The Voluntary Life

246 Thinking Rationally Part 4: Listener Feedback On Faith Versus Reason

15 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

So far, the Thinking Rationally series has generated more listener feedback than any previous episodes! In this episode, I respond to feedback on the ...

245 Thinking Rationally Part 3: Anti-Rational Ideas

08 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Rational thinking transforms your life, by giving you autonomy and the freedom of the individual. Since it spread during the Enlightenment, rational t...

244 Thinking Rationally Part 2: Imaginary Creatures and Machines

30 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The biggest challenge of thinking rationally is not learning new techniques, it is overcoming irrational and anti-rational ways of thinking. In Part 1...

243 Thinking Rationally Part 1: Faith Versus Reason

23 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Rational thinking is the engine behind all the great achievements of the modern world. It is the vital tool for making your own choices and for freein...

242 Financial Pros And Cons Of Home Ownership

15 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Home ownership is often touted as a financially savvy choice, but is it? This episode explores the financial pros and cons of buying your own home for...

241 Selling Our Home To Travel The World

06 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

As part of adopting a minimalist lifestyle and becoming expats, we sold everything that would not fit into one suitcase each. The biggest part of our ...

240 Freedom Lovin' Interview— Job Free

23 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin Koskella from the Freedom Lovin podcast interviews Jake about the ideas in his book, Job Free, as well as life in Panama, entrepreneurship, and ...

239 Minimalism And Clothes

15 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Preparing for a life of travel involved getting rid of anything that I could not take with me in one suitcase. One big source of clutter to address wa...

238 Zero Data

06 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about how I moved all my data into the cloud. This has been an essential part of adopting a digital nomad lifestyle but is also releva...

237 The Tech Of Permanent Travel

29 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Sovryn of the Sovryn Tech Podcast interviews Jake about his lifestyle of perpetual travel and minimalism, and the technology that makes it poss...

236 The Free State Project

22 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Free State Project is a social experiment encouraging 20,000 people interested in "liberty in our lifetime" to move together to New Hampshire. The...

235 A Better World Starts With A Clean Bedroom

31 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Brett Veinotte from the School Sucks Podcast and Jake Desyllas from The Voluntary Life discuss the process of upgrading and maintaining positive habit...

234 Radical Personal Finance Interview— Job Free

26 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week's episode comes from Joshua Sheats, host of the Radical Personal Finance podcast: "Most of us in the Radical Personal Finance community ar...

233 The Next Level — Horizons of Focus Part 2

18 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 of the discussion between Brett Veinotte and Jake Desyllas about using Horizons of Focus for productivity and purpose. In this episode, we conc...

232 The Next Level — Horizons of Focus Part 1

13 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Brett Veinotte from School Sucks podcast interviews Jake Desyllas about using Horizons of Focus for productivity and purpose. In this episode (part 1)...

231 Financial Freedom and Exiting the Rat Race

28 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Ashe from the Liberty Entrepreneurs podcast interviews Jake about starting a business, selling a business, and financial independence.  They talk a...

230 How I Crowdsourced Feedback on my New Book, "Job Free"

16 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

I had an amazing experience getting feedback during the writing of my new book, Job Free: Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race and Achieve Financial Freed...

229 Travel and Life on Bitcoin

12 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, Tuur and Becca talk about life as perpetual travellers, living on bitcoin. They describe how they got interested in bitcoin and how...

228 Making Sense Of Civilization

30 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode shares some fascinating ideas about how to understand culture, identity and civilization. The historian Steve Davies argues that rather t...

227 Review Of The Better Angels Of Our Nature By Steven Pinker

16 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a review of a fascinating book, The Better Angels Of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker. The following quote summarises the book's main argu...

226 The Mindset For Financial Independence

05 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about three concepts that I've found helpful for managing money. These concepts are about the big-picture when it comes to money, rath...

225 Comparative Advantage Is Mind-blowing

26 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Comparative advantage is a simple idea from economics, but its implications are mind-blowing. It is a process that most people misunderstand, but it i...

224 Ancient Vs Modern Ideas Of Liberty

19 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Constant was a French classical liberal writer who lived through the French revolution and the reign of terror. Assessing what had gone wron...

223 A Guide To Passive Investment Portfolios

05 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Portfoliocharts.com is a brilliant, free resource for passive investors. It provides a comparison of all the main passive investment portfolios using...

222 Early Retirement Lifestyle Part 2

28 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is part 2 of the interview with Justin from Root of Good. Justin talks about how the goal of early retirement differs from mainstream ide...

221 Early Retirement Lifestyle Part 1

24 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

There are many practical steps required to reach financial independence, but there are also some interesting psychological challenges to early retirem...

220 What To Expect From Investing

16 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Many people find getting started as an individual investor daunting.  This episode is about how little I knew about investing when I got started. I d...

219 How To Do A Monthly Financial Review

04 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It took me a long time to work out how to stay on top of my finances. After a lot of trial and error, I developed the habit of doing a monthly financi...

218 Choosing A Job-Free Lifestyle

26 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In previous episodes of this podcast, I've explored different ways to live a job-free lifestyle. I've interviewed extreme savers, unjobbers, lifestyle...

217 Panama: Our Adventure Begins

19 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a discussion with a special guest— my wife Hannah Braime, who is the host of Becoming Who You Are. We've just moved to Panama and we...

216 Financial Independence Strengthens Your Moral Backbone

03 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A listener shared these reflections with me: "I like to think I'm a moral person but many times in my career (and in the careers of friends), I've be...

215 Extreme Decluttering

28 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

“Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”  Charles Warner Over the last three years, I've reduced my possession...

214 From Drama To Empowerment

21 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, special guest Hannah Braime talks about how to free yourself from a life of drama and move to a life of empowerment. Hannah is a coac...

213 Logic And The Courage To Follow It

13 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Here is how you reach true conclusions about any question in life: start with undeniable premises and use valid logic.  Logic— used in reasoned arg...

212 Science And Rationality

06 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In the last episode I suggested two key challenges to resolve if you want to think for yourself: How do you tell truth from falsehood?  How do you k...

211 Introduction To Truth And Certainty

30 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

You can't be free unless you can think for yourself. If someone else is doing your thinking for you, then it's not your life that you are living. Whe...

210 Tax Strategies And Financial Freedom Part 2

21 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is part two of an interview with Joshua Sheats, host of the Radical Personal Finance podcast. Joshua shares his insights on tax strategie...

209 Tax Strategies And Financial Freedom Part 1

14 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Tax is the biggest expense category for most people. It is crucial for everyone interested in financial freedom to understand tax and develop a tax st...

208 Creating Purpose, Structure, And Community Outside A Job

09 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

If you want to quit your job to pursue a more freedom-oriented lifestyle (such as entrepreneurship), there are many challenges to overcome. Some chall...

207 Who Will Buy Your Business?

02 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

If you are an entrepreneur, you might want to sell your business one day (or at least have that option). There are many issues to tackle in order to ...

206 Luck In Business

24 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Are successful entrepreneurs just "lucky"? This episode is about the role of luck in business. Here are some of the ideas discussed: The main job of ...

205 The Most Powerful Planning Tool I Know

17 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about the most powerful tool that I know for planning anything. A process map is a tool for visualising a workflow. It's also called ...

204 Making Sense of Frugality and Minimalism

10 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about making sense of two important concepts: frugality and minimalism. Frugality means to be economical or sparing with regard to mon...

203 Early Retirement and Housesitting

03 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, Sarah tells her early retirement story and talks about life after quitting the rat race. We discuss why she has chosen housesitti...

202 Self-Deception

26 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In order to gain self-knowledge, you have to reduce the gap between what you think about yourself and reality. Although this is often an uncomfortable...

201 Tools And Systems for Independent Learning

07 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jake shares his own tools and systems for independent learning. These are the hacks for proactive learning, rather than being an uncritical consumer o...

200 Quantified Self

30 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about using technology to automatically collect and analyse data about your life. I share some examples of my own automated tracking o...

199 Car Free

23 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Is owning a car really worth it? This episode is about the financial and lifestyle benefits of deliberately choosing not to own a car (I'm in my early...

198 Removing Trivial Decisions From Life

15 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

We are all subject to a psychological process called decision fatigue: every choice you make depletes your willpower and lowers your ability to self-r...

197 Resisting Conformity

08 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Brett Veinotte is an educator and host of School Sucks Podcast. This episode is an interesting discussion with Brett about the power of conformity and...

196 Self Knowledge and Entrepreneurship

01 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview life coach and author Hannah Braime (my lovely wife) about the relationship between self knowledge and entrepreneurship. ...

195 Technomadia Interview

22 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Cherie and Chris live on a converted vintage bus that they have packed with technology. They call themselves technomads (technology-enabled nomads). T...

194 Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

15 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a review of the classic personal finance book Your Money or Your Life. Topics covered include: The inspiring story of the author Jo...

193 Cashing In On The American Dream By Paul Terhorst

08 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a review of the book Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire at 35 by Paul Terhorst. Paul and his wife Vicky have been livin...

192 TV Is Obsolete: How To Upgrade Your Media Diet

02 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

I got rid of my TV about 15 years ago and I have never regretted it. In this episode, I provide suggestions for how to upgrade your media diet using f...

191 Task Management

26 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Whatever you want to get done in life, a task management app is the most valuable productivity tool that I can recommend to help you. In this episode,...

190 Out Of The Box Interview: Minimalism, Financial Freedom, And More! With Rosie Tran

19 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian Rosie Tran interviews entrepreneur, financial freedom advocate, and author of Becoming an Entrepreneur, Jake Desyllas. They discuss the psych...

189 Envy: A Theory Of Social Behaviour By Helmut Schoek

11 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Why are "haters gonna hate"? This episode is a review of a fascinating book called Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour by Helmut Schoek. Here are some...

188 Financial Independence Part 4: Relationships

04 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about how personal relationships can either be the most important source of support in achieving financial independence, or the bigges...

187 How To Read More Than 50 Books A Year

27 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week's show is a discussion with my lovely wife Hannah Braime about how to read more than 50 books per year (Hannah reads over 100 per year!). Ha...

186 Natural Project Planning

21 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

As an entrepreneur, I wanted to learn more about the project planning because I needed to delegate and collaborate with others. I now see project plan...

185 How To Set Meaningful Goals For The Year Ahead

12 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

For many years I wanted to set meaningful goals for the year ahead, but struggled with the process. I never knew quite where to start and I often felt...

184 Becoming An Entrepreneur: Introduction

07 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week's episode is an excerpt from the audiobook edition of my book, Becoming an Entrepreneur. If you prefer reading, you can get the ebook and ...

183 Financial Independence Part 3: Buy Status Symbols or Buy Your Freedom

29 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about the main barrier to financial independence: consuming for status instead of investing for wealth. You have a choice: you can eit...

182 Financial Independence Part 2: Make, Save, Invest

27 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

There are many different routes to financial independence. In past episodes I've interviewed people who have achieved financial independence through e...

181 Financial Independence Part 1: What You Need To Know About Your Money

17 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Understanding your personal finances is crucial if you want to achieve financial independence and gain more freedom in your life. Most people don't le...

180 A Fearless Inventory Of Your Stuff

08 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

We're selling our apartment, selling all our stuff, and leaving England behind to travel the world indefinitely. This means taking minimalism to the n...

179 Automation FTW

02 Nov 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows that to succeed as an entrepreneur (and just to be productive) you have to learn to delegate. However, in this episode I make the case ...

178 Upgrading Habits

26 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode covers everything I've learned about upgrading my habits to improve my life. Here's a brief summary of the points covered: Habits are th...

177 The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality by Ludwig Von Mises Part 2

17 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Why is there a lot of resentment towards entrepreneurs among intellectuals, white collar workers, extended members of successful business families, an...

176 The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality by Ludwig Von Mises Part 1

10 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Why do some people hate entrepreneurs? This episode explores some answers to this question put forward by Ludwig Von Mises in "The Anti-Capitalistic M...

175 The Culture of Entrepreneurship

03 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast episode, I outline the mindset that is most conducive to becoming a successful entrepreneur.  This mindset is the culture of entrepre...

174 Fail-Safe Investing Part 2

25 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This is part 2 of my review of Harry Browne's book Fail-Safe Investing. It contains a discussion of the rest of Harry Browne's rules for financial sa...

173 Fail-Safe Investing Part 1

25 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is the first in a two part review of my favourite investment book, Fail-Safe Investing by Harry Browne. In this episode I discuss the ba...

172 Personal Finances Vs Other Personal Development Goals

14 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

There are many aspects of life that you can work to improve, in order to create the life you want. In this episode, I make the case for prioritising y...

171 From Million Dollar House To Tiny Home

04 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is an interview with Jacki Rigoni, who blogs at Post-Consumer Life.  Jacki and her husband realised that their million dollar house was ...

170 Asset Protection and Internationalization

31 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is an interview with Bobby Casey, founder of Global Wealth Protection and many other internationalization businesses. Bobby talks about h...

169 Two Crucial Questions

23 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

An episode about two inter-related questions that are crucial to your happiness in life: How will you achieve financial security and/or independence?...

168 Win-Win Negotiation Part 3: Resolving Disputes

17 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about the most powerful technique I know for overcoming deadlock in negotiations and resolving disputes, both in business and in perso...

167 The Permanent Portfolio

07 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua Sheats invited me onto the Radical Personal Finance podcast to discuss the Permanent Portfolio investment strategy for individual private inv...

166 Retired at 33: Interview with Justin from Root of Good

30 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Justin retired at the age of 33. He writes about his journey to financial independence on his blog Root of Good. In this interview, he discusses his p...

165 The Positive Power of Entrepreneurship

23 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua from Radical Personal Finance Podcast invited me on his show to talk about entrepreneurship. We talked about learning entrepreneurial skills, v...

164 We Plan To Retire At 30

17 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Mike and Lauren have average-income jobs, no big inheritance or bonuses, and they plan to retire at the age of 30. They share all the facts about th...

163 Thinking Like An Entrepreneur: Discussion With Jeffrey Tucker

09 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Jeffrey Tucker interviews Jake Desyllas about his book Becoming an Entrepreneur. They discuss how to think like an entrepreneur and the amazing poten...

162 Spend Little, Save More, Travel the World

05 Jul 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is an interview with Jeremy and Winnie, authors of the blog Go Curry Cracker. In the interview, Jeremy and Winnie share their inspiring ...

161 Review of Built To Sell by John Warrillow

25 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a review of the book Built to Sell by John Warrillow. The book is about how to sell a business, including how to transform your busin...

160 Choice Conversations Interview: Financial Freedom and More

20 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a conversation I had with Chris Stefanick on his podcast Choice Conversations. We planned to talk about financial freedom, but ended u...

159 Life Without Politics

14 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

A podcast episode about the potential of life and society without politics. Show Notes: Franz Oppenheimer's book The State Henry David Thoreau quote...

158 Entrepreneurship is Embarrassing And That's OK

06 Jun 2014

Contributed by Lukas

A podcast episode about how becoming an entrepreneur can be pretty embarrassing, and how that's ok. Show Notes Embarrassment Four Stages of Competen...

157 How To Go Paperless Part 2

29 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is the second part of a series on how to go paperless. It explains how to digitise your paper books using destructive book scanning. Sho...

156 How To Unleash Your Creative Thinking

23 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This podcast episode presents a range of techniques to support your creative thinking.  Some of the techniques covered are outlined below: The focus...

155 Review of A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel

15 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This week's podcast episode is a discussion of Burton Malkiel's famous investment book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". Malkiel's key point is that ...

154 How To Stay On Top With A Weekly Review

08 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about a technique for staying on top of all your commitments known as the weekly review. It helps you get a handle on all your commitm...

153 Your Own Moral Compass Part 3

04 May 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Part three in a series on developing your own independent moral compass. Here is a summary of the ideas covered: Moral behaviour evolved as an evolut...

152 Your Own Moral Compass Part 2

25 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Part two in a series on developing your own independent moral compass. Four criteria are outlined that can be used to assess whether any law or rule o...

151 Your Own Moral Compass

17 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

An episode about developing your own independent moral compass. Topics covered: The huge influence of morality and moral arguments. Examples of diffe...

150 Becoming an Entrepreneur

14 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

An episode about my new book Becoming an Entrepreneur: How to Find Freedom and Fulfillment as a Business Owner. Topics covered include: First review...

149 Career Breaks and Travel

04 Apr 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Pete Blacow has taken two career breaks to travel the world. In this episode he shares his experience of long-term travel and taking time out from wor...

148 Mental Decluttering

31 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about freeing your mind by decluttering all your mental baggage on a regular basis. Topic covered include: The benefits of going on a...

147 Financial Freedom and Personal Development

19 Mar 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian Rosie Tran (@FunnyRosie) interviews financial freedom advocate, investor, and host of The Voluntary Life Podcast, Jake Desyllas (@jakedesylla...