Personal Finance is Personal
In Real Life
Last night I did something I have never done before. I showed up at the local Rockstar Finance/ChooseFI get together. This was my first chance to hobnob with my fellow personal finance geeks outside of the digital construct we sometimes confuse for reality. It was a great evening, and I can say without reservation that personal finance peeps are lovely. They are kind, giving, and generous with their compliments and opinions. I was amazed at how all egos where checked at the door. Although for my overwhelmingly extroverted self, nothing is more fear provoking than a room full of introverts, I found conversation flowed freely and continuously. Although there were so many take homes from this meeting, the one that stands out is fairly obvious. Personal finance is personal!
Wonder what I mean by that?
I’ll go into greater detail in a moment. But first I want to say that these type of get togethers are so worthwhile. Social and gregarious, or quiet and reserved, this community will embrace you
There is so much to be learned. So many new friends to make.
Personal Finance Is Not Just About Money!
Personal finance is personal! It’s not about your net worth, or W2 income, or about the house hack that you are contemplating. Sure we all talk about all of this. But, in the end, it’s about much more emotional things. It’s about your dad who died, or the disasterous relationship, or the time you lost all the money and started to question your own abilities. As I have said before, money is a foil. It is a wondrous distraction we use to hide from our deepest fears and hurts. Much easier to be a loser in finances than in life.
And when your stare into the eyes of that wondrous soul in front of you, as opposed to that synthetic keyboard and screen, the conversation moves past money quickly and lands on something much deeper. You end up talking about life and the essentials of who you are on the inside.
Ultimately, we strive for redemption and community. Financial freedom has become our pathway
Not Everyone Is a Blogger
I know! Can you believe it! The majority of people interested in personal finance don’t spew (like me) their beliefs out into the internet for other people to read. Yet, what they have to say is no less important or instructive. There are many, many smart people out there that can teach us all sorts of things about life.
If you don’t show up to any of these real life get togethers, you’ll never learn from their hard earned insight.
Personal finance is personal. There is no digital substitute.
Even us bloggers have lots of thoughts and ideas that we are either too afraid, or too affected by to talk about publicly. Yet, time and again, I found myself saying last night:
I don’t usually discuss this on the blog, but..
Proof of Concept
I did glean one personal finance related content idea that I had not spent much time thinking about. There is a deluge of successful personal finance bloggers out there describing their own personal path to success. But what the public really craves, in my estimation, is proof of concept.
There should be a push for more real, raw content about successes and more importantly failures. Even those we hoist up on a pedestal are prone to struggle, make mistakes, and even fail from time to time.
Our paths are not just built on triumph, but also littered with regret and sometimes even pain.
We need to talk about that
We Gush Over The Next Generation
Seeing young people at the beginning of this path is inspiring. It is the idea that gets most of us old timers excited. There is a whole new generation of twenty year olds who are starting to think about personal finance and financial freedom.
Many of us have the experience and knowledge to help sky rocket this generation into the stratosphere to create and produce more than we could ever imagine.
It is our job to be the metaphorical backs for them to climb upon.
I can think of no better reason to participate in this community.
Or to attend one of these get togethers.
Have you gone to a meet up yet? Have you talked with PF peeps in real life? I highly recommend it!
At the last meetup we had here in DC, I think everyone actually WAS a blogger or podcaster. It was funny because we would up talking about blog stuff as much as general money stuff or even more!
Funny, I guess it depends on location.
Chicagoan here (West burbs) and I would love to join you guys one of these days. Just like you Doc, I will be one of the old timers too.LOL.
Getting together was really worthwhile!
Your meet up event reads like a Truly enriching and awesome experience ! Wow! Thank you for this very engaging post!
Of course E. It was a lot of fun!
Two quotes strike me: “There should be a push for more real, raw content about successes and more importantly failures.” and “I don’t usually discuss this on the blog, but..”
These things are personal. I appreciate when you’ve been able to get past that “but..”!
The meetup sounds fun. We’ve only had one in my area and I’m hoping they do another. At ours, few people were bloggers. I suspect a lot were introverts, but we all started chatting with ease. Like we were long-time friends.
It’s funny how extroverted introverts can be at these meet ups.
Proof of concept is a good way to put it, but I think the public desires even more, like the autopsy of actual success, not just projected success. I had no idea there WAS a FIRE community until after I was already retired. For me therefore reading FIRE blogs is kind of a process of reverse engineering since I made all of my decisions de novo of “conventional wisdom”.
The other thing is FIRE is kind of like diet books. Everybody eats so EVERYBODY is an expert. My first FIRE blog was WCI, interesting guy but way too much into building an empire and being “right” for my taste. How can you be “right” if you’re into hawking annuities? The month I looked at his site he featured PoF who was just getting his feet wet. PoF isn’t about being “right” as much as “Here is what I’m doing” much more organic and most of what he is doing is “right” IMHO. At least his path to retirement nearly mimics my own except I’m 20 years senior and have already nearly gone through college years and launch and living off my pile. Then there is the “wunderkin” agenda crowd like GCC and MMM. Watch me dress up my wife in a gown, googles, and mask and send her to make soap and save 60 cents! Ain’t that amazing?? If my wife has to put on hazmat crap to save 60 cents (so I have blog content)… homey don’t play that. I’ve also looked at forums like Bogelhead and Early retirement also pretty agenda driven with far laxer risk management than I feel comfortable with, some of those sites have “crash and burn” written all over them. They seem to ooze with a surfeit of testosterone and a deficit of sense.
So I think a “look em in the eye” format would reconnect a lot of the humanity that gets dissected with development of online persona. Where did you find such a meet? I looked at RSF but it wasn’t obvious.
Great post
Hey Gasem…I found out about the Chicago Meetup in the RSF bloggers board and it was cross posted on the ChooseFi Chicago Facebook page.
I just finished tomorrow’s post on…you guessed it, proof of concept.
Stay tuned!
Hey Gasem. I have to tell ya… I crack up every time I read your comments.
Totally! Flippin hilarious!
I really enjoyed the WCI conference. I have met many of the physician bloggers now. I would recommend it if there is a second one. I am a regular poster on WCI forum and I loved meeting the other posters. I think this is very interesting. I very much enjoyed finding out that I was not alone. Most real life docs in my area at least have no clue about the 4% rule, RMDs, roth conversions etc. I doubt there is a meet up in my area but I would go if one comes along.
It doesn’t surprise me that WCI’s conference was excellent. I’m sure there will be another.
I look forward to meeting you soon Dr G you are a great inspiration to all of us.
Hey AJ Me too! Are you Chicago based?
I did a local meet up in Southern California and I thought it was fun too. It’s great to put faces to names.
Do you think most bloggers are introverts? I assumed most are because blogging seems like a very “introverted thing” to do. But then again you’re an extrovert who maintains two blogs!
I think most bloggers and FIRE people are introverts. I am pretty much flamingly extroverted. On the other hand, I live with three introverted highly sensitive people.