Living a Rich Life: Aligning Your Money With Your Values – Episode #528

Where do finances fit in the formula for living a rich life? After all, a truly rich life should include meaningful relationships, good health, personal growth, as well as living comfortably. So how do you cultivate a values-based life? On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan, Matt, Victoria, and Jake explain why getting rich and living a rich life are two very different things.

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Anyway, hey everybody Jake Matt Victoria. Hi guys

Matt  Mulcock:
Guys, I love these panel discussions so much. You gotta do this more often.

Ryan Isaac:
I do too. My first question has to do with nicknames and are we, would you like me to introduce everyone by their nicknames right now? Let’s see if I can remember because everyone has new ones. But the first one, I don’t know what we’re calling Jake. Is it just hot take Jake since the very beginning? Okay. That’s never changed. Okay.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes, let’s do it!

Matt  Mulcock:
Yes, please. That would actually be great.

Victoria Ferguson:
It’s hot take Jake. Everyone knows that.

Matt  Mulcock:
Hot take Jake.

Jake Elm:
Reese used to call me Elm Tree way back in the day. He would give me a good Elm Tree action. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Elm tree. That’s very… Hot Take Jake came along a very long time ago. So we got Hot Take Jake. Now do we have the Mountain or Money Matt with us? Matty Money. Matty Money. Okay. And now do we have… Yeah. Sthuti did. Well, she’s Gen Z and she knows all the cool stuff. So maybe we should just listen to her. Yeah, Matty. so let’s let the people decide.

Matt  Mulcock:
Matty money, Matty money. Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna see if that sticks. We’re gonna see if that sticks. That comes from our very own Sthuti, I believe was the one who started that one. Yeah. It’s true.

Ryan Isaac:
Go to the Facebook page when you hear this episode and vote on Matty money or the mountain. I’ll put the poll in there. That’ll be my day. It’s out. It’s that’s that’s Boomer. All right. It’s 2015 and Victoria, we got study buddy. Is that what we’re going with his study buddy? Yeah. You bring all you bring all the details. Yeah, good.

Victoria Ferguson:
I think the mountain is just out, Ryan.

Matt  Mulcock:
I’d like it to be out. Yeah. So 2019.

Victoria Ferguson:
That’s like so like what, 2015?

Matt  Mulcock:
Study buddy.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, that was given to me by Matt. I do.

Ryan Isaac:
I mean, I’ll just go with the oldest one. I’ve been affectionately known as Sir. Yeah, but if I got to choose, I wanted to be Cap Gains with two Zs at the end. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
Not games!

Matt  Mulcock:
Cap gains. That’s what it is. Captain gains. Captain gains. That’s what it is. Cap gains?

Jake Elm:
Cap games is dope.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, you think that’s for capital gains, but I think it should be captain gains. Yeah, cap gains.

Ryan Isaac:
Captain Gaines. So good.

Jake Elm:
Ryan, if you knew the number of people, the number of dentists I speak with that just always ask me, do you know Sir Isaac? You have you ever like Sir Isaac is just, I think that’s stuck in the dental community and you’re just gonna have to go with it.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m fine being there. Hot take, great segue. So Jake, you wrote an article recently, as I understand this, when this comes out, this will be the day before the 2024 inaugural Dentist Money Summit commences in illustrious Park City, Utah. We will be up there. We’ll be up there this day as this is coming out, setting up the booths.

Matt  Mulcock:
You’re just Sir Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
When it begins and the title of the summit Matt is what?

Matt  Mulcock:
Learn to live your rich life. That is that’s the theme. That’s the theme of the event So the the title of the Dennis money summit the theme is learn to live your rich life

Ryan Isaac:
I love this so much, selfishly for me. I’m the resident old guy here. So, you know, just like looking back at my long storied life so far, this topic is so interesting to me just because I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong of what a rich life means, but it’s taken on a lot of different meanings for me as I hit midlife. And it takes on a different meaning for me as an advisor for my clients to kind of redefine what rich means or what you know, financially independent means. And so I love this topic, J. Cowett and the difference between, yeah, what does that mean? Is, is financially independent a number? Does it have to do with your job? You know, is it, is it your own like peace with your own money situation and how your money’s aligning with your values, all this stuff. So Jake, how about you give us a quick intro to, what you wrote and this can be found on denisadvisors .com under the education library tab, living your rich life. This is published.

Matt  Mulcock:
And the difference between the two maybe?

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know, probably this week, but everyone’s hearing it two weeks from now or a week from now. When are we going to be there? Is it next week? Two weeks. Okay. Two weeks from now. Jay, give us a little intro. You wrote this, I think with the summit in mind, but what were you thinking when you were going through this?

Jake Elm:
Yeah, I can start. We can take this a lot of different directions. I don’t know. We’re all financial advisors here. It’s kind of our job, our day job. And I feel like a lot of people come to us to try and figure out their financial situation, right? They’re unorganized. They know they need to be saving. They know they need to be investing. They’re trying to plan for retirement, trying to figure out how they can take the money that they’re making and use that best to their advantage, right? And so I think a lot of people come to us thinking this is going to be a big X’s and O’s conversation, right? Just tell me what I need to do to get to this number that I need to get to when I need to retire. And doing this as we have, I think we just have come to the conclusion that our job is a lot different than that. It’s a lot more emotional and maybe nuanced and way more geared to what kind of life do you want to live? Personal finance is different for everybody. I like to say this, we sometimes like to treat personal finance like corporate finance where…

The main objective for most businesses is like, how can we make as much money as quickly as possible? How can we be as efficient and making as much money as possible? But personal finance is way different. That is not the aim of your personal finances. We talk all the time about how money is a tool to help you do the things that you want to do in life. And so I don’t know. That was like the premise of this article is kind of taking trying to figure out, OK, money is a tool to help you live the life that you want to live, then the next question is like, what life do you want to live? What things bring you satisfaction? I don’t know. I’ll just stop there. I feel like I would keep blabbing. I don’t know if any of you have thoughts on that.

Matt  Mulcock:
What? No, that’s great. Jake, I love that you just said that the difference between a corporate finance approach versus a personal finance approach. And a lot of times what we talk about is like the spreadsheet answer versus the real life answer. And a lot of times when you said that it’s like, sometimes what is optimal for the spreadsheet is the exact opposition for what’s optimal for your life and like living your rich life. And I think that’s maybe one of the issues people have sometimes to your point, dentists come to us and they want like that spreadsheet answer, like what’s the right answer on the spreadsheet? And it’s like, well, here’s, here’s what that is, but it may not be the right choice for you. And that in and of itself is what makes our job sometimes really difficult because personal finance is so personal, at least it should be personal. And there, a lot of times is no right answer for these types of things.

Jake Elm:
Yeah, they’re it. Yeah, just like making as much money as possible really isn’t a financial plan, right? Like that just you’re not. That’s first of all, it’s a goal that can never really be accomplished. There will always be someone richer than you. Unfortunately, there is no reward for being the wealthiest person in the graveyard, you know, type of thing. Like the aim of life is not to accumulate the most dollars. Right. And so we have to sit back and say, OK, obviously money is important. We need to save and invest and make sure you have security and freedom and all of that stuff that money can offer. But it’s also just what do you want out of life and how can we make the money that you’re making work for you to help accomplish the things you want to.

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, and I feel like that’s the piece that people don’t really know. And I think that’s why we kind of avoid it, because I feel like it’s a little bit easier to hide behind the numbers and just say like, this feels good because it is the quote unquote, right thing to do mathematically. But I think and you kind of talk about this in your article, you know, like about, you know, I just want financial freedom. And then it’s like, well, what do you want to do with that? And then that’s where people don’t really know. And I think in some of the meetings that we have with our clients, it’s just way more about life planning. What do you value? What do you wanna do? And a lot of people haven’t even gone through that exercise. They don’t know what they’re optimizing for. Because it’s really difficult to uncover that. And it’s a lot easier to let external influences of your life catch your attention, where you should be kind of focusing on, why am I doing all of this? Dentistry isn’t easy, so you need to have an anchor and a motivator and know your reason why to kind of help you get through it.

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s a great point. I think most people, if you asked, and Jake, you mentioned this, the people, if you ask the people like, why is money important to you? A lot of times they’re going to give the answer or freedom. And then you say, okay, so what do you want to do? Like, let’s imagine you actually have the financial freedom. They don’t know. They’re like, most people don’t know what they want to do.

Jake Elm:
Does that just come though for most people because most of us don’t have the option for most of our lives, right? Where it’s like, I’ve never like, it’s like, y ‘all, everyone always asks the question of what would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow? You know, kind of with your life type of deal, but it’s hard for us to think about that because I’ll just speak for myself. Like I need to work to provide for my family. And so I actually don’t, I’ve never had to think about it because it hasn’t been an option up until this point. Does that make sense?

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, it’s hard to like picture yourself.

Jake Elm:
Yeah, it’s hard to picture. Like, I actually don’t know because I just know that I do need to work for a majority of my day and week and I don’t know.

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, yeah, and some studies will show that’s why it’s like really hard for people to say for retirement because they cannot picture themselves not having to work. You know, like, like I’ve asked people like, no, like run me through a whole day in the life of you in retirement. Like you wake up, what are you doing? What’s your routine now that you don’t have to work? And it’s because, you know, they usually start broadly like, yeah, like I’d probably travel more, like spend time with kids. And I’m like, no, like do this with me, like picture a whole day in the life and then hour to hour, play by play, like what are we doing? What does your average day look like? And we don’t really know, but we give that so much weight. You know, like I want to be retired. I like, when can I be done? We’ve all heard this like so many times, but then, you know, run me through a day in the life and you can’t picture it. That’s why it’s really hard to say for retirement.

Ryan Isaac:
Jake, there’s a piece in your article right in the beginning. It’s a Morgan Housel quote, where he says the highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every day and say, I can do whatever I want today. But that’s what, and then you get to this article where we’re at now, it’s like, so what is that then? Here’s what I wonder, is we know that this changes like what you would want to do day to day or what’s important to your goal that changes throughout your life just based on your experience the things you go through the things that become important to you that once were not you know what what feels like a value and a goal at 25 will be different at 35 and 45 and so on so I’m just curious like how how have you guys experienced walking clients through that knowing if it’s a younger client on the early side of career the goals might be really built around money and building a big business, but a 50 year old is going to have just different life experience and maybe has already done that. How do you help clients go through that and then go through the transitions that come along the way when life changes and it changes their perspective?

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I might take this in a little bit of a different angle. I don’t know, but I do want to just come back to that thing you just said, Ryan, of, cause we all know this. We all love Morgan Housel. We all know this quote very well that he’s saying the highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up and say, I can do whatever I want today. I go back and forth on this. I don’t know if this is true.

Ryan Isaac:
I like this. I like this. Okay. Yeah. This is the controversy that makes marketing smile. So let’s, let’s.

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah, no, I just, I think, I think I accepted this when I first read this like a long time ago for Morgan Housel, but I’ve started to like question this. I truly don’t know if this is the highest form of wealth. he says the highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, I can do whatever I want today. But again, I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not saying it is, or is not true. And I think for some people, this is what game that we’re coming back to. This is defined by you. This is where probably the hardest part of money is we want to think of it as a hard science like physics, but it is not. It is a very soft science. It is, it’s a lot of times not even a science. It’s more of an art, right? So, but I guess I’m just more saying this and sorry, Ryan, I’m not trying to like derail us from your con from your question, but when you said that, I just wanted to come to this point really quick and say, I don’t know if this is true.

I think a higher form of wealth is finding harmony with your money. I think it’s like, you don’t have to, I think it’s more like finding your purpose with your money because what I don’t love, what I have a hard time with is saying the highest from wealth is saying I can do whatever I want today for a lot of people, for most people, that’s a far way off. Like,

Ryan Isaac:
Expounding out like so what do you feel like this really interesting? What do you what makes you? What are you feeling when you’re saying that that maybe that’s not even the goal or even if you could it might not even be as cool like you’re saying what do you what do you mean?

Matt  Mulcock:
I get it. Okay. So I’m probably, there’s probably a little bit of recency bias. My dad’s retired, right? Now this is different. My mom passed away three years ago. And so this is to give some context here, but his biggest challenge right now, he tells me this all the time is that he wakes up every day doing whatever he wants to do. And he doesn’t know what he wants to do. He said the biggest problem is he’s like, this is literally now again, he lost his person of 40 years. So it’s like really sad, but I guess all I’m saying is there’s more nuance to it than that. I guess that’s my point is that I think this is one of those things that a 35 year old dentist thinks they love the idea of that. But when they actually get there, it’s not that cool. I think it’s like getting famous. We all think being famous is really cool. And then I think the people you talk to who are the people you hear, like Jim Carey says, I wish everyone could be rich and famous so they can realize it’s not that cool or it’s not the answer. I kind of think this is the same thing.

Jake Elm:
I want to go back, can I say something real quick, Ryan? I just want to go back to what Victoria said. Like this is why I like the exercise that she proposed, which is like, can we just go through like a day? Like what does an ideal day look like for you, right? Let’s forget about money. What does that look like? And then most of us think, but my next question would be, okay, let’s go through that day. And then let’s say, well, what’s keeping us from doing that right now? Why do we have to wait 20 years until you have some lump sum of money? Can we figure out a way to get this ideal day? Like we don’t have to have a huge lump sum of millions of dollars or all the big real estate portfolio. Can we do that right now and just start living that life right now? Is that possible without this big lump sum?

Victoria Ferguson:
It takes the pressure off. Cause like if you’re like, I’ll be happy in 20 years. That’s so much pressure to make your 60 year old self super happy. And whenever I hear like, when can I be done? I’m like, well, what’s wrong right now? Like there’s something wrong right now and we can fix it. Like you can enjoy the process. Like life is mostly the process. So yeah.

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah. And I, that’s, and you just said it, take pressure off your six year old self. I think take pressure off of yourself now. Like realize that like there. So I guess that’s the whole point that Jake, you just summarized it perfectly alluding to Victoria’s exercise. What I, what I’m, what I, I guess I’m challenging for myself is not totally accepting this premise like I used to. And just thinking about it, I’m not saying he’s wrong. No way. I’m just saying, I think it takes more thought to say, does this possibly create and all be happy when syndrome kind of like, well, I, well, today I can’t, I can’t do whatever I want today. So I’m not wealthy. It’s like, no, I actually think let’s focus on finding your, to me, I guess I’ve been on this a lot lately is finding your purpose and whatever you’re doing. And I think that can be achieved today, or you can be working on that today. And this financial independence that he’s alluding to, I think is a whole different thing.

Ryan Isaac:
So that’s like the core issue then is not being able to define what it is that’s valuable to you. Not, not being able to, not having discovered it yet in your life. And most of us are going to be in a place where we’re like, okay, here’s what’s important to me. And I just have to build this around my career and the hours I have to work every day. Cause I work, I need to earn money, but that’s okay. And then they can slowly like ebb and flow and blend however they’re going to, but Matt, I love that pushback and it sounds like even someone at the end of a career who has all the financial independence and wealth can still be stuck on that question. Wake up every day and be like, I don’t even know what to do, even though I don’t have to work now.

Jake Elm:
Do you, how many dentists do you think are lucky enough and smart enough and like dedicated enough to get to the point where they can retire? They kind of do that. They sell their practice. Do you think any of them like, man, I miss being in the chair a little bit. Like I missed going in or doing something. Do you think that happens often?

Ryan Isaac:
Tons. I think unless they’re pretty old, I think a ton of them, especially with this new DSO world, people are exiting before 50 years old. And I think a lot of people are feeling that. They leave it and then they’d realize that the art of dentistry and maybe the art of the relationship in the field of dentistry was just so valuable and they probably forgot about that. I think that’s big time.

Matt  Mulcock:
Well, not only that, think of all the things that come from work outside of money. There’s so much more things.

Jake Elm:
I was going to say, yeah, like do we admit, like we hate work, but do we sometimes take for granted the benefit that work plays in our life?

Matt  Mulcock:
Yes, we do. Like the purpose, the sense of accomplishment, the relationships and social life you build. Like there’s so many more things that come from having a career you enjoy and hopefully you enjoy it. What I thought you were going to say, Jake, is what I was thinking of how many dentists do we talk to that are like, I have to get out of this in 10 years. Like let’s just sprint because I have to get there to this waking up and do whatever I can or whatever I want to do today, like this financial independence. And I’m sorry, but my reaction is like, that’s so sad. It’s so sad that, and I don’t mean that hopefully not in like in a patronizing way, condescending way. Like it really, I do really feel sad. It’s like, so you’re basically telling me you’re going to like fall asleep for the next 10 years, grind through your life to one day enjoy it. That’s what I struggled with this concept or that I should say. I’ve been struggling more with this concept a little bit lately.

Jake Elm:
It is a bit of a paradox to say, okay, I’m not going to eat coffee. I’m not going to drink coffee today because I need to say for my future is that hopefully in 10 years I will be able to drink coffee. So it’s like, I’m not going to drink it today to hopefully enjoy that at some point down the road. Doesn’t make a ton of sense. It’s like, why is life more important 20 years from now than it is now? You could actually argue based on our ages here like that life might be even more important now with where we are in family stages and health. Like as you just get older, you kind of energy declines, health declines. You could actually argue that the middle of life is maybe a more important time to be present with everything than later on. Sure.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Your kids get older.

Ryan Isaac:
And using your money for things you like and spending your money out there is a fine line as we know. I just think, yeah, this, I love this. This goes back to a lot of what Victoria was saying was just like, sketch out hour by hour then, like what would you actually do? And that’s just, that’s a hard thing for people to wrap their heads around. Cause there’s only so much like golf you can play. Is that true, Jake? I’m not a golfer. You want to try?

Matt  Mulcock:
He’s like, I am finding it. So sorry, Ryan, to get back. I’m sorry to get back to you. I don’t know if you want to get back to your original question that I totally derailed. It’s up to you. But

Ryan Isaac:
If you want to, yeah. No, no, no, no. I think that’s what you brought it to is the core of the issue. And my question is just around how do you walk clients through all these phases and ideal client relationships where they’re advisor for years and years and decades for a lot of these people. You know, you they’ll be together, client and advisor will see each other go through quite a few phases. And you’ve seen that with your clients, you know, at some point they’re like, it’s all about business growth. And then something happens in their life. It could be tragedy. It could be something cool, great. And everything changes. Like sometimes overnight, year to year. And then they’re like, okay, new plan. Something’s totally different. So yeah, that, I mean, we’re just, we’re kind of along on the journey in our own, but we’re along on the journey with hundreds of people at the same time and walking people through that. Like what are… like how do you help people go through that? Like something that comes to mind for me is something we always talk about, which is just maintaining a good amount of liquidity on a balance sheet because that’s your stress number and it’s the number that’s going to tell you how much flexibility you have when you do pivot and you do change. And the one thing that used to be important is now less important. There’s a new thing on your plate. You know, there’s probably some logistical things, but I don’t know what came to mind for you guys as advisors.

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah. One thing I’d bring up that sometimes catches, I think, new clients off guard a little bit, because again, they come to an advisor, I think expecting one thing, kind of what Jake was alluding to earlier, kind of the X’s and O’s, the number, the quantitative measures that we always go through, which obviously very important. We look at those as table stakes, right? Like those things are going to be things that we’re going to cover. But I think one thing that catches new clients off guard sometimes is one of our very, very early, usually our first conversation, once they come on board is a kind of get to know you internally. We call it our discovery call. And we go through an hour or more of a conversation, hopefully with our client, you know, our, our client and their spouse or partner. And we spend no time talking about anything on the spreadsheet. It is all around your concerns, your, your goals, your values. Like what are you actually trying to accomplish? And more, most importantly, why what’s the why behind all your money decisions? We kind of joke around with them sometimes like this is the touchy feely mushy gushy stuff, but like to us, this is what it’s about. Like this is what sets, sets your personal financial plan and planning process apart from everyone. This is what makes you unique. I don’t know if anyone gets jacked up talking about a 401k strategy, but I think what, what our clients get really excited about and almost every time we leave those phone calls, they are so excited.

A lot of times they’re like, I’ve never even talked to anyone about this. So that, that to me is what came to mind, Ryan, when you were asking like, how do you go through this? And then not only that, like bringing those things up throughout our relationship. Like when they go to make a decision, it’s like, Hey, just want to bring this up. You mentioned X, Y, or Z thing around your biggest concerns or like why this is important to you. Let’s come back to that as you’re now making a decision that seems to maybe be a little bit contrary to what you said.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, I think also like the biggest reason why we do this is because I want to know what strategy you can stick with for a really long time. Because a lot of like the financial tools that we’re talking about require a lot of time. And there’s so many different strategies, different ways we could tackle a financial plan. But the reason behind like asking about your values, what you’re scared of, what you’re excited about, what your goals are is so I can identify what we can most likely stick with for a long time. Not to say forever, but just for a long time, because your purpose will likely change over time. Mine’s not the same as it was when I was 18. That evolves, but the point is to try to get you to stick with something for a while.

Jake Elm:
I’d say it changes. Yeah, that’s why we like to meet multiple times a year for years on end because the plan we implemented at the beginning, we call it an initial strategy emphasis on the initial part. It’s going to change over time and you’re going to change. And so I would like to say like with all of our plans and saving strategies and investment strategies, I would just say we want to bake in some margin for error. Right. This is let’s point you in the right direction. We’re not going to have all the details of how this is going to be mapped out over the next 30 years, but we’re going to kind of keep going and we can get more specific as we go along. So, and that’s the, there’s also, there may be, there are some people out there who are like, Hey, I want a vacation four times a year with my family. That’s a goal. And so you’ll have a different savings plan for that person. But there’s also the other type of dentist who may be like, I want to open up a small DSO. I want to have five locations and that is the value. And I get purpose and drive and helping people to there. And those two types of people are just going to have vastly different personal finance plans. And that’s why we always ask about it. And again, it’ll change over time.

Ryan Isaac:
I was just going to say that’s the thing that’s been coming to my mind is just how frequently we communicate with our clients, which is different inside of dentists advisors versus a lot of the industry. We’re in touch with our clients a lot. And yeah, I always like to phrase that with people like what’s important to us in the next three to four months, you know, cause we’ll talk again in three to four months and what, what is like really important that when we talk again, three to four months that we did or that we started doing while also maintaining like, you know, what are our longer term goals? What are we trying to get out in five or ten years? But what do we really care about in the next three or four months of getting done or starting? And I think that’s just like part of a planning process that evolves with a person rather than something like static that gets done once and then sits around. So yeah.

Matt  Mulcock:
Ryan, I love that you just said that because we, we all, like you said, we always talk about what, what’s tangible. What can we actually focus on in the next? Like you said, three, four, whatever, six months, whatever it is, let’s say even in the next year, what are we focused on the next year? And then you just said like, of course, like the long -term plan still has to, has to play into that. But spoiler alert, you don’t know what you want in 10 years. You don’t know what you want in 30 years for sure. Yeah. After data, after data backs this up, we talked about this in our book club discussion, the paradox of choice, where, Barry Schwartz talks about like, we are so bad at knowing what we want in the future, but all the financial planning is built around this Monte Carlo simulation of what you want. And when you’re 65, this is why we talk about when you’re 35 years old, a Monte Carlo or trying to figure out what you want in 30 years is pointless. So to that point, let’s focus on the next year, max two years. Like that’s the world we should live in.

Ryan Isaac:
It feels good though. It feels good because even if you know, you’re, the one thing you say is like, you know what, in the next three to four months, I’m just gonna keep doing everything I’m doing, but I am gonna dig up that one insurance policy that we have question marks about. And I’m just gonna get that and I’m gonna send it to you and then we’re just gonna talk about that in three months. Like, you do that for 30 plus years as part of your financial strategy. That’s how you stay on track and that’s how you don’t, that’s how you avoid like huge mistakes along the way that can derail 10 years of good progress. Yeah, it’s just like those little things. Yeah. You stack good shots on the fairway, right? Is that what it’s… Is it dink in the kitchen on the fairway? Do you… Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Jake Elm:
You stack good quarters on top of each other and 30 years from now you’d be like, wow, look how far we’ve come, right? Just planning and.

Matt  Mulcock:
Well, this is the whole thing, right? The good shots on the fairway. Just keep dinking down the course, right? Just get in the right, get it going in the right direction. What Jake always says. but this is the whole thing of like the saying is like, what don’t fall in love with success, fall in love with the habits that create success. It’s like, that’s the whole point. It’s like, don’t focus on retirement 30 years from now. Focus on what you want out of life. Now make decisions based on that. Of course the future has to come into play, but this is what we talk about all the time. It’s like living in those shorter term worlds.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Jake, there’s a part of your article where you bring in some studies. Do you want to like get to a few of those? I thought some of the those are really study buddies beaming right now. Let’s slide. Let’s slide on over to that part of the article. Jake, can you talk about some of those studies you put in there?

Matt  Mulcock:
Study buddy would be so proud. She’s so proud of those points.

Jake Elm:
Yeah, we can get to a few of these. I think people are pretty familiar with the Harvard study now. It’s like a pretty, I think it’s in our, I don’t know, the society and things now. Anyway, this was like just the 50 year long Harvard study where they took a group of men, I can’t remember when it started, in 1938, and they just followed their lives from 1938 until like 2012 was kind of when they first started getting results and things. They’ve been doing this every year. And they were like presidents in this study and high school janitors and just a wide range of different types of people in the study come from different backgrounds. And they’re just trying to measure happiness. Like, can we measure what makes people happy? Can we isolate this and figure out is there a consistent theme to people who are happier than people who are not? And really what it came down to, this sounds like so this sounds like a Hallmark movie type of thing. I feel like we’re being maybe a little too sappy here, but it really came down to like really it came down to close relationships like how satisfied were people in their relationships. And that was the biggest indicator of happiness over time. I actually think it’s interesting. They gathered data and did a study that showed the best predictor of health in your later years was not due to anything physically health -wise, not cholesterol, anything. The people who were healthiest later in life had the most and most satisfied relationships, which I think is just so interesting.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that’s a huge one. What did you guys think about that? I know it’s like not your cholesterol. It’s not your BMI. It’s like you have good friends. Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Elm:
Yeah. But it’s like, do you have a friend group that you play poker with on Tuesdays? Right. Or do you have a bowling league that you’re in or something was like the biggest predictor of happiness? Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
This makes me think of a study that you told me, Matt, about like blue zones. With the YF5, well, share it, I can’t remember.

Matt  Mulcock:
Well, yeah. So the, the blue zones, there’s a whole book. They talk about the blue zones. It’s called it’s eluding me now, but basically they go around and they study. They there’s five blue zones in the world and it’s where they have the most centenarians. it’s like Loma Linda, California, Osaka, Japan. S S Sardinia. Anyway, there’s all these places and they basically found like five things that led to longevity. And one of them, and Ryan, you and I always are like, yep, wine at five, because one of them, it was like wine at five. Yeah. But they all kind of came back to this concept and even the wine at five. So Ryan, you and I were joking about that when we were in El Salvador, they presented it about this and, but even so take the wine at five as an example, it’s not about wine. It’s what they found was the people who were drinking wine after work or after their day were always with people.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s like eight things. One of them is they all drink wine at five o ‘clock.

Matt  Mulcock:
So they were drinking and I think sometimes this gets confusing for people when they talk about studies around wine. Like there’s always these studies around like wine can create longevity and all this stuff. What again, what they’ve done, they’ve dug deeper into these studies around those specific things is people that are drinking wine socially with people they love, and it leads to better relationships, leads to better longevity. And almost everything they talked about on that study was like, I mean, obviously talk about like physical activity and keeping your brain sharp and all this stuff. It all came back to relationships.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, now I’m thinking about Victoria’s question. Like, can you plan an hour by hour map of your day if you did not have to work? And then how much of that would actually include like people and in what, in what scenarios and what are you doing and what do they mean to you? And you know, what are you doing together? yeah, that’s really, that’s really interesting.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, like I want to dress up in a tracksuit and play pickleball with other grannies, you know, like absolutely. Other grant, they said grannies, but like at that point I’d hopefully have graduated. Mommy’s or granny’s.

Matt  Mulcock:
Heck yeah. With other, with other what? Mommies? Is that what you said? Mommies or grannies, either way.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what pickleball is full of now actually. So it’s…

Matt  Mulcock:
It’s so true. It’s so true. But if you, if you actually use the, the counterpoint to this, have you guys seen the studies around? I think it’s specifically with men. They’ve done these studies around similar to the Harvard study where they followed a group of men. and actually I don’t even know if it was the same men, but they, what they’ve done is they asked this question, how many close, friendships you have, like 20 or 30 years ago, and then they’re asking the same question. I think it’s again, to different men now, but it’s a kind of a cross -sectional study. But, and I don’t know the exact figures, but it was something like, like it was like 30 years ago, the average answer was five or six. And now that is down to below two. And it’s crazy. And again, you think about all this stuff again, it all comes back to this idea of like the quality of your life is directly related to the quality of your relationships. It’s like that it could be that simple.

Ryan Isaac:
Not to be that guy, but I saw this, the data from this study. I was like, of course in 1938, they only tracked men’s lives.

Jake Elm:
Yeah, it is funny. Yes, they only did men. I do think they actually did later expanded out to women and children and the findings were the same. But it is hilarious. That is a classic. That’s a classic.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s like there’s other humans too. Yeah Yeah, you’re like, they’re humans too There was a quote here from mr. Carson from Downton Abbey, which by the way, thank you Jake for bringing in some Downton Abbey It’s been quite a few years Yeah, are were you down to who’s Downton people here?

Jake Elm:
I’m actually not, I just saw this online somewhere but I’m not an Abbey guy.

Ryan Isaac:
Were you an Abbey guy, Matt? jeez, man. I think we probably missed the bus on that. I feel like the movie’s ruined the show to be totally candid here.

Matt  Mulcock:
No, I mean, no, I’ve only seen like an episode.

Jake Elm:
People go to those movies though, they make money, people show out for down, Abby. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
They show but the TV show itself, but Mr. Carson the butler and I can hear his voice saying this. I wish I could do an impression. I’m definitely not gonna try. No, but he says the business of life is the acquisition of memories in the end. That’s all there is. And man, that’s a deep one. And probably memories with people. That’s probably really what matters more is like memories with people. Yeah. -huh.

Matt  Mulcock:
I mean, it’s the best memories, right? I think every one of us, if we said what are our favorite memories, I’d imagine they’re all with people we love.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Now that does make me think about, you guys have heard those studies where, now these days where we all carry cameras around in our pockets. we actually remember less the more photos we take of things and we’re taking photos of everything nowadays, especially Victoria, like Victoria is like photographing all of us all the time. Like, yeah, snap, snap, snap. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so that’s kind of an interesting thought too is like, you know, in some scenarios where you’re watching a sunset, you’re going to a concert or whatever, like,

Jake Elm:
Maybe keep it in your pocket for a little bit longer. Just stare at the stage, listen to the music, watch the lights. I don’t know.

Matt  Mulcock:
So there’s actually a podcast called, I think the happiness project it’s from, I want to say Dr. Lori Santos. Yep. She’s from Yale. Anyway, she does, she talks about this in one of her episodes around pictures. And she says, the data shows that when you’re somewhere and you take a picture, like a single picture or very few pictures and you’re, and the intention is for yourself, like for the memory, it actually can enhance the experience. They should actually show this. But if it’s for you, if the intention as you’re taking the photo is for someone else, like social media, they have shown and proven that your experience and the quality of that experience goes way down. You actually enjoy it way less.

Ryan Isaac:
so guilty of that. I’ve been in some amazing places where I’m seriously pulling up my phone, taking little five second clips, thinking like how the real is going to shape up in a week and what the captions going to be and what song I’m going to put to it. And then I’m just like, I am so dumb. What is wrong with me? I’m so lame right now. Look at this place. Yeah, dude. That’s the, that’s the Instagram clip for today.

Victoria Ferguson:
I’m gonna take that sound bite, Ryan. I’m so dumb.

Ryan Isaac:
I am curious. Well, Jake, how about, how would you like, how would you like wrap up your article? How does this wrap up? And is there any tie in you would, as people are listening to this the day before the summit in park city, Utah, Dennis money summit .com. Hope you’re there. How would you tie all this on? Yeah.

Jake Elm:
Yeah, so if we want to relate it back to a financial principle, I would say like, yes, let’s when we get to when we sit down together, you create a financial plan. Let’s figure out what are some long term goals that we need to save and invest for. Let’s do that. Let’s check that box. Let’s figure out a good savings and investment rate. That is very important and you have to do it. But at the same time, you can say, OK, once that is covered, once I’ve checked that box, maybe it’s equally as important to invest in my relationships or invest in some memories or take time off like is the production I’m going to miss in my practice by missing this one week for a family vacation. Yes, it’s going to make me on my piano at the end of the year, I’m going to have 10 ,000 less dollars or something because I took this vacation. However, I will be more rich in the sense that I created memories with my kids and that’s what’s important. So like that would be the thing is investing is important building wealth and creating security for yourself is important, but maybe equally as equally as important as investing in other things that don’t show up on the balance sheet.

Ryan Isaac:
I love it, man. I mean, yeah, I was just thinking of that. People underestimate the time that they will be investors in some kind of account or real estate or business. And we, I mean, the savings years, the accumulation years are finite, but the investing years last for a very, very, very long time. And it’s just the time thing that we can’t get back, like you’re saying, man.

Matt or Victoria, any wrap up feelings, thoughts, comments?

Victoria Ferguson:
Well, I guess the only thought I want to share before we wrap up, like Matt, you always talk about finding your purpose and whatnot. And I think that’s one of the things that people lose when they are, when they retire is like now your whole routine is different and maybe you have like a loss of purpose a little bit.

Matt  Mulcock:
I guess I’ve said this a lot presented around this kind of concept of, I think a lot of this just comes down to asking the right questions in the right order. So I think when someone engages a financial advisor or this process, even on their own, I think a lot of times they base it off of the question, when can I retire or like, how much money do I need to retire? Again, these are, I think valid questions, but I think that should be something you should be thinking about. But I think a question that’s far more important and should come before that is, am I using my money in a way that improves my life? Because retirement may or may not come. And like I said, I’m pretty biased to this with personal experiences. My mom passed away in her early sixties and you know, my parents were financially independent at the time that you’re right. And so I’m very passionate, I guess, about this concept of that retirement may never come.

And so you got to enjoy it now. You got to find that balance, find that purpose now, which is again, why I’ve been questioning, as I was saying at the beginning, this idea of like the highest form of wealth is saying, I can do whatever I want today. I just, I think there’s so much more to it than that.

Ryan Isaac:
Love it. It feels like a little bit of a shout out to the value of work and like redefining what work means in your life and like what place it has. And all the question, Victoria, you said, or the thing you said earlier was when the people young in age or early in career, like I got to get out of this. You’re like, well, what’s, what’s wrong right now? And it feels like that’s just a, it’s a huge Testament to how work should fit into our lives and to stay really curious about what that means. And are we pushing work into paths that are like for someone else. Are we on someone else’s agenda with our careers and our jobs or, you know, how does it fit in for us? I love that.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Yeah, clearly something’s not working right now. So why continue down that path? If it’s not working, it’s okay to change course.

Matt  Mulcock:
What does James Clear say? Most people are living in a world that others created for them. It’s like, yeah, it’s like create your own. No, I’m just like.

Victoria Ferguson:
We’re living in the matrix, y ‘all.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that was that was a different direction, but I like that we are in the matrix we are in the matrix

Matt  Mulcock:
I didn’t know you were going, that did sound very neo, but Jake’s got something. Jake’s brewing over there.

Jake Elm:
No, I know that I’m loving it. It’s just yet if you’re it’s probably never a good idea to wish your life away, right? To a some distant point in the future, or I’m sure everyone who is older than us would be like, I would give a lot to go back to be where you are working all right type of thing. So.

Matt  Mulcock:
Yeah. And I guess I’ll say this really quick because we’re obviously very philosophical on this podcast. The, the, the, the, the, the event will be somewhat like this. I guess it goes without saying like money matters and like investing matters and the spreadsheet does matter. Like, but, but I think we overindex to this a little bit sometimes. Like that’s why these podcasts, I think I enjoy the most is because those things are table stakes. Like those things are like, yeah, of course, any financial advisor that’s worth anything is going to talk to you about investing proper diversification 401k saving for retirement. But I think this is the stuff that gets lost. And to Victoria’s point earlier, like, I think people lose sight of this all the time. And so I think these are good reminders to be like, Hey, at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you’re not going to care about the resume values. You’re like, and Jake, you said it, who gives a crap if you’re the richest person in the graveyard. Like you got to focus on what I’d say are the eulogy values. Like no one’s going to care of the size of practice you built when you die.

Ryan Isaac:
And I, dude, let’s stop right there. We’re stopping right there. That’s beautiful. so everyone listening to this right now, a few of you might be joining us this week in park city, Dennis money summit .com. I don’t know. I’m assuming sooner or later there will be 20, 25 info up there. So if you’re listening to this and okay, well then don’t, yeah, soft launch it. Don’t, don’t miss out next year. thanks to everyone for.

Matt  Mulcock:
Just thanks Jake for writing an amazing article. Go check it out. Dennisadvisors .com, education library, living your rich life by Jake Elm. It’s amazing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Thanks, Jake.

Jake Elm:
This discussion was better than the article. So it was great. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks everybody.

Work Life Balance