My Favorite Things! - Morgan Freeman & Denzel Washington Movies

[00:00:00] This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Welcome to another episode of My Favorite Things, and I'm going to talk about a few of my favorite things. What does it mean to be a favorite?

[00:00:28] Well, it means I'm super excited about recommending it. It might mean something I was excited about just this past week or something I've been doing research on. So without further ado, let's get started. I saw a movie. I had never heard of this movie.

[00:00:43] Someone recommended it to me. It's a movie from 1989. It's called Lean on Me. It's like a young Morgan Freeman, and I loved this movie. I would highly recommend it. By the way, I knew of the song Lean on Me, and this was a movie named Lean on Me.

[00:00:59] I had never even heard of the movie, but Lean on Me, I would highly recommend The Guy Who's Saying Lean on Me, which is Bill Withers. Most incredible singer. He sang some of my favorite songs like Grandma's Hands and Hope She'll Be Happier. They're very sad songs.

[00:01:17] You almost want to cry when you listen to them, but he just got this beautiful voice. Sometimes I stand in front of a mirror and try to imitate his voice. He's got a very smooth kind of voice.

[00:01:30] But what I really admire about Bill Withers is he was disgusted with his record label. I think it was Columbia Records, and they kept trying as he became more and more famous, they kept trying to control the music he wanted, he should do.

[00:01:46] Like they thought he would be, oh, you'll be more popular if you do X, Y or Z. And meanwhile, he's saying to them, you just release an album by Mr. T, an actor,

[00:01:56] and you're not releasing the album I want to do, and I'm professional at this with a bunch of Grammys and I've sold millions of records. So he quit the record label, and I don't think he ever really performed again.

[00:02:07] He did a little bit here and there, but he basically left the musical business. Also, he wasn't like some young kid when he broke out. He was 32 years old when his first song came out.

[00:02:17] So not that that's old, but shows that you don't have to be 19 years old and beautiful to have a great career in the music business. So I really admire this guy, I listen to all the songs, Bill Withers.

[00:02:30] But the movie Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman, I think it's the best acting I've ever seen him do and he basically plays, it's based on a true story of rundown high school in Patterson, New Jersey right near where I grew up

[00:02:46] actually, and he becomes the principal and you have to see the movie. I'm not giving anything away, but great movie. I just saw it this week. Jay, first, do you see any movies this week? Oh yeah, last week, this week and actually I saw this movie called Our

[00:03:02] Guy. Have you heard of it? Our Guy, I've heard of Argo, but not Our Guy. Our guy was like kind of like a sweater pattern for Wasps. Yes, right, I think, but the movie is basically it's like a spy plus novel plus comedy. Like it's a like-hearted spy.

[00:03:24] Have you heard of The Kingsman? The movie? Yeah, so it's by the same, I would say almost the same production team. I think the same editor, same producer, same director, sort of in the same sort of... It's got an all-star cast. I know.

[00:03:39] Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell, Brian Cranston, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, who I don't know, I don't know who that is, but I've heard the name a lot. She's a singer. And John Cena is a professional wrestler, he's in it. Yep. Wow, that's crazy.

[00:03:53] And also when's the last time you've seen... When's the last time there is a light-hearted spy movie? Like James Bond get like more and more intense, right? Like, you know, it used to be like fun sort of spy movie that people can watch,

[00:04:07] but now like the last one with Daniel Craig is like so intense and stuff like that. So this like light-hearted like comedy a little bit. All right. Well, because I outsource all of my critical thinking to the internet, I'm going to use Google to search spy comedy films.

[00:04:25] You ever think about that? Like every new technology that's developed, and I'm not being anti-technology, I think technology is great and it improves my life almost every new thing that comes along. But basically with GPS we outsourced our ability to find things.

[00:04:42] With calculators we outsourced our math ability. With Google we've outsourced our memory. And now with AI we're starting to outsource our critical thinking. So, okay, so best 15 best sky comedy films ranked. And you have The Man Who Knew Too Little with Bill Murray.

[00:04:59] I've never even heard of that movie. I've never heard of that. Get Smart. Oh yeah, Steve Carell. Yeah, I didn't want to see it because I like the TV series from the 60s. But it was great. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Oh yes, that was fun too.

[00:05:14] Awesome powers of course. Oh wait, hold on. Let's see, I'm just going to scroll to number one. Is Awesome Power considered a spy movie though? I think it's not. But oh and look, guess what? Number one is, guess. Agal. No, Kingsman. Kingsman. Dude, you got to watch Kingsman.

[00:05:32] Kingsman is such a fun movie. So like, you don't have too much substance in it. But like, it's like a family fine movie. Just watch it with your family, with your kids, with Robin. It's so much fun. You have to watch Kingsman one and then Kingsman two

[00:05:47] and then you know the precoz of Kingsman. They have like a whole university building upon on it. OK, so my recommendation on movies was a serious, well-acted, well-written movie based on a true story. Lean on Me, Story of Morgan Freeman, one of Morgan Freeman's first, I think.

[00:06:03] And yours is Lighthearted. Yes. Spy comedy. Which, who knows, I'm not judging and I will see it. I will watch it. My other pick for the movies, though, and this was one I saw about a month ago was Roman J. Israel.

[00:06:18] Oh, that's the name of the movie starring Denzel Washington, a lesser known Denzel Washington movie. First off, I think Denzel Washington might be my favorite actor. I've been going through a phase where I basically just watching one by one every single Denzel Washington movie.

[00:06:34] And like I love American gangster. I love I just love about every movie's in and the equalizer have to recommend those. As we talked about it man last week, the equalizer movies are are incredible. Just as good as it man, I think.

[00:06:49] Well, it depends if you're super into kung fu movies, then it man over equalizer. But Roman J. Israel, he plays kind of this almost nerdy on the spectrum, sort of civil rights lawyer, defense lawyer, doesn't really know how to communicate with people.

[00:07:07] And he's he just makes five hundred dollars a week as a lawyer. And then suddenly his boss who was always kind of like shielding him from the real world dies and he can't get a job. He doesn't know what to do.

[00:07:20] And it's really interesting what happens a little again, a little older movie. Denzel Washington, though, one of his best, I think Roman J. Israel. Did you ever listen, Jay? Did you ever listen to the podcast? It was called had a great name.

[00:07:34] It's called Denzel Washington is the greatest actor ever period. I heard about it, but because we talk about it all the time, but I never watch it because I love the name of it.

[00:07:45] I love the fact that they write that the word the word period is part of the title. It's great. Right. So and then I saw a TV series this past week, like we Robin and I binge watched for three straight days, this TV series.

[00:08:02] My daughter, Molly recommended it to me and it's called Pen one five P. And one five we watched it, I think on Amazon, but it was produced by Hulu. So I don't quite understand it, but Pen one five and it's it's it's worth seeing.

[00:08:21] It's it's basically it reminds me of the TV series Freaks and Geeks, which was one of Judd Apatow's first ever shows slash movies. And Freaks and Geeks, I should add is almost a historical sitcom to watch. It only lasted for one season and then NBC canceled it.

[00:08:39] But it's the first Judd Apatow wanted to hire all new actors. And so here are some of the new actors he hired for Freaks and Geeks. James Franco had never acted before. Seth Rogen, Jason Siegel and Martin Star, who's in Silicon Valley.

[00:08:57] Linda Cardellini, who is in a ton of stuff. You'll recognize her once you see it. But it's interesting that Seth Rogen and James Franco, this is their first appearance on acting on any show or movie. But anyway, Pen 15 is a little like Freaks and Geeks.

[00:09:12] It's basically about two 13 year old girls surviving seventh grade. And if that sounds like awful to you, believe me, it's not awful. Like at first, why would I watch that? But my daughter recommended it. She has good taste.

[00:09:28] But see, I saw that the Lonely Island guys were producing it. So Lonely Island is Andy Samberg and his friends. You might remember them from the very first song to ever go viral on YouTube.

[00:09:46] The first song to have over 100 million views on YouTube was a funny song by Andy Samberg called Lazy Sunday. It was him and Chris Darnell, something like that. And and then of course he's on Brooklyn 99. Yeah, he's done a bunch of movies on Saturday Night Live.

[00:10:03] Super funny guy. But Lazy Sunday was great. But anyway, I didn't even know he was producing shows. He produces the show Pen 15 and the two women who write it. It's about their experiences as 13 years and they play themselves.

[00:10:15] They're two women who are 38 years old and they play themselves as 13 year olds. And you really believe they're 13 years old. It's kind of funny because it's not until like halfway through that I sort of realize, oh, they're they're not 13 years old.

[00:10:32] And one of them, Maya Urskline, she's now starring in the TV series Mr. Mrs. Smith. So I mean, and they won a bunch of Emmys for Pen 15. It was just on in 2023, just last year. But it was really great. There's two seasons. They it wasn't canceled.

[00:10:49] They specifically planned on it being two seasons and it's really worth watching. It's it's it's it's funny in this kind of almost cringy way sometimes because 13 year old seventh graders are often cringy. And it really reminded me of not only of my own experience of the age,

[00:11:07] but then I thought about my my daughters when they were that age. And it's a very sweet show. So and funny. Yeah, I started watching Atlanta. Oh my god, that is the best show ever. It's a sitcom starring Childish Gambino.

[00:11:24] I always forget if he's Danny Glover or Donald Glover. I think Donald Glover. Oh, by the way, he's the Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith and Maya Urskline is Mrs. Smith. So that's funny. So the two shows we're watching are both somehow connected to a TV show

[00:11:39] we didn't watch, which is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I guess now we're going to have to watch that. Yeah. But I would say Atlanta is probably the most creative sitcom ever made. And it has a lot of great competition for that, including curvy enthusiasm, Dave

[00:11:55] Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development, Larry Sander show and some other classics. Atlanta is is really just a great story, but great experiments that don't disrupt the story. Really funny, well acted. Donald Glover is just amazing in it. And it's just an all around good show.

[00:12:17] And just by coincidence, I live near Atlanta. Yeah, but isn't so do you. But Atlanta, it's a little bit more greedy compared to all the other show that you just mentioned, isn't it? Oh yeah, definitely. Like it's well, people will see.

[00:12:31] You have to watch it when they see why. Yeah. Yeah. But all right. So Atlanta, Pen 15, Lean on me, maybe or a guy I'm not convinced. You have to watch it. I go, I will watch it. I will watch it.

[00:12:44] And then so I have to say I also watch a Spirited Away as well this past weekend. You know, Spirited Away. So OK, that's an animation. What's its studio? Ghibli. How do you say it? Ghibli. Yeah. Ghibli. Yeah. GH, IBLI, something like that.

[00:12:58] Yeah. And it's probably the best animated movie I've ever seen. But again, I saw it around 20 years ago. Is that possible? Did it come out more than 20 years ago? It came out in 2001 or 2000. Yeah. I used to watch that all. I've probably watched that 10 times.

[00:13:14] It's really the animation is just great. I don't know if they do animation like that anymore. It's the most recent movie by that studio. The Boy and the Heron. Boy and I don't know. Yeah. How do you pronounce H-E-R-O-N? I think Heron. Yeah.

[00:13:33] The Boy and the Heron, it just came out. People loved it. It's 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It's by Studio Ghibli. It's almost impossible to hate that movie. Sorry to interrupt you. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's impossible to hate that studio. The studio is good.

[00:13:46] And also like this type of movie, it's just heartwarming. And it always takes me off the reality. Like sometimes when I watch a movie, I don't want to watch something too real, too close to the reality. Yeah. Like, you know, it's interesting. Most movies are very visual.

[00:14:01] And then you get a feeling for based on the acting and the writing. It creates the emotions inside you, the emotions inside you while you're watching it. But Studio Ghibli, just the way it's animated also creates this emotion that's really kind of to use Robert Green's words sublime.

[00:14:20] Like it's a very sublime kind of movie. There's something else I did completely different this week, which is I wanted to research again for my kids. I wanted to research websites. I always tell my kids, oh, why don't you try making money online?

[00:14:51] But I never have really evidence to back it up. So I wanted to research some websites where they could potentially make some money. I found what I expected to find, which is that so on Instagram,

[00:15:02] there's all these accounts that go to these websites and you can make five thousand dollars a week. So a lot of those websites that those accounts refer to are just BS or their scams or you don't really make.

[00:15:13] You might make a dollar a week, but not five thousand dollars a week. But there's two that I think you might have a chance. One is Audible. So you go to ACX.com, which is Audible's kind of back end website. You make an account.

[00:15:28] You click on the button that says find projects. So that means projects are books that have been written where the author doesn't want to read the audiobook. Why wouldn't the author want to read the audiobook? It is really unpleasant to read an audiobook.

[00:15:45] Like I always I can't I can't schedule anything before or at when I've read every one of my audiobooks and I can never schedule anything before several days before or several days after because I got to rest my throat before and then my throat is just shot afterwards.

[00:16:01] And it's about two days to read an audiobook. You know, let's say it's around 60 or 70 thousand words. And my throat is hurting so much afterwards. But that's why authors that that creates an opportunity. So you could make you honestly could like a romance novel that would take you

[00:16:17] about two or three days to read, you could probably get paid four or five thousand dollars in a few days reading an audio reading a romance novel, for instance, and there's hundreds and hundreds of projects at any given

[00:16:30] point where you get paid anywhere from a hundred dollars to like five thousand dollars to read that book. So that is a site where you could potentially make money from home or in a studio or whatever and make your own hours and so on.

[00:16:44] Another one site that I found, Text Broker, TXT broker dot com. And it's a site for writing reviews. So let's see, it's like you could write actually could write basic articles, in-depth articles. It's kind of like a marketplace where people who need content pay people who write content.

[00:17:04] So it's not just reviews. So I take that back. It's articles, it's also it's all sorts of things. So I should have I should have had some examples, but you have to fill out like a whole questionnaire to apply and so on. But apparently I've Googled around.

[00:17:20] Apparently you can make some pretty good money per week on Text Broker and there's always stuff to do. So I've actually hired someone once to write a book for me, not a book that I am proud of.

[00:17:33] I wanted to I wanted to do an experiment, as I always do. And I wanted to see what would happen if I completely plagiarized 50 Shades of Gray, except I used except I used an a synonym for every word. So instead of saying, you know,

[00:17:54] the word I had a test at school, I would say I was taking an exam at my high school or whatever. So I would I wanted to I wanted to so nobody would actually see any words

[00:18:09] that were in 50 Shades of Gray, but it would be the exact same book word for word, except every word was a synonym from the original 50 Shades of Gray. And you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I can't even remember what I called it because it's on Amazon.

[00:18:23] Then I self published. So I paid some guy like $500 and he did this work in about a week. I don't know how he did it so fast, probably used some premature AI thing. Jade, you remember what I called? You even know this that I did this?

[00:18:38] Yeah, yeah, I designed the cover. It's something with the oh, you designed the cover. OK, well, what's I can't remember? What's the book called? I can't remember what is the book called, but you use a fake name. Jackie something Jackie Ling or something?

[00:18:51] Oh, yeah. No, I use something that was the initials for J.K. Rowling. Yeah. So John Kenneth Rowling, maybe. No, no, there's Jackie King something. So, Jay, thank you for finding the book. I was just disconnected from the podcast and that allowed you time to find the book.

[00:19:08] So the name of the book is How to Satisfy a Billionaire by Jackie King. And I just want to read the first sentence. I frown with dissatisfaction at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair. It simply won't work out the way I want.

[00:19:25] And damn Cindy Woodworth for being sick and subjecting me to this experience. I ought to be concentrating on my last most decisive tests, which are one week from now, yet here I am attempting to brush my hair into the style I want.

[00:19:38] So let me see what's the first sentence of Fifty Shades of Grey? Because it should be the exact same but with different words. Well, also I'm curious like what's the FK score of this one day of the. Oh, that is a good question.

[00:19:52] So the FK score, the Fisher-Concade score is a Fisher-Concade calculator. We'll take the whole text of your book or article or story or whatever and we'll tell you the Fisher-Concade score of it, which will tell you the grade level that you're writing at.

[00:20:08] And people think, oh, the better the book, the higher the grade level. That's not true. If you write a book or an article or blog post or whatever, that's at like a tenth grade level or an eleventh grade level. That is a horrible, horrible book.

[00:20:22] Ernest Hemingway's book, Old Man in the Sea, which actually is literally one foot away from me, it's right in front of me. Old Man in the Sea, one of the best books I've ever written and probably caused him to win the Nobel Prize in 1952, I think,

[00:20:35] is written at, I believe, a fifth grade level. So whenever I write and particularly whenever I write a book, I am constantly checking the Fisher-Concade score to see I am no higher than a sixth grade level.

[00:20:47] But I'll check the FK score in a second of my classic book that someone else wrote. OK, first I want to see I want to see the first sentence of Fifty Shades of Gray. Oh, let's see if I can find it.

[00:21:02] All right. While you're finding it, can I can I can I read you something that's really good? So we got five. You get a five five star review on Amazon. What are you kidding? Yes. So this

[00:21:16] this person, I'm pretty sure it's like a bot, but this person named Iris Toto Case and the five star review, one of the best books I've ever read. And he says, an incredibly gripping, original and sexy story told from

[00:21:31] the perspective of a girl plagued by with the monotony of everyday life. When a chance opportunity allows her to step outside of the mold, Brenda dares wear lesser women like cover. Another brilliant work by Jackie King,

[00:21:48] story of a shy girl proves that provocative fiction is still alive and well. And two people found that helpful. There you go. OK, so again, the first sentence I found with the satisfaction in myself in the mirror is from how to satisfy a billionaire.

[00:22:14] And the first sentence of 50 Shades of Grey is I scow with frustration at myself in the mirror. OK, he left mirror, but I don't know. Maybe there's no synonyms for mirror. I scow with frustration at myself in the mirror.

[00:22:27] And and this again, this is the second sentence of 50 Shades of Grey. Damn my hair. It just won't behave and damn Catherine Kavanaugh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams,

[00:22:39] whereas in the classic book How to Satisfy a Billionaire, the second sentence was damn my hair. OK, he left that. It simply won't work out the way I want. And damn Cindy Woodworth for being sick and subjecting me to this experience.

[00:22:54] I ought to be concentrating on my last and most decisive tests. So anyway, you could. And I don't recommend that book. I would give it one star. It was an experiment and guess what? It hardly sold any copies at all. How many reviews does it have, Jay?

[00:23:10] Six reviews. All right, well, but like that's more reviews than some of my books. Some of I think it's one review, but six ratings. So people can rate, right? Oh yeah, good books or whatever.

[00:23:24] And then on Amazon, you know, you know why I was thinking I was J.K. Rowling, there's another book I once wrote. I wrote, I wanted to see. I did another experiment a few years earlier than this.

[00:23:35] I wanted to see if I could write a book, write and publish a novel in a weekend. And I'm not going to bother finding this book, but I wrote. I wrote the autobiography of Prince Williamson. So it was called. All right, now I got to find it.

[00:23:50] The autobiography. And it was it was the idea is it was an autobiography, it was only three days old. It's so it's so underappreciated this book that Amazon's not even filling in the blanks. OK, the autobiography of Prince George Alexander Lewis Windsor,

[00:24:11] because that's his full name, Prince Williamson. And it got 15 ratings, has 2.9 stars. And it's only 31 pages, which just I wanted to show to you could just write. I call it a novel or an autobiography, whatever. I have the Kindle edition and I did it in a weekend.

[00:24:32] I published it July 31st, 2013, just two months after I published Choose Yourself. And the top review is a one star review by G. Kenny Burroughs. Wonder why what is the G is? I guess George is one star. It's titled the review is titled Rubbish.

[00:24:48] Suggestions in this book are crude and ludicrous. I would not recommend it to anyone, anyone, even though it was a freebie. Uh, that guy must be British. Yeah. And then another one is OK, this is Three Stars by Marianne Anderson.

[00:25:04] Not bad for a three day old baby, because of course it's it's I think he's typing it out to his butler who is John Kenneth. John Kenneth Rowling wrote the forward and like his valet or whatever. So another five star interesting concept. So anyway, these are not recommendations,

[00:25:26] although actually this one was the kind of good. I had a fun time writing that one. But let's move on to my really my favorite things. How to satisfy a billionaire and this autobiography are not among my favorite things, I just want to make that clear.

[00:25:56] I wanted to recommend this one book that has been a favorite of mine for a long time, actually. And I probably reread this about once a year, which is How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Brown. Now, Harry Brown is an interesting character.

[00:26:11] He was like a libertarian, I guess he was the libertarian candidate for president at one point, I think in 2000. And I don't care about his political beliefs at all, but it was just he talks about freedom in every possible way. Now it's not a political book.

[00:26:26] It's like it's almost a self-help book, but not quite. But he talks about these things called boxes and a box is any situation that restrains your freedom. So for instance, a bad job, if you think you're obligated to stay at your job, that's like and you hate it.

[00:26:44] That's a box like Jay is in a box right now being the podcast producer here. Or if you're if you're stuck in a bad marriage or if you don't enjoy like the college you're at or the relationship you're in or some social

[00:26:56] obligation you have to go to, these are all types of boxes. And his point is is that you're paying a price to stay in that box. So for instance, if you don't like your job, the price you're paying is that you could potentially be in another job.

[00:27:13] And so his whole point is is that every situation that restrains your freedom, there is a price you're paying to stay in that situation and there's a price you can pay to get out of that situation. And so he suggests, and I'll just read this real quickly.

[00:27:32] If there's a box in your life, big or little, let me suggest a simple method of putting it in focus. Take a few minutes away from everything else. Find a comfortable chair in a quiet room where you can consider the problem without interruption. First, identify the box.

[00:27:47] And even though this is sort of obvious, this is me talking to them, even though this is sort of obvious, a lot of people don't do this. I don't often do this. What is it that's causing you the discomfort?

[00:27:56] For example, suppose you've lied to someone and now find it difficult to maintain the lie, you're no longer able to express yourself freely for fear of saying something that would contradict the lie or perhaps your weekends are continually

[00:28:08] interrupted by relatives who drop in and monopolize your only free time. Or maybe you've made a commitment to contribute money to a particular cause. But now you wish you were free to spend the money elsewhere. Whatever it is, identify the discomfort the box causes.

[00:28:23] Next, think of what you would do if you weren't in the box. At first, the only advantage you could think of might be the absence of the discomfort, but in some way, the box is preventing you from doing something you'd prefer to do.

[00:28:34] And if it were removed, you'd be free to take advantage of desirable alternatives. Imagine the box gone and then imagine what you do once you were free of it. Blah, blah, blah. The next step is to identify the price it would take to get out of the box.

[00:28:48] As I said earlier, it may not even occur to you that there is a price that would get you out, but there is always a way out. If you were to walk out of the box right now, what would it cost you?

[00:28:58] What would happen that you've been dreading? The price could be fearful or it could be trivial, but there is a price that could get you out of the situation. If you lied to someone, you may have to admit that you lied to get out

[00:29:09] of the box. If so, the price might be the shame of admitting the lie or the loss of the person's friendship or the time involved to reestablish a reputation for honesty or possibly all of those things.

[00:29:20] The price might be a confrontation with someone such as telling your spouse you don't want to remain married, telling your boss you want a better arrangement if you're going to continue to work for him or breaking off

[00:29:29] a relationship with a friend or relative who brings you only grief. Identify what you have to do in order to end your present discomfort. Then picture yourself paying that price. It may be painful just to think about it, but try.

[00:29:42] And his point is as you go through these mental exercises, it'll get less and less painful to imagine yourself paying that price. And at the end, you'll only identify three situate three elements of the box.

[00:29:54] What you're paying by remaining where you are to what it will cost to get out and three, what you could do once you're out. And then he just he talks about different traps, different boxes. What does it mean to be a quote unquote expert? There's titles like

[00:30:11] let me see, go to the table contents. The group trap, the government trap, the despair trap, the rights trap, the utopia trap, why you are not free identity traps. Anyway, I highly recommend as a book to improve your life, whether you follow

[00:30:28] the ideas in it or not, I don't always follow every idea in this book, but it's just a very fresh, enlightening way of thinking. And I highly recommended how I found freedom in an unfree world. Another book is OK. I just bought the book.

[00:30:44] I just bought the book. I was that convincing. I'm glad. Yeah, it's very convincing. Yeah. So it's really good. It's been an inspiration to me over the years or decades. And just also I'll say I read a pretty good novel this past week,

[00:30:58] How to Stop Time by Matt Hague. And it's about a guy who has an unusual illness, which is that he ages at a rate about 15 to one compared with everyone else. So he only looks one year older every 15 years. And so he's about 400 years when the books written.

[00:31:19] And I mean, the main character is about 400 years old when the book starts. And it's a very enlightening novel. Matt Hague, H-A-I-G is a very good novelist and I love this book. And Jay, read any good books this week? I'm reading it very slowly,

[00:31:37] but I'm trying to finish clear thinking by my friend, Shane Parrish. Shane Parrish. Oh yeah, Shane was a great guy. Great podcast, great book. It came on. But I do have one thing that

[00:31:52] my favorite topic to talk with my friends and I don't know how I feel about it. Do you remember you did an episode with Maric, your good friend, about numbers? Everyone has a number in life. A number, like a financial number of where they would feel comfortable.

[00:32:07] They would retire. Yeah, so I spoke to my couple of my friends. I'm like, OK, what's your numbers? Like what would you want to make a year? They're like, I don't know. And then I'm like, oh,

[00:32:22] ideally if I could, I would maybe want to make about five to ten million dollars. And then they all like, isn't that too much? Do you really need five to ten million dollars? I'm like, I might not need it, but it's good to have it.

[00:32:36] It's good to, you know, dream for the moon shot. Well, what number did they think? Why did they think that let's just take five million. Let's take the lower boundary. Why did they think that five million was not enough? No, no, no, it was too much.

[00:32:51] What do they think was the right number? So one of my friends making about like 60, 70. She's like, yeah, like, well, I'm pretty comfortable where I am right now. If I make anything more, I would just donate to the charity. OK, so she makes she makes 60,000 dollars.

[00:33:12] And that's what she said. But does she say 70, 80? No kids, no kids. But I'm guessing kids add significantly. But OK, let's just take let's just say 80,000 a year is what she makes. So after taxes. Well, OK, let's just say 80,000. So right now in a checking account,

[00:33:31] what does your bank give you if you put money in a checking account? I think it's point two point three four percent or so. Like it's very, very low. Well, OK, I don't know. Rob, though. So let me see. I'm just going to type Wells Fargo savings account.

[00:33:48] I'm outsourcing my thinking again, my memory to Google. Yeah. And then I was talking with a friend of mine, which is your enemy because he works for IRS. Oh, you have a friend in the IRS? Exactly. You didn't tell me that. I was like, shut the podcast down.

[00:34:06] No, no, I was about to introduce you in person because he is very fascinating. He works for IRS but on the estate department. So he will handle like people die and then he will handle all the

[00:34:19] like how much we should have him on the podcast if he's allowed to talk about it. But I think he's allowed to if you want to, I can hook it up. Well, just ask him. I know he's probably not allowed as my so I think he's allowed to.

[00:34:33] OK, so let me see why. OK, I've clicked four buttons that say view rates and I still haven't gotten to anything. Now I want to put in my code. That's how bank gets you. They're like, oh, we have higher rate, but you have to click five buttons

[00:34:49] to get to the actual rate. But trust us, we will give you the best rate. OK, so a million dollars or more in a Platinum savings account is two and a half percent. Oh, but a seven month CD fixed rate CD was seven months.

[00:35:07] It's not that long. That's about five percent. So, OK, let's say she could get five percent on her money, your friend, and she needs to make 80,000 a year. So she needs to have one point. Wait, no, no, what's five? What's she needs to have four million dollars?

[00:35:23] What's her number? Yeah, actually, she needs to have a little bit more because there's inflation. So assuming like three or four percent inflation, she probably to make 80,000 a year, you probably need to have like five, six, seven million dollars in the bank. Right. But that's that's

[00:35:45] but that's pre-tax, right? Like if she's making 80k right now, like, yeah, but the savings account also is pre-tax. You pay taxes on your so she's got to have about minimum. Oh, am I doing this wrong? I think I'm doing this wrong.

[00:36:02] That's way too much like four million dollars for 80k. No, no, no, you're right. She needs like between two, she needs like between two and three million. Yeah, like 80,000 a year. Yeah, but like but she but, you know, we're just talking about like how much

[00:36:19] you want to make a year salary or whatever. But that's it's related to the number though, right? Because yeah, unless you're going to unless you're going to spend all the money, but you can't do that because you might live longer than you know.

[00:36:31] So you have to live off the interest. You can't dip into the money if you're not going to do anything else for money. So she probably needs well, to make 80,000 a year right now,

[00:36:42] she would need minimum 1.6 million if she's going to put it in these fixed rate CDs, probably need a little bit more because you're going to need to have money that's not necessarily in CDs. So she probably needs like two and a half million right now.

[00:36:56] But then taking into account inflation. So inflation, the value of your dollar is cut in half roughly every two years. No, 30 years, 30 years. Yeah, because it's 8% right? No, inflation right now. I mean inflation, the target rate of inflation is between two and 3%. Like right now, inflation is at 3%.

[00:37:17] 3% the way you figure it out, the way you figure out how much price is how long it takes something to double in price is you take the percentage is increasing and divide that divide 71 by that number.

[00:37:32] And it's about 23 years for the value of everything to get cut in half if inflation is at 3%. So assuming she's going to at least live another 30 years, she kind of needs roughly double the two million. You know, she probably needs, yeah,

[00:37:52] she probably needs about four million is her number. Wait, I said like every year or like just in general? No, she probably she probably needs. OK. I don't I don't know how to do the exact math.

[00:38:04] She probably needs between three and four million if she's going to quit her job, live off the interest and live for the rest comfortably for the rest of her life. And by the way, not increase at all her spending. So this assumes no kids stuff like that.

[00:38:20] So that's why you could add a little bit like, OK, a kid's college education costs $200,000 if she's going to send her kid to Harvard or whatever and so she's going to need to have that much extra on top of the three million.

[00:38:35] And again, the money has to be big enough so that she can handle the inflation. She probably needs to buy a house now to avoid inflation and rent. Like you could avoid a lot of inflation by buying things now that are going to

[00:38:46] last you forever and then she can't ever move out of that house. Or if she does it's the house has to go up by inflation. So her number probably is between three and four million. So your five million is not that far off.

[00:38:57] Yeah, well, how else does she expect to make 80,000 a year? Yeah, but like I'm talking about just making five million a year for myself. Like five million a year. Are you crazy? What do you need five million a year for? What? OK, so I mean that just

[00:39:13] what are you going to buy with five million? Well, OK, so let's say if I marry someone that have like some sort of medical conditions, like have to go to a hospital. Doesn't she have insurance? Yeah, but how much insurance cover? OK, well, look, don't don't.

[00:39:30] So you need to make five million a year because you're going to be with some quadriplegic who's going to the hospital all the time. Like, is that what your plan is? I just want I want like I want to live comfortably.

[00:39:42] Like, like, OK, OK, forget about the the invalid that you're marrying. Like, what are you how are you going to spend five million a year? OK, first of all, buy a couple cars. Even OK, OK, how much is a car? OK, let's say let's say let's say nine.

[00:40:01] OK, I'm not going to crazy just like Tesla or whatever. How much is a 50 K? It's like 50 K like that the normal one. By five of those cars every year, that's $250,000. You're not even getting close to five million. But yeah, but like what?

[00:40:18] You're not going to buy a house every year and a house is equity. You get equity in a house. So it's not it's not like you lose the money. You could mortgage the money out of it eventually. But what else do you want to spend money on?

[00:40:31] Food, flying around, flying around on on what are you flying around? Like like like like, OK, well, so how much does a plane cost? I don't know how much the paint. I play like like like a good private plane, like a Boeing.

[00:40:52] Like Taylor Swift's plane probably costs like 150 million. But you could just use you know, there's plenty of net net, whatever, jet leasing like wheels up or surf air or net jets is the most famous one.

[00:41:05] There's our old friend Jesse Itzler had marquee jets that he sold to net jets. So you need a you need $100,000 a year or realistically, you need like 300 or 400,000 a year and you could you could take like 10 vacations on private jets with that.

[00:41:19] So OK, OK, so I would say either with someone with your extravagant taste, the max you would need to make per year before taxes is two million. But that's only if you want to fly private everywhere and by five Teslas and have have a 20,000 square foot

[00:41:42] you know house in a suburb of New York City or something. So because then your mortgage will be high. But that's even high. But I would say, OK, if you really want to live like a billionaire,

[00:41:55] meaning fly private everywhere, have a big house, have the most expensive car. No one could tell. Trust me on this. No one could tell if you're a billionaire or a single digit millionaire if you make two million a year.

[00:42:09] That is that is more than enough and probably even making one million a year, you could almost act as if you were a billionaire. There won't be any difference between you and a billionaire in terms of your expenses. OK, so so you think two million it's reasonable

[00:42:25] and also like not too is it two million in cash or like, you know, just now million in cash. OK, but but that would mean your number is about 40 to 50 million that you'd have to have in the bank to retire. Now, so that's why I'm saying

[00:42:44] that's the most extravagant you could possibly be. Most people, I think your five to ten million was more accurate. OK, so so what how much do you think like reasonably someone's number should be like you said, like so five to ten million. It's it's about right.

[00:43:02] I think I think if you have between 10 and 20, no one could tell. You could live a life and have a lifestyle where nobody could tell the difference between you and a billionaire, which means basically you could do anything you want, except you can't buy expensive art.

[00:43:16] You can't buy a football team. You can't build a bunker in an island you own off of New Zealand to protect against the apocalypse. So you just but you can fly private everywhere you want and you could have the biggest like your neighbors could be billionaires.

[00:43:35] You could buy a big house and live as comfortably as you want. And that's that's if your number is between 10 and 20 million. If you're satisfied with less than that, though, there's nothing wrong with that. I think the minimum number is probably

[00:43:50] seven million in the bank and that takes care of any medical situations, colleges for your kids, and you could live off the interest in general or depending on your investment strategy, you could live off what you make on investments. OK, so I should strive for seven million.

[00:44:08] It's a good number, though. I just try to. By the way, this is what this speaks to the importance of really studying investing because the better investor you are, the less you have to have.

[00:44:17] The lower your number is because you can make more on the money you have. Yeah, so not investing in Dogecoin and stuff like that will help. Yeah, don't invest in Dogecoin. Although who's to say maybe it'll go up, but that's not a good

[00:44:30] investing strategy to invest in something that has absolutely zero, you know, fundamental value, right? Which I did a couple of years ago. So well, you probably have done well then because that's Dogecoin has done well.

[00:44:43] But it's like it's like what Annie Duke says, though, is that you can make a decision that makes you money, but it's still a bad decision. And vice versa, you can make a good decision that sometimes loses money. But the decision making process was correct. Gotcha.

[00:44:58] So anyway, that is this week's my favorite things. Next week I'll dive a little bit more into or two weeks from now, dive a little bit more into investing books and whatever other movie shows. Where I find that I'm always and send me recommendations because I am always

[00:45:14] looking for good TV shows to watch movies to watch both Pen 15. By the way, if you write out Pen 15, you know what the real name of the show is. But Pen 15 and Lean on Me were both recommendations I got in the past two weeks and I love them.

[00:45:30] So thank you to Molly Altucher who gave me Pen 15 and the woman who cuts my hair, who gave me Lean on Me. So and Jay, thank you so much for producing this podcast. All right. You're my favorite podcast producer. You're my favorite host. Excellent. All right.