The Voluntary Life

Brett Veinotte from School Sucks podcast interviews Jake Desyllas about using Horizons of Focus for productivity and purpose. In this episode (part 1) we introduce the concept of horizons of focus and talk about the best ways to identify actions, projects, goals, and areas or responsibility. Show Notes

• School Sucks Podcast
• The Voluntary Life Productivity Episodes
• Automated Mindmaps Using OmniFocus
• Horizons of Focus

Ashe from the Liberty Entrepreneurs podcast interviews Jake about starting a business, selling a business, and financial independence. They talk about Jake's background, becoming an entrepreneur, selling a company, and life afterwards. In this episode, you can hear about the people and books that influenced Jake, and some hacks and suggestions for anyone interested in starting a business. Show Notes:

• Liberty Entrepreneurs Podcast
• Becoming an Entrepreneur by Jake Desyllas
• How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World by Harry Browne
• The Ultimate Guide to Journaling by Hannah Braime
• Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
• Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
• Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury

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 Freedom on Your Terms. I had 165 beta readers during development. That's a lot of feedback! This episode is about the process of crowdsourcing feedback, using the example of my experience writing Job Free. I describe the workflows, tools and benefits of crowdsourcing feedback. I also tell you all about my new book, and explain how it can help you achieve real freedom in your own life. Show Notes:

• Job Free by Jake Desyllas
• Becoming an Entrepreneur by Jake Desyllas
• Presentation on Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race
• 99 Designs
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

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 it has become an integral part of their international lifestyle. They also explain how they cope with the roller-coaster volatility of living from bitcoin. Tuur was one of the first investment newsletter writers to recommend bitcoin. He describes his own journey in the industry, and shares his thoughts about where bitcoin is headed. Show Notes:

• Previous TVL episodes about Bitcoin
• Tuur Demeester on Twitter
• Adamant Research Report "How To Position For The Next Rally In Bitcoin"

This episode shares some fascinating ideas about how to understand culture, identity and civilization. The historian Steve Davies argues that rather than being at the end of a long story of "western civilization", we are at the beginning of something radically new, unplanned and totally alien to the historical cultures of both the "West" and everywhere else before circa 1800. I've summarised these ideas in the podcast, but I also recommend that you watch the thought-provoking lecture by Steve Davies. Show Notes:

• Stephen Davies on Western Civilisation
• The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley

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 argument: "Believe it or not—and I know that most people do not—violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence. The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth; it has not brought violence down to zero; and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is an unmistakable development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars to the spanking of children." Steven Pinker Show Notes:

• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

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, rather than the details. They express the mindset for achieving financial independence. Here is a summary of the ideas discussed:

1. Be Your Own CFO: managing your own money as you would manage the finance of a business.
2. Be Investment-Oriented, Not Consumption-Oriented
3. Be A Passive Investor.

Show Notes:

• How to Be the CFO of Your Own Life by Luke Landes
• How to Become CFO of Your Life by JD Roth
• E219 How To Do A Monthly Financial Review
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley
• E155: Review of A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel
• Please note: I'm not a financial advisor and your money is your responsibility.

Comparative advantage is a simple idea from economics, but its implications are mind-blowing. It is a process that most people misunderstand, but it is at the root of everything that we create. Comparative advantage is intimately linked to what it means to be human. Show Notes:

• Economist article on comparative advantage
• Matt Ridley on comparative advantage

Benjamin Constant was a French classical liberal writer who lived through the French revolution and the reign of terror. Assessing what had gone wrong with the revolution, he came up with a distinction between two conflicting ideas of "liberty" that had influenced the people involved— an ancient concept of liberty and a modern one. His distinction is still useful today and can help make sense of the incompatible ways in which different people talk about freedom. Show Notes:

• The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns by Benjamin Constant (1816)

Portfoliocharts.com is a brilliant, free resource for passive investors. It provides a comparison of all the main passive investment portfolios using funky charts to visually explain the data. The site was created by Tyler, an early retiree with a background in mechanical engineering. Tyler created the site for fun as a personal project, but I think it is the best guide to passive investing portfolios on the web. In this interview, Tyler gives his own take on passive investing and talks about how to use the portfolio charts site. He explains some interesting results from his analysis and shows how they challenge common myths about portfolios. Show Notes:

• Portfolio Charts Website
• @portfoliocharts
• I'm not a financial advisor and your money is your responsibility.