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: It makes it something that we're looking forward to as
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: opposed to regretting. And I think there's broader lessons in
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: life there.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Well, for myself, I kind of... got onto this meaningless quest,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: but it does have meaning. But I've started a lawsuit
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: against six cities in Florida because what I came to realize,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: I discovered a systemic flaw in the parking infrastructure that
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: the federal government has set standards for parking signs. All
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: of the states, in order to get Uncle Sam's handouts,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: had to adopt those standards. And for the most part
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: on the highways, they do, except they think that the
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: standards say accept parking, except they don't. And so I
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: had retired from law 15 years ago. I'm up against
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: like 15 lawyers. I go into court. It's me sitting
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: at the table, 15 lawyers. And basically, I'm not saying
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: this to brag, I wipe the floor with them because
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: they just totally Miss underestimated me as one of our
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: former presidents would say. And now they're there. They realize
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not suing over a parking ticket. Now, I didn't
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: do this for myself. I just felt like, you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: the government passes all these laws and they expect us
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: to obey them, us, the people. And and then they
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: ignore them themselves with impunity. And I said, you know,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I'm tired of this. I've been putting up with this
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: garbage for 45 years.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: No mas.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I very well might lose. It doesn't
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: even matter if I win or lose. You know, it's
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: that somebody stepped up to the plate. And I hope
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: more people do it. I applaud you for that. There's
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: all kinds of lessons for the people listening to this tape.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: First of all, don't piss off a lawyer.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Especially a recovering attorney.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Kerry's cost of litigation is very low, ladies and gentlemen.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Especially with AI. It's not perfect, but it helps.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm part of a group in Washington contesting the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: institution of an income tax in Washington. The Washington state
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: constitution requires a vote, a 50% majority of the voters,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and the Washington voters have turned it down 10 times.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the legislature instituted an excise tax on income.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what is that?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Well, we're contesting it. My suspicion, given the political makeup
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: of the court in the state of Washington, is that
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: we'll lose, but we'll make life less pleasant for them
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: in the interim.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: They're going to have to, at some point, justify it.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: You know, like right now, My municipalities here in my
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: parking management company, they're in like it's so strange, you know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: government as compared to a private sector, private business. Like
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: if somebody came to me with this lawsuit that I
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: filed and I looked at, I'd say, you better fix this.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: You know, he's got you. He's right.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: And, you know, private sector focuses on mitigation. You find
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: a mistake, you fix it. The government, on the other hand,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: when they have $ 500 to $ 1, 000 an hour lawyers up
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: against a pro se, they look at containment. And that's
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: something like, I should have known this before I got
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: into it, but it hit me over the head like
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: a two by four. Like, these guys don't even care
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: if it's legal or not. They just want the gravy
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: train to continue. And I feel like if I can
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: make one contribution to even as minor as this, as parking,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: that they're taking all this money in illegally, then if
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: I somehow win and I go after New York City
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: after alternate side of the street parking, which is totally
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: illegal under federal guidelines, I feel my life has got
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: more meaning now than it ever had, even when I
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: was raising three kids and myself and putting them through college.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's like we've got to make a stand someplace, right?
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I agree with you. Sadly, I don't have your skills.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I can't confront them directly. I try to confront them
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: through supporting groups like Students for Liberty and the Atlas Foundation,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: but I don't have your ability to be a legal
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Mao Mao.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: I don't either, but I've found it.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: I'm a way better lawyer now that I'm retired than
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: I ever was when I was practicing.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: That's the really interesting part.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I suspect when you were practicing, partially you were
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: doing it for the money. I suspect that you were
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: doing too many things at once, which is to say
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: you were probably fighting 15 or 20 beefs simultaneously. Now,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: you benefit from the fact that you're doing it for
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: reasons beyond money. Not that money isn't important, it is,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: but you're also doing one thing at a time. So
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: these thousand dollar hour lawyers that are fighting you are, well,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: first of all, they're probably spending three hours on something
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: they're billing seven hours for.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: That's the nature.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: That's the business model inefficiency. You know, we, the whole
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: legal profession is built at least on the defense side
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: on the billable hour. You know, how much can I
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: get for this hour? And I always, I have a
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: little comedy routine. I said, you know, for 35 years,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I practiced law. I really wasn't very good at it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: You know, if guy came to me charged with a crime,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: it was time to pack his toothbrush. Who's going off
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: to jail. Guy comes to me for a divorce. The
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: wife's getting the house, the kids, the dog, everything. But
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: there was one thing I really excelled at billing. You know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: I created the 36 hour day in the 45 day month.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: And I, My favorite day of the year, every four years,
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: was leap year because I got to bill 72 hours
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: instead of 36. That's the nature of the beast. Not
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: that there's not honest lawyers out there who strictly abide,
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: but the incentives, something we didn't really talk about, but
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: incentives dictate everything. Their incentive is to be inefficient. They
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: got the deep pockets of... This town of Palm Beach,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: the city of Boca Raton, city of Delray, all of these,
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: West Palm Beach, they're all defendants.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: So, you know, I had a lawyer.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: He was a really funny guy. He kind of reminds
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: me of you in a lot of ways. He's long gone,
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: but he used to say, Kerry, don't worry about it.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I'll defend you to your last dollar.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I sort of resent the fact that I remind you
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: of somebody who's long gone. I guess it's an elliptical
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: way of saying I'm old, but I'll let it go.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Well, just your like attitude and sense of humor, because like,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: you know, we talk about the enjoying life, but laughter,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: sense of humor.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's crucial to enjoying it, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So I think that's what we're talking about is
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: a life well lived, you know, and that's what everybody
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: should be after. And I found for myself, you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: I was kind of flagging. I started podcasting from almost
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: the beginning, did like thousands and thousands of interviews, was
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: burned out. And, you know, then I found a new
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: sense of purpose. And for me, like repurposing your life,
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: if you're like, if you want to change your life,
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: just find another purpose that you love and believe in.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes me feel better about failing retirement.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I am a failed retirement agent.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I just found too many damn purposes.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: And you always will because that's just your nature. So, hey,
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: I know this is a little bit off the beaten
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: path of what people always talk to you about, but
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: it really is and isn't.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Well, if part of the point of financial survival is, listen,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: wealth is about enhancing your sense of well-being. And I
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: think that's the discussion that we've had today.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's your why. Your why do you do things.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: That's really the important thing. All right. So, hey, where
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: do we find you again? What's your website?
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: The easiest place to find me is RuralInvestmentMedia.com. When we
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: return Sunday to talk about natural resource investments, people will
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: learn I know something about that, and I share it.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: If you go to my website and being ruleinvestmentmedia.com and
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: list your natural resource stocks, I'll rank them for free,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: one to ten, one being best, ten being worst. I'll
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: comment on issues that have individual– where I think my
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: comments might have value. There's another place that you could
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: visit me at too, Battle Bank. If any of your
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: listeners are dissatisfied with their current bank, I suspect that
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: means all of your listeners.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's everyone pretty much. Check out Battle.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Bank as an example. We pay you interest on your
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: checking account. There's over $ 2 trillion in deposits in the
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: United States that don't get paid interest, which is felony stupid.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Yes. Just felony stupid.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: If you believe in gold and silver, so do we.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And we will allow you to access the capital you
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: have tied up in your stack. Most banks don't consider
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: bullion to be good collateral. I consider them to be
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: great collateral.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: So if you're.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Interested in interest, if you are interested in gold and silver,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: among other things, if you'd like to save in currencies
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: outside the U.S. dollar, we'll allow you to save and
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: invest in 20 currencies. Check out battlebank.com.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: One more question, AI, artificial ignorance. We've talked before and
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: you said you got to ask it the right question
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: to get the right answer.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: I found a little workaround there. You ask it what
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: the right question is, and it's usually going to know
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: what the right question is before you even start.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I've got to say I'm getting a little better at
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: it because I'm getting better at constraining the search ellipsoids.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you a funny antidote. You know my partner
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: in the rural classroom, Albert Liu, an engineer. I was
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: teasing Albert about six weeks ago saying, Albert, I think
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: with my rudimentary knowledge of AI that I could replace you.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: And he started laughing. He says, Rick, I know a
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: lot about AI, and I'm certain I could replace you.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Touche.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: But, you know, everything– You realize the significance of it.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Everything we know and we think we know and everything
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: in society is changing as a result of it, right?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It is humbling to watch AI accomplish in less than
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: five minutes a comparative balance sheet securities analysis that used
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: to take me six weeks.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Yes. And I was pretty good at it, by the way.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: I wrote this book. All right. I had it half
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: written for five years. All right.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: And finally, I just started talking into the AI. I
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: didn't let it write it. That's what you call AI
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: slop when you just give it a task and you don't.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Really know what you want. But I actually dictated the book.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: I was in Thailand on the street, walking down the street,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: talking into my phone, you know, Dictating it, and finally,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: in six weeks, I finished what had taken me five
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: or six years to do.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: In my voice. Yeah, and it's fantastic. And my other
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: books as well. So, hey, really.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: Appreciate you coming on, sharing your wisdom with us, which
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: you have in abundant quantities. And any questions for Rick, myself, kl.kerrylutz.com.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: The website financialsurvivalnetwork.com on Substack now. I've done away with
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: all the housekeeping chores like you talked about. There are
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: things that other people and other platforms do way better
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: than me. And Substack has made all the difference. And
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: knowing people like you and people who, you know, when
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: I first started here, you were like totally open. You
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: invested as much time as I needed. And that's a
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: generosity that a lot of people don't have out there.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I benefit, too. I enjoy these conversations.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Having you in my circle will ease my transition to
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: South Florida. I look forward to, at the very least,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: sharing a bourbon. But hopefully you'll be part of our
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: conference in 2027, which will.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Of course, return to South Florida. Thank you.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Cary Lutz's Financial Survival Network, your
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Financial Survival Network, now more than ever.