0:00 making money I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time 1 p.m. on the east coast to talk about careers professionals professions I should say professionals professions and um all um subjects related to wealth building so um topics can range from um you know writing a resume to and and uh optimizing your LinkedIn profile profile to um talking to people who have interesting careers like my guest last
0:35 week uh Benjamin Inman who um is an estate planning and a Firearms law attorney so uh yeah what do those two things have in common nothing happens to be the two areas of law that uh that Ben uh enjoyed practicing and so I I invite you to go to uh our YouTube channel and and check out Benjamin's episode got quite quite fascinating and great information um that he had uh you know if if you are a Firearms owner or are considering uh acquiring a firearm you certainly you know want to do so lawfully um so today
1:13 today's show is really an outgrowth of a conversation I had on Monday evening with a friend of mine uh Michael uh we uh meet every Friday night um uh virtually anyway we used to meet in person but um Michael doesn't live in California anymore um and we talk about a you know a broad range of topics and uh one of the topics we talked about dealt with wealth um and uh Michael was
1:48 expressing to me some thoughts about his his perspective on what that is and what it means and how it impacts his life and we we we ended up having a a very deep discussion on this topic and I realize that for all of the discussions we've had about how to become wealthy how to handle wealth how to invest all these things we I've never talked about this fundamental concept of what is wealth what does it mean to be wealthy how does one Define it um all of these uh sort of
2:26 fundamental questions and so I decided to take today to do that and this is going to be somewhat of a freewheeling discussion or a you know talk I guess is a better way to put it um and uh hopefully it'll give you some food for thought some ideas about what all of what being wealthy means to you what becoming wealthy means to you so that you can have a you know have a sense of what what am I really after um in in in this result or in this uh area
3:01 I should say so I'm sure we've all you've all heard of situations of people who their rais onra as the French say their reason for living is accumulating wealth um and it seems like you know they do so for its own sake um with you know nothing you know no other goal behind that so I will say at the outset that that is not my Approach at all um I I I I don't see the point of piling up a
3:39 huge amount of money merely to have a huge amount of money and be able to say I guess well you know I've got more money than whoever um from my perspective money is first and foremost a tool that we use in order to live the kind of life that we want to live and so the question isn't um how much money am I going to acquire and then how am I going to live my life I think the question is what kind of Life
4:14 do I want to live and then how much money do I need in order to live that life uh I think that's a much um more uh physically mentally spiritual virally healthy approach to this question of wealth than to to think of it the other way around um and and unfortunately I think most people are forced into dealing with the question from the other direction I.E well this is the money I have so this is the life
4:50 that that that I can live um and and they get they get stuck there living paycheck to paycheck etc etc never really accumulating any assets um and and and and that's unfortunate um because they're they're probably not living um the life that they really you know would would choose to live here in the United States I think we're fortunate that um with some with some thought some planning um we can often times take that
5:26 um decision um more in our own hands I'm not saying we can control events uh I don't think that's the case at all um but um you know the younger we start at this the more likely we are to be able to see our wishes come to fruition and and so again that's that's the perspective I'm I'm going to be talking about and um and a lot of it is going to be um how does one move from how having finan finances and uh you
6:02 know control my life to how do I flip the script so to speak and let and and create a life that then um dictates if you will what I need to be doing when it comes to finances and and wealth building so let me give you an example of of of what I mean so um for for my own situ um I I want to be able to do certain things in in my life so um I I want to
6:39 you know be able to live uh comfortably not have to worry um if I'm going to be able to you know pay for my house you know next month if I can afford food if I can afford to repair my car um all of that so that that um desire in my life requires that um I have a certain amount of um either cash on hand um so that I can I don't have to worry about you know paying those expenses a and or um a stream of income
7:14 that's solid enough that I don't have to be concerned um with you know those expenses in the coming months or I need to be able to um have access to be able to borrow enough um with the ability to pay it off um with without you know a major disruption to my lifestyle so those are three ways of attaining that um that particular life goal okay or lifestyle goal if you will right and I think most of us if not all of us would
7:50 would like to be free from you know day-to-day worries uh about money right we don't want to have to go to the store and um you know take get our groceries and then get to the checkout and and realize oh my gosh I've got too much in my cart um I'm gonna have to go put some things back or I'm not going to be able to buy these things because I can't afford them aside from of course being embarrassing um it's it's it's it's very it's very difficult especially if we have a family and we need you know that food to to feed our families so um you
8:27 know for me um my first life that's my first you know lifestyle goal and that that you know specifically relates to my financial situation so my second um lifestyle goal and I say this somewhat tongue and Chic um but you know when I talk to um you know young young men especially and and the subject of of marriage comes up so you know they they they seem to think that you know know um if they're not uh you know handsome
9:02 enough or they're not you know kind of physically built enough or whatever you know they're they're they're not going to um be able to attract um the kind of mate that they want to attract and I always tell them and and I don't mean this um in any derogatory way um but uh the fact of the matter is um the most attractive thing that a man can have who's looking to um uh you know a family is you know a solid balance sheet um and I this is not to say that you know women are money grubbing I don't mean it in
9:37 that way at all what I mean is um for a woman who is also interested in having a family that's inevitably going to mean that at least for a period of time while while you know she's probably toward the end of her pregnancy and and and while you know shortly after the birth um she's not going to be able to work that's just the the physical reality of of childbirth and she is going to want to have the physical emotional and spiritual comfort of knowing that her husband um you know can can take care of
10:12 things financially um while she is um you know going through the very you know difficult process of having a child and so um you know it's it's a completely legitimate I think want on the part part of a woman who's considering getting married and and having a family to want a husband who has demonstrated that um he is financially responsible enough to have accumulated some you know some wealth some savings so that um when it
10:48 does come time to uh have a family um that you know she's not you know lying in bed feeding the child worried about how she's you know going to buy her her next you know box formula or or you know how she's GNA you know how she's going to pay for the next uh you know container of uh you know diapers or whatever it is right um and and presumably as as a man and as a husband who wants to start a family you wouldn't want your your wife worried about that either so so you know as as as someone who uh you know um um um respects
11:26 marriage marriage and and and um desires to be married um so you know that that that that that applies to me now you know at my age frankly I'm probably not going to be starting a family um you know but uh you know one never knows I suppose um there's always the example of Tony Randall who had a child when he was in his I think early 70s if I'm not mistaken um and you know again I say that you know somewhat jokingly but um but I think that um you know no matter what stage um of Life a person is in um having Financial stability having
12:03 savings having Investments um is is is a very attractive feature um when it comes to building a relationship with with with someone you know with the intention of of of getting married um it it says a lot about a person you know that that that they've been able to do that so so that you know that's a second you know goal so second certainly it's a goal that that I have now you know exactly how well defined those goals are how big they are you know what what they really mean so that of course is a an indiv
12:39 individual decision and it really depends in in the state where I live California those numbers have to be bigger um because it costs much more to live in California than it does in a state like Nebraska or um you know or even uh Florida where you know costs have risen in Florida as more and more people have moved there housing prices have gone up but they're still nowhere near what they are here in in California just the other day I read the um median home price in California is $900,000 I mean that just seems mindboggling to me
13:15 but okay I'll take I'll you know I'll take it at its face value and um but you know in in the the you know the national median home value I think is somewhere in the low 400,000 so roughly half of what is here in California and of course that's a huge increase in the last few years um because uh I think the median home price um back in 2019 was gosh I think in the low 300s maybe or something like that so so you know all these factors play play into it and I'm I'm not going to get into the details of of my financial plan um and and and all of
13:52 that only to say that these are the kind of things I mean when I say what kind of Life do I want to live and then what does that mean financially as opposed to well you know I I make I'm just picking a number uh you know $4,000 a month and so what kind of Life can I live making $4,000 a month um again that's I think how a lot of people um end up having to live and and uh it's it's unfortunate because um this this country the United States affords us the opportunity to to
14:30 change how we do that um it it's it's hard work it's it's a lot of discipline but but it does so so I think that's one principle of of becoming wealthy that that we want to look at is what kind of Life do I want and then what does that mean in terms of finances okay as opposed to the other way around so that's number one number two is what does it mean to be wealthy right so if we were to go back to the 19th
15:08 century the 1800s right what to be wealthy meant something I think pretty specific what it meant was a person had enough um Investments and those Investments were paying enough income that they didn't have to work that's what it meant to be wealthy okay um and um in general that coincided with the class that someone held in society so if we if we look at
15:43 England for example where the class structure was has always been more defined than it is here in the United States so you had the you have the aristocracy in England or what's sometimes called the landed aristocracy and in the Century to be a member of the upper class the aristocracy and Wealthy meant that your estate was generating enough income that you did not have to work and in fact Aristocrats it it was it was
16:18 considered Unthinkable really that they would work to the point where they did not typically even manage their estate they had an estate manager who who did the day-to-day management and they they merely um consulted with their estate manager from time to time and made certain sort of highlevel decisions but other than that everything was else was left to the estate manager and and the you know the gentleman the Aristocrat the you know member of the upper class um you know he spent his time in um what
16:54 were sometimes called Idol Pursuits things like hunting and and and and and and other sports um some men um engaged in scientific Endeavors and there was quite a bit of scientific discovery that was done by um essentially Aristocrats who had a tremendous amount of time on their hand they had Financial Resources because they didn't have to work um and so because they were wealthy right and so um they were they did you know different types of scientific research um and and were respons responsible for
17:30 um some you know pretty amazing discoveries in the 1800s so that's what it meant to be wealthy anyone who worked was either in the middle class they were either they might have been a Tradesman of some kind or in trade um meaning you know they might have imported and exported Goods or they might have been a professional a doctor a lawyer an accountant somebody like that and um although they may have been able to accumulate um you know a fair amount of assets um they weren't they weren't part
18:07 of the you know aristocratic class um and and they weren't looked on as being wealthy in the traditional sense of that understanding because in order to maintain their financial level they had to work okay only if they got to the point where they didn't have to work and they might buy themselves an estate maybe even buy themselves a title did they um become part of the um upper class part and and become what was truly considered wealthy so here in this
18:44 country in the United States we never really had an aristocracy of that type certainly not a hereditary aristocracy and and in the United States wealth meant something different than it did back in um England um here it meant someone who had um built up a a um a substantial um uh estate of assets um but rarely did that person not work so
19:19 even in the South which was the most like England um where you had um you know large plantation owners um and and um oftentimes um the the the owner of the plantation did not directly over see the plantation nonetheless Southerners were much more involved in business matters than their counterparts in England would have been um they might they were probably involved in the in the sale of their crops where there was tobacco cotton Indigo whatever it was um
19:55 and and they might have they might not have worked you know six or eight hours a day um but they they probably you know did work at least for a time every day um and um you know and then after they were done they went hunting or whatever did their Sports Etc um but but they were more involved in in business matters um than um like I said their their counterparts in England and in fact um unless they had inherited their estate from their father they probably in their early days had worked hard to
20:31 accumulate the wealth that allowed them to build a a substantial estate to build a plantation um and and so um while as as they became wealthier and they had more land more assets more Investments they might not have had to work as much um because they in essence grew up in in in in the adult sense um uh working um they never never typically never you know lost the Habit so to speak and so um we we had sort of a a landed gentry
21:07 in this country um not an aristocracy um but but they typically worked now that that was you know prevalent in the South um although it really comprised a fairly uh small percentage of of people in the South most most Southerners did not own big huge plantations um that's kind of a uh somewhat of a myth about American history um most Southerners you know had small farms and um and you know and or were Tradesmen that kind of thing um or they were you know Coopers you know
21:42 Barrel makers they were blacksmiths those kind of things okay that that was much more typical for a southerner than to be a a huge Plantation owner in in the middle States and in and in the north um most um most people um did not have large Estates large in the sense of land they didn't have large Farms there were a lot of farmers in the uh North and the middle colonies um but but they weren't huge farms generally speaking the farm owner was actively involved in farming or farming and ranching if he
22:17 had animals as well or or maybe he you know he had horses so he was you know raising horses whatever um or they were involved again in a profession lawyer um uh you know newspaper publisher um you know Benjamin Franklin probably being the most famous person in that regard or or they were um involved in trade so um um you know in in uh New England um there were a lot of people involved in shipping um and and um and while um typically if if if someone was involved
22:52 in shipping um so they they were also involved um in in trade meaning that while they Prim they may have made most of their money off of carrying goods oftentimes they would take advantage of the fact that they were sailing from point A to point B anyway and they would carry some Goods on their own account um in order to make some additional money in trade so the vast majority of of people in in the north and middle States um you know were worked I mean they you know they did not um have uh they may
23:27 have been wealthy in the sense that they owned a lot of ships and so those assets were valuable or they may have built up um a farm and and and so they had land that was valuable or they might have had livestock you know again horses that were were valuable um but the the wealth they had was much more closely tied to the work that they were doing um than it was to um than it was for you know the landed aristocracy in England where you
24:02 know they didn't they didn't work and and their Investments uh they lived off the income from you know their estate so we you know going especially from the eight sorry the 19th to the 20th century um more and more um societies including England moved into this newer definition of of wealth um and and you know these days I I I don't know you know what percentage of of the landed aristocracy in England still you know
24:38 live off their wealth but certainly the numbers are much much smaller um than they were a hundred years ago um and and there's no Stigma attached to you know being a lord or or you know for that matter a Duke um and and being employed um in in in some way um so Julian fellows for example who's the creator and producer of DT Abbey one of my favorite shows right um so he's he is a member of the aristocracy but uh you
25:13 know he produces media projects for a living right now again you know a hundred years ago that probably would have you know excluded him from polite Society or maybe 150 years ago um but but but today that that is you know surely not not the case um and and I suspect that he he's accorded a lot of respect especially um you know because of the success of of of dtown Abbey for example so um you know there are lawyers there are uh you know investment bankers um they're they're undoubtedly doctors all members of the aristocracy um but
25:51 but they work um and and I think you know one of the things we we find is there's a lot of value in in working and not spending our time you know doing things like hunting and sports and and U you know doing whatever and I think that's an outgrowth by the way of of from the 19th century when um you know these these wealthy men you know got involved with science they weren't getting paid to do the science which is one of the reasons they could do it they were occupied but they didn't have a job so to speak right they were they were um
26:28 but the but they had they had a a a reason to get up each morning they had things they were curious about that they could um engage in intellectually and and and that's an important factor in our our well-being and so um I I think you know what what we've seen over the last 100 100 to 150 years as the concept of what it means to be wealthy has changed is going back to that first principle that I mentioned which is what kind of Life do I want to
27:03 have and then what Financial Resources do I need to have that life so even for the landed aristocracy in the 1800s there their money the fact that they were wealthy dictated the life that they could have they weren't going to work they weren't going to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever or if they did they were really putting themselves outside of the norm of their class and there were social repercussions for doing that so you know we think about having um very little money as dictating
27:40 the kind of life that we're going to have but it used to be that even being wealthy dictated the kind of life that that we were going to have nowadays um while that's still the case for people who you know do not have a lot of financial resources at least on the upper end of the spectrum it's been recognized that wealth is a tool it's it's not an end in itself and and we need to make an affirmative decision about the kind of life that we need to live so I think that's that's the second
28:17 uh principle um that that um um we or the second factor I guess to look at is we're no longer constr strained on on we don't have to be constrained on the low end or on the high end by by our wealth that that the definition of what it means to be wealthy is different today than it used to be and and and so um we have broad a broader um opportunity to Define what being wealthy means to us as individuals as opposed to having to
28:53 conform to a societal definition of what it means to be wealthy so that's that's sort of principle number two principle number three is what does what does it actually mean or how does how does money actually make me feel so this was something that um I I think is is you know has a big impact on on our lives on our relationships it has a lot to do I think with how we're raised um you know
29:28 how money was dealt with when we were children um how you know what what latitude we were given to deal with money um as as we you know grew into our teen years and then then became adults so you know for for some people um and and there's there's no judgment connected with this but for some people um to have you know um $110,000 in the bank makes them feel very comfortable makes them feel wealthy um relieves them of financial worries um
30:04 they they have what you know might be called modest expectations in that regard and and so for them um that's being wealthy um other people may feel like well unless I have so much in assets that I could quit working and and and just live life on my own terms don't see any point in you know delaying gratification and you know in in and in in order to um you know get to that
30:40 point because I don't see myself ever getting to that point I would need you know pick a number $5 million in order to be able to quit working and have enough money to live you know have enough uh income off of my investments to live the life I'm I'm going to live and since I'm never going to get to that $5 million there's no point in in my saving I I might as well you know kind of live the life that I want to live now and I'll just you know I'll just work until I drop so to speak um those are you know very different perspectives and
31:17 and by the way that that's just two there are probably as many perspectives about what money means excuse me as there are as there are people um in you know in the world or at least people in the world who think about these questions so I think the third issue we need to consider is what is my attitude toward money okay so I know for me I look to balance how much money I use to support my current lifestyle versus how much
31:54 money I set aside in order to achieve my financial goals now one of the things I've struggled with over the years is what exactly should those financial goals be and how realistic do they have to be so when I was a young man going back into my um back into the uh uh early 1980s when I was you know first starting off uh post College had my first job and I was starting to think about you know what is what is what does money mean and what does it mean to be
32:30 wealthy and all those kind of things so um and then I started my first uh business in 1986 at the you know grand old age of 26 so um I made a goal at that point that by the time I was 30 you know I was going to have I think it was something like7 million because then I could retire at 30 and you know never have to worry about it again now look I didn't have enough EXP experience to realize that um at least for the abilities that I have and and and the
33:05 the values that I had that you know generating $7 million of wealth in in four years was was an unrealistic goal for me and uh needless to say I you know I didn't I didn't make it I didn't I frankly didn't even come close um but through the process of setting that un what turned out to be unrealistic goal not achieving it seeing what I could achieve over the years I've gotten a better picture of what is realistic and what would be stretching but still
33:41 potentially possible if that's not a you know if that's not redundant what's so what's possible right and I think when we talk about wealth and wealth building one of the things we need to learn is where what is our potential and again mine is going to be different than yours it it's you know it's it's it's a a difficult question to answer without any experience on the other hand I think it's a good idea to sort of take your best shot at what you think you're able to do and if you if
34:17 you make it fantastic and if you fall short okay so you fell short so you know we pull ourselves up we we recalibrate our goals and then we you know get back to work so you know again one of the things I struggled with um in in when I was younger was if I set a goal and and it's not a goal unless it has a date you know attached to it um among some other things right you probably heard about smart goals but you know a goal has to first of all have a date attached to it you know byy such and such a date I'm
34:52 going to achieve the following goal okay so if we don't if we don't achieve the goal by that date does that then just become a missed goal and now for the rest of our lives we have this non-achievement on on our you know on our scale so to speak or what happens and for many years that's how I treated it as okay I didn't make this goal so now you know I'll never make a 100% of my goals basically right I've I've consigned myself to you know I don't want say mediocrity but I've consigned myself to you know forever not not you
35:28 know being able to say I've met my goals and as I moved into middle age I realized that that was foolish because it was demotivating to have that missed goal just sitting there so what I realized was that a goal that I don't reach is an is really an opportunity for me to rethink that goal and figure out a better plan to get to where I want to go that plan may involve just I need more time okay it may involve I need to change what I'm doing change my behavior
36:04 it may involve I need to change my beliefs okay and and all three of those have applied in my life over over the decades okay and and by the way in any given for any given goal it could be a combination of two or all three of those that have prevented us from reaching that goal and and so then we need to examine that deeply re-calibrate and continue to move forward again so excuse me principle number three then is how how do I specifically look at
36:39 money and how do I use that view to set my financial goals okay what what is my capacity to meet the financial needs that are established by the life that I want to live okay now we have to we have to be a little bit careful right because like in my case you know retiring by 30 when I was 26 that seemed like a great goal right and um and I didn't make it and and and it was better that I didn't
37:16 because retirement wouldn't you know would not have uh been a a fulfilling life for me um and and so um you know sometimes um Financial realities should drive us to then review well really what what kind of Life do I want to live as I better understand what my capacity is for generating income and Building Wealth okay so we can't plan our lives in an entire vacuum I.E you know I'm gonna be
37:51 a you know you know I um I I want to be the person who builds you know the the you know well use the Alon musk example I want to be the the the person who builds the most valuable you know automobile company in the world right so um look most of us are not Elon Musk okay I will stipulate I'm not anyway um and and and you know if if that were the life that I wanted to live of of building this this company that you know literally changes the way people think about Transportation um you know that that
38:28 that would be foolish because I don't have the capacity I don't have the ability to do that now you might say well you you if you really wanted to meet that goal you would you would develop the capacity you would develop the abilities now Perhaps Perhaps um but but for me um I've realized that I don't I don't believe in in in that as a life's goal deeply enough to make those changes right um and and part of it is because um is is because um I I just I'm just not that dedicated to you know building
39:07 you know an enormous business and and building an enormous amount of wealth um that that's necessary to build that kind of business that that just doesn't interest me as something to pursue in life for other people it does for Alon for Alon musk obviously it did but but but not for me but um I don't know that I knew that when I was you know 26 years old starting my first business um and and um it was something I had to learn about myself over the years so there's kind of a a back and forth process
39:43 of as best we can figuring out you know um uh step number one what kind of Life do I want to live and then you know step number two and then step number three okay so here's really how you know my capacity for generating wealth and now you know are these two matching up do I need to go back to step one and and re-calibrate the life that I can live based on what I see my capacity in you know being in in in step three and and and that's important because in a way
40:18 they connect and there's somewhat of a cycle there if you will and that that is so much of what life is about right it's about these cycles that we go go through as we learn more and more about ourselves and about you know the the our friends our family Etc how do these then affect the rest of our life and that's that's as true in in becoming wealthy as it is in anything else that we do so uh while you know principle one is principle one the life we want to live should drive
40:54 finances um we can't live in a total bubble um and and and not take into account as as we learn about ourselves what our capacity is for generating wealth what our capacity is for delaying gratification for um accumulating assets right um now where I think it gets difficult is um it it's you know the America is a very consumer oriented Society there's lots of wonderful things
41:29 you know to buy whether it's it's clothing right or whether it's uh um you know I I I don't know all I mean there's a million things you can buy cars and artwork and and you know Fine Food and Wine and all all those kind of things right so there's always the next thing that you know one can buy um and and The Temptations are manifest um and so um there's there's there's it's no surprise that we that that that requires discipline in order to um accumulate the wealth in order to
42:07 become wealthy to the point that matches with the life that we want to have right and so you know for for for those of us who um have insufficient discipline to get where we want to go in the end that is that is going to be a major factor in as we you know work this cycle right so if we we choose the life that we want to have okay and and we we understand now um you know what kind of wealthy we want to be
42:44 okay and then we look at our capacity to become wealthy right this is is is where the discipline really comes into play as we look at how quickly we're reaching step number one okay and and if we're not reaching the wealth level we need to support the lifestyle we want often times that comes down to we're not exercising enough discipline now that's not to Discount sometimes
43:19 there's bad luck sometimes there's economic downturns and and these these things happen and they they can delay our our goal okay that certainly happened to me so um in the very a few years after I started my company late 19 very late 1980s into the early 1990s terrible terrible econom well not terrible but but bad Economic Times here in the United States and um almost lost my company um really struggled through that period um but fortunately made it
43:56 through and went on to much bigger success um so you know I I I was I think pretty disciplined during that period despite that um the you know the economics and the market were just against me for the business that I was in and and so I really just had to hang on as best I could until the economy picked back up and there was sufficient Economic Opportunity for me to then work toward meeting my goals which I I ended up I I revised my goals and ended up meeting several of them so um the main thing
44:31 though was the the um the uh St tutiven the resourcefulness all of these are important uh qualities to develop as we work toward becoming wealthy all right and the often times the difference between being able to to become wealthy enough to fit the the kind of life that we want comes down to further developing those qualities in us and that's that's the hard part
45:08 because it's it's very difficult to look at ourselves um and say I'm not I'm not doing the job I need to do right um it that that's a balanced statement not that I'm a bad person that's not going to help out to say oh I wasn't disciplined enough I'm a bad person no the the second part doesn't necessarily apply if if you weren't disciplined enough so then just you know be mature enough to own that and say but the next
45:45 step is okay I was not disciplined enough as I look back I shouldn't have done you know a b and c okay so going forward then how do I act in a more disciplined way so that the next time the opportunity to do a b or c comes up I won't be seduced into doing them I'll be able to exercise the discipline to get through them and continue more directly on becoming wealthy that's that's the productive way to look at these things and I think
46:20 that's another place where we get sidetracked is we feel like we have to beat ourselves up if we have lacked discipline or if we have we let's not say lacked discipline we've lapsed in discipline right and so we you know everybody has a lapse in discipline even the most disciplined people have lapses in discipline okay um and and it's it's it's you know part of the human condition um that that we do that sometimes the question isn't um if we're going to do it the question is when
46:56 we're going to do it and then the next question is how do we a recover from that that incident of a lapse of discipline and B how do we prevent that same lapse again right knowing that we may lapse in a different way going forward okay so but the more times we lapse in discipline reflect on it build ourselves so we won't repeat that mistake the less likely a lapse and discipline will happen in the future okay and that's what it means to
47:31 build ourselves up to have the qualities that are required to become wealthy at the level that's necessary to support the kind of life that we want to live right and um you know we could this is you know some people say well you know lack of discipline is a character flaw well oh maybe um I think because it's a condition of Being Human um I don't know that it's necessarily a character flaw per se now if someone has you know no discipline at all um makes
48:09 no attempt to develop discipline um Revels in their lack of discipline so then you know we would we could probably say okay so there's a character flaw there but that's someone who has embraced lack of discipline as a value right and and for someone who's embraced it so then um look all by itself that doesn't mean that um that you know it's it's a character flaw it's a character flaw if what they want out of life requires discipline while at the same time they Embrace not having discipline that then
48:45 I think it's it's reasonable to conclude that this person has a character flaw okay otherwise look if the person and by the way for for the person who is content with their small material wants in order that they don't have to exercise a lot of discipline that's a completely legitimate way to handle that person's life okay so you could say well that that person is so undisciplined and and they have so little money it's like but wait a minute if if they're living the life that they want to live why is
49:21 it any of our business to criticize how that person um is is living their life I would argue it's not they've defined the kind of wealthy they want to be okay based on the life that they want to have and so they they require that if that requires a lot less discipline than maybe what you or I want to do so fine and and by the way they may have gone through that cycle a few times and just realized what they have to do to exercise the level of discipline to have some other kind of life doesn't make sense for them what they've decided to
49:57 do is learn how to be content with a different kind of life than perhaps what they first imagined and that's that's perfectly legitimate that's all part of that cycle of of going through and determining how really are we going to deal with these with these issues so those are those are the thoughts that I have for you on on becoming wealthy certainly not exhaustive um I I think in the future you know I'll I'll address this topic again um but I encourage you to think about these think about what
50:33 does this really mean not in terms of dollars that in some ways the dollars are the easy part oh I want to have a million dollars or I want to have five million or $10 million those those are really easy numbers to grab at okay but the question is why why do you want to have a million dollars why do you want to have $5 million why do you want to have 10 million or hundred million so you can be wealthy so you can become wealthy okay fine but but what does that really mean for your life and that's the crucial question so you know fundamental
51:08 principle I I encourage you to consider is money is a tool money is not the destination money is you know the vehicle that drives you to the destination and if we look at money I think that's a much healthier way to look at money and and one that will allow us to better live the kind of life that we want to live find our way to wow right that's that's the name of of of all you know all the shows that I do the way to wow shows right way who are you
51:43 wow what you want right so it's it's in the name of the shows that we do when we talk about people making money it's people making money in the context of understanding who are you what you want right that's that's the key concept there so thank you very much for joining me today hope you found this interesting if you have comments questions criticisms uh feel free to share them I look I I'm not saying I've cornered the market on this kind of knowledge I would
52:18 be very interested to hear what you have to say on the subject uh obviously it's something that I've given a lot of thought about um over over the the the years and the decades um and and and hope you you have Andor will as well um and interested to hear from you so again thanks so much for joining me uh today so this is the last show for this week um and uh starting next week on Monday at 10: am is my uh these are all Pacific Time by the way is my show um trust in Estates weekly on Tuesday at 10: am
52:53 Pacific Time Business lessons from the military and then a week from today I'll be back with the next edition of people making money so wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and a terrific rest of the week and looking forward to seeing you next week signing off as I always do Marie you are my bell all the best folks