What's in your talent stack? Inspired by content discovered over the last four years while producing ChooseFI, Jonathan has spent the last couple of months hard at work on the side on a new passion project. As said many times here on the show, financial independence isn't about doing less, like sitting on a beach sipping cocktails. It's about aligning your what you value with your life and having the freedom to pursue what you are passionate about. ChooseFI has given Jonathan the opportunity to look at and do better with his personal finances, but it's also helped him realize that he loves to work hard, but not necessarily for a paycheck. He'll work twice as hard when it aligns with his interests, passions, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. While Jonathan has not reached FI, he does have all the benefits of it. FI is not binary because the benefits of FI start accruing from Day one. Time is your precious non-retable resource. You can stick your head in the sand and gut things out until reaching FI, or look around and see what other options we can create for ourselves that bring more joy, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. When you find that your ladder is leaning up against the wrong wall, you don't need to stick it to that commitment and grind it out for another 20 years. You don't need to wait for anyone to give you permission. You can pivot. One of the better messages to come out of the FI movement is that no matter what has happened, huge student loans, disastrous real estate deals drug addiction, or divorce, you can always move forward and make your life better. A life optimization strategy begins with financial security and gives you space for mastery and exploring new things. You don't need to be in the top 1% of anything. Just being better than average at a bunch of different things will open up opportunities. What does a high value, high return on investment, talent stack look like? Students coming out of college are ill-prepared for the way the world really works. The world wants to know what have you done and what can you do for it. What if you were to focus on the skills the world wants and is willing to pay a high salary for? And then very economically earn certificates stating that you can do this work? You can retain and earn these skills in a year or less. There are very few jobs that actually require a college degree. Through certificate programs, you can get jobs earning between $60,000 and $160,000 a year. Jonathan says if he were starting over, knowing what he knows now, this is what he would do. Jonathan has started another podcast, the Talent Stacker podcast. It's not for those set on going to college. It's for people looking to see what other choices are out there or who are unhappy with the choices they previously made and are looking for something different and don't have another four years to earn a degree. The Talent Stacker podcast does not just regurgitate information learned on previous ChooseFI podcast episodes. It helps you recreate what these other people have done step-by-step. The framework of the Talent Stacker podcast is based on a handful of different categories. The first is a time for money or a service role where you trade an hour of work doing something for a set hourly rate. The second category is sales, where you help make it easier for a current audience or customer base to make a purchase. Category three is marketing or expanding the current customer base. The fourth category is team development or leadership or bringing a team together to focus on target goals. The fifth category is systems, process, and workflow, helping teams to work more efficiently. In reality, many of these categories have overlap. If you can do a little bit of several of these, you can become what is called a Rainmaker. Jonathan recognizes how each of these skills has been used and added to his talent stack through the ChooseFI podcast. Building a talent stack is not just limited to business owners. It's a mindse