You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It's the money talk with tiff podcast. Hey, everyone. I am so excited because I have Doc g on the line now. Doc g, if his name sounds familiar, he's a regular on the Stacking Benjamins podcast, and he's here to talk to us about kind of fire and then his book taking stock, which will dive in, of course, but. Hey, doc g, how are you?
Hey, Tiffany. It's so great to be here. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Yes. I'm so happy to have you. It's been a long time coming, so let's just hop right in. Right? So, first and foremost, when I got your book and I started reading, I was like, what? I had no idea what you did for a living. So let's start with that. I feel like it's really important to set that groundwork for the people. So what is it that you do for a living? You know, it's funny you ask
that, and five years ago, the answer would have been very clear. I'm a doctor. Interestingly enough, as I've made my own journey, I actually don't identify nearly as much as a doctor as I do a content creator and a writer. But technically, I am a trained physician. I practiced for about 20 years, and towards the end of my practice, I realized it wasn't filling me up. And so I got rid of everything I didn't like in the job. The one thing I
still like doing is I was doing part time work as a hospice physician. I was leading some hospice teams, and that work really lit me up. So I decided to keep that part of my professional identity, but that opened up all sorts of space to go and live my life the way I wanted to and kind of pursue other things. Yeah. And, you know, somebody listening is probably like, hospice lit you up, you know, just to let people know if they don't know. Hospice is when you take
care of people that are in their final stages of life. And when I was reading that in the book, I said, oh, like, this is a cool perspective, because not a lot of people have that perspective. And one thing that you hit on in the book is that most people are scared of dying. Yeah, people are afraid of dying. And it is a wonderful thing. And this is why it partially lights me up, is people are told, quote unquote, there's nothing we can do. The tumors
advanced too much. The heart failure is too bad, the emphysema is too severe, and we get to come in and say, well, it's true, we can't stop you from dying, but we can certainly try to make every day look as positive as possible. We can help you with your goals. We can make you comfortable. We can make sure you're dying in the place you want to die, whether that's at home or in a hospital or in some type of hospice care facility. And so we have some control to actually
help people to palliate this most difficult time of their life. And so that's why I always feel like it's a very positive thing because there's so much we can add when people are pretty much at their lowest. Yeah. And with that being said, like, were there situations where people told you, like, oh, I regret doing this, or, you know, I wish things, like, were better? In this area of life,
we actually. Ask people about those things because once we control their symptoms and get them where they want to be, a big part of what we also do is help people with life review. So theres a series of questions we can ask them that helps them go through this life review. And a big part of that is regrets, so they can come to terms with both the good and the bad in their life. And thats a very important thing as
you get closer to the end of life. I love that. I love that. And to your point, that is super important because when you think about it, sitting there and you know that according to the doctors, you may not make it. You know, you have a finite amount of time, and you kind of know when that time is coming. I can imagine, like, you would be sitting there like, wow, like, is this the end? Like, is this really what it has come
to? And I love that you all take that extra step and have people go through that life review so that way they can come to terms with anything that has gone on in their life. And imagine if we did the same thing with young people when they weren't dying. Like, how much time could we actually have to then realize these things, work on them? And then when we got to our deathbed one day, we wouldn't
have those same regrets? And so that's kind of a big message of the book, is like, look, the dying are telling us this really important, valuable information. We need to listen to them. Yes, for sure. I'm like, I need to do a life review today and just make sure that I am, you know, where I want to be in life. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit, because in the book, you really focused on fire. I mean, in the introduction, you go
over, you know, what is fire? So why did you decide to focus on fire and also tell the audience what fire is? So I come from the fire community. That's financial independence, retire early, and it has actually evolved. But originally, what this idea behind fire was is that you could kind of front load the sacrifice, work really hard, grind it out, maybe not even enjoy what you're doing, and get to some net worth number which would then support you for the rest of your
life. And so you could then stop working, and then you could really build a life of purpose and identity and connections. All these things, I think are really important. This idea was that you actually put those things off, you front loaded the sacrifice, and then once you got there and had enough money with great investments, you could do what you wanted to do. Now, that has evolved over time. That was kind of like that older version. The newer version looks at
things like passive income and side hustles. These help us get to fire faster, right? So instead of some big net worth number, maybe we're actually looking at just making enough money with our side hustles to cover our monthly needs. And so you might have to wait 10, 15, 20 years to get to this big net worth. Maybe you create passive income or side hustle that can do that sooner. And in a way, I'm actually even
a little bit more contradictory. I actually say that if you love your job and you come out at 22 or 23 and you're doing a job you would do even if you weren't being paid for it, because you love it so much, in a sense, you're financially independent right away if that covers your monthly needs for the rest of your life. Now, granted, you might be working to your 70 or
80 if you're not putting anything away. And I would actually look at my book, I wouldn't say my book is anti fire, but what I kind of say is that in my book, we really get to this idea that if we're only looking at financial independence as our main goal, maybe we're looking at it a little bit wrong. And instead of focusing on money,
we should focus on what that money is meant to do for us. And so can we start taking these messages from the dying and about regret and living the life they wanted to live and try to integrate those into our life now, regardless of where we are with our net worth? We, of course, all want to save for retirement. We all want to get a high net worth. We all want to hit financial independence, but I always tell people, I don't want that to be the thing you're waiting for before you live life.
Amen. Amen. You said a whole word right there. Because I had to learn that lesson myself. I was an extreme saver, you know, debt free by 30. That's how I started this whole brand. And I was like, gung ho on getting that done. Now, I realized that, Tiffany, you know, you're working yourself to death. You're pretty much overdoing it. You're on overdrive and not really enjoying the fruits of your labor at all. Like, I was just so gung ho on saving and paying off debt.
And so it wasn't until, honestly, like, 2020 or so, where I was like, I need to start enjoying stuff. And I think the realization. Part of that realization was seeing people, so many people dying. We were in the midst of COVID and everything to the point of your book, and I was like, oh, my gosh. I don't want to be that person where I die. And I finally make debt freedom, but I've never experienced
anything. So I started focusing more on experiences, which leads me to the next thing that I wanted to talk about, which is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So to start us off, if you can just explain what that is. And that plays a role with our money. So Maslow had a theory about our needs. And specifically, he built a pyramid, which was a hierarchy, and he started at the bottom with the basic needs, right? Food, shelter,
and kind of built up through things like love and the more ephemeral ones. And eventually, you get to this peak of self actualization. And so we're all kind of trying to build to the peak. What my message in the book is, is maybe this idea that it's a peak and you only can get to one level after you finish the first one is wrong. And maybe we need to level the whole thing, because I don't want to wait until
I'm financially free to start living the life I want to live. I want to start doing that now while I'm building my financial life, while I'm building my relationships, while I'm doing all of these other things. So I argue that we actually have to flatten that pyramid. And those of us who wait till we get to that self actualization place may really miss out on all sorts of purpose and identity and doing great things. And so this is what I saw in the dying.
I saw plenty of people who never got their basic needs covered but lived these full, loving lives surrounded by people who cared for them, and they died, maybe even in poverty, but with a smile on their face, holding their hands of their loved ones. And I also saw people who had the richest of the riches who died alone in hospital rooms because their family members were too busy and honestly didn't really care. And so I think we have to work on all levels
at the same time. And I think, for instance, not having some of the money issues settled doesn't mean you can't get to the self actualization. And so while I love the theory, I think in real life today, we can't look at it as hierarchical. We really have to work on them all. Yeah, and I agree with that as well. And that's one thing I talk about on the podcast and with my clients. You know, a lot of times, this or that thinking, so should I be saving or investing, or should I go on this trip
or pay off my debt? And for me, I feel like it's more of an. And, like, we can do both. We can do all the things, actually. We don't have to just focus on one. And, you know, I blame, you know, the big financial gurus. We don't have to name names here, but the super big ones with the big loudspeaker. And they're like, you have to do this in this way. You're not doing it right. And for me, I'm like, you know, there's
so many different ways to do this. And I like to now enjoy while I'm getting all of these things taken care of for that reason. Now, with that being said, there's been huge debates on social media about what, how much money makes you happy. Right. So there's people that are in the. If you make less than 100,000, you know, it's impossible for you to be happy and survive. And meanwhile, I'm like, well, I know people that make way less than 100,000, and they're
extremely happy and they're surviving. So what are your thoughts about that? Because I know in the book you talk about, does more money make you more happy? Yeah, and I have lots of thoughts about that. In the book. I talk about this saying that money is like oxygen, right? So when you don't have enough money, all you can think about is having more, and you don't have enough oxygen, you're gasping for air. But once you kind of have what you need, having extra oxygen doesn't help you. And
I think money is very similar. And this also gets back to this idea that money is really a tool, not a goal. And so when we're basing our sense of happiness on how much money we have or what our net worth is or what our yearly income is, we're trying to make it into a goal, and it doesn't work very well. And there's a few reasons it doesn't work. One is if you get there and you get to that net worth or you get to that salary, because it's only,
it's like what I call a mirage. It's a goal we've set. But that goal doesn't really deeply mean anything to us other than a number on the page. And so then it feels disruptive, and we're not sure what to do. And the easiest thing is to just double down and say, we need double the money, right? So a lot of times, getting to that goal doesn't actually solve any problems. In fact, it makes us feel anxious, and then
we just set a higher bar. So we're always chasing after this bar, but never really reaching what we would call any level of happiness. The other possibility is you get to that level, let's say a million dollars is your net worth going. You get to a million dollars, you become petrified that something's going to happen. The stock market's going to change, you're going to have some type of emergency you have to spend your money on, and you become petrified you're going
to fall below your goal. And so your fear of going back down is actually double what your fear of ever was of getting there. And that's called loss aversion. So I think our problem is that when we talk about money and happiness, we start thinking that that money actually gives us happiness. So if we just get to that place or a higher place, we're going to have more happiness. What most of us realize, and what I also learned from the dying, is that really, it was
never the money. It was those deeply purposeful things that they did, those relationships, those hobbies, those much deeper things they were interested in that actually brought contentment or actually moved them in that happiness set point. So we all figure we have some kind of happiness set point. Maybe a five or six out of ten, if you want to get to a seven or eight, it's that deeper work. And usually having more cash just doesn't do that. Yes,
I completely agree. And I want to back up to that loss aversion because that hit home for me. Like I said, when I started this, I was on this debt free by 30 thing. I think at the time when I started, I was in the negative net worth or what have you, and so I had all of these goals attached to my finances. When I started coming up on 30, I was like, oh, no. Like, I didn't make it.
Like, people are gonna look at me crazy. It started giving me a lot of anxiety around hitting this goal at this time when I should have been focusing on the journey to get there versus hitting that actual goal. And so towards the end, I started realizing that when I realized I wasn't gonna make it, I'm like, okay, I need to shift my focus. But with what you said, I'm like, I should have thought about that sooner because I did miss out on opportunities. You know,
friends are like, oh, let's go here. Let's go on vacation. Let's do this, let's do that. I'm like, no, I got to drive for Uber and Lyft today. It was like, gung ho. So I really like that you said that, because that's so real. Sometimes goal setting can give you anxiety and cause fear when you really don't need that much pressure on yourself. I'm a firm believer in your timeline is your timeline, and so you do things when you need to do them, when you want to do them,
versus all of these outside pressures. So, even listening to this podcast, you know, you might be like, oh, I need to set some goals, but do it on your timeline, you know, our. Timeline, and realize that meeting those goals won't automatically make you happy. And so, for instance, Brad Barrett and I did a joint podcast at the economy conference, and we did it live in front of a bunch
of people. And I interviewed someone. And so, if you think about financial independence, we generally define financial independence as having 25 times your yearly spending, right? So if you spend $100,000 and you have $2.5 million invested, it's 25 times your yearly spending. You're financially independent. This guy had 35 times his yearly spending saved up and invested, and all he could think about is, what if the stock market goes down? What if
I have a big purchase? What if? What if? What if? And he was continuing to work and doing something he didn't particularly like and not spending time with his children because he couldn't step away from the money he was making. And those fears of loss aversion. So it's a very real thing, even for the very wealthy, who have millions and millions of dollars. This idea that all of a sudden something could change and they could lose what they have really drives this continuing
behavior. And as you're saying that, I'm like, it affects people on both ends of the spectrum. You know, it could be people that are experiencing poverty right now, and they're thinking about, oh, I need to make more money. Same thing with people that are Uber rich and probably have more money than the average person, they're thinking the same thing. And so, you know, this conversation has been truly, like, eye opening for me and hopefully for the audience as well, because
we need to start living. Like, if COVID didn't teach us anything else is that life is finite and you don't know when your time is coming. And so we have to take a hybrid approach. Of course, you know, you want to save. Of course you want to do all your financial goals or whatever, but we still need to enjoy. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about this important topic. And like I said, I highly
recommend the taking stock book. It was super valuable to me when I was reading it through and just hitting on these points. Of course, we can't give it all away here on the podcast. So if people were interested in finding out more about the book or more about you, how could they find you? So the easiest way is to go to jordan grummet.com. That's j o r d a n dash u dash m e t.com dot. There you can see pretty much the three ways I produce content. One was a medical blog I started in about 2003,
2004. It's still up there. I no longer write there. You can find the link there. The other is a financial blog called Diversify. And last but not least, where I spend most of my time, the earn and invest podcast. All the links are there taking stock. You can purchase it there, and you can learn soon about my new book called the Purpose Code, which will be coming out in January 2025, which begins where taking stock left
off. I talk a lot about in taking stock, purpose, identity, and connections, and I got a lot of feedback saying I don't know how to find my purpose. So this next book really delves deeply into purpose and how we generally think about it wrong. Oh, you are speaking my language. And if you all were feverishly taking notes on that, I'll have it all in the show notes. So don't worry.
I'll have all of Doc G's links there. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, and I really appreciate it having you on. Thank you for the great conversation. Bye. Thank you for listening, joining, and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF podcast this week. You can check tip out every Thursday for a new Money Talk podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week, you can listen to previous podcast [email protected] or follow TIff on all social media platforms at
moneytalkwitht. Until next time, spend wise by spending less than you make a word to the money wise is always sufficient.