Going Full CrossFit on Your Finances #590

are are yolked or anything like that. We're not like beast mode over here. But yes, we have been working out regularly, and we're both getting a little bit older, and with age comes maybe more of a focus on your health. It's not quite as easy as it used to be. And through the process of working and I think both of us have realized there are so many parallels between being healthy with your body, with your physical health, and being healthy when it comes to your finances with

your money. And so we felt that we would be doing a disservice to you, our listener, if we didn't share some of these really with some of these true these some of these nuggets of wisdom that we think are applicable from the physical fitness world. Yeah, and you know, a lot of people wait to get their bodies in shape, tell you know, the middle of their lives, which is true for us, but a lot of people wait that long to get their money in order to and so

getting started young. That is one of those things we're gonna talking about. But there are a lot of things just from the past few months. You and I've been really really getting this ramped up over the past few months, and we've learned some things and then we think applied to money. So we'll talk about that today. But before we get to that, Matt, I wanted to mention, I want to ask you whether or not I was frugal or cheap with a recent purchase. A recent date night

I took my wife on. You know, we did not go to McDonald's. I know that's what you're thinking. No, but we we went to see a play at the Fox Theater downtown, which was which was lovely. But I bought the seats that were quote unquote limited view seats and so they were discounted another twenty bucks from the seats on either side, and here's so, yeah, we're in front of a post behind the post. No, that's the thing.

I knew the theater well enough to know that. I don't know why they were calling them limited view seats like they there was no post. There was no We were off to the side a little bit. But interestingly enough, we were in the middle of this row and the seats to the left into the right of us, none of them were considered limited view. That's just the seats where we were. And I'm like, the deal nothing there were there were great seats. I was like, it's shocked.

So you truly didn't have a limited view, truly not a limited you know the answer that was achieved that was totally frugal. But I was, I guess you run the risk of it being potentially cheap. I was because I've seen a few shows at the Fox and I was like, there's still post down there, Like, unless I'm crazy and completely mistaken, may like change the architecture right and a post in there. But they got got rid of a post balcony. There used to be a post

there and maybe no longer. Well I remember one time going, um okay, now We got seats one time up in the balcony, and I sat behind the post in the balcony and it's it's not fun. I'm talking specifically. I call them like, uh like date night seats or whatever. But there's this there's a couple of particular rows where it's just two chairs, two seats where you're sitting by yourself and so you kind of feel like a v I P. Where you're not sitting with the throngs of folks.

But I am glad though that I worked out for You even saw Chicago, That's right. I enjoyed it. I've never never seen Chicago me neither. That was my first time and never never saw it on TV. No, I never saw the movie or anything, which those aren't really that great either. I feel like some of the ones that they make for TV end up like Cats. How terrible was that thing? I saw it? I never saw it either, But I've really gotten into the pres for it.

Are you know, like with the Taylor Swift and Judy Dench, It's like it was scary. It was like terrifying, and people are like, yeah, she was she was in the Cats, the movie, the one made for TV. Okay, No, I didn't it. Yeah, and I didn't even know what existed. I don't think. So that's how that's all. Horribly it faired. I'm trying to get more cultured, and part of that includes,

you know, more art museums, more plays. So it was it was fun to get to do it, but you know, you want to do it on the cheap, and and if it if it meant an actual limited view sitting behind a post, no it would not have been worth a discount. But I guess I looked out and it was worth the dis kind of thing. Now, you know, you can always go after those. So I think I think our tickets were forty nine each, and so I think it was sixty nine for the people on either

side of us. I didn't bring it up to them. I didn't want to rub it in. All right, let's move on it. Let's mention the beer we're having on this episode. This one is called october Fest. It's by Talisman Brewing. We had a beer by the same brewery on Monday's episode. We'll give our thoughts on this one at the end of the episode. That's right, But Matt,

let's get into this one. We're going full CrossFit on people's finances today, We're going, I don't know, maybe, and you're doing the Richard Simmons workouts, right, is that sure? Into Well, so I am doing the CrossFit workout, and I'm gonna do my best to not make this like U P s A to try to get everyone to do across because the joke is always how do you know someone's in across it? Because they'll tell you immediately,

they'll let you know. And that being said, I feel like it's uh, the fact that I haven't brought it up for the past two I've done it for like two or three months now. Yeah, even we've both been doing it for about two and a half months now. So that's why we're like, we don't want to get too far into it. We want to kind of like see the lessons as they're evolving, but we also want to be far enough into it. Were like immediately and we're both like, oh my gosh, there are some incredible

lessons to be learned from exercising, from staying healthy. Yeah, well, it makes me think that like one unit, you just never know when inspiration is going to strike, and which kind of sounds like something a creative artist would say, right, and chain smoking artist would say, but it makes me think of a scene from the classic movie Back to the Future when Doc Brown he basically explains how does that he came up with the idea for the flex capacitor,

And the reality is that no flex capacitor means no time machine. So this is like vitally important to time travel but also to the more than anything to the plot of the movie. But the way that he came about it was that he was standing on his toilet.

Doc was standing on his toilet hanging a clock or something when he slips, hitting his head on the sink, and it was at that precise moment that he came up with the idea for the flux cost and doing something completely unrelated to his scientific pursuits, and that of course would alter his life and and also Marty McFly's life as well. If you've never seen the movie, well what are you doing with your life? But will link to a clip where this where where you get to

see this in action. But it's a classic moment from a movie that embodies the idea that answers have a unique way of showing up when we least expect that, and we promised, by the way, this this podcast isn't going to start churning out fitness content. That's now we're going to do. But the correlations between fitness and finance are numerous. We felt like there are answers in this realm that apply to the realm that we typically talk about every single week. Matt and we just kind of

felt like we had to share absolutely. Yeah, And by the way, Back to the Future, the original Back to the Future one such an amazing movie. Like I don't think there's any movie out there as a kid that I watch more than particular movies except for maybe like The Goonies, Like it was a toss up between one of those two films. Um, And so you might be wondering, like, how is it that Back to the Future has anything

to do with personal finance? Well, you know, like in the same way that Genius came to to doc when het least expected it, we found that there are so many different money lessons that we both learned from working out from getting more fit. Who knew that there'd be so many of like additional benefits and externalities in the language of economists from exercising, But the fact is there

are so many different ways that we learn. Some folks out there, they're able to sit down and devour a book in a single sitting, retain every bit of information that way. But then for others it might it might take them interacting with the ideas, right like, they might

be more of the doer type. And so while we think this is going to be a valuable episode for everyone out there, it might be appreciated even more by the type of person who likes to get their sweat on, right, which it turns out, Joel, that's more of what you and I are doing these days. We're getting our sweat on, We're getting fit, trying to be that Richard Simmonds type

for sure. And by the way, is there any more Is there any more identifiable person in the world of exercise and Richard Simmons is either him or Billy Blank. It's it's one of those two, right, It's got to be one of those two. I guess the tybo I couldn't name any I know there's a lot of like exercise Instagram gurus now, but influencers, nobody's gonna have the

same reach of Richards. It's it's sort of I mean, that's the difference between media today and media back when we were kids, right, Like, you had the three four major networks, and whoever was on there, they got all the eyeballs. But that's not quite how it is today.

And so even though there are a number of folks, we're still going to remember the classics, the O G fitness guys out there right right well, And I like how you said, like I think some people that people who work out might might get more from this episode. But hopefully some of our listeners who maybe haven't really gotten into working out yet, maybe they still have an impact on their desire to actually get out there and

do some sweating themselves. And we've talked about on the show how time is even more important than money, Matt. Even though we talk about money, the most limited resources exactly cannot get any more of it, That's right, And you're realizing that and then living accordingly is crucial so that we aren't spending all of our waking hours trying to amass this one asset, right, and which is money, which is a tool that ultimately it provides diminishing returns,

especially past a certain point. And the interesting thing is that if you're you're looking to increase your allotment of available time. The only thing that you can do is to exercise and to participate less risky behaviors. Yes, skydiving, yes, don't do right, Yes, things like that that will short in your life. So being being healthier and then he's not doing crazy stuff is certainly gonna help you live longer.

But friend of the show, Nick ma Julie, who came on you know, I don't know a few months back,

he wrote the book just Keep Buying Well. He wrote about this recently in his his blog, and he wrote back about the fact that health experts have shown that folks with proper cardiovascular fitness can add something like three to five years onto their lives, and not just that, but six to eight years of health span, which is basically the healthy life where you're physically capable of doing the things that you'd like to do, or you know,

if you live quality years. Yeah, an unhealthy life you're going to you you might live on us is long, but you're gonna have more years where your body isn't able to line up with your mental capacity and you're not able to do things you actually like. And the best line from his piece, Matt was he he wrote, assuming you spent four hours a week exercising fifty weeks a year for fifty years, that would be ten thousand hours of lifetime exercise. That's barely over one year of time.

But for that one year, you would likely get six to eight additional years of disability free health. And I think that's just an important thing to realize, Like what you're putting in to exercise, you're getting a whole lot

more out on the back end. Well, and that's assuming that you're discounting the time that you're spending exercising as like you're basically just completely throwing it away, right, And I would argue that even even that time spent running or working out or rowing like you gotta you gotta rowing machine, Like that's time. Ay, well, that's time that you can spend like listening to an audiobook or podcast

something like that. But if you, let's just say you're gonna go out for a run, you've got to be time that you're just completely unplugged right where where you're kind of reaping the mental health been of fits of just clearing your mind, the ability to process some thoughts. But for me, going into a gym it's been nice as well because there's there's community there, right, and so there's some friendships and contributing to a local business, like

these are all things that also have intrinsic value. And so it's not like it's just you throwing away a full year, a full year of your life, do you guys like do chest bumplows? I don't know. Yeah, No, it's and we should mention by surprisingly like not Broie at all, which is like one of the great things

about it. Well, you you're doing cross fit. I'm working at a home on mostly like a rowing machine and some free weights and then and then doing some additional biking, so like you can do it a lot of ways. My method is a little bit less expensive, but yours has a lot of other perks as well. So that's another thing. It's like different we can get into this lighter, but different strokes are different folks. It doesn't always have

to look the same. Yeah. Well, and you kind of hinted at this at the beginning too, But the reality is like we haven't avoided exercise completely up until this point, right, Like we just haven't been super intentional about it. Like I would sign up for races occasionally, and that would spur me on to specifically run more often. But aside from that, there wasn't a whole lot that I was doing myself. And dude, you know, I don't think we're alone in the fact that we've waited this long to

get started and to start thinking about our health. I think a lot of folks don't really get started thinking about this until they're, you know, as they're entering middle age. Perhaps we're in our like thirties and now you're gonna live forever and exactly, and you start to see some deterioration and you're like, wait a second, I actually need to be proactive exactly. Yeah, And it's you know, it's not that you can't make signific significant progress at this

point in your life. It's just that I think it's more ideal to be doing at least something during those early years, whether you're talking about fitness or money, but they both have this in common. It's not ideal to wait until you're older, but it's still better late than never. I think what's really interesting about it as well is I almost feel like that money and like physical fitness,

they are in an inverse relationship with each other. Because like you said, when you're younger, you don't really think about being fit. You're just fit typically like automatically, right, Like if you're just an average person, like think about kids nothing or maybe you're not like fit, but you're at least like if you're not not fit, you're you're

fairly healthy exactly. And so I think when you're younger, you're thinking a little bit less about your fitness, maybe more about your money, because you typically don't have as much of your money. But then as you get older, assuming just maybe the average person, you tend to make more money, and because of that, you're able to invest that money. Uh, and that money is then able to

work more for you on your behalf. And to a certain extent, I think it it does get a little bit easier with your personal finances as you get older. But again you see the inverse, and I think you you start to see your health decline a little bit. You can't move in the same way, you can't run as fast, you can't lift as much as you could when you're younger, And so I think that's just a it depends on what phase of life you're in, because

I think these are all natural sort of outcomes. But regardless, what we're saying is that it is important to do something when you're younger, because it is important to basically like set forth some of these healthy habits that we think are going to pay dividends and both arenas of life. Yeah, so, whether you're talking about fitness or you're talking about money, getting started early is a really important thing. But it's also important to note that neither of these things is

rocket science. And I think the more you try to overthink and create the perfect workout routine, let's say, Matt, the more likely you are to not do it at all, You're likely to just not follow through. Studies actually show that the time of day that you exercise can have an impact on fat burning and strength building. And apparently I read this, you're reading this in Men's Health. Now, this is actually an article from the Washington Post. But but building, right, that's where I spend most of my

time now. But morning workouts achieve better results for women, and then evening workouts achieve more results for men. And I saw that, but I was like, I don't really care, And why don't I really care? Because I'm not trying to optimize to that extent. The better goal for me is just to work out consistently, to do something whenever

I can make it happen. And so if I'm gonna get like one percent better results in the evening, am I going to try to like revolve my whole life around evening workouts even though it's inconvenient to the rest of my lifestyle and my family. No way, It's it's it's possible to optimize things too much. And we would say the same thing is true with your money. It's possible to do that with with your workout regiment. It's

also possible to do that with your finances. You might be overthinking things and you're allowing perfect to be the enemy of good when instead you simply need to spend less than you make and invest the difference. Like it's it's not rocket science to get more fit. It's not

rocket science to get better with your money. Yes, right, And that being said, I think it is okay if you have an interest in all the details and and all the technical specs, and if you start if you're diving into like macros and like when it comes to diet, like there's all these different elements. I think that is okay, as long as you are not keeping those additional complexities

from keeping you from taking any action at all. Right, And that's just in particular true true for folks who are just getting started, because if you're just getting started with your money, or you're just getting started with a fitness regiment, the more you overcomplicated, the less likely you are to continue on, right, And so the easier we can make that transition, I think, the more likely we are to kind of at a routine going. And that's

exactly yeah. Well that being said, another lesson I think that we can glean from physical fitness is accountability. That it can go a long way. Obviously, the purest form of accountability is the one that you have with yourself, you know, like it's a personal commitment that you refuse

to violate. But it is also going to be powerful to say our goals out loud, right, maybe to tell your closest friends in your family about your goals, because that can help you to commit or even like like posting publicly on social media, like that can be a type of commitment device, because nobody likes to fail in front of hundreds of their closest friends. Yeah, like you don't necessarily need a workout partner, for instance, although that

can provide real help as well. Uh. And so like I say this because like, yes, self discipline is great, but if you're like me, maybe you have a little less self discipline than you'd like. And in that case, accountability it can be a massively helpful substitute for willpower

at times when you feel yours failing. Back in the spring, we had Erica hung on Taylor made budgets, and one of the biggest takeaways I had from that conversation with her like she like she's a money coach basically, And one of the questions we had for her was like, Okay, so, Joel, you and I were best friends. We to a certain extent,

we hold each other accountable. So if you have somebody in your life who can be that accountability partner, well, what's the difference between that and and actually having like a money coach. And what she said was that, like, at the end of the day, she's not there to be their friend, She's there too for them to see results. And so this is an instance where we made the crossover from personal finances to physical fitness, and so for me it helped me to realize that for years I

had been wanting to work out more. I wanted, I was wanting to get a little more healthy, but I had never done it. Uh. And so I realized it was going to take a device, specifically, it was gonna take me paying to go to a gym where in particular, where they had programming that was going to cause me to actually follow through on the actions that I said I wanted to take. The fact is I hadn't done it myself. And sometimes that skin in the game can be the perfect accountability paying to go to a jam.

Although the that can be true, right, people can pay uh, and then they might sign a contract even to go to a gym, and and then they don't actually follow

through and it's just wasted money. But if you're really cheap like me, you better believe that I am there every single day that I wanted, like that I'm planning to be there, like I have not missed a freaking day, because I'm gonna get my money's worth and be It's just I don't know, it's like this mental thing that's it's just clicked in my mind and I can't not

do it. But when it comes to your money. I do think like you don't necessarily have to go straight to a money coach and pay somebody to do it. I think it can, although they can often be better than some sort of financial advisor. Absolutely absolutely like somebody who is more paying attention to you from like a psychological and behavioral standpoint as opposed to giving you technical

investing advice something like that. But that being said, even having a friend who has some similar shared life goals or investing goals as you, I think can be a massive boom when it comes to your money, and you're

probably thinking, well, how do I do that? Well, it starts by just talking about money more right, like like it's been a while since we've about this, but making the topic of personal finances of money less taboo within your your friends circle, like, start the conversation, and pretty soon, like your entire group can all be kicking butt together, making more money, spending less money, investing in a way that's gonna propel you, you know, into your future years

with nothing to worry about doing it alongside other people. Having that accountability can help you make progress more quickly, both in your exercise endeavors and in your your personal finance schools, and we've got a lot more lessons actually that you and I that we have learned from working out consistently over these past few months. Really it's it's still we're still in the newbie phase. But we'll we'll give kind of our thoughts on what we've learned about

exercise how that applies to personal finance. Well, we'll get to that right after this. Alright, we're back from the break, and we'll talk about how Joel taking shirtless picks, how that has helped him to to stick with his workout because my wife wants them. Okay, but well we'll get to that in a little bit. But first, let's talk about your feelings, because if you listen to your emotions,

you're not gonna get anywhere obviously. Like emotions, they are a glorious part of being a human being, right, Like being overcome with joy when you see your your little baby take his or her first step like that is amazing. Emotions, I mean that they just play such a meaningful role in how we experience the world. But the anger I feel towards you right now, that, however, if we let those emotions take over the driver's seat, like we are going to be bound to make some bad choices that

aren't in our best interest. Um. Like my my feelings that they're often pushing me towards the easier choices that might be the most satisfactory sure in the short term, but that are not going to be in my long term best interests. Eating the extra additional doughnut is short term best interest happy, Joel, but it's not long term best interest happy exactly. And when when it comes to my money, the easiest choice it's often gonna be just

to give in to a knee jerk purchase. Right Like that ad pops up in Instagram and I'm like, oh, that looks awesome. I want that. I do want the new pair of shorts in the mail two days from now, exactly.

We're regularly tempted to spend more money than we should, um, but we need to stick with the plan that's going to provide us with long term financial security, and that means saving and investing when you just don't feel like it, like it is still important at that point in time, Like there there are many mornings when my alarm goes off at five and I think, you know what, I really just want to lie here in bed instead, I do not want to get up, especially as it gets colder,

and because my bike in and so lately it hasn't been too bad. It's been it's been pretty chilly. But yeah, I mean in the dead o Winner, it's gonna be a bit more. It's gonna take a little more discipline, and I'm gonna have to remember that that I'm sticking

to the plan. And I that being said, it's like, I don't want to completely discount emotions because I think emotions can be really valuable when it comes to basically like getting fed up with whatever it is that you're fed up with, right, and so in this case, like use your emotions to fuel you on to make the positive changes in your life. But then when the going gets tough, when the going gets rough or whatever, like, don't fall back on your emotions and think, oh what

is me? Like, that's the point in which you need to stick to the plan. Yeah, well, sometimes I actually use those emotions to fuel me when I'm in the middle of a workout, Like I'll use like David Goggin's esque sort of language where I'm kind of like cursing myself and call myself bad names just to kind of keep me pushing on because I know, I know I can do more. Verbally abuse yourself. I do occasionally I do.

I'm just gonna it's true. It's true. And something else, Matt, that that we've at least I've learned from working out is that a multifaceted approach is best. And that's something across It does really well. They're kind of about making sure that your whole body is in shape, right, They're not just focusing on on one area. Yeah, we're not isolating our biceps and doing doing curls. It's like, all right, pick up this giant bag of or not bags, but yeah,

you're you're doing full body movements for sure. Exactly. And imagine if you made running you're only exercise or maybe you're like, I'm only gonna do hundred fifty push ups every single day. If you opted to go either one of those routes, it's not going to typically produce the best results. And with the first one, your cardio is gonna be legit. And if you opt for the second choice,

you're gonna have strong chest and arms. But that combo of strengthen cardio, alternating between different types of workouts is a better idea for you when it comes to getting more fit overall. And on top of that, even if you start working out for forty five minutes five days a week, which is a lot, but if you still eat like crap, you're not gonna be able to get the results that you you might be dreaming of, that you might be hoping for. And the same is true

with your money. Right. That's why we talk about earning, saving, investing, and spending. We want to talk about all the different facets of personal finances because if you focus too hard on just one of these elements, you might be able to make some progress, but doing them in tandem is where you're gonna see the most results happen. That's right, man, And okay, so our next lesson is to not follow the fact ads. You know, back in the pandemic, a

lot of folks were buying Peloton bikes. Guess what, You don't need a Peloton bike to get fit to get healthy, but it's so nice and fancy the screen. You don't need the new Peloton rower rowing machine, which I'm sure you saw and rolled your eyes at that. And then on top of it, you're gonna pay something like forty dollars a month for the stupid subscription my water rower. It's just like me and that thing is I got it for four or fifty bucks on Craigslist and we're

having a good time. Yeah, Like and so I mean I mentioned that because there's all sorts of things that pop up that are going to entice us to either join this little fat or to spend some money in an effort to get fit, Like, like, you don't need the newest diet you know that folks are talking about on social media to lose weight undering the carnivore and uh steaks only. Similarly, you don't need to invest in

like crypto to grow your wealth. You don't need to get in on the ground floor of like the most hyped I p o. You don't need to invest in and fancy things like like art, whiskey, wine, like like

precious metals, all these different things that they're ads. Basically, they're gonna come and they're gonna go, and so avoiding them in the world of personal finance is going to help you to stay focused and it's gonna help you to avoid some of the traps that that others are gonna fall into as opposed to focusing on the things

that are going to actually propel them forward. Yeah, trying to find the nicest equipment or something like that, when really what you need it's like that's almost like a replacement for your own self discipline and for your own ability to show up every day, and but that's not actually what's going to move the needle in helping your body get fit. And it's also important to mention that

progress isn't always smooth, Like it's not linear. Sometimes you might get injured in the in the course of workout mat you've already had what you you're always every day you're wrapping around like cold packs around your elbows because you have what was it called golfer's elbow? Is that what you got? Tennis elbow? Tennis elbow? Okay, they're they're different but similar. But yeah, those are the kind of things like they're gonna at times they've set you back.

You've had to miss a workout day here or there, or a kid gets sick, or you get sick, and the reality is that your perfect workout routine, you're probably not gonna hit it every single day for a whole year. Like there are going to be things that happen. Life is going to happen, and you're not going to progress like clockwork, and you've got to be able to adapt, not letting those inevitable bumps in the road derail your progress altogether. And it's the same is true with your money. Ryan.

Keep in mind that your budget is not always going to be this thing of perfection where you hit every category perfectly every single month. You're gonna spend too much in a given category because life happens. You ended up going up to eat having drinks with a friend after after work, and that wasn't in your budget, so you gotta cut back somewhere else in order to kind of

maintain balance. That's okay. This is also why we stress up the importance of building up an emergency fund, which allows you to financial flexibility to not derail your progress when unforeseen expenses pop up in your life. Making progress with your personal finances in building well, that takes self discipline, it takes staying after it. But that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be bulips along the way kind of inhibiting your progress even on that perpetual march upwards. Yeah.

Well so I mean you mentioned kind of getting in jured. I think another sort of mini lesson would be to to not push yourself too hard, because that's how I got injured basically. You know, like I go into the gym, I think I'm fairly I'm a fairly fit dude, try to impress everybody still think I'm twenty five years old basically, and I completely overload myself. Uh, not to mention, I've got terrible technique because I'm doing these like Olympic movements

that I've never done before. Like literally my entire life, I've never done a movement like this, and all of a sudden, I think I can show up and do what everybody else is doing. Well, guess what I can't. Uh, And that is how I got tendonitis in my elbow.

And so I think the financial lesson here is to realize that, like you've got to be patient, you can't push yourself too hard, because if you're going after certain financial goals too hard, like if you're like paying off debt, or if you're going after financial independence with too much fervor, like you've got a chance in setting yourself back right, like not only will you not achieve be able to achieve it sooner, it might even take you longer. If

that's where I am now, I'm in my elbows. I'm having to take it easy, make sure I've got my technique right. Like I'm having a watching upid videos to be like, Okay, that's how you do it. Okay, you could lift smarter, not harder kind of thing. Uh. And so when it comes to your finances, though, it's important

to keep that in mind. They're going to be periods where you see some growth when it comes to your debt payoff or the you know, your net worth, but they're also going to be periods of time when things slow down a little bit, or even times when it feels like you're making backwards progress a little bit, where you're you're falling behind a little bit because you have pushed yourself too hard, and you want to also make

sure you avoid that burnout. Yeah, Manton, And I think partly what you're saying here is that results take time, and you gotta be patient. Yeah. The more quickly you try to accelerate things, sometimes it has the opposite impact. Or sometimes we we just get overwhelmed because we can't keep up that pace. And most of us are going to achieve our fitness goals overnight. I know I'm not

gonna achieve mind overnight. It's gonna take me quite a while, and I'll probably always be kind of refining that goal of where I want to be. And let's say you are the kind of person who is able to achieve their fitness goals in no time flat, you might need to aim a little hire, right, You might need to set your goals a little bit further on down the road. If it took you three weeks to get there, well, you know what, maybe you should be setting a more

ambitious goal. Yeah, and it's probably okay to have like different three week goals. That's probably a good way to do it, to take it up into small chunks. But if like you're like done, achieved now, I'm gonna get back on the couch, like that's that's probably not great.

But the studies show that it takes something like twelve training sessions to see any physical progress, and you're actually unlikely to see much of any real muscle building and close until closer to something like eight teen training sessions. That's like at least a month if you're taking days off and stuff like that. The realities. You might start feeling better before them, but your body is not gonna look much different after a couple of weeks of working out.

It's likely going to take something like three months before you start seeing a real impact on your physique. And so we would say be patient, be prepared to work

without seeing progress for a meaningful period of time. And that can be disheartening, mat because I'm the kind of guy who, like, I want to I want to get that exercise done, and I want to go look at myself in the mirror see if there's been any change, and well, there is a change, at least mentally, right, because you're all you're all like you got the pump, yeah, yeah, the blood flow, and so for a second, but then I go back in there and like you go into

the c Emily, she's like making coffee and you're like, hey, check me out. She's like, you look fine, but not much to write home about. But yeah, if you've been listening to our show for any length of time, you've heard us talk about the magic of compounding returns, and over time, the money you've invested has a snowball like effect growing on itself. But the thing is neither of these things, like your physical progress nor your wealth building

progress becomes really noticeable until further down the road. It takes time. Yeah, you just have to be content knowing that you're doing the right things without seeing major progress, without seeing that progress in the mirror, without seeing that progress in your inside of your investment account for retirement, like where you know you're doing the right thing, but

the results are going to show up further into the future. Yeah. Well, you know, I think one of the ways that you can allow yourself, like, one way that you can keep yourself from being too impatient is by documenting your progress. I think that can help a lot. This is where those shirts yeah exactly. Uh, and so tracking and celebrating your achievements, I think that actually it begets more progress.

You know, Like like a lot of folks out there, like they'll take those pictures of their their flabby body before the first workout, and then they take a picture like every month or so. It's kind of like taking pictures before you renovate a house. It's gonna help you to appreciate the finished product so much more. For a lot of folks, that's just them hopping on the scale. They've got like a certain goal weight that they're trying

to achieve. And so when it comes to your money, this means tracking the progress that you're making towards your financial goals. So how much have you saved in uh, in those savings buckets, or you're sinking funds for your beach vacation next summer. Maybe maybe it means keeping track of your net worth as well, because I think over time that can be just a really encouraging data point to help you to see that, you know, what, I

am making progress. But especially in a year like this one, you might you know, you might see it slump for a little bit, but on average, that number it should be going up into the right over time. Uh. And so we want you to document that progress because it can be a motivating tool that's going to push you towards continued progress. Whether that's using software like personal Capital to track your net worth or even uh yeah, like

Mints that allows you to automatically track your expenses. Whatever tool it is that's going to work for you, that's

what we want you to use. Yeah, And Mint's got a helpful network tracker as well, So either one that you use like find something or if you're just keeping it manually, that's fine, but or whatever it's going to take to help you kind of keep track of that number, because the reality is, Matt, let's say you didn't see my three year old for five years, and so right now you know him as a little three year old

dude running around playing with trucks. But by the time he turns eight, he's gonna be a completely different, different kid. He's going to be grown up, he's going to be into completely different things. It's just amazing how when we're seeing somebody every day, we we forget where they started, right, And so the more you document that progress, you remember where you were five years ago, as opposed to just like, yeah, I feel like i've made some progress, but I'm not

sure how much you context. He gives you the context by keeping track of the progress you've made, and it's really important, I think, to your motivation and helping you get a visceral understanding of just how much progress you've actually been able to make instead of just knowing that you've made some progress, you're like, no, no, here's how much progress I made and here's how I'm doing it.

Because it can if you're not tracking well enough, and you're not thinking through the progress you've made, you can get discouraged. You're like, am I really how am I really doing? Okay, Like I feel like I'm making changes, but I'm not sure if they're having the impact that

I desire. But the more you can document when it comes to exercise, whether it's the like you said, the number on the scale or the shirtless pick in my case, either way or in the same in same By tracking your net worth and tracking your progress on goals that you're saving for, it can help you realize just how much progress you actually are making, and it makes you more in tune really with the progress that you're making. It makes you more thankful for what you've been able

to achieve. Sure, And I mean the other thing too, is it doesn't take some fancy software like like I mentioned a few different options out there, because there's some of the more popular ones, but it could be as simple as you drawing up a bar graph on a sheet of notebook paper. Right. And if it's if you've got like a debt payoff goal, well, every time you pay off a thousand bucks, maybe that's you just coloring

it in up to the next line. Right, and so it doesn't have to be the super sophisticated, fancy fancy app or something like that where it's all integrated. It can literally just be you sitting down and coloring it in with a crayon. But we actually have several other lessons that we want to share with you that we've learned from going full cross it on our money, including at my gym, what a seven year old lady has in common with like a twenty five year old marine.

Will get to that, plus several other lessons right after this. All right, Matt, we are back. We're still talking about exercise. The lessons that we have learned from just I don't know, like two and a half to three months of exercising regularly, and neither of us, like you can tell a little bit I think in our physical physiques. But no one's going to be like overwhelmed by the muscle masks we put on or anything like that. Definitely is like, oh yeah,

she likes it. I'm not gonna get into that. I feel like folks are gonna want pictures of us now I'm not gonna happen. I'm not gonna happen. It's gonna take some Russian hacker breaking into my Google. My wife's she literally took pics of me last night. She's like, come on, line up, Like, okay, all right, I'll do it. But it's good. I want to document the progress. I want to be able to look back and be like, look at what a whip I was, just like a

weakling I was. It's going to be encouraging after several more months. I mean, honestly, even now, I'm sure you've been able to see a result between where you started. Have the beginning of trap zoid muscles, Like, that's amazing. I've never had those before. Is that a trap as well? We don't. I knew they existed in like fiction, but I didn't realize that I could actually have something. Well.

But so we have learned lessons already, but we didn't want to like wait five years down the road because like we're actually kind of learning these lessons. We're in the middle of figuring some of this stuff out. So we thought it was a good idea to share those things with you now in the moment. Yeah, And one of the things I think we've learned is that it's important, at least that I've learned is to make it fun.

Because when you can, when you can turn your workouts into a sort of game, we'd say you've unlocked kind of a cheat code that will keep you at it over the long haul. Makes me think of Matt like I have never been into running, Like running through a neighborhood sounds like the most boring thing possible to me. I know you like to do that sometimes, but for me,

I think it's the worst. And but if but if I'm trail running, and if I'm on one of our our local National park trails in our backyard, then I have a completely different experience. I'm out in nature. I don't mind running for a couple of miles if if that's the case, or bike riding for instance, right like I think if it is a way to get around town, like I don't even always have to think about it as some sort of workout device, but I don't mind

kind of going hard on the bike. But again, like running through the neighborhood just bores the mess out of me. And so for you, yeah, find something that you find enjoyable. And if you can find like joy in the doing of the working out, I think it can make a big difference. In your ability to sustain it. Well. Again, not to sound like someone who's chilling for cross fit for your local CrossFit gym, but that's one of the things I love so much about doing CrossFit is the programming.

Like you go in there and I mean I go three times a week now and not once have I done the exact same workout ever. I mean there you're always like you're doing the same movements, but it's just different combinations of movements. They're doing them in different orders, different reps, different like max amounts. I'm still learning the terminology. But because that it is, it's novel. Every time you

come in, they're they're able to keep it fresh. It truly it makes it fun and it keeps me interested, it keeps me engaged, and I literally want to continue to be there. I'm never bombed that I'm there, Like when I show up, I'm really unexcited to be there and to get my fitness on. But again, let's like translate this, what does this mean for your money? Well, like, this is why we did an episode about the gamification of money. This is uh a while ago actually back

at it was EPISODEE. But creating smaller and and more achievable, bite sized goals that can help you to make progress more quickly. It can from a mental standpoint, I think it can allow you to feel like that you're making

some of that forward progress. Uh. And so maybe that means instituting a no spend month, Like that's another way to gamify your ability to make progress, because by on line, if you're taking your personal finances too seriously, you know, like if you are up to your your eyeballs and spreadsheets and that's not something you like. I mean, that's something that I like, but for a lot of people that's what they think of as like the drudgery when it comes to, you know, being smarter with their money.

If you're doing that and you find that you don't like it, will find ways to make handling your finances just more fun, uh and for it to feel like less of a burden to you. Yeah, I mean makes me think even to the beginning of the year, Matt,

when we instituted to Sell Your Stuff Challenge. We challenge our listeners to download this PDF that we created and we said, can you sell fifty two things one thing a week for the entire year, and how much money can you make at the end of the day, can you declutter your house and also find more money that you didn't have? And I'm really curious to see there was also the end of the year, how many of our listeners followed through how much money they were able

to make. But the truth is when you gamify it, when you turn it into some sort of challenge, you're more likely to rise up to that challenge as opposed to be like, I don't know, maybe I'll sell some stuff or have a yard sale or something like that. But if it's a challenge, it takes on like a new significance. And so I do think that's a really important way. It's a really it's a really great tool to help you make progress more quickly. I think it's important to note that you can do more than you

think as well. I think, um the realities that are our minds often fail before our bodies do. When we're working out, it's it's not that our muscles can't handle going a little bit longer, going a little bit further, or lifting a little bit more. It's just that we impose artificial limitations on ourselves, which inhibits our ability to

make progress. And I mentioned David Goggins earlier, who's just like really fascinating guy who was basically he was obese and he became a marine and now he's just a complete beast. He can do like four thousand push ups or something in today, which is insane, but he's just a true monster. And he would say that increasing your mental strength is key to being able to tap into those deeper reservoirs of physical strength that you have. And the same is true when it comes to our money.

Because we are far less limited than we think we are. There are of course mental hurdles that we have to overcome in order to be able to make more progress. So whether it's income limitations why you think you can't surpass because of your level of education or where you live or something like that, or it might be thinking that you can't save and invest more because you just don't have enough money coming in. There are always ways to boost your income, there are always ways to cut expenses.

It takes creativity and the realization that you have more of an ability to control your personal outcomes than you actually think. Nice. Yeah, okay, So another benefit of getting physically fit is that the confidence that you're going to gain and that area of life, and that one domain

is going to extend to others as well. The longer that you've been regularly exercising, it's like it's going to build your confidence, and not just because your body is in better shape and you feel better, but because you've seen that you can stick to something difficult, right, Like you've got this greater level of self knowledge because of the hardship that you have imposed on yourself on purpose, and so that extends to other areas of life, giving you,

i think, more confidence, like say at work or in your relationships. And so it started off as a just as simply as a desire maybe to get more physically fit, you'll find has just radiated outward and it's gonna have a positive impact. It's gonna improve some of these other areas of your life as well. And in this way, I feel that personal finances and physical fitness like they're

very complementary, right, Like one basically begets the other. And we're not here to tell you that you should be getting physically fit, but based on what we've seen, we think that it can have a literal impact on your ability to not only make more money because you're rising to the occasion, you're taking on more responsibilities, you're working

and thinking more creatively. But it can also give you the self discipline needed in order to tell yourself, no, I don't need those whatever you said shorts earlier, whatever, gadget that uh that flashes across your Instagram strength app as you're using it um And so this quite literally could be a way that you actually do see more money in your account because you happen to be more

physically fit. And when that confidence is contagious, the confidence knowing that like, oh man, I can do this, I can I can hit some of these goals that I have, and I can change the look and feel of my body. And the same thing is true with your money, right Like, not only are the financial rewards real as you gain added levels of financial security and freedom, but other important aspects of your life are going to be possibly impacted to that confidence is going to build and it is

going to radiate outwards too. So in both of those things that you kind of start to get your act together as you make progress, it's like you're gonna feel it in all aspects of your life, I think. And another important thing to note matter is that is that individual goals are entirely different, right, So somebody's fitness goal might be I want to like the rock, and that honestly sounds like a physically impossible goal for almost every

single person. But other folks might say, Hey, I'm just training four a five K that I want to run on Thanksgiving morning, which could be a great personal goal and a great first step. Whatever your goal is, though, it's a personal thing, and comparing our progress or our bodies to other people is just the opposite of helpful. We should be playing the comparison game with ourselves alone, and so are we making the progress we want to make based on the goals that we have set for ourselves.

That is the question we should be asking, not is my body starting to look more like in certain name here? And so comparison, we would say, is the thief of joy, and we're liable to find ourselves chasing the wrong things if we're too focused on what everyone around us is up to. We really want to be playing that game where we're only comparing, paring against ourselves and our recent past. Like, am I better than I was yesterday? That's a much better question to ask than am I starting to look

like the person that I see in the magazine. That's right. Yeah, And so this is gonna be the last CrossFit soft sell that I've got for you. But this is again one of the reasons I love it is because folks show up like literally, so this is what I what I teased to earlier. But like there there's like this twenty five year old Air Force guy or marine guy and he's I mean, he's a beast. Uh. And then literally you've got like a seventy year old university professor

and they're working out together. And guess what, they don't have the same goals, but they are participating in the same movements. They're they're they're quite literally doing the exact same workout. Granted, the weights different, but that's one of the great things about a cross fit is like you can scale it and so like basically it's the same workout, but it's a different level of intensity. But those folks are working alongside each other and again they're they're doing

the same movements. And the same thing is true when it comes to our money, Like we are all earning money, we are all trying to spend our money in ways that brings us value. We're all trying to invest it in a way that's going to provide us the least amount of risk for the most amount of reward with the lowest feest possible. A lot of the methodology is

exactly the same, but we all have different goals. And the truth is, by the way, with money, money is so much more hidden than even physical physique, and so oftentimes we associate spending or somebody's outward displays of opulent with how much money they have, when the reality is the opposite. Is true that the more the more public displays of wealth that someone pertakes in it might mean the less and typically it means the less money they actually have in the bank account, right or or maybe

the more debt they're going into. So that's an important thing to realize, is that the more you compare yourselves to other people in the fitness realm, the more you're gonna be disappointed. But it's even more true, I would say, in the personal finance realm, if you're comparing yourself to someone else how they handle money and what they're doing with it, well, a lot of the best money moves

are actually more hidden. You don't really see how much is in someone's investment account, how much is in someone's retirement account. What you see are how big of a house they have or how nice of a car they drive, and so those those are things that we're comparing ourselves to. To that we're comparing ourselves to the wrong things, and

we're setting ourselves up for failure. Yeah, don't let your your money goals be determined by like how it is that others are living, because all those trappings of success are they're just distractions from your goals and whatever it is that you've identified as important. Uh, And if you haven't determined what your ultimate goals are, like, we would recommend that you you spend some time with a worksheet

that we created. It's the Money Mission Statement, and we'll make sure to link to that in our show notes. But that can help identify you and basically kind of point you to your true north. Vijil. Another sort of lesson that we've learned from physical fitness and sort of how it crosses over to personal finances is that you've never quote unquote arrived right, and so like just because maybe you've had a good run of working out, you know, for let's say like four or five days a week,

for the for even for a couple of years. Maybe your looking you're feeling good. That doesn't mean that you can then just rest on your laurels and backslide into not doing anything. Because if you start eating like crap and you just completely discontinue your workout regimen, you're gonna lose muscle, You're gonna lose your cardio, your endurance. Those results, they can be wiped away if you take a foot

off the pedal, off of the gas. Uh And so Similarly, just because you've made significant progress with your money goals, that doesn't mean that you can just ignore your finances completely. You know, your skill in your bank account, they can atrophy if you stop paying attention to them. Uh. Like, just because your income grows, that doesn't mean that the

fundamentals of money management don't apply to you anymore. I feel like that can maybe be one of the biggest self owes as you really like seeing that your income, like your your salary has gone up significantly, and so you get sloppy in some of the other areas of life. Uh And when you do that, you're you can very easily see that maybe that increase of ten or twenty

thousand dollars to your salary. You can see that amount evaporate because guess what, you've gotten so much less discipline when it comes to your spending, and it turns out, oh man, I thought I was gonna be investing way more because I got a twenty dollar boost to my to my income and I only invested one thousand dollars more than I did last year. That's sad, yeah, for sure.

And I think it's we see more and more new stories about higher percentages of people making six figures who are living paycheck to paycheck, And the truth is that you should be able to make even more progress with your money the more come it's coming in. But a lot of people allow that to be the license for them to spend more because hey, now i've got more padding, I've got more more money coming in, so I don't have to be as dedicated to the fundamentals. But that's

just not true. Like you've never arrived, You've got to can consistently being be paying attention to them. And it doesn't mean, like you mentioned earlier, Matt, being up to your eyeballs and Excel spreadsheets, but it does mean getting those fundamentals right making sure you are saving and investing a decent chunk of your income, having a solid margin no matter what your income is. And and the truth is everything compounds, right, your physical fitness does, and so

do your dollars. As humans, we can learn lessons from all sorts of different places, and we think that if if how the money listeners that Matt and I, it's our goal to take a cross disciplinary approach, applying lessons that we've learned from one field of study to other

areas that we're looking to succeed. And if we do that, if we're able to take lessons from different fields and different individuals in those fields, we think that it can have positive radomifications on our ability to grow and progress holistically as human beings and also specifically in the field

of personal finance. And so that's kind of been our goal with this episode, is like, let's take some of the things we're learning as Matt and I are trying to trying to get stronger, trying to get more fit, dedicating more of our time and our resources to that endeavor. Well, we found a lot of parallels and and hopefully you

found those parallels helpful. Yeah. So, yeah, so I'm hoping that this can be the uh, this can be the your back to the future moment, right like this can be the you hit in your head on the sink in the bathroom moment. Yeah, where hopefully it's this. This is like you realizing that, oh man, like you said, Joel,

that we are capable of so much more. But sort of like we said earlier in the episode two, that personal finances and physical fitness there are a lot more complimentary than maybe you realize it in the past, and so maybe this means you kind of stepping it up in both of those areas, but both of those arenas in life, because I think one will fuel the other and you might see a lot more progress in both. But let's get back to the beer you and Agel

we enjoyed uh an october Fest Lagger by Talisman Brewing Company. Andy, thank you so much for donating this beer to the show. Joe, what were your thoughts on this one? Man, this was a malt bomb. It was. It was in that almost like a light brown nail. Basically in my estimation, we again we're almost officially out of the logger boring into the category. It was. It definitely kind of had a little bit more going on in that vein. Well, I

I like it. This a second October fus we've had in November, which is just an awkward thing to do, but we're doing in anyway. We don't care. Throw across in the wind, it doesn't matter. Yeah, but no, I thought I can drink an october Fest whenever you want. I thought it was good. I thought it was fun. It was a little less nuanced than the last October Fest we had and a little darker, but still still

a good one. You're talking about the one with like all the spices and no, that was the Witch's Brewed Loud on Monday, but I'm talking about it wasn't technically an October Now. We had an October Fest, though, I think I think a week ago so and and that one was. I would say this one was way more, way more like dark bready, like like if if most of them are kind of malti and bready, this one it's the heel. It's you know, it's like all crust on one side, which honestly, I am a huge Do

you eat the cross? Yeah, that's the best part, my kids, do you really? Oh? Yeah, Okay, I I've always loved the crust, especially when when my wife is making fresh made bread. I like cutting off that end piece, put a little butter on it. But even just like the regular interior slices, like I would always peel the uh I don't know. As a kid, I called it the scab, which is a less appetizing way. But you know that

the dark part on top. I used to always love that, which obviously meant that I always love the end piece, or some folks call at the heel, but this beard very much reminded me of the heel, the end pieces of a loaf of bread where it was extra toast. He had some of that additional multiness going on, but definitely enjoyed it. And glad you and I got to enjoy one of these today. But for sure, all right, Matt,

that's gonna do it for this episode. Where can listeners go to find your Instagram influencer CrossFit page you're gonna talk about. Yeah, I don't have some secret personal fitness account or anything like that, although maybe I'll post them maybe one of these days on there. Occasionally, uh, look like CrossFit Inaction picks up there. Please do head over to a web site though, go to how do Money

dot Com. There you'll find our show notes, and don't forget to check out our credit cards tool, how do Money dot Com Forward slash credit Cards, and that's where we've got those easy to use sliders that allow you to filter the different credit cards that are out there based on the different benefits that you're looking for. It's super easy to use. We highly recommend it for sure. All Right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. Until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,