← Money for Life with Eric Roberge, CFP
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- [00:04]
A
Want the opportunity to create money for Life. We've got the strategies to get you there. I'm Eric.
- [00:09]
B
And I'm Kayleigh.
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A
And we help professionals and executives optimize their financial decisions so they can live well today, plan for tomorrow, and enjoy
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B
money for Life on the Money for Life podcast. We're here to help you do the same. Today I wanted to talk to you about some unconventional money questions that people should be asking themselves. But we don't usually think about it. It doesn't necessarily come up in conversation, certainly not amongst friends, but not even amongst financial planning advisors and clients. A lot of the time these are really important questions to think through and you don't necessarily have to have an answer right away. I think it's more the process of thinking through how you would answer it. Like that's where you're going to get some. Some good insights.
- [00:50]
A
Well, I'm intrigued. I don't exactly know what we're going to be talking about here, so I'm curious to hear the types of questions. I mean, I can totally get the. The general idea that there are very much money conversations that should be had in life and certainly with your spouse and your financial planner that don't. And those are probably the most valuable ones to have because nobody's asking them and therefore nobody's answering them.
- [01:13]
B
Yeah. So let's start with one. I actually brought this up at an event in Boston a few weeks ago I went to as a speaker. It was a conference for women founders and women investors, kind of bringing those two groups together to make connections and to help each other really move the needle forward. Good friend Jess lynch with Founders Edge puts that on. It was the Up Level summit. So I was there and I did a session on, you know, talking money. And the first question that I asked the room to kind of get people starting to talk and think was, what was your first money memory? What was the first thing you remember about money?
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A
It's exactly right. And that's a big one. Nobody's asking that question and nobody knows how to answer that question until you're asked. But I would imagine when the question comes up, your brain goes somewhere, you might question whether that's the right answer or not, but your brain goes somewhere. And wherever that brain goes is probably what you should say.
- [02:08]
B
Yeah. And it's not literally like the very first thing you remember about money. It doesn't have to be that. But it is amazing when you look at research or studies about this, that what you tend to believe, your operating system for how you think about money and therefore how you act around money starts getting laid down in your brain around 3 years old and usually by 7, 8, it's pretty much set. So that's amazing to think about. Like 7 year old you is kind of running the show subconsciously when it comes to your financial decisions. And that is exactly why it's an important question to ask. There's no wrong answer. But just think, what was the first thing that you can remember, can you recall about money? And then the more interesting question is how do you think that's informing how you're behaving right now? So, Eric, do you have a memory? What's yours?
- [02:58]
A
Yes. I mean, I've asked this question before of people, and I've answered the question. So it's not like a new thing for me. But what always comes up is a time. And I might have even shared this on the podcast. Maybe a couple years ago, a time when my mom and I were in the car. I don't know if I was three or four years old, but the car broke down on not a highway, but a road that was definitely filled with traffic. And there were strip malls on that road and we were in the middle of it, so we were causing a traffic jam. I can't remember if people were beeping at us, but around here, probably very rude people. On the roads in the Boston area, we had to move out of the car into the strip mall and walk into. I don't know if it was a bank or if it was a sandwich shop or something like that. And we had to use the phone because back then we did not have cell phones. We didn't even have car phones back then. And we had to call the tow truck company to tow the car. And that whole experience to me, just stands out. And I don't know why. Part of it is maybe I'm afraid of causing a scene. I mean, the car was fine. It wasn't like it was a bad car. My mom didn't keep it up, but it broke down. So paranoid about car breaking down. Was it a money thing? Should we have bought a nicer car? Random things come up like this. Where I don't want to ever have that happen to me is the bottom line.
- [04:26]
B
So with that memory, is there any particular money story you think that you're telling yourself from it or that you not actively even but just. Are there things you find yourself doing right now that if you stop and pause, you can say, like, oh, you know what? I can see the lineage of this. Like my Knee jerk reaction is to do X because that experience is so ingrained. And for you it sounds like that experience that I do not want to repeat, like it's so important to me. I do not want to be in that situation again. And it sounds like it's maybe I don't want to be in a position where I'm stuck, where I'm maybe embarrassed because I got here, but I'm like stuck and I don't have an easy way out. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not saying that that's what it is, but it kind of sounds like that to me of like you might be influenced to use your money in a way that creates flexibility and options so that you always have a way out or that you're not going to get in that trapped situation again.
- [05:23]
A
Well, I do have that focus to have enough money to always have optionality and choice, but I don't know if that's coming from there or not. Because we were not wealthy at that point. My parents were probably just getting by, right? They, they both had, she was a nurse, my dad was a salesman. They were not making a lot of money. This was the 1980s. So we're back in a place where we probably had a house but who knows how much money the mortgage was. The interest rates were certainly really high at that point. And I envision like a not wealthy family trying to make ends meet, which is a lot of people. And my motivation is to be able to help that category of income level but not to be in that category of income. And I think that's driven a lot of the choices I've made. From the college I went to, I went into financial planning, investments initially and always focused on money. So having money be very much front and center, that's not a coincidence. I certainly focus on saving and growing my wealth so that I never am in that situation. So that is definitely part of it for me.
- [06:37]
B
Any mind similar. The first money memory I have was four. We were in a grocery store and at the time we were living in a very rural part of Georgia. It was probably a 30 minute drive just to get into the town. So we were in the mountains, it was very isolated, it was a very poor area. My mom wasn't working at the time and my dad was a firefighter. So similar, like very working class, one income and we were at the grocery store and I being four, you know, I saw something, I imagine it was like Fruity Pebbles or something like very sugary, very colorful, very desirable to 4 year old me, 35 year old. Me too. I was telling my mom, ooh, like, I was like, can we get that? Can we get that? And I don't remember she had a tone or any kind of like positive or negative or anything. I just remember what she said to me was, we can't afford that. So that was like a. Oh, it kind of got started, my wheels turning. And then like you, I don't think it's any coincidence that that kind of set me on a path of. I think it really made me intrigued about money and how you got it, how you could afford it. Why didn't some people have more of it? It just started a lot of questions for me. And again, I don't think it's a coincidence that now that's what I do for a living. And that's how I started my career, was asking more questions about money as a financial writer and, and then transitioning onto the advisory side. But when we were at that event, you know, a couple other of the women there shared theirs and it was all very similar. It was someone who, they remember their dad walking through the snow a mile up the road to get groceries, you know, in February. Cause they didn't have a car. They lived in a one bedroom apartment. They were an immigrant family. She just always remembered that. So she's been very driven to build this massive company because of that. Like where she came from and how much she saw her dad work and sacrifice and then now wanting to take care of not just herself, but her family. Another person was saying, like I remember, you know, we'd be the family that drove up and we only put $10 worth of gas in the car at the pump because that's how much we had. So I think those kind of stories can really motivate and inspire us to go forward. But I think on the flip side, it does set down these stories and beliefs about money that will run the show if you're not aware of them. And I think that's the whole point of asking this question is what stuff is going on in your brain that if left alone, will decide what you are doing? And can you just be aware of that? So you can just stop and pause and say, all right, who's making that decision? Is it me in the moment or is it, you know, four year old, five year old me who had this experience that made a decision about this is how the world works and this is what it means?
- [09:10]
A
That's a huge piece of the puzzle. Because if it is truly the underlying motivator for you making decisions that you were not aware of and yet you have this, in this case false sense that you are making decisions based on what you want in your life. Like you're mindfully making decisions, but your perspective is so ingrained in this belief that the decisions are only surface level. You're not actually making them fully. You're not manifesting your own destiny here. You're just kind of, your destiny's almost set already. You have a direction you're going in. You can make one off choices that are going to be a little bit flexible, but ultimately you are drawn like you're the magnet pulling you in a direction that you're going to end up at. And hopefully it's a positive place. But it could be negative. Especially if your belief system is that you don't deserve money and you're going to spend it all and never save it because it's. And there's a whole scarcity thing around it. You might end up with not much and suffering again. A lot of times this can be things that are outside of your control, put you in a place where you're suffering and you don't have much money. That is very clear. And some people end up making decisions that put them there too. And if it's something that is driving your decision making process that you should uncover and be aware of to help you make better decisions, then please do it. Like that's to me what the point is here. Answer that question for yourselves, ponder it, consider what to do next and start making decisions differently. If you've realized that the answers you've been giving yourself are tied to that belief.
- [10:47]
B
I can very clearly point to the worst financial decisions that I've ever made have been driven by that automatic stuff going on. And I didn't catch it in time because I shared my. That was my earliest money memory. But I also, as my parents, they worked and they were able to kind of climb the socioeconomic ladder a little bit. And later on I was still very young, but we moved out of that really rural area into more of a suburban area. And it was like I was the poorest kid in this rich town. And that has always stuck with me. So like also in the back of my mind is always feeling like I don't have enough status as everybody else around me. And that, that is the thing that for me drives the worst financial decisions. I'm trying to fulfill that need for status, which isn't actually a value of mine. It's just coming from this inferiority or sense of lack or like you said, Eric, that scarcity mindset. And it's fueling me in a direction that I don't actually want to go. But it's so hard to unwind all that stuff that you experience as a kid. And if your parents are more overt about it, I don't mind too. Like to this day they kind of speak negatively about anyone that they perceive to have money. It's a judgment thing. It's almost like the money is bad. Kind of like what you were saying, Eric. If somebody believes that, then they might overspend it because if they have too much of it, it makes them a bad person. You know, that's not actually true, but these beliefs kind of just take root and they can really grow if you're not. Not aware of them. It is interesting the places that it will take us if we're not aware.
- [12:15]
A
Sure.
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B
All right, so that was the fluffy woo woo part. I think the, the money memories and things that are kind of going on in, in your subconscious. And again, not, not psychologists over here, I'm not, I don't have a specific answer for. If you were to say, like, oh, my first money memory is this. What does it mean? I don't know. That's for you to go and think about. But that's the point. Think about it. The next question that I think it's unconventional simply because we don't ask it. It should be, it should be a standard thing. But how much money are you saving every year? I think you would be amazed at how many people have no idea. And they might give you a guess. But I would say unless you are tracking it, you do not actually know.
- [12:53]
A
Well, the first answer that comes to mind when I ask that question to people is a dollar amount. Which is interesting because the dollar amount that you're saving is going to be if you consistently save a certain amount, it's going to be the same all the time, regardless of how much money you make. And so when you're making a hundred thousand dollars, if you save 50, that is a monumental achievement because one, it's expensive to live, but two, that's 50% of your GR income. If you then make a million dollars and you're saving $50,000, that's 5% of your income. So you went from 50% of your income to 5% of your income, which is not a big achievement. Saving 5% is pretty.
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B
I'm less impressed with your $50,000 now.
- [13:37]
A
Yeah, but in your mind, like $50,000 might still be a lot of money because you Came from that world where $50,000 was a ton of money. And maybe you were like, this is actually a great savings rate. I cannot believe I can save $50,000. Look at me go. And then you continue to go at that rate and you just. You end up by default, your lifestyle gets inflated. Because if you're not saving the greater part of a million dollars, what are you doing with it? You're spending it. I mean, taxes, yes, but then there's spending on everything else. So it's very important to understand the dollar amount you're saving, but make it a percentage of your gross income so that when you make more money, you automatically save more money and can say, I save 10%, I save 20%. I've saved 30% of my income, regardless of what that number is. And it helps you meter the amount you're saving.
- [14:27]
B
I will say, if you were starting at that level and saving a certain dollar amount, and as your income rose and you still saved that dollar amount, I think you got one small win, which was the consistency. If you were continually doing it, that's a big deal. And something is always better than nothing. Like saving something is great. I think we just want to continue to put the focus on savings because that's where your power is. So we try to save between 20 and 25% of your income every year. That's a good starting point, especially if you're making over six figures. If you can save more, it's worth considering while you can, because you're not going to be able to save big amounts every year, and you shouldn't necessarily do that. But it's where your power is because you can control how many dollars you're putting away, what percentage of your income you're putting away. You cannot control what the market does and everyone. I think that's why it also makes it an unconventional question. How much are you saving? Because I think the more common question is, oh, how much did your portfolio return last year? And it almost doesn't matter. When you zoom out and consider, like you only have so much control over that, you cannot control the global financial markets, you can absolutely decide, you know What, I saved 15% last year, I can make it to 20% this year. I can do that.
- [15:43]
A
Yeah. I'm just picturing it as consistency is really important, but it's the savings rate, and the consistency of that savings rate over time is the soldier in the battle of wealth growth. And it's the secret success point of most people's wealth creation. Yes, you're going to See people in the news that are the founders of incredible companies that go public and they make billions on a sale or they win the lottery or any other way that people just snap into money almost by chance. But the vast majority of people that grow wealth effectively over time are the big savers, and you can't shake that. And the more you don't grab onto that fact, the more you look for the quick wins, the silver bullets, the less chance you actually have of making it.
- [16:43]
B
Right. It's about probability, right. A lot of things are possible, but you can't be looking for what's possible. You have to be looking for what's probable. And if you have a tested, reliable strategy that you can use, which is saving sufficiently, looking for good enough, moderate average returns in the market with less risk, then that's going to get you a lot farther than taking moonshots that nine times out of 10 aren't going to work out because you just don't have. You don't have. Nine times out of ten you have this one life and every day that's a day that went by that you can't get back. And time is so, so important to this equation, too.
- [17:22]
A
Yeah. And to understand the probabilities, I think that's a factor maybe in this whole thing. Not a lot of people understand what probability means or how to make decisions based on it. And I think poker, I mean, if you have a poker player that has won it big, that's fine. But if you have a poker player that's won it big for 10 years in a row, that's a different story. I would say, like the person who's done it consistently over time is a gambler. And they're very good at understanding probabilities because they're making choices. They're not making gut decisions all the time. Maybe that comes into play too, but they're actually making choices based on probabilities of certain cards turning out or not based on them being able to win the hand with the two cards they have in their. In the pocket for Texas hold' Em anyway. And that's really important because Annie Duke talks a lot about this stuff, Right. So you've read a decent amount of her books. It's really important to understand probabilities. And she's, she's gone to school for it. I mean, she's super smart baseline, she played poker, but she has an educational background in this stuff and she's bringing that forth in these books, which are pretty cool books, because the perspective is clear and you can maybe Grab hold of it when you start to read these books. But probabilities anyway. Probabilities is one of those things where if you're not financially inclined or mathematical by default, you might hear probabilities and say, that sounds tough. I don't need to go back to high school. And in high school that was challenging because all you were doing was dealing with numbers and creating answers. But now if it matters based on what you're going to do with your life and how successful you might be, financially speaking, you might want to re examine probabilities and better understand them so they can help you make decisions that are financially right for your situation when it comes to long term savings and investing.
- [19:04]
B
Thinking in bets, that's one of Annie Duke's books that I would highly recommend. She can say a lot more about probability than I can in a lot better way. But I think to put a bow on that part of it is I was actually reading, it was a Wall Street Journal article that you had actually sent me this morning, Eric, and one of the last lines in it was talking about a very high likelihood of success. There's still chance involved. That's not a guarantee. So if your odds are four out of five times, you'll win. Well, that's the same odds of playing Russian roulette. Like do you want to do that? No, the high probability, it's not enough. The context matters. Yeah. Thinking about would be good homework for anyone who wants to dive more into understanding that. And I think it will definitely help you make better financial and investment decisions. Before we totally move on for that question, because we answered the money memories question, do you want to answer what our question is for? How much do you save every year?
- [19:56]
A
We target 25% every year. That's as a consistency metric, we've been as high as 40 plus percent, I think maybe even 45% at six, eight years ago. And at this point making more money, saving 25% consistently will do what we needed to do over time. And that's going to fluctuate because it's not every single year. Sometimes it's 20, sometimes it's 30, but on average 25% is our target for sure. Because I think at this point it does give us the ability to spend well on what we desire today based on our income levels and still save powerfully for the future to grow wealth down the road.
- [20:34]
B
Yeah. And what we have to spend. Because having a kid is expensive. My goodness. I think it's interesting. I mean, you do have to recalculate it every year. Right. Because your income shifts and therefore your savings rate should shift. So it is, it is work. It is work to do. And that's part of what we help our clients with, is managing that. Which I think leads me to the next unconventional kind of question that we definitely dig into a lot, but I don't think it happens. This conversation doesn't happen a lot outside of financial planning relationships. But it's. What is, what is your money management system? What processes do you have in place to make better decisions?
- [21:07]
A
I just pictured a tree house. And it's not a tree house that was built by design. It was built by happenstance based on someone saying, like, you know what? I want to build a treehouse. I have a few scraps right now, let's put them up. And then over time they collect different pieces of things, whether it's people's trash or that's on the side of the road, like plyboard or something else. And they kind of just continue to tack onto this treehouse. And eventually it resembles a enclosed house in a tree, yet it's unsafe and, or rickety looking and certainly isn't functional for all that long.
- [21:43]
B
And it's not what you would have designed or built had you set out with intention in the first place.
- [21:49]
A
Right. And scoured the world for the right tools and the right materials to create this and build on it. You don't have to have it all at once to create it right away, but you have to be able to build on it and iterate on it and make it still look like a cohesive unit. And I think that's what is lacking in most everybody's financial life is a cohesive system that operates in many different environments. Right? Not only when things are going well, not only when you're making big bucks or have a big bonus, but when times are tough. It's the same system, it's the same structure. You're just making different decisions based on the scenarios that you're in. And that's where you need to have a consistency to the structure. And it has to be intentionally built so that you can make smart money decisions within it on an ongoing basis, regardless of the circumstances.
- [22:41]
B
I think this is a bit like the money memory question in that there isn't necessarily a single right answer that you need to come up with. I think that how much are you saving every year? That's got more of an objective range, at least you should be aiming for. But I don't think there's any one right system. It's more that you have one that works for you and that gives you a way to separate yourself from you and emotion and bias whatever else that you have going on in your head that would influence you in a negative way and that would allow you to be very patient for a long, long time so that you can give the things that you know to be true with your investment portfolio or your money management, give them time without you meddling with them. So this is all very simple, but I think it's very, very difficult to find a structure to plug yourself into that you feel comfortable and secure and confident in so that you can actually let that stuff run and take the good advice that you've been given and
- [23:43]
A
let it work for you and do so in an objective manner. I feel like there's the. Let's build this system objectively. Let's make objective decisions first as a baseline and then layer in the emotions on top of that as a choice versus starting with the emotions and trying to pile on facts that prove your emotions were correct. Because we will make emotional decisions. So if you can get an objective, maybe it's a third party, like a financial advisor who's creating a structure for you, and then you look at that and tweak it a little bit and make it your own through layering in the emotional part. Because money is emotional, spending can be emotional and be okay too. It's just. It can't lead the charge at all times blindly, which a lot of people let it do.
- [24:26]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. I think you're right that you do have to have a system that factors in the emotions in a way that doesn't just blow everything up. Like they're real, you can't suppress that. And however you're feeling, whatever it is, positive, negative, greedy, fearful, you know, whatever on the spectrum, it's valid, it's a real thing for you. And it's not necessarily bad. Like, you can bring in the emotions and make decisions based on just purely what you want. If it's got that layering in of like. All right, we already sorted out what works and what doesn't, so let's focus on the. Within the what works column. Like, what can we play with here? Yeah, the next question on my list is back to maybe the fluffy stuff. I don't know, you tell me. But where do you struggle to use your money? Is it hard for you to spend, to save, to invest, to give? All these are different ways that you can use your money. And I think if you can ask yourself, like, where, where Am I struggling? What quadrant of that am I struggling with? It would be interesting to see what comes up for different people. And I do think the majority would probably be like, saving. I struggle with saving. I think that's where most people fall, at least some of the time. But I'm curious, what do you think about that, Eric? What do you think we can glean from asking, where is it? What point do you struggle with using your money?
- [25:50]
A
The question of where do you struggle in pinpointing that answer is going to be important because then you can understand how impactful the struggle is to your overall life and financial plan. Because if it is saving for the long term, you struggle there. Your long term financial plan may look really shaky and therefore your future financial life could be insecure or less secure than it could be. So that's an important one to uncover. But if it's like, well, I don't spend well on vacations in a way that makes me feel like I'm able to use the money that I think I have to splurge on vacations, I just don't. That's also important because it's going to impact the enjoyment of your life and the ability for you to really engage and explore and do the things that you want to do if those are of value to you. But it's not going to put you at risk of losing everything.
- [26:44]
B
I think, like struggling to spend. I think people can have a challenge with that in that they're struggling to spend on what actually feels satisfying. It's not necessarily even about a dollar amount, like spending too much or too little. It's more just, well, where are you spending? What are you spending on? And how does that align with what you said was important to you? Because if those things are out of whack, then you're going to feel stressed and you're going to feel like there's never enough. Like you're going to feel like just something is you're always behind. And it could be that actually on paper, your finances are perfectly fine. The money is just going to the wrong thing. It's not even about spending less and saving more. It's about redirecting that cash flow to what actually aligns with what you think is important and how you want your life to be. Not trying to make it look like somebody else's, or not making decisions that you think will please your parents or your friends or whoever. It may be like those external influences, they're strong and they're real, but I think you can be a lot happier with money and just life. If you learn to really tune into, like, what are you saying is important here rather than they or society or again, friends, family, whatever it may be.
- [27:56]
A
Yeah, that's true. Because if someone says, like, well, I'm saving enough money, maybe I'm not spending enough, maybe I should reduce my savings rate. But if you actually understand that you're spending enough, you're just spending in the wrong areas for you to feel satisfied, then you don't have to spend more. You just have to adjust that flow of cash to go to the right places and that changes everything. That could be great because now you're saving a good amount and you're spending the same amount, but it's going to where you value it more and it's more satisfying and you feel more settled than you would have saying, like, well, I need to make more money so I could spend more money, or I need to save less because I want to spend more. And like you said before, maybe it's not spending more that's going to be the answer, it's spending more wisely. That nails it for you.
- [28:37]
B
The last question on my list that I'm really curious for your answer on, you've heard that expression of, you know, you've got to find the signal and the noise. So my question is, how do you tune out the noise? How do you decide what's noise and how do you find the signal?
- [28:53]
A
That's a really tough question when there's no context. I think the noise is different depending on the signal you're trying to find. And so understanding probably firstly what you value is going to be some of that general uncovering the signals. Signals are what your priorities are based probably on what you value in life. Which again, could go right back to the first question of some of the things that you think you value are based on your money beliefs that were created when you were five. And so uncovering that first and then coming back to this might be important, but you get down to what you actually value and understand that those values are going to play out in life in various ways. Like freedom and flexibility is very broad. What does that mean? Is it everywhere? Do you want the freedom to travel around the world as much as you want? Do you want the freedom to be able to choose the house you want to live in? Do you want the freedom to be able to donate your time to various charities? What freedoms are we talking about here? Once you figure out, all right, I want freedom, and here's the type of freedom I want, you can start to pinpoint where the signal is and brush away all the noise and stop focusing on those noisy areas and focus, you know, okay, what do I need to do in my life to create the time in my day to donate it to this charity?
- [30:16]
B
I think what you're getting at too, you didn't explicitly say it, but the idea there is no one signal. There are a lot of signals that are valid and that you should be tuning into, depending on, like you said, what are your values? Or if you want to shift over to something more technical, what's your risk capacity? Not your risk tolerance, your risk, your actual capacity to take risk that determines what signal on the investment side of things you should be tuning into. Same with the financial advice that you're getting on the planning side, not investments. But, you know, what strategies should you pursue or not to achieve these various different goals? Well, it completely depends on what kind of timeline are you working with? What trade offs are you willing to make and what trade offs are you absolutely not willing to do? What's your capacity on your cash flow side? How many fixed expenses do you have plugged in? How many obligations do you have to meet? Regardless of what else happens? There are so many factors and sorting through that, organizing them and understanding first, before you even get to noise or signal, like, what of your own life do you have going on? Have you sorted through that and do you understand what's important to you? And then you can go out and say, all right, what aligns with this? Because there is a lot of noise, but there's also, again, more than one signal. There's a lot of different ways that you could go and find success. Not just success, but happiness and fulfillment too. If you're doing it right and you're focused on the right things. But you've just got to determine first, like, where is it that you're trying to go in the first place? Because I think that's the saddest thing is when people do manage to climb a ladder and can say that they're a success, but then they look around like this was the wrong wall. I didn't want to climb this one because it's really hard to undo that. You probably don't have enough time. So getting clear on what am I willing to work for, what am I willing to trade off? And more importantly, what am I not? What am I not willing to do? I think we have that conversation a lot with us because I think with business stuff, there are a lot of signals that I think that are totally valid for us to be following and that I kind of start going down the road of like, oh, we should make some changes. And then I realize that would completely interfere and in fact totally jeopardize my efforts to be the parent that I want to be. And I have decided that that's more important than like, where I'm going in business or with my career, like, at the end of the day, because you can't have everything all the time. I'm going to choose showing up as the parent I want to be versus the career that I could have. I'm not saying that's the right thing. I'm not saying that someone who does it differently is wrong. It's just different.
- [32:42]
A
Right? Same signals. Different strength of signals too. There's a lot of signals out there. But how strong is it for you? Your desire to be the best parent you can be is a stronger signal than being the most successful businesswoman you can be. Both of them are important. Both of them you pay attention to. But one is stronger than the other. So when it comes head to head, you know which one you're going to choose.
- [33:03]
B
Yeah, it doesn't necessarily make it any easier either. There is part of me that's really sad. It's almost like a grieving process of like, there's a career that I could have that I'm not going to and not because of anything that was done to me. Like, that's totally my choice and I'm very comfortable with that. And at the same time, it can be a both and thing. Right? It can be like, man, that is such a bummer. Like, there's so much track that I could run on over here. It's just not the choice that I made. And I completely respect someone who made an opposite choice. Cause that's probably valid and good for their life too. Like, both things can be true at the same time for other people also. Like other. And I wish there'd be so much solved, I think, in the world if we could all just come to the conclusion that someone doing something differently than you does not mean anything about your own choices. Like, it's just different. Everybody's different. And there's no one right way to
- [33:49]
A
go or their choices for that matter. It doesn't make them wrong to choose things different than what you would choose and doesn't make you wrong to choose things differently than they would choose. Everything's okay. Everybody can live. If we look at it from. Each individual has their own choices. And as long as they're not directly infringing on another's choices, then you could argue that they're fine and as long as they like the choices. I mean, if they're choosing the things because of something that they don't know is controlling their system and maybe they aren't happy. That's a lot of times you hear about a successful CEO that spent their entire life working that they thought, you know, career success and status was so important to them and they realized maybe it was, but it wasn't as important as being there for their kids and they missed that opportunity. I don't want anybody to deal with that because you can't change that. You can always better your relationship.
- [34:38]
B
Good ladder, wrong wall.
- [34:39]
A
Yeah. I mean, you get better your relationship with your kids at any time, but still, like, you can't go back to when they were in high school or college or children's sports of any sort. You can't go back to that time, can't rewind the time. And we only have one life to live. So paying attention, being aware, understanding what motivates you and why, choosing the best financial decisions that are targeting your own specific signals again, values, priorities is going to be generally how you should approach your life. It's going to be different from yours to the next person, even if demographically speaking, they're the exact same as you.
- [35:14]
B
Which makes me really curious. Like, for anyone listening, I would love to know what questions did you ask yourself out of this conversation and what were your answers? Because that again, to bring us back to the beginning, the event that I went to in Boston asked about people's money memories that sparked so many good conversations. So we would love to hear from you if you want to share kind of what that brought up for you. Or feel free to share this episode with someone else if you want to start that conversation with them. Especially someone, maybe a spouse or a partner that you've been kind of wanting to dig into money topics with. This might be a good way to open that door. And if you're looking for where to share that with us, we actually have some news. We recently changed our Instagram handle toyondyourhammock, which is our firm's name, so you can find us there. Or feel free to email us teamteam beyondyourhammock.com and we will see you out there. Thanks for listening to another episode of Money for Life, hosted by Eric Roberge, CFP and founder of beyond, you'd Hammock and me, Kaylee Robers. Our show is produced and edited by Steve Stewart. If you want to learn more about wealth management and hiring your own personal financial advisor, visit BeyondYourHammock.com and now for the legal stuff. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice, and may not cover all critical complete details of every situation discussed. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or the podcast. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation before making any financial decisions based on this podcast or any other educational content designed for a general audience.