Vince Chen (11:14)

Your book is called Money, Balance and Joy. Let's start with a all time favorite question. In what ways and to what extent that money can buy happiness?

Michael Se (11:37)

Sure, money buys happiness when it's part of this three part ecosystem and that three part ecosystem's working in Harmony, working holistically. And the three parts are money, monetary wealth, second is time wealth and the third is the social wealth or the happiness or joy. So we all know the stories of people, all they do is work. And the thing is, especially my generation, the boomer generation, had a lot of people like that. But the thing I learned from the greatest generation, my parents generation was no, you had to have that balance, you had to have that joy. You, you know, had to have that range of personality and not just be the single mind and is focused. So money per se doesn't buy happiness. You can't go to the happiness store, but it helps you. You can hire someone to do the cleaning, mowing the lawn, different painting, hire, buy pre made food or go to restaurants versus booking everything from scratch. So that can buy you the time, then the joy that comes from it. You can get involved with volunteer work, being part of the community. But the great thing is each helps the other so that the people who are very successful, the time part helps them make more money, the joy part helps them make more money. So it's this wonderful merry go round if you will. You have to have that range, you have to have all that your life because otherwise it's just not a joyful life. Why bother?

Vince Chen (13:29)

Tell us about your value systems in managing personal wealth. I believe you call this the total wealth concept.

Michael Se (13:40)

When I was at this big insurance company, my boss was just this tightly wound person after you knew him for 10 minutes. This is not a guy that really was fully enjoying life and that the old school of oh, work is work. I put in the hours, I do the work, I really don't like it, or I tense up and stress out about it, then I go home and then I could have fulfillment. If you look at some of the great people out there, they are much more broad doing activities. They start with not I want to make money, but I want to help people. I want to change the world. Steve Jobs, I want to change the world. That's what he wanted to do. It wasn't oh I want to be rich. Now the money part of course comes with it. But when you look at some of those leaders, you look at Elon Musk who will at the drop of a hat with flooding in North Carolina say hey, I'll reassign my satellites to help with communications. He's not doing that for the money, he's not doing that for the publicity. He's doing that to be a good citizen, to help people. So it's just a much more enjoyable life. It's not nine to five of misery. Clock out and then have joy. But why can't you have that joy? Why can't you have that fulfillment and meaning in your job as well? If you could do that, you're going to be better at your job, better able to help people. You'll be better for your faith and really enjoy yourself. And one of the things I saw with a lot of financial advisors was they were holding the golf club really tight. They didn't take into account they became advisors because they love math or they love investments. And the advisors that I worked well with were the ones that became advisors because they love their clients. They love how they could go from having somebody be a total stranger to a great friend, client and great friend within months. And the kind of the rush you get when you realize that your client trusts you. So these are all the things with me, my upbringing, that this is how people should work, and that holistic wealth or the total wealth with everything, it's so simple. Things that really help are simple.

Vince Chen (16:24)

When we are not wealthy, why aren't we unhappy?

Michael Se (16:33)

So you take out the wealth component. Why are they unhappy? They don't necessarily have to be unhappy, but they are unhappy. Because we have Wall street, we have advertising. Look at what's been going on with inflation. So we have this huge cumulative inflation. The American population went from like 40% living from paycheck to 70%. And do you really see anything from Wall street, from the politicians, from the financial media? Just about what a devastating effect this is having on people. And just the psychological and emotional effect. So these people feel like no one knows them, no one appreciates or understands what they're going through. I did a cartoon on Instagram yesterday making fun of this, how you're supposed to be happy. And somebody commented, I thought I was the only one that felt this way of being alone. People not understanding what I'm going through, that loneliness, that feeling that, oh, I'm doing something wrong. Because why the financial media, they're that top 10% Wall street, the top 10%. Inflation hasn't impacted them on an emotional level. It's an inconvenience, but damaged their lives. And soon we're seeing it now with the employment number. Soon there's going to be more and more layoffs, especially in the tech area and in other areas. And it's not the lack of money. It's that I don't have. It's my fault. It's something I'm doing wrong. Look at all these other people, or I I made a poor choice on becoming a coder, whatever it might be, and oh, I wish I can go back. Coulda, woulda, shoulda is an awful feeling to have. Instead of just looking forward and saying, all right, this is the lot I'm I have right now, let me just figure out a way. Take inflation for example. With that I have the three eaves, how you perceive. So you're looking at it and saying, okay, this is actually an opportunity where there's crisis, there's opportunity for me to improve my life, get me to focus on what am I wasting money on? What should I do differently? Should I have a side job, what have you, what things can I do instead of sending my kid to a private college, doing an in state college where it's either free or very low cost, then coming up with the conceiving ideas of how am I going to implement all these changes and then the creativity of that and doing that now. So this person is going to be happier. So they still don't have the money. They still are getting killed by inflation, but they are now taking control. Most stress, most depression comes with people feel that they don't have control of what's going on around them. So now let's give them control. Let's now you don't see any of this anywhere. You don't see articles on this. You don't see Wall street saying, you know what? We're going to donate and create a program to help people like Elon Musk, donating satellites for whatever, helping Ukraine, helping flood victims from in North Carolina. Wall street doesn't do that. And so that's why it's a little complicated answer. It's a simple question. But when we lose control, we stress we're unhappy. Money helps us have control. In the absence of money, we need to find other ways to get that control so that we're happier, we're not frozen, that we're actually moving forward. Don't let a good crisis go to waste.

Vince Chen (21:11)

According to your approach, there are three types of change. Why does change matter in managing personal wealth?

Michael Se (21:24)

It's everything. It changes everything. That's why the first chapter of my book is called Zen and the Art of Change. The greatest misunderstanding with Wall street and the financial media is that they don't understand that the three E's of investing are the motions. And so it's the same with change. So we, we have to have this Zen like state of calm. First of all, don't have that state. We're going to be holding that golf club Too tight and we're not going to get much distance swing. But there's always so much time and there's always so much emotional energy to changing. You want to focus, have that laser focus if you will on the changes you should make and ignore the ones you can't change. So your personality, you're going to try to change your personality? No, it's just not going to happen. Work with your personality. Don't waste time trying to change your personality. Then there's the change that you can and should make and then there's the one that also trips up. A lot of people waste that emotional capital and that is change you can do. But don't waste your time on it because it, it's like triage. You look at the old MASH TV show, mash actual hospitals in Korea. You couldn't care for every soldier that came in injured. So you had to say, this one I could save, but it's going to take three hours. And in that time I could have saved six other soldiers. And if I do this person save them, then those six soldiers are going to die. It's that triage, you need to look at it and say, yeah, I can do that. But it's going to take too long. It's going to take too much emotional capital to do it. So now we have this smaller focused types of change that we can and should do and then set about doing that. And too many times we try to change our outlook, change our view. I've done some work with the whole ESG movement. The criticism I have of it is too many times they're trying to change people's minds, change their view. No, what you first do is you change people's actions and then by changing your actions, getting up earlier, doing, allocating certain time, reading certain books, hiring somebody to be your accountability partner and to generate ideas, you want to do that. And then through those changes, your outlook is going to change your perception of things, its actions, change thoughts. You can't change your thoughts very easily without doing that.

Vince Chen (24:41)

In our next episode, part two of our interview, Michael will take on Wall street, the financial media and financial influencers, pointing out how they often miss the emotional side of financial planning. From risk tolerance survey that don't even account for real life emotions and behavior, to the misleading advice all over social media, Michael gives a refreshing and honest opinion. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time.

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