This episode is unusual.
Normally, I interview entrepreneurs, authors and headline-grabbing influencers.
But in today’s episode, I wanted to chat directly with you — the members of this community.
I want to know why you’re here, listening to this podcast, when most people couldn’t care less about managing their money.
Why are you different?
In today’s episode, I interviewed four members of the Afford Anything community — your fellow podcast listeners.
I held this interview live at FinCon, a conference for financial bloggers held last month in San Diego.
Here are some of the questions I asked our panelists:
- Why do you spend hours reading blogs and listening to podcasts about money?
- What made you approach personal finance head-on, rather than burying your head in the sand, like many people do?
- Do people in your “regular” life know that you want to retire early and reach financial independence? Or do you avoid talking about this because people give you funny looks when you mention it?
- How important is building a community — i.e., finding like-minded individuals who understand?
The chief takeaway I got from this episode came from that last question. The panelists described the importance of building a community, which is critical to maintaining motivation on the journey to reach financial independence.
To paraphrase a quote from author Jim Rohn: You’re the average of the five people whom you spend the most time around.
That’s why it’s crucial to seek out a support system of people with similar values and goals. They’ll have your back when times get tough.
In this episode, the panelists share their stories and ideas on how to build that support network.
Enjoy!
Resources Mentioned:
- Nick: True Tightwad
- Melissa, “The Roamer”: Traveling Wallet
- Emma: Emma Lincoln
- Gwen: Fiery Millennials
- The Afford Anything Facebook Group (formerly the One Percent Challenge Facebook group)
- Everything I Know About Blogging, Condensed into One Post
- Financial Independence Subreddit
- Meetup.com
— Paula
I also wanted to take a moment to mention the sponsor for this episode.
If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ve heard me interview many best-selling authors, including Gretchen Rubin, Laura Vanderkam, Cal Newport, Chris Guillebeau, and J.D. Roth. Before I interview these guests, I need to review their books, even if I’ve already read them in the past.
Sitting down to physically read the books can take a long time. That’s why I listen to their audiobooks, and I do this through a subscription I have called Audible. If you want to give them a try for free, head to audible.com/trynow for a free 30-day trial.
