Welcome to the 100th episode of Retire in Texas!
In this special milestone edition, Darryl Lyons reflects on the incredible journey of the Retire in Texas podcast and expresses his gratitude to his loyal listeners.
Additionally, this episode delves into an important topic, framed in the context of the upcoming 2024 political ads, which are expected to be fueled by fear and emotion.
Some of the topics discussed include:
- A discussion of what is to come with regards to political advertisements surrounding the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.
- An in-depth explanation of the four pillars of success.
- What you should be thinking about to ensure you are making informed, logical decisions that aren’t fueled by emotion.
- The value you can find in taking calculated risks.
If you enjoyed today’s special episode, be sure to share it with your friends and family!
Transcript:
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. Thanks for tuning in to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature only.
It’s not intended to provide specific tax, investment, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information. And I am very proud to say that this is our 100th episode. We have done over 100 or this is the 100th episode now and I am so thankful for the loyal listeners, the feedback that I’m getting. It’s more frequent every day that I get feedback on this podcast, and I am so honored that you’re listening.
Thank you. Thank you, Thank you. It means the world to me, and I’m hoping that I am enriching your life and providing value. So, keep communicating with me If there’s anything I can do to provide leadership in the space of money, in business, and life in general. And so, today’s podcast being the 100th episode, I wanted to lean into what you might consider a motivational speech, which in context is very financial.
But there is a framework, four pillars that I want to share with you pillars of success and I’ve thought of these for years, in my thinking. And I want to make sure that I can relay them to you because I think they’re very helpful. These four pillars are going to be very important for you in the next 12 to 18 months.
Why are they going to be important? Because we’ve got a problem coming up. And this problem is the political ads in 2024 are expected to shatter records and they’re going to be over. They’re going to spend over $10 billion, over $10 billion will be spent on political ads trying to influence you. But now with information, they’re going to tap into your emotions.
That’s what these ads are intended to do, because emotions spur action and you have two emotions that spur action. Hope and fear, and fear is much more effective. So, they’re going to use political ads to stir fear. You know, I’m warning you now to get in front of this, in front of this nonsense and in these four pillars of success of leadership, however you want to look at life framework are going to help you begin to refocus on things that you can control.
So, let’s jump into it today, because this is really intended to get in front of this crazy political ad spend. And the first pillar is vision, creating a vision. And when I think about vision, I think about the region south of France that was really useless in dry land prior to World War Two. But today it’s woodlands. It’s a place where people picnic and there’s shade, there’s luscious trees.
This actually started transforming because of a guy named Elzéard Bouffier. And Bouffier, he’d sling a sack of acorns over his shoulder with a long spear in his other hand, and he’d poke a hole into the earth. And then he’d lay a little acorn to rest in that little hole in the soil. And he made a point to do this in this dry land consistently for years.
He planted these acorns year after year for 30 years. And he did this all the way to 1945. And as a result of his commitment to planting these little acorns, people today enjoy these shaded trees and can picnic, and they’re standing under these trees with no regard to what the vision of one man had for this area. And that’s okay.
But I think that it goes to say how powerful a vision is. And I know it’s hard for a lot of us to have a vision. I was talking to some people the other day and some very accomplished people about vision. And a lot of people are like, Man, I just don’t know. I just don’t think about it.
You know? I’ve never really sat down and thought about, you know, what my future looks like. There’s just a lot going on and busy and sometimes I think about it, but I really don’t, you know, deeply digest what it looks like down the road. I mean, I try to make good decisions. And of course, we can think about it because we’re talking so much about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and we’re working hard and we’ve got chaos coming out of, you know, kids and work and money issues.
And it’s just hard to sit down and say, okay, what does the future look like? And but it’s really incredible when you start thinking, I can’t even begin to tell you, you know, in the scriptures it says where there’s no vision, the people perish. But we have a vision. It’s so stinking powerful. We just don’t think about it.
Like the founder of Google, you know, just he had a vision like, what if everybody could download the Web right on their computer? And I think about, you know, the guy that did the Flamin Hot Cheetos. I think his name was Richard Martinez. They did a movie called Flamin Hot. You know, just like, hey, to where I’m where I’m at today in life is not necessarily good enough.
There’s something better. I can see something better down the road. And I guess that’s what we’re trying to say, is that a vision is saying here is not good, there is better. And if you’re in your twenties, you’re like, okay, I can see a better family for me. I can maybe even see the type of spouse I’d like to marry.
I can see the value in that spouse. And you start to just crystallize this in your head, maybe even writing it down, which is something I do. I do it all the time. By the way, I’m a vision nerd. I am a complete vision nerd. It’s a gift, not a curse. I’m very thankful that God is giving me this.
Sometimes it can be problematic because I can space out and think about the future more than in the present. So, it can be a challenge. But I, but I think about the future. And as a business owner, I’m like, okay, where’s the future of the business and what does it look like to you to serve the next generation?
Or if you’re a retiree, hey, I transitioned out. I pivoted out of this season in life. In what way can I make the world better? What vision do I have? Can I teach the youth? Can I take the values of hard work that are important to me? And can I pour them into the lives of others?
And I’m not trying to tell you to think about how to do this stuff. I’m just trying to think. I’m just trying to help you think about creating a vision, just sitting down and just imagining. By the way, the advisors here at PAX are good thinking partners on this. This is why we have created an entire system called behavioral finance to help us help you think through a vision.
Why? Because there’s usually some financial component to this that we have to be considerate of. And if we can crystallize the vision better, then our job as financial advisors become clear. So, number one is vision. Number two is passion, not political passion. There’s plenty of political passion. That’s what I’m trying to get you away from. So trying to get you unstuck.
But really, your political passion is not necessarily rooted in a party or person. If you go to the heart of it, there’s a passion for injustice. And there’s a passion because you have compassion for other people. Now, the way those are manifested in sometimes how we resolve issues, there is a right and wrong way to resolve these issues.
But when we come down to it, there’s a passion for injustice. But I want you to go one step deeper, one step deeper, and that’s in your own unique life stories. You know, being the hundredth episode. If you look at our beginning episodes, which was maybe the first half, they were all interviews with people who had pivoted or retired.
And if you’ll notice that every single one of those interviews I tapped into their childhood because every single person that I know is making money decisions as a direct result of the way they were raised in their childhood. And it’s a subconscious thing that we do. And what I suggest to you is tapping into that subconscious and asking yourself, what’s the unique life story that I have inside of me, that at this point in my life I can turn around and use for good?
I mean, if you were abused as a child, you can sit down with people who are going through that and empathize in a way that I never could. If you grew up in extreme poverty, you can work in a food bank and empathize in a way that many, many people can’t. Your unique life story is not wasted. Your passion for injustice and your compassion for other people can be redirected from the political noise to doing something you can control and again, you need a thinking partner, we’ll help you with that.
So, number one, vision. Number two, passion. Number three, discipline. Got to be careful to not compare. Some people have some discipline, gifts and discipline skills they’ve developed. I remember hearing once about this professional runner who would rinse his cauliflower and I never lost that. First of all, I wasn’t very interested in eating raw cauliflower, but much less rinsing anything off that might supposedly mess up his diet.
I thought, Well, that’s pretty disciplined. I think about Craig Groeschel. If anybody knows his leadership, he’s a pastor and a speaker. He eats the same meal every single day. And I’ve got several friends that are extremely disciplined. I don’t compare myself to them and I don’t want you to do the same. I want you to be a better version of yourself through some Habits of Discipline.
James Clear wrote a great book called Atomic Habits. Let me share with you what he said in his book. He said, all big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger roots, entrenched themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us, and the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.
That’s James Clear from his great book, Atomic Habits. So, create habits with your health, walking daily, and doing it consistently. Whenever I took my kids to school over the years and they saw somebody running in the dark early morning and it was raining, I would always ask my kid, Is that one of my children? I say, is that runner interested or committed?
And they’d always say, he’s committed, because if you’re just interested in running, you say, Well, it’s raining. I’m going to not run today. But how can you create the discipline to be committed? And maybe that’s even spiritually just having some quiet time, just being outdoors 30 minutes a day, reading the Bible. There’s some great apps on that too, or intellectually like, I want to get a little smarter.
I want to learn Spanish. I want to learn history. Let’s go a little deeper. I don’t want to just learn history. I want to learn World War II history. Now I want to go deeper. I want to learn Polish, World War II history. If you can direct your discipline towards something you can control, then as this political noise comes at you, you can redirect it towards these activities.
Risk is the fourth one: vision, passion, discipline and risk. They asked a group of ninety-year-old women if you could do anything different in life what would you do differently? And they said they do three things. They would stop and smell the roses. They would do something that would outlive them, and they would take more risks. And I’m not saying you take a bunch of risks.
That’s dumb type of risk. You know what’s reasonable. But I am asking you to take some reputational risk. Reputational risk if you do something that’s quirky, peculiar, maybe outside of the norm, people might laugh at you. But I would suggest to you, rather than laughing, I think they’d be in awe and say, Man, I wish I had the guts to do something like that.
Write a book. You can write a book today, you can write a poem, you can learn to play the piano. Your can-do stand-up comedy. And why don’t you do these things? Because deep down, you know, people would be talking about you. So, you do have to take some reputational risk. You do. You may have to take some money risk.
I’m not, of course, suggesting that you make big bets, but the best portfolio is an undiversified portfolio. When you’re right. So have you considered betting on yourself maybe starting a business, even if it’s not an enterprise business that has a lot of systems and processes in it, you might be able to start a woodworking business or a knife business or a maybe an apparel, and you can put boundaries on the amount of money you put at risk, or you may risk your time.
But really, how much risk is there if you just no longer scroll or how much risk is there? If you miss a Netflix series? But the biggest risk is your fear of falling short. And I think failure is really underrated. My kids probably think I’m nuts, but I always ask them, hey, did you fail today? Did you fail today?
I always ask them that. Did you fail today? And they said, well, Dad, no, I didn’t fail today. I need you to fail every day. I’d rather them fail a lot while they’re young. But look, I think you’re not too old to take some degree of risk. So, if you can think about these four pillars going into this massive election year that’s focused on making you fearful, I promise you it’s coming.
This tidal wave is coming. $10 billion is focused on making you angry. And I’m asking you to reset. And your new framework, your pillars, would be creating a vision, tapping into that God given passion, creating elements of discipline in your life, and considering some degree of risk. If you can follow this framework, these four pillars, I think that you will find yourself having much more peace in this election season.
I hope that’s helpful. I hope that’s edifying. I hope it encouraged you today. Thank you again for listening to the 100th episode of Retire in Texas. And remember, you think different when you think long term. Have a great day.
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