J.L. Collins

It's killing me, man.

What do I do?

My answer to those people is, you know what?

You walk out of this meeting that we're having and you go resign.

Because you look at the Trinity study, and the Trinity study will tell you that a 5% withdrawal rate, which is what gets you 50,000 out of a million, has an 86% chance of success.

If I'm in a soul-crushing job, I will take those odds, thank you very much, and I'm gone.

And then the second thing I'll say to people is, if you are uncomfortable pulling that 5%, because you're conservative,

Do you think there is something you could figure out how to do during the course of a year that would throw off $10,000 to make up the difference?

And I've yet to find anybody who is capable enough to put themselves in this position who said, nah, I don't think I could do that.

It's like a light bulb goes on.

They say, yeah, I'm pretty sure I could do that.

I'd probably have fun doing that too, right?

So, yeah, that's how I think about it.

And considerably more in most cases.

Yeah, I don't know if it's genetic or if it was learned.

My mother was a terrible worrier.

And so I don't know if I inherited the genes from her or just the maternal influence.

And it kind of ruined her life.

But in her life, there were some significant things.

My dad was a pretty successful guy.