Hi Gram,
Today proved to be incredibly rewarding and fun. I woke up early to get my morning routine taken care of, then we all loaded up the car and headed into town to meet up with Wally and around 50 other people for the first Fat FIRE Conference, held in Sydney. I think I was telling you that Wally is hosting a few of these while he and his son travel the countryside bonding. He invited me to be a speaker on the panel, raising my excitement for the event even further. We arrived at the sports club and found parking just down the street. Sports clubs are something unique to Australia, as far as I know. It was like a mix between a conference center, Off-Track betting venue, restaurant and fitness center all rolled into one. Rob has taken us to a few of these in our travels, and I think it’s kind of a cool idea for a venue. They require membership if you’re a local and just coming in to use the facilities, but because David and I are foreigners we get to just sign in, show our ID, and get a pass. In this case, because we were participating in a meeting here, everyone in our group was admitted regardless of their residency but that hasn’t been the case for some of the others we’ve been to. There was already a crowd formed when we walked into the room and we quickly fell into conversation with a few people that we knew and introduced ourselves to the new (to us) friends.

Wally and Tan, the host for the day, herded everyone to our seats and got the day started efficiently. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, so I was pleased as things got underway. The attendees came from a variety of backgrounds, from those new to the FIRE movement to those who’d been churning along on their journey and were ready to pull the trigger. Overall, the day had a good structure of starting with where each of the panelists began our journeys, how things have gone, where we are now, and where we see the future. After an introduction and housekeeping by Tan, we took turns on the panel introducing ourselves. It was interesting to hear the path that the other panelists had taken so far and where we each sat on our journeys. We explained to the audience that we’ve all made mistakes and had setbacks along the way, but we’ve persevered and succeeded, dispelling the myth that there’s a single formula to success or that it’s a smooth trajectory from start to finish. As with many things in life, the road is bumpy and indirect, where persistence and course correction are key.

I enjoyed that there were different opinions on how we define the types of FIRE, especially “Fat FIRE”. Some people hear these terms and think that they’ll never get there by someone else’s definition. There are so many nuances and variables to the investment journey, it’s important to remember that we use rules of thumb, like the 4% rule, to keep our discussion moving along. It’s of utmost importance that we do more thorough analysis to determine our FI number, then re-analyze things from time to time to make sure that we’re still on track. One person’s “Coast FI” number might be someone else’s “Barista FI” number. Someone who relies on cash flow, perhaps from rental properties or dividends, might need a higher or lower net worth than someone who relies on appreciation, such as stock investing or commercial real estate. A common phrase is that “personal finance is personal” – different for all of us.

The structure of the event – being only one day and filled with people at all different points on their journeys – sort of demanded that we talked about things with broad brush strokes. However, we hopefully left everyone with seeds of ideas to go back and do more research plus some encouragement that none of us are alone on this journey. More than anything, the sense of community that I find at these events makes it all worth the time and resources spent to attend.

We wrapped up the day with a game at the end, where each of the panelists had paddles to vote “yes” or “no”. Tan started us out with a list of questions such as “did you have a mentor or accountability partner on your journey?” or “is there such a thing as FIREing too early?”. We’d all vote, then discuss why we held the opinion or talk about how it affected our growth. After about twenty minutes of the initial questions, we opened it up to the audience for their yes/no questions that led to some surprising and enjoyable discussions. I look forward to hearing how the rest of the events go as Wally continues on his road trip.

After wrapping up the day, a group of us walked over to a nearby restaurant (at another sports club) where we got some delicious Korean fried chicken and boba tea, then engaged in some lively talk about our personal lives, travel plans, dreams, goals, opinions on the market, and many more topics. I could probably live my entire life just talking with friends like this. It’s one of my favorite activities and is how I’ve built many of my fondest memories. Eventually, the evening got later and everyone had to head home so we walked back to our cars, hugged goodbye a bit more, then parted ways. David, Rob and I shared more discussion and our takes on how the day went as Rob navigated the roadways back to our house. I think we were all exhausted as we filed into the house, heading to each of our rooms and fast asleep within minutes.