Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to welcome you back to another episode of my podcast. I sincerely hope that you're doing well, and if you're not, I hope that whatever trial or struggle that you are experiencing right now will diminish so that you can think about better things and greater things ahead. In today's episode, I'll be talking about some basic economic principles. And even though my undergraduate degree is in political science, I did take two semesters of economics, both the uh micro and macroeconomics. And though it is true I don't have a degree in economics, however, what I'm about to talk to you about today is definitely something you do not need a degree in economics to comprehend. I would refer to it as common sense, but unfortunately, it's difficult to refer to that kind of sense as common, if you know what I'm saying. And that lack of common sense can, in my estimation, be applied to many politicians who tend to legislate without a lot of common sense. And when it comes to legislation, uh it's even a more scary proposition, in my opinion. And here's why that particular issue is a scary proposition when it comes to economics. Arbitrary doesn't work when it comes to economics, and oftentimes, legislators will arbitrarily propose legislation that sounds good on paper, but in reality doesn't typically work. And the reason for that is in economics, success doesn't happen randomly or by chance. For example, when a politician pushes for, and then the legislative process begins with respect to a minimum wage, it's arbitrary. It's taking something which on its face, it seems like a good and noble cause, you know, raising the wages of those who work for minimum wage. But it's not sustainable, essentially, because it's artificial. Employers can't stay in business because they have to raise prices to keep up with an arbitrary demand as opposed to the law of supply and demand, which allows businesses to make adjustments here and there based on the kind of demand that is taking place within their store, their product, what have you. It allows them to be able to perhaps cut back the hours of employees so that they don't have to raise the price of their product, which would ultimately result in less people buying the products that they're selling. There is most assuredly a fine line between keeping people employed and staying in business. And that's something sometimes that politicians just don't get. They want to raise uh the minimum wage to be something that is completely arbitrary, something that's completely unsustainable in an economy like ours, and in addition to the fact that with the World Wide Web, economic practices that stretch the world over. And as mentioned previously, it may be or it may seem like a good and a noble cause to want to raise the minimum wage rate. But how about this? Instead of the lobbyists and the politicians seeking to raise the minimum wage, why not have the intended recipients of a higher minimum wage actually pursue the next level of employment? Whatever that might be for the individual. It's just not the responsibility of the government to create and then enforce a minimum wage. Because, as I've said, it's completely arbitrary. And let's be real. Arbitrary really only works for pretend or in fairy tales. And last I checked, we don't live a pretend life or a fairy tale life. I need to stress an important point here, and that is this doing anything in life cannot be successful if it's done by chance or randomly. It just doesn't work. And if we do things by chance and we just go with the wind and go with the flow, then we are certainly living an arbitrary life. And I, for one, truly believe that each of us has the capacity to do so much better than what we're doing now or that we think we can do. And any success that we have in life, look at any of the success that you've had as an individual. Did it happen by chance or was it random? I highly doubt it. You spent time and considerable effort to see the fruits of your labor. And if you happened to fail at a particular endeavor, what did you do? You started over, you began anew. And that's the essence of the liberty and the freedom that we enjoy in this country. We have a license to fail, yes, but we have an even greater license to succeed and to never give up. And that's what people do who take the time and spend the effort that it takes to be successful in any endeavor that they pursue, whether it be business or anything else. And so, my friends, we need to plan for success. We need to steer clear of arbitrary. In reality, living by chance or randomly is like getting struck by lightning. The chances that that happens are so astronomical, which is not to say that people don't get struck by lightning. They do, but the chances of it happening are astronomical. It's the chance that we happen to be outside during a thunderstorm, I don't know, whistling our favorite tune, and then we get struck by lightning? It's unheard of. It does happen that people do get struck by lightning. But with respect to our success in life, do we want to apply the same mentality or the same approach with that? In other words, I'll just take my chances. Uh, it whatever happens, it'll be random. And if the universe smiles upon me, then that's the way it goes. But if it doesn't, then, you know, that's okay too. I don't think so. But to tie this up and move on, if I've been insensitive to those of you who may know someone who actually has been struck by lightning, then please understand you have my deepest sympathy and my sincere apologies. Okay, so let me move away from lightning and let you know that in the past, uh, I have worked in the field of financial planning. And I think one of the favorite lines that I used to hear from people after I had presented a particular product, they would say, yeah, that sounds good, but I can't afford it right now. Listen, we've all been there before. We've had times where we've had something presented to us and we legitimately could not afford it. And that's what we had to tell the individual. I get that. That does happen. But in some cases, uh, it's an excuse for not wanting to make a purchase or to make a buying decision then and there. And believe me, I get that too. Sometimes people want to take a look at it. They want to, they don't want to get into something that they're going to have buyers' remorse on. And so they look at it and they say, okay, well, let me study this out a little bit and then I'll get back to you. Um, still, other times uh the individual sincerely could not afford it. And therefore, because of that, it would not have been a good economic decision for them to go forward with the purchase. So I get that too. Look, the bottom line is that people need to make the best economic decision for themselves and not for anybody else. And that leads me to my last segment for the podcast today. Now, what I'm about to say is not new, but here it goes anyway. The next time in your interactions with your friends or whomever, and you hear someone say, Yeah, but I can't really afford it right now. Or if you actually say that, here's a little exercise I want to go over. I'm going to pick three different scenarios where I believe the average person could save a significant amount of money. First, whatever your go juice is in the morning, take your pick. If it's coffee, if it's tea, or if it's soda or something else, or an energy drink, whatever. And let's just say you do this five days a week and you spend $3 a day, that's $15 per week, which comes out to be $780 a year. Okay, that's a decent amount of money, but it doesn't sound like a lot. The second one is if you eat out, and let's say you eat out for lunch, not five days a week, but only three days a week while you're working. And let's just say the average cost of that is $10. Now, I should say too that if you want to pause the episode and do the math, feel free to do that. If you want to plug in different numbers, go ahead and do that too. The bottom line is I want you to do this based upon your personal circumstances. So if you don't eat out three times a week during the week or whatever, and maybe you only eat out once a week, then go ahead and plug those numbers in as well because I want you to get the number that is more accurate to what you do, not necessarily to what may be an average across the country or what have you. Okay, so eating out three days a week at $10 a day is $30 a week or $1,560 per year. The last one that I have is entertainment, which is a pretty wide open field. But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that one day a week you spend about $40 on some form of entertainment, whatever that may be for you. So that's $40 a week times 52 weeks is $2,080 per year. Based on those numbers, $780 plus $1,560 plus $2,080, that's $4,420 per year. Now, what could the average family do with an extra $4,420 a year or more based on your own numbers? Let's say instead of eating out three times a week, you eat out five times a week at still ten dollars a day. That's fifty dollars a week times fifty-two weeks is two thousand and six hundred dollars per year. Now add that to your favorite go juice in the morning, which is seven hundred and eighty dollars per year, plus your two thousand eighty dollars for entertainment. That total comes out to be a whopping $5,460 per year. So it's easy to see how these numbers can increase more and more based on the economic decisions that we choose to make in our lives. And so, again, in those scenarios, you can substitute anything you want for whatever I put in there. And that's what you should do. You should work the numbers based upon your lifestyle and the things that you do, maybe habitually every day, and you don't even realize how much you're spending on the things that you're purchasing. Oftentimes we should ask ourselves the question, what can I do without? And if we can make these determinations as to what we can do without and what we can save instead, we may be surprised with the results. Here's what I suggest. The next time you're in a situation where you hear someone say the words, I'd love to do that, but I just can't afford it right now, then you'll know what to say. And to be respectful, you'll want to do this one-on-one and not call somebody out in a group because that probably won't go over very well. Here's the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen. Every day is a new day, and we should definitely appreciate not only what the day brings, but how we can go out and create the greatest day that we possibly can. And with that, my positive thought today comes from Tony Robbins and his book Unshakable. He has this to say. You can't be grateful and angry at the same time. You can't be grateful and fearful at the same time. If you want a miserable life, there's no better way to achieve it than to focus your mind on anger and fear. But if you want a happy life, if you want to live in a beautiful state, nothing works better than to focus on gratitude. He continues. Appreciation, enjoyment, and love are nothing less than the antidotes to suffering. It's all about shifting your focus away from the illusion of loss, less or never, and engaging your gratitude, appreciation, and love for what you already have in your life. Take all of your negative thoughts and all of your negative emotions, trade them for appreciation, and your whole life changes in an instant. With that, ladies and gentlemen, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.