Wealth Accumulation vs Wealth Enjoyment – Episode 604

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about wealth accumulation versus wealth enjoyment. First off, why do you think those are two different things? Because lots of people think that it’s one and the same. Well, it’s interesting because today people want to have what they want to have. We are a very materialistic society, and it’s okay that we enjoy our wealth. We earn our wealth in most cases, and we want to live joy-filled and joyful lives. That’s an okay thing, yet there is this nagging feeling that, oh my gosh, I have to accumulate wealth, which is generally interpreted as save for retirement and defer enjoyment. I am one of those people that had a parent pass on in their late 50s, early 60s.

[01:11] I honestly don’t remember when my mom passed on what age exactly she was. We’re not a big birthday family, so it was early 60s, let’s call it, meaning that she did not get to enjoy her retirement dollars that she had accumulated. They got stacked up in a 403B plan, in her case, because she was a teacher, and then they weren’t there for her. I have a perspective that it’s so important that we do some long-term thinking. We do some long-term wealth building, but we be very careful to not lock it up in typically retirement plans or other things, 529 plans, another good example, where the time frame and the utilization is dictated by somebody else. Is it a construct of that, oh, we have to suffer?

[02:20] Is it that we have to put this forward and we can’t enjoy it? Where does this come from that people are willing to put it into someone else’s control, not enjoy it, and not have this experience? It’s societal construct, right? It’s the thing to do. Interestingly enough, even Ted Benna, the creator of the 401K plan, says that he wishes he hadn’t done what he did to call out the tax law, which is literally section 401K, to create that environment, because it does cause people to think in a way that’s not healthy. I think also we can go back to the 1930s when the whole age 65 and the whole idea of retirement was brought forth, because I believe these two things go hand in hand. It’s just normal society, and if you look out in the financial landscape, the financial

[03:21] media that’s out there, every single conversation is around that space. It’s defer wealth and put it into a thing so that you supposedly get some benefits and don’t utilize it today, don’t enjoy it today, and don’t make use of it in a way that you can actually better your life and live a longer life and have more enjoyment both now and later. So you work with a lot of millennials, Gen Z, a variety of people, and from the research that I’ve done and conversations we’ve had on the podcast, a lot of them are just living for today. They’re like, what’s the point of even having money for the future? So what is the, you know, again, this like putting off for the future, that’s a lot of the Gen X, baby boomers, the Gen Z, it’s foreign to them.

[04:19] So how are you balancing getting them to save versus not? It’s such a great question, because now our society has kind of swung too far the other way, right? In my parents’ generation, it was defer, defer, and probably your and my generation defer, defer, build it, accumulate it, leave it in these accounts. And now we’ve gotten to the other direction where it’s all about today. There’s no long-term thinking. It’s all about this weekend, et cetera. And like most things in life, the pendulum has swung too far the other direction, and I absolutely believe that you can get both. And we’ve talked on the podcast before about the house of both that Todd and I strive to live in. And you used a couple of interesting words.

[05:07] So the term balance is thrown out there a lot. You want to have work-life balance. You want to have balance between short-term and long-term. And I disagree with that. I believe that what human beings will thrive under, not just survive, but thrive, is alignment. And so if we can align our short-term and our long-term thinking, if we can align our work and our life, A-L-I-G-N, if we can align the thing that seems opposite of the other thing, whatever it is, then we will get the best of both, and it’s not a perfect world. It’s not something to do only in the short-term. This is absolutely a long-term play, and it is one of the biggest challenges, I think, for anybody, but especially somebody in their 20s and even early 30s,

[06:11] looking at anything down the road, even age 40, forget age 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. I mean, we’re just going to start to see these ages more and more is very difficult. I remember when I attended my kid’s college graduation, this was about 10 years ago, and there were obviously all the college graduates talking about what they were going to do, and they were all very anti-retirement. I mean, they just thought the idea was dumb, and I loved that. I thought it was great thinking, and it’s interesting, I was just talking with one of them yesterday, and they were making a distinction between them, so they’re in their late 20s now, and kids just two or three years younger than them that are in their early to mid 20s to that 24, 25 space,

[07:01] and how very short-term the 24 to 25-year-old was compared to the 28-year-old, which was just interesting in terms of a perspective of what you’re asking about. And again, I believe that you can absolutely positively have both, and it takes some work to get there. Yeah, absolutely. You used the word a line. That’s a really good line. In the highlights, I created some talking points, and so one of the talking points, it is related to a line, and so I wanted to go over that with you, which is constantly chasing, it’s called the trap of over-accumulation, constantly chasing more without ever feeling secure or fulfilled. So you probably see people go through this. Absolutely, and it’s because we’re constantly looking for happiness

[07:51] on the outside. And so to be able to instead seek happiness and joy internally on the inside, self-developed, is the shift that I’m encouraging people to make if they’re feeling like they’re on that trap of consistent seeking of whatever it is. It could be material items, or it could be job hopping. Now, there’s necessarily anything wrong with job hopping these days, but we cannot be seeking happiness on the outside, because if we are, we will be forever seeking it. We must figure out a way, whether it’s spiritual or inspirational, or just good self-work, you know, human improvement, to gain, seek, and solidify happiness from the inside, which is truly a daily effort. Okay, so we’ve got the internal versus the external.

[08:56] You have the align, and the alignment happens versus the balancing. So what is the chem insight for us to take that to the people that are far along in their careers that have some wealth, and maybe with that wealth, they have confidence, and then I want to get the insight for the people that may not have as much hope, saying that young Gen Z or those early 20s. I’d love to hear some insight for both of those categories. Absolutely. Well, I’ll start at the top level with something that can impact everybody, and it’s so valuable, and it’s habits. So you’re either in the habit of complaining and negativity and finding things that are wrong and seeking happiness on the outside, or you’re in the habit of being in gratitude and sharing good things,

[09:55] positivity, and seeking happiness on the inside. So for that older person, older, you know, all relative, right? But for somebody, let’s just say in their 60s, it’s uber important that they develop happiness within serving human beings. So right now, they’re probably working, and where they serve is very obvious. But for many people, whether they choose to retire or not, there may be shifts coming up in their lives, and continuing to serve is uber critical for happiness. It’s uber critical for maintaining a sense of purpose. We were put on this earth to serve. So whether you want to serve humans, serve animals, serve, you know, fill in the blank, there’s endless things that you can do in the area of service,

[10:49] and it should be very finely in alignment with your own skills so that serving is a happy space. At least 80%, I mean, you know, let’s not try to seek 100% here. Then as a 60-year-old, there’s so much gratitude that can occur, but it’s the gratitude that must come first. And so literally every morning, and preferably also at night right before you go to bed, because that’s a really critical time mentally, dig out that mental gratitude list. You can write it down if you want. You can speak it. You can just have a conversation in your own mind. But being grateful, being proactively grateful, sometimes digging to find the things that you can be grateful for. And then, and we’ve talked about this before,

[11:34] it’s so important to not just be grateful for material things or individual people. I mean, we absolutely want to have those types of things on our list, but we want to be up-leveling that gratitude and building a habit of being grateful for the more inspirational or spiritual energy aspects of a human. So I’m immensely grateful for my husband Todd, and what is it about him that I can seek gratitude? Is he a nice-looking guy? Yeah, is he from Texas and he’s super gracious? Yeah, and what does that bring us? Well, there’s harmony there. What are the inspirational or spiritual qualities or spiritual energy or spiritual value or inspirational value that he brings to the home? Well, there’s wisdom, there’s grace.

[12:24] All of those types of things are what I seek to be really focused on in the gratitude space. I like that. You’ve taken this podcast topic and you pulled in the gratitude, you pulled in a lot of intentionality. That’s really like the alignment is being very intentional, and that’s what it is. And I think my final take is the things that you’re talking about, they don’t cost anything. It just takes focus, intention. And for the people that I’ve met, people that have so much wealth and they’re incredibly ornery, unhappy individuals. And I’ve met people that are poor that are happy. Now, life is a little bit easier when you have wealth to be able to do things. And so that’s why we’re doing this podcast.

[13:17] Kim, excellent topic. Thank you for sharing. And we’ll be sure to cover more on that mindset and next steps. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit ProsperityThinkers.com.