Afford Anything

Podcast Guest Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in being a guest on the show! We receive a lot of guest pitches. We’d like to clarify the topic and focus of our show so that you can assess whether or not you should submit a pitch.

Guest Qualifications and Criteria

We prioritize guests who are intellectuals, professors and academics, researchers and serious journalists or esteemed authors. An enormous proportion of our guests hold a doctorate or have authored a book that’s on the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.

Examples of academic and expert guests include:

  • Dr. Dan Ariely, behavioral scientist
  • Dr. Cal Newport, computer scientist
  • Dr. Brad Klontz, financial psychologist
  • Dr. Ben Hardy, organizational psychologist
  • Dr. Wade Pfau, retirement researcher
  • Etc.

Examples of journalist and author guests include:

  • Gretchen Rubin, NYT bestselling author
  • Mark Manson, NYT bestselling author
  • Charles Duhigg, winner of Pulitzer Prize

Who We Don’t Interview

  • We do not participate in the echo chamber of personal finance bloggers/podcasts who interview other personal finance bloggers/podcasters. While we may occasionally highlight a member of the community, we are not an echo-chamber podcast and we do not lend our airspace to anecdotal case studies (the oversaturated “how I did it” genre).
  • We do not interview self-appointed CEOs of startup companies. If your pitch is “I launched my own company selling widgets and grew it by X percent,” please understand that we are not interested in the “how I did it” genre. Our philosophy is that single anecdotal case studies have limited educational value. By contrast, if you are a business researcher who has authored peer-reviewed publications, then by all means, please reach out.

The following is a list of pitches we will reject:

  • You have an “I paid off $____ of debt in ___ years!” story
  • You have an “I reached financial independence after ___ years doing ____!” story
  • You want to talk about real estate in any way, shape, or form
  • You’re a coach looking to share your lessons with what you hope are prospective clients
  • You’re a CEO who wants to pitch their company to our audience
  • You’re an entrepreneur who wants to pitch their services or software to our audience
  • You want to talk about personal finance fundamentals (getting out of debt, saving money, cutting expenses)
  • You’re an Amazon bestselling author (but your book does not appear on any other bestseller lists, such as NYT or WSJ)
  • You’re a globe-trotting freelancer who wants to chat about travel
  • You work for or at an investment firm and want to pitch your firm’s services
  • You have a “special” investing strategy you want to share with our audience that’s outside of buy-and-hold index funds and ETFs
  • You care more about selling something than deeply exploring a topic and sharing value with our listeners

We know, this is a long list. That’s because we’re committed to making this the best show possible for our audience. We curate our guests and our content based on our curiosity and what our audience wants to hear.

Your message might not be a great fit for our platform, but we hope you find the right match.

Topics and Focus

We are a show by nerds, for nerds. This isn’t your average finance podcast. Our goal is to give you a framework from which you can think about the various trade-offs and decisions you need to make to live life on your terms.

As every episode begins with, “What’s important to you? How can you align your decisions in a way that reflects that? Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice, and that is what this podcast is here to explore.”

What, exactly, do we explore? Glad you asked! Here are the topics we love nerding out about:

  • Decision-making
  • Building habits
  • Productivity
  • Personal development
  • Financial independence (FI)
  • Investing as it relates to FI – mostly a buy-and-hold, passively managed index fund and ETF strategy
  • Entrepreneurship

We care about intentional living. We care about aligning our spending with our values. We care about making the world a better place for all.

Above all, a sense of curiosity fuels our content.

The Afford Anything Podcast Audience

We have a lot of nerds in our audience. Like us, they enjoy geeking out over the finer details of the four percent rule, they are fanatic about their spreadsheets, and they are constantly asking “what’s next?”

They are staunch believers in the fact that financial independence retire early (FIRE) doesn’t equate to banishing work from your life forever. Instead, they believe that FIRE equates to fulfilling their calling. That’s when the real work begins.

A majority of our listeners are way past the basics of personal finance. They understand that they need to spend less, earn more, and invest the difference wisely. They’re most curious about how to invest the difference, and the various trade-offs involved in saying “yes” to one strategy while saying “no” to another.

They’re also curious about making the most of their limited time on earth. They want to know how they can work toward being the best version of themselves possible. They want to discover new passions and create new businesses.

Guest Highlights

Here’s a quick list of our most awesome guests and what they discussed:

Afford Anything