When You Have Wealth, You Have To Stop These Things – Episode 518    

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, we’re gonna be talking about the things that you have to stop doing once you have wealth. Now, you’re probably not going to hear about this on a lot of podcasts. And the reason is most people don’t know. But Kim, you do. We talked about this in the previous episode. You may wanna listen to it. If not, hang on. There’s gonna be some juicy stuff in here, really helpful today. So Kim, lead us out. Well, it’s so fun to really be a contrarian, I guess, in this space. And stopping doing things is not the list that we typically see. Our previous podcast was all the tips that people that are building wealth should be doing. And once you have built,

[00:53] and we can just use that million dollar dividing line, once you have assets that are worth a million dollars above debt, so once your net worth is above a million dollars, there are a few things that no longer serve you. And it’s no different than anything else in life. What got you into the promised land is not going to, or what got you out of Egypt is not going to get you into the promised land is I think the quote that is often conveyed there. What got you to a certain level of business may not continue to serve you in your next level of business. So there’s a lot of other areas of life where we realize that you have to stop doing things, but in personal finance, they’re not spoken of very often.

[01:45] So a couple that I see that are so critical is in the whole life insurance space, once you get a net worth of a million dollars, and presumably some of that is cash value of your whole life insurance, the death benefit of your whole life insurance is the more valuable thing to focus on. So the sentence is, stop being overtly focused on just the cash value and start learning how to also utilize the death benefit of that exact same policy in your life, during your life, while you’re living to impact your other assets. I like that. That’s really good. And I’m going to unpack for me why that’s really helpful as a listener is that most people aren’t getting this advice because their financial advisor is taking their control away.

[02:45] And then they’re not focused on the right thing. Their focus is 20, 30, 40 years, way too far in the future. Your focus has said, okay, we’ve got the wealth that’s stamped out. Now focus on the death piece while we’re still doing the other. So what else does it look like for you? Like what other things have to stop? The overt, so this is number two, overt focus on tax deductions, because typically at that size of wealth, you have your mortgage and that’s still partially deductible, which is great. You could do, and I’m talking personal, not business. You’re of course going to continue to be focused on business or real estate deductions, but from a personal standpoint, you’ve really taken advantage of all the things

[03:33] that you can and to be overtly focused on this little thing or that little thing is letting the tax tail wag the financial dog. And so keep your business, keep your real estate. You might do some energy like direct investments in oil that give you a very large tax deduction in the particular year. But other than that, stop the little games that people tend to play when they’re in their early stage of wealth building and being overtly focused on like 401ks and health savings accounts. And this little piece here and there that gives you a deduction that is just not worth time, effort, risk, et cetera, and go about building wealth with after-tax dollars that are now going to be held as after-tax

[04:29] for the rest of your life. That’s a huge transition for a lot of people to make and it’s hard, but sometimes paying the income tax is the best thing that you can do to free that money for the rest of your life from the restrictions of the deferral game. Yes, that’s really good. I wanna throw one in. I don’t know if you’re gonna agree or not, but the other one that I wanna throw in is that once you have accumulated the wealth, you need to stop doing small transactions unless you’re doing it for an intention, meaning you’re having a child do something with you or some loved one or employee, but all the small things that you did need to stop. Do you agree or disagree? Well, I agree and I’m gonna take it one step further

[05:26] because there’s a lot of things in your life and your business and your day-to-day activities that are small that you also want to stop. I believe that each person needs to look at their life and how they spend their time because time is an investment. Time is one of our most valuable assets, not only our mental space around that time, but what we’re physically doing during that time. So for example, and again, each person has to look at their situation. Each person has to decide for themselves how they wanna spend time, but there’s some really obvious things out there, food, laundry, yard work, et cetera. Now, like for me, I love yard work. I get such a peace of mind, such great thinking while I’m doing yard work.

[06:15] So I’ll keep doing my yard work, but I will happily pay for food help, laundry help, house cleaning help, that kind of thing, because that is not the best use of my time. Somebody else can do that way better than I can and I’ll do it myself. It’s cheaper if I do it myself. Thinking has got to stop once you cross that million dollar line. Yes, I totally agree. There is a mental conundrum that I had to go through. You may have had to go through this too, once you start hiring others to do things, meaning you may choose to do your yard work or whatever that may be, it’s great. And could you hire someone else at a lower dollar power? Yes, but we enjoy it, that’s fine. The piece to that puzzle, the conundrum,

[07:06] the thought that crept into my head when I did this years ago was, well, my time is so much more valuable. It’s almost like a pompous, prideful thinking. And I had to say and go, wait, no, no. Just as much as I love doing this activity, they may enjoy doing this activity and I have to just negate what the cost is and I just have to look at it and saying, freeing my mind to do the things that I really want to do. Did you have to go through that too? Absolutely, I have to go through it almost every day. I mean, not literally, but often, often. And I look at it as a unique ability opportunity for somebody else. Unique ability is a Dan Sullivan term from strategic coach. And there are people out there who have unique abilities

[07:57] around food prep, laundry, house cleaning, et cetera. If I do those roles when they are not my unique ability, I am taking that opportunity away from somebody else. And when delegated properly with a humble approach like humility as your approach, that’s a win-win for everybody involved. And it’s not a I’m up here and you’re down here approach. It’s a will you help me with this because you’re better at it. That’s so good. And what we’re talking about of stopping doing things and then just you mentioning the humble approach is the next layer. Because what happens in most books that you’ll read in blog posts is someone may have done well financially and then they’ll talk as though people are subservient to them.

[08:53] That’s not the case. We think prosperously at all times and you used unique ability that’s perfect. Let’s find out one more thing that we should stop doing once we’ve built the wealth. I think the last aspect is the fear that is so prevalent and making decisions based on fear, making decisions based on scarcity, making decisions based on what other people think we should be doing. If you’re going to play in the space of above a million dollars, you have to realize that the bulk of the financial material that you’re reading and listening to probably does not apply anymore. The bulk of the commentary that’s out there around all kinds of things does not apply anymore. And so your mental space must be protected.

[09:48] It must be intentional. And you want to seek learning and opportunities and connections and groups that are at that different level or above so that you can continue to raise your game. Because if you continue to waller in, cracks me up, I’ll have somebody with lots of millions and they’re still listening to some financial personalities that talk about paying off debt, the name shall not be mentioned. And I’m thinking, why are you wasting your time with that? It’s the wrong message. So stop listening, learning from, watching the typical commentary that’s out there because it’s not right for you anymore. So good. You rounded that one out perfect. You put a smile on my face because I’m listening

[10:42] to that and you articulated it in a way that I can look back and say, okay, I had to do all of those things. But I didn’t have someone that said, oh, these things are going to happen. And I think for all of our listeners, depending on where you are in your wealth cycle, you’re gonna say, oh yeah, I did that. Or you’re gonna say, okay, here’s what’s next. Here’s how I’m gonna do it. Really good. For anyone that does have questions, if you’re trying to figure out what that next step is, there’s a dedicated email for our listeners. It’s called hello at ProsperityThinkers.com. Send an email. It’s private, goes to Kim. She answers it. If you have any questions, send it there, totally safe. And thank you for investing your time with us today.

[11:40] Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit ProsperityThinkers.com.