#106 – Time Freedom and Cash Strategies with Brian Herriot

[00:00:00] Welcome back to Passive Income Pilots, everyone. Tait Duryea here with Ryan Gibson. How are you doing, Ryan? Studio's looking good. It's looking great. I'm in Seattle in the studio, and it's nice. You know, actually, our chairs in the studio here are actually airline seats that we got from a real airplane. That's right. I don't know if we've ever mentioned that on the show. We haven't. Yeah, we haven't. They're pretty cool. I'm not going to tell you what airplane they're from, though, because everyone's going to think, oh, wow, it's like Mad Dog or something.

[00:00:26] I remember when you were upset at your employee that chose the aircraft. Oh, it's fine. It's kind of cool. Yeah, but they're CRJ seats. So hats off to the CRJ. It's so funny. I think it was like a CRJ 900 at least, or maybe a 700. I'm not sure, but. That's good. Either way, they're kind of cool. They're kind of cool. They're cool. They're cool either way. We have a cool show. We have a cool show today. That's right.

[00:00:50] Yeah. You know, it's interesting. The airline pilots are now making more money and the last dollars that go into their accounts are the highest taxed. And so, you know, we're like working hard, you know, we're making more money and we have more income. And then the diminishing returns. Yeah, it's like diminishing returns, like 37 and a half percent. Plus state of the last dollars that you earn. Right. Because it's graduated are getting taxed at the higher tax rate.

[00:01:17] So like maybe what we do is we change our behavior and we start doing more passive income at the end that has a much lower tax rate. And you don't have to work for it and you don't have to pay the tax on it as bad. Right. Yeah. So I think that's what we're talking about today. So, yeah. And also blending in some retirement into your career before you get to 65. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. What do you do?

[00:01:43] You know, when we're 65, you know, we graduate from the airlines, you know, we're at the end of our career. You know, we should have some hobbies and we should start thinking about those hobbies today when we're in our best years. And I think that's what we're going to talk about today as well is, you know, what are some things you can start doing to position yourself financially to sort of not have to fly as much,

[00:02:03] not have to pay as those super high taxes and start developing great fun hobbies to do while you're still in your best years and your kids are good ages and, you know, all these things. Right. So that when you get to 65, like you have this full life already and you just continue that on and, you know, in retirement is really exciting. So we're going to get into that. Tate, who's our guest today? Yeah, Ryan. So today we have Brian Harriot.

[00:02:29] Harriot is a financial coach for successful entrepreneurs, people who don't have as smooth and steady of income as we do as airline pilots and really has built an entire philosophy around time freedom versus financial freedom. And I think it's a very interesting concept. We also talk a lot about holding a huge amount of cash, a lot more cash than most people recommend. And I think it's an interesting strategy.

[00:02:57] Yeah, I think what we're going to hear a lot about is like how much extra cash should you have around? Where should you put it while it's sitting in there? What types of passive income things can you invest in that are going to produce income? In which order should you buy those things? Should you buy the real estate first, the income producing stock first, things like that. And then we're also going to talk about, you know, I know a lot of listeners are starting to do side investments or buy businesses, things like that.

[00:03:22] And kind of hear the perspective of somebody who focuses on giving financial advice to those types of people who are doing more of the entrepreneurial thing. Like, Tate, I know you and, you know, Lucy's, you know, entrepreneurial selling real estate on the side. You're an airline pilot, but also you do some entrepreneurial stuff. So I think it's providing like a really good perspective to both sides of the equation. Let's be honest. I fly on the side. Yes, absolutely. We all do, I think. Right.

[00:03:50] And a few very important ticker symbols that I think you'll like to put in your portfolio of where to potentially store cash. So sit down, buckle up, get out your pen and paper, take some notes, and let's get into it. Welcome to Passive Income Pilots, where pilots upgrade their money. This is the definitive source for personal finance and investment tactics for aviators.

[00:04:17] We interview world-renowned experts and share these lessons with the blind community. So if you're ready for practical knowledge and insights, let's roll. Brian, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me, Tate. Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Brian, one thing I find so interesting about what you do is building a foundation of financial philosophy in any portfolio, right? Like, it doesn't matter what's going on in the world.

[00:04:44] I mean, we've had all kinds of, like, tariffs and on again, off again, market going up, going down. And it's just been kind of all over the place. And what's so nice about your approach to this has just been steady, Eddie. Stay the course. Have a philosophy. Have a proven methodology that works. Can you kind of tell us your background and maybe why you got to that point in your career where you just have this really well-worn playbook? Yes, I can definitely do that.

[00:05:11] So just kind of out of the gate, I'm an independent financial advisor for entrepreneur types. So my company is Harriet Financial. But I have not been a financial guy my whole life, right? And so I started this company because of what I've learned throughout the years, which is we need, like, this kind of integrated, comprehensive look at our finances. And it's not just about the investments and the money, which could be a good thing considering where things are going, you know, these days.

[00:05:39] But, yeah, let me give you a little bit of background. And then we can talk about some of the individual components, you know, if that's helpful. But I've always been a financial freedom, financial independence kind of guy coming right out of school. You know, good college, good job, save early, all the things that you're supposed to do. And then got kind of close to financial freedom in 2020 in January.

[00:06:07] And then in February, March, you know, got hammered. And that's where I made a mistake. And that has informed me in the years since and kind of driven everything that's happened in my career and in my personal life, everything in the last five years. And what I what had happened was I had to tell my wife in that moment of making a mistake that our, you know, financial freedom that was going to happen next year is really more going to be like 15 or 20 years.

[00:06:36] And her reaction was quite interesting. It wasn't, oh, no. It was what are you going to retire to anyway? What what what is what are you going to do with yourself? And I had no answer to that question. And so I kind of walked away and came back like a week later after I thought about what that was. And I said, I don't know, maybe some of the same stuff, but maybe a little bit less of it. And her answer was, well, you're not really retiring then. And, you know, you should probably figure that out.

[00:07:05] And so what I realized is that financial freedom, you know, just having enough money saved up in my 401k and whatnot so that I could never do anything again was not really what I wanted. What I wanted was the freedom and the choice to choose what I do. And I wanted it as early as possible. And so I've now I now call this concept time freedom. And the finances are extremely important, but it's not it's it's a breadth of finances.

[00:07:33] And that's why that's that is what kind of stabilizes my philosophy and how I look at things and staying the course. So. I live my life now kind of looking at a particular year, I call it the time freedom formula, which is, you know, you've got these expenses to to cover and then you've got investment income that you can use to live off that and then also flexible income.

[00:07:56] And if you can put those things together nicely in a particular year and then, you know, project it out into the future, you can actually live quite a good life. Very much sooner than most and for longer than most and also not be 100 percent reliant in retirement situation on the markets. And yeah. And so that's kind of what got me to this point.

[00:08:22] And we can go look at each of those components and how they apply to, you know, to pilots and whatnot. But I just wanted to kind of set the stage with that. Yeah, I love this, Brian. I mean, this is if you've ever read the book, The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, you know, one of the big things he, you know, the big points that he makes in that book is that, you know, what are you working so hard to retire at 65 and then what are you going to go sit on a beach?

[00:08:51] Like you're going to be bored stiff in two weeks. So the goal should be more of a lifestyle creation that blends in with work versus just trying to work as hard as you can and stuff as much money into a sack as possible. And then and then just quit cold turkey. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. You know, they they get to 65 and it's like, oh, what's next? And people go into depression. You know, it's it's tough.

[00:09:20] So I love this concept. Yeah, you need to be thinking about. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, right. No. As an airline pilot. What do we do when we retire at 65? What are we going to do with our lives? Right. Right. That's what we constantly struggle with. Right. What hobbies do we have? What is going to fill our cup? As they say, what are going to be the things that we do that satisfy us? And and I. You've got to start doing that now.

[00:09:49] You've got to start taking the steps to get hobbies and have a life outside of flying because flying is life. I mean, you know, we hit the road. We're in our layovers. We're in our overnights. And I think building this kind of financial freedom to do these things and start thinking about this lifestyle now is so important to the health of your retirement as an airline pilot after 65. Absolutely. When I told my wife about, you know, the fact that, you know, financial freedom wouldn't come for another 15 or 20 years.

[00:10:19] And then we decided that I really just wanted, you know, to work more flexibly. That solution happened in three years. So, you know, so come up to present day five years ago. You know, I had this epiphany four years ago. What did we do in line with what you're talking about? We bought our forever cabin on a pristine lake in northern Wisconsin. It's like where my wife grew up, where I vacationed as a kid. Three years ago, we spent our first summer there. Two years ago was the first summer that I didn't work there.

[00:10:49] And last summer, I got to see my kid learn how to water ski, which is a huge thing in our family going back generations. And so those are the life goals and the, you know, the reasons for living that week. I think we can pull forward, pull forward in our lives and not have to wait until 65, as long as we put the financial pieces of the puzzle together to do that. Well, let's talk about those financial pieces. So what were you doing pre-COVID and what was the switch? What did you start doing after COVID?

[00:11:20] Pre-COVID, I was, I had worked up to that point, been big consulting, Accenture, ultimately took a job at UCSF Health in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on a big project there as a director opening a new hospital. And I was, you know, just running on all cylinders, had a young baby at home and none of that was happening. But then, you know, usually something crazy happens and you get a job demotion.

[00:11:49] And on the side, I had a software company that I had started in the healthcare space. Then when COVID hits, that dries up, the market crashes, everything happens. So what I did is take an independent consulting gig at a local client out here in San Francisco Bay Area and realized that it was quite lucrative, very flexible, got rid of all the politics and administrative stuff.

[00:12:17] And I'm like, wow, this work thing could actually be pretty nice. And also, I can like, you know, align the projects so that they start and end at certain times. And there was just a lot of flexibility that, you know, that not a lot of typical corporate jobs have. And that ended up being almost the kind of the secret key to unlock the rest of the things.

[00:12:42] And so, you know, that flexible income piece of the time freedom formula is a huge component. It sounds exactly to me like somebody going from, you know, commuting to a base that they can hold captain and they're sitting reserve, you know, in a crash pad for 18 days a month to like, you know, saying, screw it, I'm going to take a more junior aircraft in base and all of a sudden the schedule just being amazing.

[00:13:11] That may be only applicable to a small handful of our pilot listeners, but that's what this was resonating for me there. Yeah. And I think a big fear I always have in talking about this lifestyle is there's a lot of books, not a lot, but there's some books about, you know, having achieved enough. I don't know if you like where, you know, you get to this point in your career and, oh, it's time to kind of kick back and, you know, take advantage of the skills I built, but relax. That's not me at all.

[00:13:39] And so just the fact that I, you know, don't work during the summers and then I can water ski and stuff doesn't mean that I don't have big, you know, aspirations for what I think I can do. Because, you know, in my philosophy of time, freedom, first financial freedom follows, we can't forget the second part. But I also feel like it's only when you have the time to kind of come back out of the day-to-day grind of the work that you're doing that you can actually start to think, all right, well, what does that mean?

[00:14:08] And how could I take, how could I pursue something that I'm not doing right now that I, that could like 10x my, my income versus make it 10%, you know, do 10 things, 10% better. Right. Implement all the strategies you've learned on this show and go buy that short-term rental. Go, you know, go buy that property, go, go start that business. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:35] And before the show, we talked about the importance of having cash on hand. And I know that there's a lot of things that we can talk about on this, but that was one thing that you really stressed was the importance of, of cash on hand and something that we stress as well. You know, having that reserve and, you know, how much is enough and how much is too much because you don't want to have so much cash that you're missing out on investing in something that has a better return. And you don't want to have too little cash that you can't cover shortfalls and take advantage of opportunities when they come up.

[00:15:04] So how do you balance how much cash to hold on to and how do you store it? Yep. My philosophy here is that your investing approach has to match your goal. And in my, in my case, the people I work with, their goal is to have, you know, a free and flexible life. So in other, what that means is you're going to potentially have inconsistent income and so you may need access to your money sooner than most.

[00:15:29] And so this was the stark reality that I had in 2020 when I was so close, like I had lived through, you know, the 2008 great financial crisis and didn't stress because the market was down because I could invest and it would grow up forever. But eventually you need to use your money.

[00:15:44] And so that's where I've, you know, come along and actually Morgan Housel in psychology of money puts out, you know, his belief in that, you know, he says even personally, he holds far more, you know, cash equivalent in a money market or savings, you know, high yield savings account than the average person does in the investing crowd that he speaks to. Because, you know, the argument they have is, oh, you know, it's a drag on your returns. You should be fully invested in all these things.

[00:16:12] But I believe that you should have enough cash because you don't know when the markets are going to take a turn south. And maybe it's also when you have an extra three months off and you need to use that money for, you know, for to live on and maintain this free and flexible life. You don't want to have to run right back to that, you know, position that's full time and stressing you out. So I believe in what I call a 10% cash.

[00:16:40] So I based mine on some old advice from Warren Buffett. It was in one of his letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, which was, you know, when I am dead and gone, I'm going to give my money to my heirs and I'm going to put it in, you know, 90% in the stock and the stock index fund and 10% in cash. Now, I think that's a starting point. Not all of us have that much money. 10% of a whole lot of money is still a lot of money.

[00:17:08] So I have I start there and then have what I advise a 10% cash swing. So typically your cash on hand that I would recommend would be between 10 and 30% of your overall investments. And another viewpoint that I look at it is it's nice to have between six months and two years of living expenses available in cash for whatever reason, because, you know, when markets are down and things are crazy.

[00:17:36] That cash is actually the most valuable asset that you own. And, you know, it's more than just the emergency fund. Like I think it cash is that much more important in kind of an overall investment strategy. Now, that's if you use it, right? If you strike when there's a big market correction like there was last week with the tariffs being announced, we saw this massive nosedive in the equities markets.

[00:18:02] Is that a point where you've reached into that treasure trove of cash and deployed a bunch? Yes, cash, I believe, is very defensive and very offensive at the same time. So, you know, defensively, you can use it to protect yourself in bad times. But offensively, yeah. And it can be it can be based on what where your skill set is at. So, in other words, if you're a market person, yes, absolutely.

[00:18:31] If you have some cash, you can deploy it back in 2008 when the market was down. I'm like, yeah, I'd love to put some cash in here, but I didn't have anything. Or it's a business opportunity that comes your way, real estate or anything. If you are fully deployed and tied up, you can't take advantages of opportunities when they present themselves.

[00:18:52] So, again, like you could I could argue that the cash and the three, four or five percent return it has, that that investment in the business that then gives you 200 percent return. That's actually cash return, right? It's just how you translated it over. That's a good point. You mentioned having enough reserves for six to two years, six months to two years. And then you mentioned 10 to 30 percent of your holding should be cash. Can you kind of unpack that a little bit more?

[00:19:21] Because, you know, for some people, you know, saving up that initial reserve will be like 100 percent of their investment portfolio for younger investors. And then as we mature in our investing in our careers, you know, that will become then, you know, is it you want to have two years? Could be as little as five percent. I mean, two years for somebody who's 60 and has a 10 million, 15 million dollar net worth. I mean, that could be much, much smaller. Definitely.

[00:19:51] Like when you, you know, go on the extreme on the low end or the extreme on the high end, you're going to have to kind of choose where where it fits. But yeah, if you have an extremely high net worth, you know, two years of your living expenses might be less than 10 percent. Certainly. Certainly. That's a guideline. And I also I mean, I love the idea of ranges because you don't, you know, different people have different scenarios that they're working through.

[00:20:15] You know, do you know you're going to be investing in your business and, you know, you may not make any money for three years. You know, you should make some adjustments and hold the appropriate amount of cash so that you're able to stay the course. Makes a lot of sense. OK, so, Brian, as an airline pilot, I have cash reserves and I'm looking for the most strategic place to store it. It drives me nuts just looking at cash, sitting in an account, doing nothing when it could be out there working for me.

[00:20:42] So where do you keep it so that it's generating some sort of return? Yeah, there's usually three good places to put it and the returns will be slightly different. And so you should look and see what what's most appropriate. First of all, don't put it in your checking account where you want to typically have it. You know, the easiest place would be a high yield savings account, usually at an online bank, like an ally or something like that. The other where I currently have mine is in my brokerage account in a money market, a high yielding federally backed money market.

[00:21:11] What's the ticker? Because it's it's easy. It's easier to move, you know, when you do want to deploy it, when the market's down, it's right there. And then there are also, you know, the Warren Buffett method is to buy short term U.S. Treasury bills. But that's complicated to do. There's some new services that are making it easier, like public, I think, is the name of the company. But but there are actually ETFs that you can buy that own those. That would be another way to go about it.

[00:21:40] And at one point, a couple of years ago, I did a full analysis on all of these. And when I looked at it at that point in time, you know, one of them was slightly better than the others. But then I did it a year ago and another one was flipped. But again, like I don't think we're putting our cash to work to get some interest back. But but, you know, if it's 4.7 versus 4.9, that doesn't really make too much of a difference. So whatever usually it's wherever is most convenient. And as long as it's not a checking account, like I said. Perfect. What is what's like a good rate?

[00:22:10] Right now? Well, I mean, it depends. And as far as I know, since last week, it's totally changed. I don't know. But I would say in the upper fours is probably what I'm seeing right now. Yeah. Brian, can you share the ticker symbols of of the money market accounts that you were using in your brokerage? Maybe that ETF? Yes. So for money markets, you're going to typically pick it, like you said, in your brokerage. The Vanguard one that I can state is the prime money market. It's now called the federal money market.

[00:22:40] It's VMFXX. VMFXX. I have also the Fidelity Government Cash Reserves ticker is FDRXX. All right. Franklin D. Roosevelt. And the let's see here. And if you are looking for a treasury bill ETF, there's two that I can share. One is the iShares zero to three month treasury bond ETF. It's ticker SGOV, S-G-O-V.

[00:23:10] And there's also the SPDR Bloomberg one to three month T-bill ETF. The ticker is Bill, B-I-L. There we go. And our listeners, that's great advice, but it's just friendly conversation. And the listeners know what's coming up next, which is we're not giving a tax legal or investment advice. So do your own due diligence and consult with your tax and legal professional because we are not those people. But we're here just to share a friendly conversation. So thanks for sharing that, Brian.

[00:23:38] Brian, if I'm an airline pilot and, you know, OK, I've got my cash allocation for rainy day and for allocation. What are the other buckets you're putting your money into to generate passive income so I can benefit today from income versus waiting until I retire? When it comes to passive, there's like completely passive and then there's, you know, some involvement. So they span the spectrum.

[00:24:03] But you're going to you're talking about things like affiliate income or royalties or licensing income or stock, you know, dividend, dividend stock income, real estate syndications. You know, there's a full long list and you kind of have to map them out in terms of like what takes the least amount of my time. Absolutely. I love that because, I mean, I don't think a lot of people are looking for another job or, you know, they might be looking for a hobby, but definitely not another job.

[00:24:33] So what would you say are the things in that list that you talked about that are going to be the most hands off? Like I have an extra $100,000 I'm earning a year that I'm looking for a home. I've I've filled up my cash reserve buckets. My employer has matched an awesome amount of retirement cash into my 401k and I've got my spill cash from my cash balance plan. I've got my life insurance investments. I've really filled up all my buckets.

[00:25:03] I've got that extra $50,000, $100,000 laying around. Where am I putting that to generate passive income? Maybe a monthly distribution where I'm not having having to get myself another job to do it. Yeah. I think there's probably three main things. One is going to be your high dividend paying stock. Another would be real estate syndications or funds or something like that, certainly.

[00:25:28] And then the third one, which I wouldn't put, you know, take off the, you know, which I would also include would be some sort of passive ownership in a business. So this could be anything from, you know, investing some money in your kid's business or, you know, or utilizing the knowledge that you have within the airline industry to know that there's some new company out there that's got a really cool thing or, or maybe not a new, a new cool

[00:25:57] thing, but just a service that's great. And they're looking for additional investors and you could put your money in, you know, give them a little advice and just collect, you know, a passive income out of that. In terms of prioritization, right? Cause some of those things come with liquidity, meaning that, you know, an income producing stock, I can push a button, have that money back, right? Then you have real estate syndications where you don't get the money back until the property sells or it refinances.

[00:26:25] That could take five to 10 years versus, you know, an investment in a business probably falls in that same bucket, you know, kind of in order or priority, kind of how would you allocate into something like that to start building up a passive income portfolio? Yeah. I think I would do it almost, you know, in the exact order that you suggested, which is anything you put in the stock market is, you know, very quickly and very easily liquid, probably real estate's second based on the, you know, the, the deal agreement and, you

[00:26:53] know, what the likely ownership period is. And then, you know, the business will likely be third. Although, I mean, if you're investing in a, I don't necessarily recommend investing in a venture startup or something like that. It, you know, I'm far more interested in investing in something that's a profitable business that's generating money. And perhaps they're trying to move from the West coast to the East coast. And so, you know, that, you know, the money, you know, the mailbox money will be coming

[00:27:23] a lot sooner than, than if you were, you know. Reminds me of Toby Mathis talking about investing in your friend's pizza shop, right? Pizza, pizza. Right. Yeah. And you're passive, right? So it's passive income. Yeah. So I guess, so we talked about, you know, 10 to 30% of your money being in cash. And then you talked a little bit about, you know, maybe an index fund or investing there. How, let's break down the allocation. So beyond that 30% or 10, I call it 10% cash.

[00:27:53] How much of that income producing stock versus the real estate syndication versus the friend's business? Maybe, maybe that's like a question mark if you even do that or not. But how much allocation are we putting in both? And how do you go about like as a percentage picking that? Yeah. I actually, I think of those as two separate things. So the, the 10 to 30% cash is really part of your, you know, stock investment portfolio, your 401ks and, you know, things like that.

[00:28:23] And the income that you can withdraw, you know, the 4%, if you use the 4% rule, that is contributing to what you're living on. But then you have that other component, which is the flexible income, which is the passive income and the flexible work. So I actually think of them separately. If you use the, say you have, you're going to take your cash allocation from 30% down to 20%. And that means you have $200,000. You take that and you put that over and you can move it over.

[00:28:51] If, if opportunity is good, the opportunity is good and you can get a good, you know, income stream. That's when you would do that. If nothing is working right now, then just leave it be, you know. Speaking of it, leave it be. This has been a, um, rocky week in the markets. Any wisdom as a, you know, financial guy for anybody that's getting a little scared? Oh, that's a good question. Um, one is nobody really knows what's going to happen.

[00:29:18] And so don't trust anybody that tells you that they do. That's one piece of advice. I think this, my second piece of advice is turn the TV off. Um, because you're going to get, you know, wound up. And then third is sometimes, even though, even though it's not ideal, ideally you would have put together a strategy ahead of time so that you could survive two years of down markets.

[00:29:47] But if you were like, I was in 2020 that I hadn't, I wasn't there. So it's at that point that you're like, okay, now is a good opportunity to kind of reallocate and figure out if I should have 10, five to 10 to 30 or whatever percent in cash. And that just gives you the confidence to be able to stay the course because you just, you really don't want to sell when things are down because the, this is actually kind of interesting that it's obvious when you think about it, but not many people think about day to day.

[00:30:16] And that's called the theory of loss asymmetry, which is, you know, if you have something worth a hundred and it drops to 50, you've lost 50%. What does it take to recover? It's not 50%. It's a hundred percent. So like to recover from a loss is at, at that level is twice as different. You have to, it's twice as hard to come back. And so the goal there is to minimize, minimize losses. So like if it drops by 5%, I think you have to go back up 6%.

[00:30:44] You know, if it drops 25%, you have to go up 33%. But if it drops 90%, you have to gain 900% back in order to get back to even. Right. And so loss is just loss. And the power of cash is, I just, is not talked about enough, I believe in investing. And it's because it's not very sexy, but it is extremely important in difficult times. And it gives you opportunities to invest in those, you know, those, those real estate,

[00:31:12] you know, opportunities to give you, give you income. I think it's extremely important. What would you say to the Grant Cardones of the world that say cash is trash, you shouldn't save your money. It should always be invested. You know, what would you say to that? I would say that you have to figure out what your goal is. If your goal is to generate maximum wealth, then I agree. You should leverage up and put no, you know, not, not only have no cash, but have negative

[00:31:40] cash because you've taken out, you know, leverage and loans in order to make investment. If that's your goal, that's great. Right. You know, and, and so I don't, I don't disagree with that at all. If that's your goal, my goal though, is to have a stress-free time-free life of, you know, it's, it's actually, it's not maximum wealth. It's enough wealth to do everything I want to do and have, you know, money to give to my

[00:32:09] son when I die. I want to do all that, but it doesn't have to be $200 million, you know, maybe 10 or 15 or 20, but I think you can still achieve great wealth, but still have the freedom. And, and so because of that, I look at, you know, zero cash or negative cash in the form of debt as the opposite of freedom, because, you know, you're signing up for future payments. It is the opposite of freedom.

[00:32:37] And so, you know, in general, you know, unless it's, you know, on an asset that's, you know, sound, unless it's good debt, you know, I'm, I do tend to stay away from debt. Now that's a really good differentiator because I mean, I'm, you know, kind of leaning towards the, the Grant Cardone side of the spectrum. I, I love, you know, utilizing debt. I think that in inflationary times borrowers are rewarded and savers are punished because

[00:33:04] the value of cash drops versus you're paying a six, 7% interest rate. But if inflation is, is ripping at five or 6%, your real rate is only a few percentage points and you inflate out of your debt. A lot of people think, you know, over 30 years, oh my God, I'm going to pay all this interest on this house that I bought. But you know, that $3,000 a month payment 30 years down the road is going to be pennies. You're just, you're, you're going to look back. I mean, it's going to be a, you know, a nice dinner out is going to be $3,000 in, in 30

[00:33:34] years just because of the way inflation ticks on. So I love the different perspective. I love different ways of looking at things. I think that's the beauty of this show is we don't lean one way or the other. We bring in all this perspectives and people can balance it because I think that a, a, a real sound financial, um, foundation is built on balance, uh, balancing perspectives. And then also you're, you're able to lean one way or the other, depending on your, your

[00:34:02] goals and objectives and your personality. And I still think you can take bits and pieces from each because your argument about the value of a low interest mortgage, like my, the mortgage on my home and my, and my cabin is like 2.85% or whatever. That's probably that's the most valuable part of the whole deal. Right. It's not actually probably even the real estate. It's that, that mortgage. So yeah, don't pay off those. Don't pay off your low interest debt. Don't pay them off early. Don't pay them off early. Let me say that. Pay them off. Thank you.

[00:34:31] But don't pay them off early. Ryan, we really appreciate your time on here, but you know, as we're looking through, like getting financial advice from advisors and people as airline pilots, what's the difference between someone like you, who you mentioned are doing financial advice for entrepreneurs versus giving that to maybe someone who's not an entrepreneur, like an airline pilot? What would be the main differences?

[00:34:56] Most financial advisors want to work with people who have stable incomes and large accounts. And I mean, cause that's, you can manage that money and you can get a percentage of off of that. Right. The difference in working with an entrepreneur is that there is not stability always in income. There's also potentially no retirement account, right?

[00:35:21] Because those individuals are, they've chosen to invest in their businesses, not in the market. And that audience is underserved in my opinion, because the typical financial advisor is not looking comprehensively at income, the work you're doing and the money you have in the markets and the passive income that you have, like the whole gamut, which I feel is more important for an entrepreneur because they're relying on those other parts more than the typical money in the markets. Yeah. Good perspective.

[00:35:50] I can completely resonate with this because my wife, Lucy is a realtor and she'll have great quarters where she makes a ton of money. And she'll also have quarters where it's down, it's dry and the pipeline just kind of dries up. And she doesn't have a 401k that the company feeds into. She doesn't have tax withholding. She has to hold money back to pay taxes. It's a completely different ball game. We're really lucky as airline pilots. You know, that's a great point. And then now I'm really curious.

[00:36:18] So Tate, you have this perspective where your wife is a entrepreneur and you're an airline pilot. Now let's, I know Tate, you're doing your fund at, you know, turbine and you're, you're an entrepreneur and a pilot. Right. I do have both sides. Yeah. What about Brian? What about somebody who's got a spouse that's doing the entrepreneurial thing? Who's married to an airline pilot? Who's more stable? Like, do you kind of thread that needle really well there? Yeah.

[00:36:44] I mean, that's, and that's why financial advice is so independent because everyone's situation is different. I think you have to have like a common framework that you look at and then different individuals based on their career and the stability of earnings and how much they'd save. And also I think how they view money is another hugely important piece. Like, you know, are, are they like me who save and invest? Are they like my son who's like, I'll go make more money.

[00:37:14] Like, I'm not, you know, I'll just go make more money. And that's how I'll be financially free. Like you have to be able to incorporate all of those unique aspects of the situation to be able to then project, you know, what's ultimately a successful plan. Yeah. You know, and that means not just that you don't run out of money, but that you're left with whatever you want to pass on. Um, yeah, and I think that's important because I think there's a, you know, a lot of listeners of the show who have a spouse that works in real estate sales, like, like Tate.

[00:37:43] Um, and then they, they fly for the airlines. Um, you know, their, their other spouse, you know, the other better half is, is flying for the airlines or whatever. Um, so it's, it's good to have perspective about both. And I just wanted to make that point. I think is, is, um, you know, it's good to know both sides of it and kind of have somebody working with you. That's, that's clearly understood. Brian, thank you so much for your time today. How can listeners learn more about who you are, potentially get in contact with you, et cetera?

[00:38:10] Yeah, I have a free resource that I think could be helpful, um, for, you know, if you do have flexible income or you're interested in the time freedom, um, philosophy, and that is, uh, an online calculator. It's at time freedom calculator.com and it's a hundred percent free and you can, you know, put a normal set of numbers in there. It's, it's not overwhelming, but it's also quite powerful.

[00:38:36] And you can see quickly how moving some different levers around will actually, you know, project and, and, and make, um, make you, you know, make you, make you successful and, uh, get you all the time and financial freedom that you want. We'll definitely link to that in the show notes. I'd also like to give a shout out to Ryan to, uh, for framing the better half as the airline pilot, uh, spoken like a true pilot.

[00:39:04] You know, that was a word slip and, uh, but you know what? I'm just going to go with it. We'll keep it in there. I'm just going with it. I love it. I love it. Brian, this has been fantastic. If people want to reach out to you directly, how do they get in touch? Yeah. They can check out time freedom calculator.com or, um, my business website is Harriet financial.com. Um, we'll link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for the wisdom. Thanks. Thanks everybody.