What’s your why? My talk from Camp FI in April
Today, I’m pleased to present the first-ever video from the Get Rich Slowly channel on YouTube. If all goes according to plan, there will be many more such videos in the future, not all of which will be shared here on the blog. So, if you’re interested in catching all of the video material I produce, you should subscribe to the YouTube channel!
This first clip is a 27-minute recording of a talk I gave on April 15th at Camp FI in Spring Grove, Virginia.
For those unfamiliar, Camp FI is a series of weekend retreats that let a few dozen folks come together to chat about Financial Independence and early retirement. The events are largely unstructured, a chance for attendees to meet and mingle with like-minded folks. But they’re not entirely unstructured. Throughout the weekend, there are a handful of presentations on subjects like real-estate investing, safe withdrawal rates, and credit card hacking.
But when I speak, I like to talk about Big Picture topics, such as the importance of purpose and why you should create a personal mission statement.
In fact, that’s the subject of this presentation, which took place on the twelfth anniversary of Get Rich Slowly. “What’s your why?” I asked attendees. Why do you want financial independence? Why do you want to retire early? Why do you want to sacrifice today in favor of tomorrow?
Typically when I share videos from other people, I provide in-depth summaries. As an old man, I’d much rather read a presentation than be forced to watch it. I don’t want to force you folks to watch videos either. In this case, however, I’m not going to do that. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, much of this will be familiar to you. (See how to write a personal mission statement if you’re new around here and don’t want to watch the video.)
Whether or not you watch this particular video, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to the GRS YouTube channel. Apparently, certain features on YouTube can’t be “unlocked” unless you have enough folks who want to view your stuff.
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There are 7 comments to "What’s your why? My talk from Camp FI in April".
Great first video. It gives me lots of things to ponder as I prepare mentally to retire.
I would have loved to have the video go further to see the questions you were asked. In addition I would love to hear more personal mission statements so I can ponder the wisdom of others.
I have been reading your blog for about six months and I pass along your wisdom to my grown children.
Hello, I’m trying to follow the Camp FI link but it doesn’t seem to be working. Can you please double check the link? Thanks!
Hm. Let me see what the issue is…
Terrific talk. And a reminder that revisiting one’s mission statement — re-reading it and updating it too– are so important to the process of life-planning.
I have been influenced by Covey’s work (7 Habits) and later I took David Allen’s GTD suggestion to have a weekly check-in on all my goals. I schedule it for Sunday afternoons, and I really feel the difference when I miss that time with myself–I’m much less focused and productive for the week that follows.
I also do a yearly update on my mission and long-range plans, but since a few major things changed in the past few months, watching this video made me think it’s time to revisit…
I’ll be adopting these questions in my process….
THANKS for the inspiration, J.D.
This is a rather odd place to put this as a comment but I couldn’t find a contact link on the website. I’d been pondering signing up for your course for several months. I like your website and especially now that you are back as the owner once again. My hesitancy with the course is so often I find I already know what I just purchased that sounded like a good idea. This morning I watched your video, really liked how you taught so signed up for the Wealth Builder course. Why I wanted to email you is to ask why am I now getting emails from Chris Guillebeau about your course? I almost deleted them since I had not signed up for anything from him.
Debbie, I’ll email you separately but reply to you here as well. Chris and I produced the course together. I created it, and he handled the marketing end of things. As a result, the emails come from his address. Also: I totally get what you’re saying about not wanting to sign up for something because you might already know the info in the course. That holds me back sometimes too. And truthfully, you might already know the stuff in this course. If that’s the case, no worries. There’s an unconditional money-back guarantee on the Get Rich Slowly course, so there’s really no risk to you. Will email this info to you now! 🙂
It was a great talk, JD. You inspired me to put formalize my mission statement and put it up my site.