Yesterday, I answered a question that I was never smart enough to ask.
Whom should you learn from?
Society glorifies places like Harvard and Yale. And if you're going to study textbook Economics, Psychology, or Sociology — these would be great institutions to do so.
I'm fortunate that people interested in the intersection of money, happiness, and managing tradeoffs visit my blog. 7 Beliefs About Money is my most-read piece ever.
But yesterday I listened to an interview with an uneducated, convicted felon with face tattoos he got while imprisoned. And I learned something: people like me might have something to say, but it's not nearly enough to truly understand the topic.
His Dad was a meat salesman and bookie. His Mom was an addict. At age 39, he describes himself as having, "lived a shitty life, mostly self-inflicted, for 20 years...and lived a wildly unbelievable, amazing life for 24 months."
Takeaways from this experience can only be taught by a person who lived it.
He is Jelly Roll, and he is a chart-topping rapper and country music singer of recent fame. So he struggles with what to do with new money and old habits. He struggles with happiness having historically had so much of the opposite. He has been thrust into an orbit quite literally unimaginable (except to him, when he was dreaming up how to do it). And he is tasked with managing the accompanying tradeoffs of this new trajectory.
A teaser from the interview:
After your initial success, you're working on these new songs. In what way do you see it as sort of moving the Jelly Roll story forward?
Well, what you see is what you get. It's always kind of been that. I'm not thinking about what a [narrative] arc is here. I don't think about being on Act 2. It's just not the way I think about it, man. I think about everything as more of a going-out-of-business sale. I give everything I got, everything I do, every time I do it, now.
When I put out a song under the name Jelly Roll, I think to myself why? Because for the first time in my life in the last 3 years, it has nothing do with a financial decision at all. I'm well past putting anything out for money. I own my masters.
What do you think you're doing 5 years from now?
I hope, by then, that I'm not doing as much music. I hope that this parallels into a real philanthropic career for me. The goal is to do well enough the next five years that I can spend the next, whatever God has for me, to serve.
What do you want to do tomorrow?
I want to be useful. I used to want to be happy, now I just want to be useful.
Jelly Roll and I are roughly the same age, and I've written some spicier takes about how financial wealth can improve your happiness:
Use it to pay other people to do shit that you don't want to do.
Use it to not worry about car dents or rug stains or speeding tickets. Just go fix them or don't, but do not think about them. The benefit is the release.
You can earn the right to not stress about crap that doesn't matter. But it will take a mindset shift, because you are wired to feel like you are still supposed to care. The ability to afford to neglect crap is different than actually neglecting it. It sounds easy, but it isn't easy.
But you know what?
I've never been poor. My Dad went to Yale. I don't have enough perspective. And so while someone like me might have some interesting things to say, it's not nearly enough for people truly interested in the intersection of money, happiness, and managing tradeoffs.
So go listen (or watch) this interview.
It's a lesson in Economics, Psychology, and Sociology. And it will change your life.
End.
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