Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt and today we're talking the Stoic Path to Wealth with Darius Feroux.
Yeah.
So you might be tempted to think that an alternative name for this episode could just simply be Emotionless Investing, but there's a lot more to Stoicism and finances, specifically investing than just that. And we're excited to be joined by Darius Feroux. He is a prolific author and entrepreneur and productivity expert known for his work on personal development.
Much of his writing can be found over at his site by the same name dariusferux dot com, where he focuses on wealth building, productivity, and finding meaning and work. And these are all topics that we're hoping to cover today. And Darius has written several books, including the newly published literally was just published yesterday, The Stoic Path to Wealth, which blends ancient Stoic philosophy with modern financial wisdom. And
that's what we're mainly talking about today. It turns out Marcus Aurelius, he's got something to say about your four win k. But Darius, thank you so much for speaking with us on how to money today.
Yeah, thank you for having me really appreciate.
It of course. Yes, interesting subject and you're the expert on it. So looking forward to this combo, Darius. The first question that we ask anybody who comes on the show, though, is what do you like to splurge on? Because Matt and I we like to spurgeon craft beer, and we figured that's a good release anybody, even if they're doing the stoic the whys the smart thing saving investing for their future, they got to have something to spend on in here now too. What's that for you?
Yeah? So the thing that I splurge on is Apple products, something that I struggled with for a long time because I always try to talk myself out of it, saying, oh, yeah, do I really need to have a new iPhone And the answer is no because the previous one works perfectly, But deep inside I just love to play with those gadgets and my house looks like an Apple store. So that's something that I splurge on and fortunately doesn't happen that often, but still I really enjoy using the products. Nice.
Okay, So were you happy or disappointed with the new headset that came out last year?
Well, that's the only product probably that I don't have, okay, because that was just a little bit too much for me. But yeah, I honestly I have of course the phone, the iPad, the MacBook, the iMac. I even got a MacBook Pro. I have two laptops. Who needs two laptops?
Well, the only the biggest problem I think with anything Apple or just the biggest electronic gadget that people replace more frequently than they want to now the earbuds, like I figure with Apple calls them, but I have the cheap kind myself. But think about those, there's like one hundred and twenty bucks or something like that, maybe even more, and they lose, they fall out of your ear like it's those to me here. I don't know the biggest problem right now with electronic waste.
Yeah, I had some issues with the first one, but now since I have the Pro or not the big one, I don't have those either, the Max but the in air earbuds. Fortunately I bought them once and they still work, so nice. I've been lucky with those, very nice.
Darius is an Apple fanboy. We want to hear a little bit about your background, Darius. Though your family it sounds like they basically mean y'all started from nothing. So can you just kind of share with us the impact of leaving like a war torn country basically, and then the impact that it had on you and your family.
Yeah, definitely. So I was born in nineteen eighty seven and Tehran, and at the time there was a war between Iran and Iraq, and my parents fled the country to the Netherlands in eighty eight when I was one,
and they basically had to start from zero. We almost had no family, and my father had to go to school and get educated and have a start a career, and he always worked blue collar jobs, and my mother stayed at home to raise me and my brother, and we always lived paycheck to paycheck, and my parents always did their best to make sure that we didn't know the height of the financial struggles in the house, but it was always present, you know, we could just feel
the energy even as kids. So that was something that really created a sense of urgency in me, because as a child, I knew that I had to become wealthy because I just didn't want to go through life worrying about money. So that was really something that really my outlook on money.
Yeah, you said that your parents tried to kind of guard you. They try to protect you from knowing kind of what they're going through. And I think most parents, the best parents, try to do that, but even still it's insufficient. Like kids are perceptive and they're going to pick up on the things that are going on behind the scenes, even with parents trying to do their best to make sure their kids aren't impacted by it. Yeah, and I'm curious you mentioned how that kind of sets
you up for desiring financial security in your own life. Yeah, how did kind of what was going on with your family's finances impact your career path, your view on money, and then this kind of belief that you needed financial security for yourself.
So when I was like twelve or thirteen, my friends started to have jobs, and I went to my parents and I said, look, everybody has a paper route or works in a supermarket. I need to have a job
because I want to start making money. And they said, no, you should focus on getting your degrees, focus on school because if you get distracted, you might risk doing what we did, which was to not educate it because in my direct family, no one ever went to college, and that's what my parents wanted for me, so I struggled with it because I always saw my friends not only it wasn't really about having a little bit of income for them, but it was more that they had this responsibility,
and I felt like I was kind of missing out on something. But looking back, I'm really glad that my parents always encouraged me and my brother to focus on school, because when I finished high school, they said, okay, fine, just go and work during the summer, and that's what I did. So I got a job at a call center and I worked almost every day for the entire summer,
and I basically saved everything that I made. So looking back, I think that was a good experience for me to wait for so long until I could have my first job, and then they really saved that money because at that time, I was still thinking that you need to just hold on to everything that you earned because that's how you get wealthy. And of course I had no clue about investing. And I did watch the movie Wall Street in my teens, so that's one type of education exactly, so I did.
So I already knew at that stage, Okay, I need to somehow become like Gordon Gecko I just don't want to end up in jail. But I need to become a stock trader or investor because that's where all the money is. But yeah, it took me a long time before I really figured out how to get into that.
Darius learned the exact obbsos lesson of what they're trying to portray, which is like, look at this terrible, wretched human being. Yeah, Garius is like, I want to be that exactly my hair in that same beautiful way. So how do you bridge the gap then? From being frugal, like, hey, I see my parents struggles. They stress the importance of education that way I can make a solid income.
But then I need to be an investor. I need me building wealth and the Gordon Gecko thing that seems like it's like the seed of something. But then how did you become an educated investor? And what was that process? Like?
Yeah, so I have my first taste of investing in two thousand and seven. So at the time, I was in college, and this is before the financial crisis. So I was twenty years old and you could have a side job at a bank, and I started in the personal banking division, just handing out credit cards and processing
applications for credit, et cetera. And there was a position to become a mutual fund advisor and all you had to do was get a four week training and then you could just call clients of the bank and offer them the latest mutual funds. So my Gordon get go censor goes off and I'm like, yeah, this is what I need to do, and almost instantly I think I'm
this genius. So I also start to invest with my own money, and I bought stocks of the bank that I worked at ing and within a year, of course, the financial crisis happens and I'm down like sixty percent.
Tough time to get invested in the market for the first time, Yeah, exactly. It.
I honestly bought at the height of the market. Yeah. So that experience taught me a very important lesson that money and investing is very emotional because it felt like a gut punch. And I didn't sell at the bottom because at that time I was still learning and I
knew that you shouldn't sell during these moments. However, I didn't know what else to do because I was picking stocks, which in hindsight wasn't a smart thing to start with but I stayed in the market for a few years, and then I just couldn't handle it anymore because every time I looked at my account it was just down and I wanted to stop the pain. So I sold and I said, look, I need to figure this thing out, and when I figured it out, I'll come back to investing.
And I just started on this educational spree. I went to business school and specialized in finance and started reading all of these investment books and yeah, still nothing really happened.
To be honest, I'm sure that was a period of time where you wish you would have had a degree of stoicism in your life that you would have been able to abide by. But I guess on that note, I feel like, generally speaking, it feels like stoicism. It's a little bit more in Vogue's days. I'm sure Ryan Holliday probably has a lot to do with that's the resurgence of the stoics. But why have you found that that approach to life resonates with you so much?
Yeah, so fast forward to twenty fourteen fifteen. At that stage, I was still trying to figure things out of my career. I had started a business after I finished grad school with my dad, and it was in the industrial laundry equipment. I wasn't really passionate about that industry. And then I started a corporate career in London. I worked at Gardner, this IT research firm. I realized this is also not for me. I want to start a business for myself,
but I didn't know what. So I moved back to the Netherlands and I thought to myself, I need to figure it out. I need to get started with something because I have no clue what I'm doing. And at that stage I discovered stoicism. Because every time I feel like I'm overwhelmed or confused, I always turned to books and I remember reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris and he had this small chapter or section on stoicism, and I found that really helpful. So I started reading
all of the original works. And what I love about the philosophy is that you can just explain it in one sentence, which is focus on what you control and ignore everything else. And it gave me a lot of clarity because I honestly had no clue what I wanted to do with my career, and I thought to myself, well, now that I have a little bit more clarity and I can stop worrying so much about my future, let me start writing a book. And that's when I wrote
my first book. And around that same time, I also thought to myself, well, I'm reading these works from these philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and these folks wrote about all of these ideas for better living twenty three hundred years ago. But all that I'm thinking is how can I use this knowledge to become a better investor. So I was lucky that my book and the first few articles that I wrote resonated with readers, and I started to see a path to earning a
living with writing books. And that gave me this opportunity to really study the stoics more and see how I could finally figure out how I could apply it to manage my emotions better, not only in my personal life, but also with investing. And then slowly the seeds started to grow for what I call stoic investing.
Because I feel like in the personal finance space, I've seen a pivot in the opposite direction, which is to talk about a lot of things that we can't control, and the problem is that's a really deep thing, like there are a lot of things we can't control, and it's really we could spend hours and hours and hours talking about a laundry list of those subjects and the ways in which we're impacted by things that we can't really have any sort of impact on the outcome of. So, yeah,
talk to me. Stoicism the way you're describing it, and kind of the historical approach is it's a holistic life, the way of approaching life. You talk about it specifically about the intersection of stoicism and money. What does stoicism have to do with wealth building in particular?
Yeah, So stoicism is a philosophy that really promotes indifference to everything that you don't control. And when it comes to investing and personal finance, you don't control. Like you said, like ninety nine percent of what people talk about. We don't control the economy, we don't control inflation and so forth. That list is obvious. So basically everything that they talk about on CNBC. But when you look at our actual investments that we make, we also don't control the outcomes.
We all know that the S and P. Five hundred has annualized returns of around ten percent over the past fifty years. Everyone who's into personal finance knows this, But the thing is that it's not within our control. Maybe it's eight percent moving forward, but it shouldn't matter to you as a stoic investor or as a person. I feel like because the stoic's really promoted indifference towards outcomes.
So when you really applies stoicism to your personal finance and investing strategy, you'll learn to create some distance between yourself and your money. And I feel like that's the best thing that you can do for your mental health, but also for your career, because when you have some indifference when it comes to your money, you can just relax and focus on your career and your family and your job and everything else that is important while you
are still doing your best. Because epictetis one of the most stringent philosophers, said that you should demand the best of yourself every single day, and to me, that means that every single day I just need to perform my duties as a human being and not complain and try to become better not only in my career but as a human being. So if I'm so obsessed with money,
I can't do those things. And that's something that I personally experienced because I would say my entire life up until around twenty seventeen when I finally started to apply all of these lessons, because I discovered it like twenty fourteen fifteen, but it took me a few years to really apply it in my own life. But when I started to apply it, I realized that I was too obsessed with money and that caused a lot of friction
and anxiety and mental blocks. And when I resolved those things, I could really focus on the act of investing, which is actually just nothing more than a habit. Just like we work out and eat healthy, et cetera, investing is also a habit. So when you remove all of the friction, you can just do it. You can invest without wasting your time and energy and just focus on living a good life.
Yeah, you're talking about cultivating the sense of indifference, and I like what you said about creating some distance between you and your money, but like, how do you practically go about that. I feel like we're kind of getting into more of the meat of the intersection of stoicism and investing or your wealth. But like you said, CNBC, that's all they talk about.
All they're talking.
About is the noise. It's the things that you can't really control. So is it as simple as creating like an information diet right where you're limiting the inputs that are having an impact on your life.
I'm not a fan of information diets, and I'm also not a fan of the common investment advice of become a passive investor and never look at your portfolio. I love John Bogel, and John Bogel, the founder of Vanguard, of course, basically made this whole ETF investing possible. And one of the things that he said was, yeah, just invest your entire career and just never open your brokerage account. But I feel like you should be able to open your account without getting swayed. You should be able to
look at CNBC. You should be able to read the Wall Street Journal without thinking to yourself, oh, okay, what should I do? Maybe should I I should sell or
maybe I should buy n Video stock or whatever? Right, And I think that's the ultimate goal as a stoic investor, that you become indifferent to all of the noise and you can just handle everything that people throw at you and the media throws at you, because you have the sense of calm and you know what you are doing, and you've eliminated like ninety nine point nine percent of the investment strategies, and you know what you're doing, and
you're fine with everything that basically is happening because you don't have to react.
Something you're getting to here, I think is being able to trust yourself. And like one of the things is, yeah, maybe you don't like zone out and watch CNBC for like six hours, Like you're probably setting yourself up for failure. I'm assuming that a good stoic investor probably isn't doing that. But you're also not saying I can't watch at all, or I can't even open, you know, the homepage of the Wall Street Journal and read a few things without
without feeling swayed. So how do you You mentioned too, that you found stoicism in twenty fourteen but found yourself practicing not until like twenty seventeen. What was the gap there and what does it look like then to incorporate more of that those stoic approaches into your life.
Yeah, So one of the pieces of advice from the stoics is to start small where you want to start practicing stolicism. So I think also Epicthetis says something like, start with a cup. Let's say your favorite gup falls and bread. You should just say to yourself, oh, okay, this is just a cup, and then you can slowly build it up. So for example, I remember getting in a fender bender around that time, and I was really
worked up. While it wasn't that big of a deal, but I was just like the emotions and the anger within me was like starting to get a little bit out of control. And later on I realized what am I doing? Like I have insurance or it's not even my fault. Why am I getting worked up about this? And I feel like emotions are normal. I still get angry,
for example, when I injure my back or something. You know, that's something that I'm kind of prone to because I used to play basketball in college and I have this lower back issue since then, and every few months or sometimes a few years can go by without having issue, but then it pops up, and then every time it happens, I get frustrated at first. And the key to stoicism is that in the beginning, you might be stuck in
that emotion for a few days. But the more you practice and the more you build it up from a cup to a fender bender, to an injury to maybe at some point losing your job or losing some money in the stock market, when you start to build it up that way and practice shrugging it off, which is also a classic technique of the Stoics. They literally said, and this is something Marcus Aurelia said, when bad things happen, shrug it off. Simply just the act of doing that
will put you more at ease. And after a while I noticed that I was able to snap out of my negative mindset or anxious mindset quicker. So now my rule is that I can be stuck in negative emotions or being frustrated for a few hours, or I can give you an example. I actually injured my back last week.
This is why this one is fresh in mind, because you're feeling it right now.
Yeah, I'm feeling it. And it happened on a Tuesday, And it was like at three after three pm. I ordered some some some dumbbells for my home gym, and I picked them up from the box and I felt it in my lower back and I started cursing, and I was angry, and you know, talked to my partner and she was like, yeah, don't be so worked up. And I stayed that emotion for a few hours, and then by the evening I finally was able to snap
back by just remembering the stoics. And a misconception about stoicism is that you shouldn't have emotions or it should be numb. That's not true at all. The thing is that you should be able to detect what you are feeling and react accordingly. So translating that to investing, it means that let's say a crash happens, you can look at it. You don't have to run away from it.
You can maybe even explain it and understand it if you have some historical context, which I always think helps, because let's say you're a writer or a dentist, you don't really have to have historical background into your profession, but as an investor, it really helps. Knowing a little bit of history of the stock market and you know
how crashes happen and corrections, et cetera. But let's say you can look at all of that, and your goal as an investor is to respond accordingly, and for a long term investor, the response is nothing, just stick to
your strategy. So that was really what I was going through in that timeframe, to really internalize the philosophy, see how I could apply it in all areas of my life, and then actually do it, you know, because I love to write about the things that I've successfully accomplished myself, and to be honest, I did write about personal finance, etc. But it wasn't until after the COVID crash that I felt comfortable to come out and talk about stoicism and
investing because even though I was applying this stuff since twenty twenty seventeen, I felt like I needed a stress test, and that happened in twenty twenty and then, of course the market is down by thirty percent or something and what felt like a matter of days, but I was finally calm. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't think to myself, oh, yeah, this is a good buying opportunity. I have to be honest.
Of course, in hindsight it was. But my biggest win came because I just stayed the course right, and that was my biggest, biggest win. When I looked at my personal life, because my first try didn't work out because I sold in twenty ten, and then we all know what happened from twenty eleven, you know, went on a crazy bull run.
So yeah, the market blew up. Yeah, there's a big difference between having that head knowledge and then actually implementing that into your life and controlling your behavior. And I like what you're saying here about how does it we should be experiencing our emotions, but to not be distracted by those emotions. And I'm looking forward to talking about some of the different ways, some of the additional ways that were able to implement some of the principles of
stoicism within our financial lives. We'll get to all of that and more right after this.
Our way back from the break, still talking with Darius Faru talking about stoicism, how it impacts your ability to build wealth, your finances, and it will have a direct impact has even just Darius example, selling in twenty ten, not selling during the COVID crash, big difference than in
your net worth at the end of the day. And Darius, I think it feels like basically what you're saying, if I'm boiling it down correctly, is that that emotions or your ability to at least respond appropriately to your emotions. It supersedes knowledge. So tell me if I'm wrong here, and then how much in depth investing information do we need to consume to then be stoic investors? Is it more about our behavior or is it more about the things that we need to learn in order to be great investors?
Yeah, I feel like it's a little bit of both, and more focused on the emotional plot because knowledge is important, but it's not the most important thing. Because if that was the case, as Warren Buffett said, historians or librarians would all be rich. The key is really to know what you're doing and have enough confidence in that knowledge that you were able to stay the course. And one of the most practical ways that you can do that is by investing with money that you really won't miss.
Because there was another big mistake that I made, you know, seven, was that I basically poured all of my savings at the time into the market in the hopes of becoming wealthy. And I think so many young investors or new investors start out with investing a big chunk or maybe even all of their savings, and then they start looking at that portfolio with laser eyes and they just can't look away.
It sounds like an early story for Met's life. Honestly, Actually, when you opened up the roth Ira Matt for real and ye.
Yeah, I certainly neglected my savings and I was left in an unfortunate position of needing to tap those savings and I didn't because I didn't have that liquidity on hand. I drew down on losses and ended up with less money.
But Darius earlier, actually, I want to kind of circle back around here because you talked about forming the habit of investing right, and I've heard you talk about how it can be helpful to eliminate goals from your life, so to you know, essentially think less about becoming a millionaire as opposed to being like identifying that you are an investor. This is something I'm going to do. I
do day and day out, say the course. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that because I know for a lot of people, having a big goal can be incredibly helpful.
Right.
It's something that they're looking ahead to oft in the future. It's this thing that they're like, Okay, this is why I'm sacrificing. Now, this is why I'm spending less, is because I want to be able to achieve some sense of financial independence. Talk about that sort of balance it might take to be able to do both.
Well, yeah, that's really a good point, because if you think about it, we all invest to have a better future. But if I really take the ideas of the Stoics and apply it to investing, which, by the way, the Stoics were not against money, they were also indifferent to it, but they said, if you can make money by remaining honest by all means, do it. I love that because it really doesn't judge money, and it's okay to have
goals to become wealthy, become rich. Now, there's another way to look at this, which is by looking at the present moment. So we all get the math. Okay, invest five hundred bucks or invest a thousand bucks, and then in thirty or twenty years you'll become a millionaire. But we really don't think that far head. I think the biggest benefit of investing and living a frugal life is that you just become a more complete human being today.
To me, that's why I actually invest and why I've always lived below my means and why I've actually haven't upgraded my lifestyle in like six years or so, still live in the same apartment.
I think it's a really good point, Darius. Like I think lots of times people see it as a means to an end. It's like, oh, I can't wait until I'm able to like drive a BMW and live in the fancy house. But then ultimately they get to that point and they realize that's not very fulfilling either, and that maybe they were.
I don't know.
We all look back on fondness some of those like poor college or post college days, or that first high school job where we were making six bucks an hour, and we're like, but like the freedom that came with just having some money in our pockets. So yeah, I don't know, Talk to me. Then, what's the point of building wealth if you're not planning on upgrading your lifestyle?
Yea, The point is really freedom, right, because having all of that wealth just gives you more freedom. And the funny thing is that you don't really have to have that wealth to already feel free. I feel like I already felt emotionally free in twenty nineteen, when I was still on the path, and I wasn't technically financially free.
And when I achieved a seven figure net worth a year and a half or two years ago, I could say, Okay, you know, if I quit working now, I can live off my wealth and that's fine, right, so technically I don't have to work. But the thing is that even if you're on the path, you're saving, you're living below your means, you have good financial habits, you enjoy your life, you enjoy the simple things, and you are content. I think you can already count yourself mentally free because it's
just a matter of time. And if you live a life like that, nothing can break you. What's you know, what are the threads that you're going to buy a Mercedes S Class because you're driving E Class or something. You know, Like it's like that that those are the common pitfalls of people who constantly upgrade because there's there's no end in sight. It's not like they're ever going to say, Okay, you know, like I live in this four bedroom house, maybe let's buy a two bedroom condo.
Right, it never goes in reverse?
Yeah exactly. Yeah. So, like the best way to have a happy and content life is just to not get on that treadmill. And if you are on a treadmill, it's always possible to get off it. The thing is just that you can't get on it anymore if you want to just be in control of your life. Because one I think one of the most important things that I learned in my career was that, sure, I can earn a good living even with writing and doing courses, et cetera. I can earn one hundred or two hundred
or maybe even three hundred K a year. Can I earn a million bucks a year? Is unlikely because there are not a lot of folks who do that. And the beauty is you don't even have to do that. You can have a good income with a job that you love. Combine that with healthy habits, financial habits, and a solid investment strategy. You know what else do you need?
You're still going to win financially just by implementing those proper habits. And like what I hear you saying is and what you're recommending is for folks to find like a level a sense of contentment. And you kind of alluded to this before as well, but it sounds like you've just been able to put money in its proper place. And I think a large part of that is finding in discovering your true desires, and that's something that you that you talk about or that you've written about as well.
But how would you recommend because essentially it's difficult to remove money, I think, from your mind unless you are sort of like doing the Indiana Jones golden statue swap. At the same time, you know, like at the very moment you have because if you take it off, like there's a vacuum, there, there's a void, but some you know, you have to replace it with something. And you talk about the true desires, how would you recommend for folks to discover what those are in their life.
Yeah, that's a really good question because Stolicism is also not about living a very stringent life. I still want to buy a new iPhone every two years, you know, but the thing is that I'm not going to eat out every week, and I you know, I live a simple life and go on vacation once a year, and you know, save on other things. So I feel like if you have a balance, while there are certain things that cost money but give you a lot of satisfaction, and at the same time, also is something that really
enriches your life without going broke. I feel like that's a great way to keep things fun, because, as you said, we all need money and we have to be honest and practical about it, and that's one of the reasons that we work and earn and save and all of these things. But I really believe there is a middle path. And when I started to research Stoicism, I discovered that Stoicism was actually the philosophy of the middle path or the golden mean. Because at the time in ancient Greece
and Rome, there were two primary schools of thought. There were the cynics cynicism, and there were the Epicureanists. And the cynics said life is hard and you need to endure it and that's it. No pleasure, no fun, no nothing. And the epicurean said life is hard and the only way to forget it is to seek pleasure. So both of them said that life is hard, but their mechanism
of dealing or coping was different. Now, the Stoics came and said, well, life is hard, we need to deal with it, we need to be tougher, but at the same time, we don't need to punish ourselves. So that's why I think the philosophy has remained popular all these years in centuries, because I feel like it's the most practical philosophy and something that, as you can see, can apply to every area. Like I took the philosophy and apply it to investing, I guess because my subconscious mind
was always focused on investing in the stock market. So as soon as I picked up the Stoics, I started to think about how I could apply it to investing, and other people who wanted to use stoicism to improve their personal lives and mindset or relationships use it that way. And I think that's really the beauty of this philosophy.
Yeah, I love that you've kind of taken it at those time tested truths. You've adapted it kind of for the way you live the things you're interested in, And it's really cool to see how malleable that philosophy is and how it can serve people thousands of years later. We've got a few more questions we're going to get to with you, Darius, including I'm talking about self development and stoicism when we're talking about our career path. We'll get to a few questions on that. Right after this.
We are back for the break, we're talking with Darius Faru about stoicism, and Darius, in your book, you've got a chapter about how valuable skills. Essentially they're they're better than money. And I'm sure there's a lot of folks out there who are thinking, Okay, I'd much rather have a whole lot of money, you may.
Five million skills.
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, oh, this is easy for you to say. It even makes me think back to as you're like some of the examples you're you're giving, I forget which philosopher, but like, start with a cup, allow the cup to break, and then shrug it off and realize over time you can kind of build up your resilience to losses. But like, I feel like an argument to be made against that is like, well, sure, that's an easy argument to make if you've got a
lot of cups. Well that's an easy argument to make if you've got a lot of money that like, oh no, what you really need instead are skills, not money. But make an argument for that, for the ability for us to better ourselves as individuals.
Yeah, Well, what you said about preferring money is something that Seneca also said. He said, if someone told me, would you rather be rich or poor? I would of course I I'd rather be rich. But if I would be poor, that's also okay. And that's the key to stoicism. I think they look at all situations as fine. If this is my life and this is my situation that's been given to me, that's okay. Here's how I'm going
to deal with it. And the reason that I started this book with a chapter on skills is that that's where I started. This is where I feel everyone who starts from zero, or who's not born into wealth should start, because you can make money with nothing else than your skills. And if you are starting this journey towards wealth and to financial freedom, it can be very overwhelming. And that was also the case for me. When I started, I thought to myself, Wow, you know, I need to make
a few hundred thousand dollars a year. How can I do that? I don't know if I can ever do that, you know, Like, especially when I started writing and my first book just sold maybe like two hundred copies in the first year or the first six months when it came out, I thought to myself, Yeah, there's no way
I can do this full time. But over the years, the numbers, of course kept growing, and if I look back, the reason or one of the things that really inspired me the most was this idea to work with your natural abilities, or to focus on your strengths, simply put, and to build your career on top of your strength and to get world class at the things that you are already good at, because if you try to become good at the things that you're not good at, you
might become average. And that's great. But if you want to earn more than average, you need to be great. And that's the thing that sounds very obvious, and it's very obvious, but I feel like not enough folks are really living. And that was true for me. It was really true for me until I discovered stoicism, where I finally realized, you know, like I just need to forget about everything else. You know. Having this family business is great. I love it, but it's not really aligned with my
strengths because I don't love this industry. Climbing the corporate ladder is great, but I'm an introvert. I don't like strangers, I don't like people. I just like to be alone. So being a writer is perfect for me because.
We get it, Darius. We'll let you go in just a second.
Okay, that was my message, and I'm just kidding this interview. But the thing is, like my strength is just to sit alone in a room for like hours and days on end. I can just do that for a very long time. You know. I have close friends who say that sounds like the worst thing ever.
We're opposite human Yeah, we're opposite people.
Right, So when I tell them what I do, they're like, oh, man, I wish I would never I never have to do that. And I think this is why I became a writer, because I finally had permission, let's put it that way, from not only the stoics, but also like management thinkers like Peter Drucker, who famously said that that you should improve your strengths and ignore your weaknesses. And I really took that advice to heart. And as I started to become better at writing and only focused on writing, I
also got better rewards from it and better reach. And yeah, now this is my eighth book, so I feel like that that was a good decision to ignore everything else and and just focus on writing.
Very nice, So for you the skill, Like we're literally talking about the skill of writing and how you were able to improve there. And yeah, are there some general skills for folks out there that kind of go across industry, across different jobs that you think individuals should likely develop. Do you think there's some different practices that you think are undervalued when it comes to our ability to just not only become better human beings, better people, but also just to make more money too.
Yeah. I think one of the best income generating skills is actually every day writing, not writing books or articles. But I feel like the better you are at translating your thoughts into words, the better you will become at communication. So writing is a meta skill. And I'm a little bit afraid that more and more people will think that writing is for ai But wow, yeah, you know that's something that I wish people would not think, because writing
is really just communication. It's just translating your thoughts, which are almost always abstract, into clear and concise words. And if you want to become a better communicator or leader, storyteller, salesperson, someone who wants to ask for a raise at any job, I feel like the better you are at that process the more odds of succeeding in your career.
Yeah, I think that's advice, and I think you're right that the human process of organizing our thoughts our minds can be a big jumble mess sometimes, and writing can help you put those things out in order so you realize what you think, why you think it. If you're able to write down those those thoughts, you're able to bring clarity to yourself and then hopefully to others at some point too.
Yeah.
And it's as simple as just journaling, right, It's just as simple as journaling daily, And just that practice of journaling will really improve your writing. So a lot of folks think, oh, how should I do that? You know, I don't want to go to writing workshops. I don't want to, you know, take courses. I also don't think that's necessary. Just taking or buying a physical journal or opening your notes app on your phone is enough to
just start translating your thoughts into words every day. And if you do that every day, you'll automatically get better at it.
What other ways, Darius, have you seen stoicism impact your life? You kind of gave some examples of whether it's maybe how you treat other people right, So the fender bender sort of scenario that maybe allows you to kind of keep your cool there when it came to personal injury as you hurt your back. Like, have you seen other areas of your life where you've been able to apply the principles of stoicism other than personal finances and growing wealth.
Yeah, So in my relationship with my partner, it's been one of the most important things because when we met, she was not familiar with stoicism, but of course it was one of the first topics that came up where we met, and yeah, she really enjoys the idea and slowly started applying it as well, to the point where she reminds me to be stoic in certain situations when I'm not. So I feel like, if you have a relationship, I think it's a great way to keep each other accountable.
And yeah, when it goes both ways, it's an extra a layer of or an extra reminder to just not get get too emotional and not get out of control, because yeah, life is already so hard, you know, Like life is complex and we all have these responsibilities and I am definitely one of those people who tends to or has this natural tendency to make things harder, and stoicism helps me to combat that feeling.
Darius, there's been a great conversation. Man, love the book, and I love kind of what you're putting out there into the world. Where can How to Money listeners find your book and purchase it if they're interested?
So the best way to find out more about the book is to go to stoicpath to wealth dot com or on DARIUSFORU dot com. Very nice.
We'll link to both of those in our show notes. Darius, thank you so much for talking with us today.
Yeah, thank you for having me really what this all right? Matt?
I love conversations like this because you and I behind the scenes were always talking about how the truth about personal finance is there's always so much you can learn, and the truth about like our the depths of our human emotion and reactions to things or like limitless and the more we can control those. Yeah, a healthy amount of knowledge is good. But at some point, like the biggest thing we have to control in our lives as human beings is ourselves, and market's gonna do what it's
gonna do. We'll build wealth over time, but we have to be able to control our reactions to do that. So I love this conversation. Was what was your big takeaway from it? So I think this is what do you call it recency bias?
But it was right there at the end when he was talking about journaling and he was specifically talking about writing because we were taking I had asked him about skills and I'm thinking, okay, networking or never burning bridges, I don't know, just different things that you want to keep in mind when you're out in the world, out in the business world, regardless of the industry that you're in. And he immediately started talking about writing, and so that's
why I kind of clarified. I was like, well, what about for everybody, like, aside from you, obviously you are a writer, and he kind of doubled down. He was just like, no, I actually think I think for everybody, everybody should likely be journaling, they should be writing more. And the reason that he gave for that, I think was so true, which is that we need the ability
to process our thoughts. And you know what I immediately made think of was like, over the past couple of years, everyone's been talking about the vibes, right how the vibes are off. But like vibes is what is vibes? Nobody really knows. It's just like this collective feeling. Yes, it's like this amorphous thing. And it almost feels kind of lazy if you think about it, right, because it's like, well, no,
what is vibes? Like you need to identify what that is and communicate better to me what you're feeling or put your finger on it. And I know sometimes it's hard for us to put our fingers on things, but I think it also comes at the expense of us not taking the time to process what we're thinking about things, how we're feeling about things. And I totally agree with
what he's saying here. I have looked back at different times in my life and I feel like I've had the most clarity when I have written the most in my own journal, which is I don't think it's something we've ever really talked about here on the show, but it is the synthesis and the formation and the processing of your own ideas and the more that you are going to be able to do that and to distill that down and communicate that to others in your life,
regardless of what it is that you do. I think you're going to find yourself in a much more successful position.
Yeah.
I have like some intuitive thoughts about personal finance for a long time, but until I started like writing those down, formulating those things, it was just kind of helter skelter. And then it's like, wait, but what do I actually think? And I think that's true of so many things.
Yeah, so very non money related takeaway for me, but yeah, what about for you.
I love when you said, like, put some distance between yourself and your money, so good, and I think it's spot on. I think we need a healthier detachment from our money, where we're doing the right things. We're making sure that we're growing the gap, we're funneling money into those retirement accounts, we have enough set aside in saving, but that when it comes to the outcome and the results, maybe we're obsessing about those things a little too much.
And I think maybe he's right, like, we don't have to blind ourselves from the outcome, but the more we can become zen with whatever happens, realizing that hey, the rest of twenty twenty four might be like the first half might be awesome, or the stock market could experience like some big tantrums like we don't know who knows? But and then part of that is what's your goal. If your goal is as a long term investor, not even doing anything with this money until decades down the road,
then it doesn't even matter. And so I think that healthy detachment is so crucial to handling money. Well, I feel like it's been harder for me as I think of myself as a fairly emotional dude. But the more I've been able to kind of take motion out of some of my money, it doesn't mean I'm emotion less, but it just means I'm not putting as much of my emotional focus on what's going on with my money at that particular moment.
Yeah, you're not denying your feelings, like feel the feelings, but just know what it is you need to continue to do having also field the feelings. But uh, yeah, that's good man. But let's introduce the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode. It was a field Trip wheat beer. This is by Monday Nights Brewing.
You. What are your thoughts on it? Joel?
I thought it was refreshing, had a light lemon zest vibe. It had a nice mouthfeel, which wheat beers often do bring to the table. So this it's laid back in some ways, but in other ways it's got like it's got a little bit of that pepper spice going on too. It's got some interesting flavors going on that you might not get and just kind of your basic run of the mill person.
I feel like the entire time I was enjoying this, I kept looking at the cane because it's got mushrooms, yeah, all over it, And so I wasn't necessarily picking up on like earthy, wet soil kind of vibes or anything like that. It really was pretty light and citrusy and bright, and I didn't taste any fun. Guy, Yeah, I didn't either, and so I wouldn't. I was trying to figure out why it is that they stuck mushrooms on here, other than the fact that they look really cool, and maybe
that's all they looked cool. Maybe that's all they're going for. But uh, yeah, glad that you and I got to enjoy the one today. This is a local brewery Monday night brewing here in Atlanta, but that's going to be it for this episode. Listeners can find our show notes up on the website at howdomoney dot com. And so until next time, best Trinds out, best Friends out,