#20 - Brad Dantonio: Financial Freedom, Journaling, and Thoughts on Being a Dad
Listen Here: Apple | Spotify
My guest today is Brad Dantonio, better known as Man Overseas. Brad is forty years old and has been retired for five years. He took a year off to travel at 35 and never returned to work. In normal times, you can find Brad and his wife traveling the world, living off passive income from rental properties and other investments in the US. In COVID times, Brad and his wife temporarily settled in New Orleans while they await the birth of their first child!
Brad and I became friends about two years ago when he invited me to be a guest on his podcast. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of being on his show three times, and we talk on a regular basis. I often look to Brad for advice on business and investments because of his tremendous success. It's not often that someone is able to retire so early. It takes a special type of persistence and determination - or a Mamba mentality as Brad explains it. In this wide ranging conversation, Brad and I discuss financial freedom, journaling, parenting, social media, and much more.
Selected links from the show:
My appearances on the Man Overseas Podcast: one, two, and three.
Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer (Pat Tillman bio)
Paul Graham tweet on parenting
Show notes:
01:58 - Why Brad is spending the next year in New Orleans, Louisiana
03:24 - The perks of being homeless and unemployed
05:00 - How a one year sabbatical became full time early retirement
"I'm going to have trouble working for someone whose values don't align with mine."
17:36 - The Position of Fuck You
20:00 - The feeling of freedom from being able to walk away
22:55 - Why Brad decided not to buy a Porsche, even though he had the cash
"Driving a Porsche at 26 years old doesn't indicate wealth so much as it indicates stupidity because of compound interest."
28:57 - Why Brad attributes his success to journaling
"Make a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in." - Katherine Mansfield
37:48 - The thing Brad turned out to be wrong about
48:23 - Brad's thoughts on parenting
57:15 - The most important thing a parent can teach a child
1:02:15 - Is social media a net positive or negative for society?
"If you look back 25 years from now and realize you spent four years of 25 scrolling mindlessly through social media, you're not going to have the kind of life that you had hoped for."
1:14:30 - What Brad has learned from traveling the world
1:25:12 - Brad's questions for me
1:25:25 - Homeschooling vs. traditional education
1:30:37 - Generational differences
1:38:10 - Brad's most gifted book
1:38:55 - Brad's advice to a recent college graduate
1:41:27 - The kindest thing anyone has done for Brad
1:42:18 - Where you can connect with Brad
