The Jordan Harbinger Show
1096: Ali Abdaal | The Hidden Economics of Creative Success Part Two
Thu, 26 Dec 2024
Feel-Good Productivity author Ali Abdaal breaks down the real keys to sustainable success and authentic relationship building! [Part 2 of 2 — find Part 1 here!] What We Discuss with Ali Abdaal: The Money-Time Paradox: The wealthiest people aren't always the happiest, especially when they become prisoners of their own possessions. As one billionaire demonstrated, owning 15 empty houses isn't freedom — it's just collecting very expensive headaches. The real wealth is having the autonomy to choose how you spend your hours. The Parenting Reality Check: Having kids changes everything in ways no amount of warning can prepare you for. It's like evolution has installed a cosmic memory filter that prevents parents from fully conveying just how intense it is — probably because if we truly knew, humanity would've stopped at cave paintings. The Two-Career Tango: Couples where both partners work intensely demanding jobs often face more stress than those where one partner has flexibility. It's not just about the money — it's about having someone with the bandwidth to manage life's endless parade of squeaky doors and donation runs. The "Freedom Investment" Principle: Financial freedom isn't about sipping mojitos on a beach — it's about having the ability to reinvest that freedom into what truly matters, like being present for your kids' early years or having the flexibility to take July off without asking anyone's permission. Here's something actionable you can do today: Run your numbers! Use a compound calculator to figure out your long-term financial runway. You might discover you're actually in a better position than you thought, and that knowledge alone can transform your relationship with work and time. As Jordan found out, you don't need to win the Powerball to feel secure — you just need to know your actual numbers. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1096 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the Money-Time Paradox?
So you live in California where the taxes are really high. You have two kids. One thing I often worry about is like, well, I'm popular on YouTube right now. Who knows how long this fame will last? Surely I should be trying to make Hey While the Sun Shines.
And a few years from now, yeah, maybe I should just make videos about passive income ideas or some shit like that, that will get the views and will have high CPMs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Because what if when I have kids and maybe, I don't know, they need to go to private school because the state schools in the area are a bit shit or whatever, then will I regret my past self for not having chased the money? Any advice? Yeah, sure.
You seem to be doing okay, right? So the way that you do, the only way in my opinion is to do the math. And it's funny because every year I kind of do the math and I go, okay, how long do I need to do this and earn at this level? And what happens if I lose 50% of my income through some tragic turn of events like podcasting CPMs, amount people pay for ads, goes way down. What can I survive with?
Chapter 2: How does parenting change one's perspective on life?
How do I make more money doing different things, put other irons in the fire, like product or something like that that's something I actually believe in? Or like one thing I do now is voice acting for video games. It's not a massive income stream, but it's like, oh, if I quit podcasting and I only did that, I could earn a living doing that. It wouldn't be the same living, but I could do it.
So then you do the math and you go, all right, if I have this much now and it's generally going to appreciate a 5% per year and I only need to do this for X number of years until I have this, in which case if I have this amount of money and I needed to withdraw from that every year because I was retired forcibly or otherwise, how much money would I have each year to survive on before that hits zero and it better not hit zero before I'm dead, right?
So- As you earn more, you realize, oh, okay, I have more years of runway. So right now, the way that this, in fact, I have the app on my phone. It's called Compounding Calculator or something. I should show you. But I've calculated that if I stopped working right now, I could live on a pretty damn good monthly draw in perpetuity and still leave money to my kids.
It's actually the same amount of money that I happen to live on right now, minus like the cost of doing business and stuff like that. So that's a really good place to be in. You are... Quite possibly also there. You just haven't run the numbers. I just never run the numbers, yeah. So it's scary.
Chapter 3: What is the Two-Career Tango?
So I have this scary thing in the back of my mind of like, what if I run out of money?
What if I run out of money? But I've seen videos where you talk about financial stuff. And unless you are just recklessly spending, you are probably fine. And you should run those numbers. Like, okay, if I do this for three years, I'll have this. And then if I need to withdraw, oh, I can withdraw $40,000 a month until I'm 94. Yeah. You won't need that.
Kids are expensive, but they are not that expensive.
Okay, nice. That's a good action point. I'm going to do this, figure out how to set up this charity consulting situation and also the whole running the numbers thing. Okay, but running the numbers is one part of the equation.
You're also living in California and the sorts of people you hang out with may well be the sorts of tech multi-decker millionaire type people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you prevent lifestyle creep and mimetic desire from thinking that you need a Lamborghini, whatever the fuck it's called, or this sort of stuff?
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Chapter 4: What does financial freedom really mean?
So you have to have your values clarified really well. This is going to sound probably, again, simplistic, but if you get a lot of money, I've seen friends of mine who sell their company for like $100 million. And I'm like, what are you going to do with it? That's real FU money. And then one guy will say, there's huge differences, right? One guy was like, I'm going to get a yacht.
I'm going to buy a place in Marbella, Spain. These are different people. I'm going to buy this. I'm going to get that. Other people are like, oh, I don't know. I don't really need anything. You don't need anything? Well, I'll probably go on a trip with my wife. Okay, you should definitely do that. One of those people is probably a little bit more satisfied with their life than the other, right?
And I've got another friend who is also selling his company for like over $100 million, and he lives part-time in Spain, and he's very healthy about what he's going to do with this. His primary concern right now is raising his daughters in a way that they don't end up being totally ruined by that amount of money. And I'm like, that's a really good thought.
Chapter 5: How can running the numbers change your relationship with work?
Most people are just fantasizing about how many cars they're gonna get with this or something. So if you have your values set up straight, lifestyle creep doesn't really have to be a thing. I know a lot of super wealthy people and they have like car collections and stuff. And Jen and I are like, wow, look at all that stuff that guy has. And she goes, yeah, but would you want that?
And I go, no, actually, I would not want that. That is not, I don't even have, I share a car with my wife, for God's sake. Why would I want a car collection? I don't even drive. I let her drive all the time. What am I going to do with the car collection? And so my value would be more like freedom, right? Oh, what would I do with a hundred million bucks?
I'd probably not change my lifestyle much at all. And how do I know that? Because I went from one area to another in terms of income and I didn't really, I order more DoorDash, but that's because I have kids. I worry less about retirement because I've got that money in the bank earning interest. I did not buy another house for the summer. I do not have a car collection. I did not buy a boat.
I bought nicer lighting that I don't know how to set up. I got to get one of these. But like- That is because I had my values set up straight. The problem is once you add money and you don't have those walls built to bounce off of, you just go all over the place trying to make yourself happy.
If you figure that out when you're not dealing with 100 million bucks, it's not going to change that much when you do. You know what I'm saying? So you see these guys that get really, really rich and they're not happy. So they keep trying to buy it and it doesn't work. That's how you end up with a car collection and a yacht collection and a house collection.
You know what's interesting also is you see these guys, they're just prisoners of the crap that they own. I know this guy is probably close to or actually a billionaire. I haven't asked because that's a rude question. And he was telling me about some stressful thing he was dealing with about his house.
And I was like, wait, how can you say, you said your house is being redone, but where do you live now? And he goes, oh no, this is one of my other houses. And I go, oh, okay. Well, you know, how many houses do you have? And he's like 15. How do you live in 15 houses? I was like, do you rent them out? He's like, no.
So you're stressing out over a house that you will never live in, that no one lives in. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of silly when you put it like that. Yeah, silly is an understatement. This guy's worth almost a billion dollars or actually a billion dollars. He spent like 20 hours a week talking about this stupid property, either on the phone, dealing with it, thinking about it.
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Chapter 6: How do you prevent lifestyle creep?
What a fricking waste of life. Like sell that shit, man. Are you crazy? Get rid of that right now. Sell it now. At a loss and be done with it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This guy, 15 houses. Are you crazy? Because I was like, oh, is it for investments? No, they're not even investments, man. He just owns properties because he liked the way that they looked.
Never even goes to these things. It's the stupidest thing I can think of to spend your time and money on.
Yeah. One of the nice things about having this podcast and interviewing people and now increasingly hanging out with people who are very rich is that I can start to kind of notice the desires within myself and try and like actively counteract them. A question I often ask myself is if I woke up with a hundred million in the bank, what would change about my calendar? Yeah.
And usually my answer is not very much. And if major things would change about my calendar, I'm like, okay, well, let's change those things before I have a hundred million. Because a hundred percent, why not?
You kind of mentioned this in a way in your book, a friend of mine, I said something like, oh man, you know, you've got this all figured out, blah, blah, blah. This is so great. It must be so great to have all this money. And he goes, well, you've got it all figured out too. You're doing fine. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you have two kids. You've told me earlier, you were happy.
You have your own house. You like what you do. You basically are winning on like every level. And I was like, oh, that's really cool to hear from a guy who's like a shitload of money. And he's like, yeah. And he goes, what would you do with $100 million if I gave it to you right now? And I was like, oh, I'd just put it in the bank and earn interest on that. And he's like, why?
And I said, oh, because then I would be able to safely retire at any time. And he goes, I bet you could safely retire right now. That was what got me running the numbers. And I was like, oh. And then I realized I don't need to win the fricking Powerball lottery to feel safe. And then that was a massive awakening for me, right? He's like, no, really, what would you do?
And I was like, I would hire a healthy food chef And he goes, is it impossible for you to get healthy food? And I was like, no, there's a freaking Whole Foods three blocks. I could literally walk there. He's like, so you don't really need a healthy food chef to live or be in your house. You could even buy take DoorDash healthy meals from like a vegan restaurant or whatever flavor you want.
And I'm like, that's true. All these things you think you would get with that money. you pretty much don't need that at all. And you can get it in a different way. It's so ridiculous. Like if you just keep asking why, the answer is always like safety.
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Chapter 7: What are the keys to raising well-adjusted children?
I just think with any goal that we have, implicit or explicit, it's worth speaking to the people who are already there and seeing like when I would speak to doctors who were 15 years ahead in their career, I would ask them about their life and almost run a mini podcast interview with them over coffee or something. And I'd find out so much stuff.
I would just be like, okay, I can avoid all these traps. They all wish they'd spent more time going through training because they wish they hadn't rushed to be a consultant. They wish they'd taken more time off. They wish they'd done part-time training. Huh. Okay.
That's useful to know rather than just sort of going fully on this path with, with any goals, whether it's a money goal or a career goal or anything.
I could not agree more. And I really think humans do this thing, right? Where we say, once I get this, I'll be happy. And then, you know, that that's wrong because you listen to podcasts like this one, but then you do it subconsciously anyways. Yeah. And you have to constantly, at least I have to constantly catch myself doing that. Like, why are you doing this?
Oh, because if I had this, then, oh, then I think I'd be happy. But then what I would really do is compare myself to the other person who has more. So you realize that you're on this hedonic treadmill, this hamster wheel, and you realize you can get off at any time. And For me, I have to constantly remind myself that I can get off at any time. My wife is like, why are you working late?
Well, because I want to finish this thing. What if you just finished it tomorrow? That's a valid, can't argue that logic, right? Like cannot argue that logic. And I find myself watching cartoons with my kids and I'm like, this is so much better than reviewing that document that I will finish tomorrow, maybe.
I've been noticing this in my life on two specific instances. Number one is I bought a PS5 a few months ago because I was like, you know what? I can afford a PlayStation 5 at this point. Let me buy a games console. Like two days ago, it was like a Sunday and I had nothing to do all day other than I should probably write my email newsletter which I write on a Sunday. Cool, whatevs.
And initially my thought was like, okay, there's all this work I can do. I can, you know, I'm giving this talk at AdCon and I can prepare that. And I was like, well, why? I mean, I could just do that during the week. I've got enough time during the week. What if I just played PlayStation? I'm like, yeah, but there's all this work to do. I'm like, yeah, but what's the point of the work?
Is the point of the work not that I can feel sufficiently safe so that I can in fact play PlayStation on the fucking weekend? I was like, I could just play PlayStation right now. So I spent the whole day kind of like, I went to a cafe for breakfast, went for a walk around the park, sat down, played PlayStation, went to another cafe for lunch, sat down, played PlayStation. It was so glorious.
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Chapter 8: What do parents wish they had known before having kids?
The only complaint I get is like, for the last six years, I've been signing it off with my name and then two kisses, like XX, just like casually.
Yeah.
And like twice, I forgot to do that. And people replied being like, oh, you know, it was kind of weird, but like, I really missed those kisses that you put on the end of your email. I was like, oh, that's cute.
That is cute.
That's cute. So you've got kids now.
I do.
Any tips?
Oh man. Um, It changes your life in mostly good ways. Parenting is a really sensitive subject for a lot of people. There's a lot of experts on it. But the problem is you don't know what kind of kids you're going to get. And people think, and maybe they're right, maybe I'm wrong. People think that they create their kids and by giving birth to them, yeah, sure.
But that's kind of, the rest of it is a dice roll. And there's a lot of, oh, if you take your kids traveling early, they'll get used to it. And that didn't happen for a lot of people. Oh, if you tell your kids this, they'll get used to this. And you'll get, and this will be your favorite. You'll get advice from people who aren't parents.
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