Afford Anything

#691: Your IQ used to be your biggest career asset.

Then AI scored in the 99th percentile on the LSAT, the SAT, and the MCAT — and suddenly the cognitive skills that once set you apart became something anyone can access for free.

Executive coach Liz Tran joins us to talk about what actually drives career success and earning power now.

Her answer: AQ, or agility quotient — your capacity to handle change, learn new skills fast, and keep moving when your industry shifts beneath you.

The personal finance implications are real. The average half-life of a technical skill is five years. In tech, it's closer to two. That means the expertise you spent years building — and the salary that came with it — can become obsolete faster than a mortgage term.

Tran argues the people who protect their earning power long-term aren't necessarily the most credentialed. They're the ones who can unlearn old ways and adapt quickly.

We walk through her four AQ archetypes — the neurosurgeon, the astronaut, the firefighter, and the novelist — each with a different default approach to change.

Knowing your type helps you understand where you might freeze up during a career pivot, a market downturn, or a high-stakes financial decision.

Tran points out that analysis paralysis, something many real estate investors and career changers know well, often comes down to archetype — and there are practical fixes.

We also cover her ABCD framework — anchors, bets, classroom, and discomfort — which maps out how to stay functional and decisive during volatile periods.

And we get into the six thinking hats theory, specifically how pairing black-hat (downside) thinking with green-hat (future-focused) thinking can sharpen any major financial or career decision.

Timestamps:

Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths.

(00:00) Intro to AQ — agility quotient defined

(03:19) IQ vs. EQ vs. AQ — how the three differ

(04:09) Origins of IQ — born from industrialization

(04:41) Birth of EQ — rise of the knowledge worker

(05:01) Why AQ matters now — the tech revolution

(06:19) AI and IQ — cognitive skills are now commoditized

(07:51) Technical vs. durable skills — and why both matter

(10:48) Half-life of skills — technical skills expire fast

(13:41) Measuring durable skills — how to spot your gaps

(15:59) The four AQ archetypes — neurosurgeon, astronaut, firefighter, novelist

(25:08) Improving your weak spots — run toward discomfort

(30:59) The ABCD framework — four pillars of high AQ

(43:56) Anchors — people, places, routines that ground you

(54:25) Six thinking hats — six ways to approach any problem

(01:04:28) AQ is changeable — it's never too late to grow

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#690: Blanca (01:28): Blanca, an immigrant mother raising a 14-year-old, wants her son to think critically about college—not just as an experience, but as a financial decision. With the rising cost of higher education, she’s wondering how families can assess whether an undergraduate or graduate program is likely to pay off over time.

Brandon (30:05): Brandon in his forties, recently left full-time work to pursue per diem work and a side project. Planning to draw down his taxable brokerage account for supplemental income over the next 20 years, he’s wondering whether to continue reinvesting dividends or take them as cash for flexibility.

Anon (40:15): Anon has been following Paula’s advice on financial advisors. They’ve heard her recommend fiduciaries and caution against the assets-under-management (AUM) model. They’re eager to understand the reasoning and want guidance on finding trustworthy advisors.

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#689: Most people think forgetting a name means their brain is failing. 

Dr. Majid Fotuhi, a neurologist who taught at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, sees thousands of patients convinced they have Alzheimer's – only to discover they're dealing with poor sleep or stress.

Dr. Fotuhi joins us to break down the difference between cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer's disease. He explains why chronic stress physically shrinks your hippocampus — the thumb-sized memory center in your brain — and how twelve weeks of lifestyle changes reversed cognitive decline in 84 percent of his patients.

We talk about the five hidden taxes draining your brain: sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep, junk food, chronic stress and mental laziness. Scrolling social media after work counts as mental laziness, even if your day job involves intense focus.

Dr. Fotuhi offers a different framework: five pillars that compound over time. Exercise ranks first because it multiplies mitochondria in your brain cells, reduces inflammation and generates new neurons in your hippocampus. Walking 10,000 steps daily cuts Alzheimer's risk by 50 percent.

Sleep comes second. Your brain rinses itself during deep sleep, flushing out amyloid — the core protein in Alzheimer's disease. One night of poor sleep increases amyloid in your brain.

We cover nutrition (skip the junk food debate), mindset (heart rate variability breathing reduces Alzheimer's footprints) and brain training. Dr. Fotuhi memorizes 70 names in a single lecture and explains his technique for remembering credit card numbers using mental imagery.

The conversation covers London taxi drivers who grew their hippocampus by memorizing 10,000 streets, why stress management beats supplements, and how Swedish students learning Arabic increased their brain volume in three months.

Timestamps:

Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising segments. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths.

(00:00) Defining cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer's disease

(05:19) Why cognitive issues don't always mean Alzheimer's

(07:24) Thinking of your brain as an asset to manage

(07:51) The five hidden taxes draining your brain

(10:45) How poor sleep prevents brain rinsing and causes inflammation

(14:20) Oral health and brain health connection

(16:40) Brain plasticity and the Broca lobe

(27:02) The five pillars of brain health

(35:23) Cardiovascular fitness versus strength training for brain health

(38:51) Sleep as the second pillar of brain health

(48:05) When exercise beats sleep

(51:33) Different types of intelligence beyond IQ tests

(1:03:53) Reversing brain damage from decades of bad habits

(1:10:25) Nutrition and avoiding junk food

(1:25:09) Mindset and stress management as pillar four

(1:33:35) Breathing exercises for stress reduction

(1:39:24) Brain training as the fifth pillar

(1:51:52) Memory techniques for names and numbers

(2:02:46) Nootropics and supplements for brain health

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#688: Anonymous: "Anonymous Sheryl" is 38, mortgage-free and exhausted after 15 years of teaching. She’s torn between pushing a few more years toward FIRE or switching to relief teaching now for better work-life balance. How do you trade speed to FIRE for sustainability without blowing up the plan?

Anonymous : "Anonymous Ray" hired a bank portfolio manager but isn’t sure how to judge the results after just a few years. With mixed performance, dividend-heavy funds and higher fees, when is it fair to evaluate a manager — and would a simple index ETF outperform?

Nathan: Nathan’s 14-year-old just earned his first W-2 income, and Nathan wants to jump-start his son’s investing journey with a Roth IRA. But with household income above the Roth limits, is there a legal way to make this work without sacrificing the child tax credit?

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#687: Your tax refund might be $300 to $1,000 bigger this year, and that's just the beginning of what's changing with your money.

The Tax Foundation estimates most Americans will see significantly larger refunds thanks to seven major tax cuts. The child tax credit increased by $200. The standard deduction jumped by $750 for individuals or $1,500 for couples. The state and local tax deduction cap now sits at $40,000. Seniors get an extra $6,000 deduction, and deductions for auto loan interest, tips, and overtime work all increased.

Retirement accounts saw major changes too. Catch-up contributions for high earners now must go into Roth accounts, which pushed thousands of employers to add Roth options to their 401k plans between 2024 and 2026.

Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair nominee, thinks the Federal Reserve has been doing it all wrong. The former Fed governor and Wall Street banker believes the Fed focuses too much on backward-looking data and reacts too slowly. He wants strategic, forward-thinking policy instead of chasing lagging indicators. President Trump clarified he never asked Warsh to lower interest rates and wanted to "keep it pure."

The labor market shows serious cracks. Job openings dropped by nearly one million year over year to 6.5 million. Unemployment claims jumped to 231,000 last week. January layoffs hit 108,435 people — up 118 percent from last year and the worst January since 2009 during the Great Recession.

Big Tech continues its massive AI spending spree. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Oracle will collectively spend over $500 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Google's spending alone doubled from 2025, reaching up to $185 billion focused on data centers and Gemini development.

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