Living for Experiences vs Stuff – Episode 511          

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, on this podcast, we’re going to be talking about living for experiences versus living for stuff. Ah, Kim, let’s let’s dive into this. You already know how I feel just by saying it the way I did. Absolutely. It’s so interesting. I just last week talked with a person who is in the PR field. So he deals with high level entrepreneurs that are doing cool things, many of them with quite a bit of money. And he said, if somebody starts out the conversation by talking about stuff, I’m out. Like for his business, no matter what potential that client brings to the table, if they start off with stuff. And it’s also noticeable, of course, in our social media feeds, right?

[01:00] Like what are your pictures about? Are they the cars and the homes and that kind of thing? Or are they about experiences, the hike in the woods, you know, the beautiful sunset, what have you. And it’s also interesting, gosh, about, I think it’s probably as many as 10 years ago. I had a photographer come to the home to take some video of me for a particular reason. This was kind of before the video got really good on our smartphones and whatnot. And he wanted to get some pictures. Now our office is in our home. So he wasn’t trying to get pictures of the home, but he was trying to get pictures of like, you know, a person walking into an office. And I still said no, because it just, it was not what I wanted the video to be about.

[01:54] It wasn’t the focus that I wanted it to have. It was not sharing the information that I was interested in sharing. Like I would so much rather have an inspirational picture or a graph or what have you. And people that do follow my social media, especially those that are on our weekly do get to see bits and pieces of our property and that kind of thing. And occasionally somebody will comment on it, but it’s because I’ve taken a specific picture to share a lesson, not because I wanted a picture of, you know, fill in the blank about our property that was basically bragging in any form or fashion. So it is always interesting to me and my gosh, I had the early part of my career in Scottsdale, Arizona.

[02:43] I mean, that’s like Arizona’s Beverly Hills, right? And I definitely lived that life for a period of time. And yet I was just thinking the other day because of Amazon. Now we do live in the country and I am at a place in life where experiences are way more important than how I look or any type of material thing anyway. And I get that maybe in my twenties or thirties or even forties, I wouldn’t have been able to say this, but I’m so glad that I don’t have to go shopping. Just the act of shopping to me is so stuff oriented. I mean, you know, yes, grocery store, yes, clothes here and there, but like the rest of it, get it on Amazon, make it happen, let the goods that I’m purchasing serve a role that they need to serve, but not waste

[03:40] a bunch of time shopping. Yes. You know, when you’re talking and you’re explaining about the property and the life that you’ve built up, I thought about a few of the things that that are stuff that has made your experiences possible. And I’m going to make some assumptions here. So correct me if I’m wrong. Okay. So for you, you’ve created a little space on the property of a swing where you can sit down with them a dog. That’s an experience and it’s a small stuff, but that’s an experience. Or how about as you take a morning walk out to the barn to go feed the alpacas, that’s a daily experience. Now, some people may enjoy a vintage car because of their memories or whatever it is, but the world that you’ve set up, you’ve created every

[04:43] single morning you get up, you’ve got a routine, you’ve got a memory, you’ve got opportunities, you’ve got something you’ve built. So share with us, what are some of the things that you’ve seen other people in your community? What have they done like experience wise? I would love to hear that. Well, I’ll share something that I learned from reading one of Andre August’s books and he has not been in the public eye for a long, long time. And I just happened to see walking through a hotel on Friday where we were there for some business. He’s coming back to do some type of tennis, something, something, which I thought was really interesting knowing that he hadn’t been in the public eye for a long time, but he specifically said, and again,

[05:27] it’s in a book, very public information, that the reason that he liked hanging out with Steffi Graf is because she talked about ideas. And when he used to hang out with Brooke Shields, all she talked about were things. So that is, I think a very telling and descriptive arena for the difference between stuff, which things could certainly fall into that category and experiences, which ideas could certainly fall into that category. And so it’s just something I think for us to be aware of and also to be super conscious when we have young children or even children at all that are at home is what I meant by the word young and the messages that we are sending, so thinking about Amazon again, and I’m well aware of families

[06:29] that try to D Amazon. Well, that’s fine. You know, if that’s important to you, have at it. But the ability for using Amazon to not have to spend a Saturday shopping is instrumental in my mind, in a family’s life, because then that Saturday can be spent truly enjoying the soccer game at the park and maybe staying a little bit afterwards to just play soccer with the family. It’s an opportunity to truly enjoy the, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is that you’re doing outside or as a family, even if it’s home projects, right? Like I know families, the first Saturday of every month is home projects and we all pitch in and we clean up the yard and we, you know, do whatever it is that we need to do be where it wants, where we want it to be,

[07:27] where it needs to be for us to live our lives and in the best situation. What an opportunity to demonstrate to your children, the difference between stuff and experiences, the difference between having an environment where we’re proud to have people over and we’re content on the other Saturdays to really just enjoy each other’s company is feeling, instead of feeling like every Saturday has to be a little bit about work and you know, every family’s different, every home is different, obviously. But I recall another example, a client was telling me one time that she had just totally bought into the make your bed thing every morning, make your bed, make your bed, make your bed and taught her kids at a young age.

[08:13] And it is amazing. Like a five-year-old can absolutely make their bed and not be the perfect corners, but the bed is made and how her children’s friends, when they came over, whether they were the parents of the children’s friends or the actual children, always commented on how peaceful their home felt and she attributed that to the fact that all beds are made all the time. Ooh, I like that. That’s neat. I’m going to throw a, sounds like a random question, but it’s actually related to stuff and things, stuff and experiences. So do you feel like you celebrate well? Like, are you able to celebrate your wins? No, I’m not good at it and I wish I was better. And it’s something that I do make attempts at.

[09:18] It’s such an interesting question and it’s important. And I recommend that people celebrate their wins. I am not very, I’m going to use the word fun oriented. Like I love to work. I like all kinds of work. I get a lot of energy out of work. It could be working in the yard. It could be working in my practice. And I think because of that, I’m not very good at the celebration game and I’m conscious of that. So I do try. I also am conscious that I may not need that as much as some people do. I think it’s super, super important that you know yourself and just actually social environments in general, which oftentimes people would think about celebration, going with social environments are also something that

[10:09] I just don’t feel a great need for. I am very, very content with Todd and the conversations that I have with my sister and my personal trainer, who I consider friends at Spencer. I would include you in that the conversations that you have. Like, and then of course I live my life on the phone, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, helping our clients and our prospects. Those are sufficient social interactions for me. And people could look at that and really judge that like, Oh, you’re not celebrating enough. Oh, you’re not doing enough social things. Well, I’m doing enough for me. I figured out what works for me and for us. And that’s the arena that I operate in, even though I am conscious that I could do a better job in the celebrating of wins.

[10:59] Okay. So I asked that for a couple of reasons, because I’m dissecting because I’ve asked the same question to many of my friends who are very high performing without a doubt, most every single one of them answer the same way you just did because the reward I grew up working on a farm, my grandparents farm every summer. So the reward for work is more work. That’s what it is. And you get to do something great. So I will counter punch a little bit on your statement though, that you’ve been able to incorporate the right people and traditions in place that are celebrations. So for example, your husband, Todd, he loves to go to CES every year and celebrate and learn the new technologies. And you love to read a book and potentially be with Tammy or someone

[11:55] else. That’s a pretty good reward and when now it looks different because some people, you know, I know a lot of families that go to Disney world or Disneyland a couple of times a year or every year and celebrate. To me, that would be miserable. I don’t want to do it. We took the kids once and I said, the next time we come, we’re going to take our grandkids. That was it. Yep. That that far away. Yeah. So you and I are aligned like that. Now, some of the thoughts that I have around this of stuff and experiences and celebration is that some of the hard work can be celebrated. So for example, setting up life insurance policy, every anniversary of that, maybe the anniversary to say, Hey, let’s go on a family

[12:47] vacation or let’s do a special dinner. That’s wonderful because now you did something of effort and you celebrate the win. So it’s like, Oh, we get to pay the annual premium. Excellent. And now we get to do this. What do you think, Kim? I love it. I think that is a great idea. And it’s interesting. You know, we have our perpetual wealth book that does talk about family retreats and that kind of thing, but what a just gem of a thought to tie it to your annual premium payments. And of course, a lot of people have numerous anniversaries of their policies. I literally have an anniversary every month of the year. So cool 12 celebrations. There you go. So there you go. Now it might be a dinner. It might be getting a massage.

[13:36] It might be working out or going somewhere, but there’s something for us to do. And I think that reframing and saying the reward for work is more work and it is looking at a very long prosperity lens and a celebration in a short term. So for any of you listeners, as you’re trying to figure out what that looks like, send an email to hello at prosperity thinkers.com or what you can do is chem has been a lot more active on social. So on Twitter, on Instagram, comment on something, let us know so that we can continue to celebrate those wins and celebrate the experiences, not the stuff. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast to take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit prosperity thinkers.com.