Money Won’t Save You | Hamilton Brandenburg | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode of Growing Money with Sean Trace, I sit down with repeat guest Hamilton Brandenburg to talk about one of the biggest mindset shifts around wealth, retirement, and fulfillment: money can reduce stress, but it cannot create purpose. 

We get into why more income does not automatically fix bad habits, broken relationships, insecurity, or the need for validation, and why so much financial advice falls flat for normal people trying to build a meaningful life. This conversation goes beyond numbers and into what it really means to know your “enough” number, stop chasing status, and start using money as a tool to build the life you actually want. 

If you have ever wondered why financial success still leaves some people unhappy, this episode will make you think differently about wealth, contentment, and intentional living. What does “enough” look like for you?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You know how like people on social media will think that they're doing something by like posting about their opinions, about like politics or um whatever. Like, you know, some some crisis happens overseas and they're like change and I'm not trying to knock anybody or be belittle anyone, but like uh change my profile picture to the flag of such and such. We've probably all done it before. The nice ways that we feel like we're showing support, but like we're actually like it's not that we're doing anything bad, but we're not actually supporting or helping the people who the hurricane tore their town up. You know, like if we gave 50 bucks to the Red Cross, maybe that helps, but we're it's almost like with social media, there's like a trap of like you can feel like you're doing something because you're shouting into the void, and that makes you feel better about yourself, but you're not actually having an impact. And I think money can kind of be the same way if you look at it at a certain angle. If you always are just looking for the thing around the corner. Once I get a 250K in income, then I'm good. Once I get a 500K in income, then I'm good. Once I hit a $5 million net worth, then I'm good. You you all you can trick yourself into thinking that you're working on something, a real problem in your life, like your relationships, like your like your compulsiveness, like your greed, like your stinginess, like whatever the problem could be. You think that you're doing this because you're envisioning this mental, this journey towards wealth that may or may not actually manifest, but it's just a way of bullshitting yourself. It's a way of bullshitting yourself into feeling like you're fixing your personal problems by putting goals that have dollars attached to them. And so, in a way, it's almost like worse than doing nothing because it's like telling yourself you're doing something and then not actually addressing any of your own character problems. Um, I just that I that popped into my head when you're talking about this because I feel like what you are doing is the exact opposite. It's very intentional. It's saying, hey, I'm doing this trip with my wife. We're gonna, we're just gonna have fun. You know, this is these are the good days. I don't know if you overwatch the The Office, but like Andy on the office is like, you know, I wish there was a way to know if you're in the good old days before they were gone. And it's like, that's what you just have to tell yourself. Just be grateful for the moments that you're in and and be and uh and realize when you are in the good days and when you are lucky and blessed.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I've got an awesome repeat, guess. And also has his own podcast and content, man. Uh, can you tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Well, Sean, it's great to be back. My name is Hamilton Brandenburg. I'm the owner of Brandenburg Financial Services. We're a financial planning firm based out of Atlanta, Georgia, and we work mostly with retirees. I know Shocker for a financial planning firm, but we combine financial planning and tax planning and tax preparation for our clients to kind of create that one-stop shop for them for their retirement planning needs. So that's that's my spiel. And I do have a podcast that's retirement themed, although we kind of venture off the beaten path. I interviewed like a psychotherapist who works with like a lot of sex therapy on my last episode. So we definitely don't just talk about like money and numbers. We try to branch out.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

That's awesome, man. Well, it's interesting because um I think that when we were talking before, we had such a fun conversation, but I I was left with more, more, more questions. And I came back to you with some ideas. Always, right? Always more questions. So I came back to you with some ideas. We we had two fun topics that we kind of narrowed it down to. Um, and one of them is one that I I think is something that I have been looking at more and more. You know, and it's like money is really important. It is a very valuable tool, and it can fix a lot of problems. But there's some things that money can't fix, you know, and like you have to know what that enough number is. Um yeah, man. I'd love to hear your take on that.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah, no, that's huge. I think I I really like that you open with that, you know, to frame that one thing that I have noticed, and I bet you have noticed this too, and you've interviewed a lot of really great guests, and I'm sure many of them would agree that money really just kind of makes you more of who you already are.

unknown 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Right? Like it it doesn't magically fix your problems. Uh, one way that's interesting, I was I was meeting with a client recently, and she was raised by a mom who grew up in the depression. And so she has told me the story a lot, and I love talking to her about this, but she's talked about how like her mom growing up in Brooklyn would go around and try to find chicken for 19 cents a pound when it was on sale for like 25 cents a pound at the market she would go to. And she has like kept that mentality, she still has China that belonged to her mom. Um, and she is great, she's super well adapted. She she's very self-aware about her own frugality. Um, she likes to joke about it. But, you know, over the past five plus years of working with her, she has really amassed more wealth than she's been spending. So she's been doing a great job in kind of building wealth while she's spending it. But she even knows that in the back of her mind, she's always gonna be the kid of the woman who was r grew up during the depression, and she's always gonna look at all those purchases really closely. So I one thing that I found really interesting, whether you're an overspender or an underspender or somewhere in between, is that no amount of money is going to fix your spending habits by itself. Right? Right. I mean, that seems super intuitive. It seems like, okay, no, no crap, but it what we all think that it will. We all think, okay, and I do the same thing. I think, okay, we're on X number more clients, then we can afford this. We're never gonna be satisfied, right? And your spending habits aren't fixed by getting a uh bigger nest egg or a bigger paycheck.

unknown 5:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I mean, do you agree with that? What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Dude, I I signed up to uh the new year, after the new year, I signed up a great gym membership, you know, and I was really happy I signed up to the gym membership. And uh I'm not in shape yet. You know why? Because you have to go to the gym. Like you have to go, you know, like you gotta eat healthy, you gotta think of these things. And one of the things is too, I think that you can have this this vision, this goal, you can have all this stuff. But like, if you don't have good habits, you know, whether that be like, you know, like someone comes to you and says, I I I remember when I was in one of my previous iterations of my life, I was studying medicine and we were at school, and like someone came into the school and was like, Hey, I wanna I want to get healthier and lose weight. And my he's like, What can you do? What's special, you know, and certainly now there are other treatments, but he was like, dude, you gotta exercise, you gotta eat healthy. Like those are kind of fundamental things that you have to do. Um, you know, and spending habits is a big deal, but like my question is this like when people imagine having enough money, then like what problems do they expect to disappear that usually don't, you know? I mean, yeah, you still have impulse control is like one that I think of right away.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Yeah, for sure. I I think, well, it kind of also starts with like figuring out what what enough money is. And I think there's really two different people you talk to. There, if you're a single parent raising eight kids and you're counting on food stamps and you're working two jobs, an extra $20,000, okay. I'm I'm not gonna be pretentious here. It freaking changes your life. Okay. Yeah, it does. It's huge, it actually does make a big impact. But if you're if you're like middle class person making an extra $50,000, doesn't really do much for you besides just give you more money that you couldn't spend. You're already pretty much wealthy at that point. Um, and it is really interesting, it doesn't fix your spending habits. It also doesn't fix your relationships. You know, if you if you one thing that's interesting, if you look at um like affluent parents who divorce and their kids, like the Christmases get crazy after the divorce, right? All the presents are given, um, but there's like a lot of guilt giving. And I think a lot of people, especially in Western society, and where we are, uh, I was looking at some statistics the other day. Like Americans are 4% of the world's population, like 50% of this global stock market capitalization, and 25% of the global GDP. So we're freaking wealthy in America. Yeah, a middle class person is richer than a rich person, a lot of other people. We're very blessed and we should be very grateful. Um, but there's like a whole lot of poor mentality that you have where you feel like, hey, this is still not enough because I have to keep up with the Joneses. And the extra paycheck, if you're already statistically one of the richest people who's ever lived, getting an extra $20 or $30 or $40,000 in your in your income or an extra million dollars in your net worth, it's not going to fix your relationships. It's not something you can throw money at, and it's not gonna fix your habits around spending either, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, 100%. And it's like one of the things, too, that I I think there is going on is and you touched on it with the divorce one. There's like this underlying emotional need that people have that they try to fill with things. You know, it's like, or are they keeping up with the Joneses? What is that all about? Like, honestly, it's a degree of validation.

unknown 9:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

One of the things that I I try to talk to my daughter about is how to you know be validated with what you got and not what you think you need. Um the other day, I I have like this is one of my go-to phones. This is a hundred and fifty dollar Samsung. Why? I have two. I have also this one. It has a little bit nicer camera, but I didn't spend like 1,500 bucks on a on a phone because I didn't need it, you know? And like one of the things is I told my daughter, you know, someone was like, Well, don't you want the new something something pro Max XL? And I'm like, I don't need it. Well, but but but but I don't need it. You know, and it's like that level of understanding that I don't need it has helped me a lot because you know, the the I I'm I'm okay with who I am. I don't need a device to validate me. Now, certainly, if someone came along and said, hey, Sean, I'm gonna give this to you for free. Okay, cool, I'll take it. Like I like, I like the stuff. I love fun toys. Oh, yeah. But if I doesn't, it doesn't, who doesn't? It doesn't need to be there to define me. And I think that that's one of the things that we have. Um, you know, like when we talk about money being an amplifier earlier on, it also amplifies those same insecurities, you know? And I think that that's something we have to look at as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I my I have two boys who are really into playing Fortnite on their Switch. And so they love to play some Fortnite. I don't know if you know about Fortnite. Do you are you are you a gamer? Do you do any video games? We we we're a Minecraft family, so we do a bunch of Minecraft. Yeah, so my little one Ollie is super into Minecraft. The kids in he's built some crazy worlds, but both of the boys really like Fortnite a lot, and they're always like hitting me up to buy them more V-Bucks, and I'll just like I'll prohibit them from buying V-Bucks of their money. And they're like, Yeah, but the skin, the skin is, you know, and like and I skins, man. My daughter goes crazy on the skin. I I told myself my son, my oldest son, uh, he's he's nine, and I was like, Levi, like there is no, there will never be enough V-Bucks in your account. That's the way the game's made. You'll there'll always be a new sweaty skin. There will always be some new battle pass. That's way the way it's made. You have to learn how to be happy with what you have because you could I could let you buy a thousand V-Bucks every day. It wouldn't be enough for you. And if everybody did that, the game designers would just keep upping it. So you're right, it's about learning how to. I think like you talk about money being an amplifier, money is just gonna bring out who and what you already are. And once you get past your your basic needs are met, then from there it's like, am I already interested in other people? If I'm not, money's not gonna make me a great dad. It's not gonna make me good at listening. It might help me, and now if I decide to use it to clear up distractions or whatever, but but like it's not gonna fix all my character flaws, it's not gonna fix my how my I spend my money or I don't spend my money. And it's it's never, it is never gonna satisfy nothing that I can buy with money is actually gonna satisfy me. If you're not like a happy person, you're just gonna can you're gonna be a rich, unhappy person. And there's a lot of those out there, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I I I look at it this way. All right, so I'm gonna admit a problem that I have, and that's good.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Everyone sees these guitars on the wall. And and this beautiful new telecaster I have right here.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Oh, yeah, it's a beautiful little telecaster. I don't play enough. I love guitars. Yeah, I love guitars. There's always a new one that I see that I'm like, mmm, yes, it's so beautiful. And I'll give you I am thrifty though. That guitar was cheap. That was a secondhand guitar. Dude had it on sale for a hundred bucks, and I was just like, see, yeah, you you know, literally, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Last night I was literally told my wife we're sitting on the couch, and I was like, I'm like, why have I not played my guitar in the past three weeks? Dude, you know, you just you get caught up in the most, you get caught up in things, and you start to realize, like, I am just by default, I'm living by default, and I think this is what it comes down to. It's so hard for us to be intentional with what we do. I love you and I talked about Marcus Aurelius before, and we've talked about meditations. And one of the things that I love that Marcus talks about so much is just like being intentional. Let every deed have a purpose, let every word have a purpose. Don't, you know, don't do anything or say anything that you don't have a reason for why you're doing that. And I think why he reminded himself so often is not that you know he was better than anybody else, but it's that it is a the human condition that we our brains like to go on autopilot. We like to just get into a rut and we focus on things that are urgent and not important. And that can bleed over with our relationship with money too, or we start accumulating money, we make good money at a job or whatever, and we start, you know, our lifestyle uh changes and we get some good dopamine hits off that. But like that doesn't actually make us better people. It doesn't help us to be more deliberate or intentional with how we're spending our time or our money.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I look at I love the money as a tool thing, right? Yeah, because it is a tool. And just like any tool, you can have too much of something that you're not using the right way. Like, imagine that I get an awesome toolkit. Like, I'm also one of those geeks, like, dude, I I love having like a full tool set outside, like that. I can just go, ooh, here's my hammer. Here's all my here's all of that, right? But imagine if you have a thousand hammers, yeah, but you're not building anything. Like, and that's what I was talking to my daughter. Like with money, money is an intentional tool. Like, you know, right now I am budgeting, I'm working with my financial planner, I'm putting stuff uh in in the right places. But one of the things too is I'm also looking at, she's like, Well, what are you spending your money on? And I'm like, it like classes for my daughter. I'm looking at like things that I, you know, we do Muay Thai class together, she and me. And then also I also pay for my nephews because I'm like, if they can build that bond with those siblings, because she doesn't have brothers or sisters. So I'm like, these kids are like gonna be there for each other when they get older. Those are the things I'm spending money on because it's a house that I'm building. You know, it's the the world that I'm building, you know, the piano lessons, the painting lessons, these other things that I can pay for my daughter are building a house for her, you know, and like that's what I think money is important for. It's not about collecting, it's not about spending on chasing the Joneses things, but if you can look at it as like a knife, well, what dinners are you cooking? A hammer, what house are you building? Yes. Because you know, it's about building that house.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

I think that's a really so there's a really interesting connection there between the two topics that we discussed before here about what money won't fix and why a lot of financial advice doesn't help normal people. And I think the intersection there is that people are oftentimes looking for maybe the wrong advice. They're looking for like, okay, and I think one way that I would say this is I've um I always like to ask new clients, like, okay, imagine that we decide to work together. This is like first meeting, and it's three years from now, and we're conducting an annual review. What would have needed to have happened for you to feel like we're making progress? So this is basically saying it's another way of saying in three years, where do you want to be from now? But you're envisioning yourself in the future, you're looking back, what had to happen to get me to the next place? And you kind of find two different groups of people in here. You find either people who say um it's very connected to their personal identity, like we want to be on track for retirement, we want to be um focusing on giving more money to the things or whatever. All those great things, right? And then you have other people who say, like, well, we want to be within like a couple points of the Dow Jones on our investment return. And you're like, okay, like why? Um, but you start to see that like human nature oftentimes is one of what one of the reasons why money makes us so unhappy is we're trying to optimize things that shouldn't always be optimized. We're trying to perfect things, we're trying to get our investment returns a little bit better. We're trying to go for all these things that we think will make us happy when really they they won't. And so I think that's part of why like that's a way that money can simultaneously disappoint you because you can get where you're going and realize it wasn't actually where you want it to be. But also it can have you chasing things that it's like as like an engineer. I I think it was an Elon Musk quote about like engineers uh are notorious for optimizing things that shouldn't even exist. And you get into this pattern of like trying to fix a problem on uh on a DSL or on dial up internet, like you know what I'm saying? Like be more imaginative and and think about what you want your life to look like and let that inform the strategy.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

I remember flying into Tokyo and looking up to my left and seeing Mount Fuji as we landed. I've now had the the joy of flying through Qatar, and as I was flying from Qatar to um to the East Coast, looking down and seeing the volcanoes of Iceland. And, you know, haven't had a chance to visit Iceland yet. I've been all the through Japan. But how many people can say that they've like done these things? It's like there was a great movie called The Secret Life of Walter Middy, and one of my favorite books and a great movie. And Ben Stiller plays this character who works in uh the life fill, like a magazine studio, and his job is to back up the negatives of this fun photographer, and so he looks at the world through other people's eyes, and then this mishap comes along, and he has to try to go and find the last negative that he was supposed to run in this newspaper, and the photographer he can't find him, so he goes on this quest to find this guy, and the quest takes him on this adventure. And I was like sitting there and I was like, isn't that life though? We sit there, we collect assets, or we buy stupid things, either side of the spectrum, but you're not really living intentionally, you know? And so I think that, and I'm not saying go wild and spend on stupid stuff, but I am saying figure out what it is that's important to you. I I met someone, you know what I would love? One of my things that I would love to do, I'd love to build up my podcast, become really big, make a lot of money, set aside, put things in for my daughter, and then at some point in time, I would love to just retire, move to Japan, buy one of those small houses they have there, and teach English, you know, and have a mastery of the language is is pretty well pretty good based off of our podcast interviews of the English language.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

So I would I would endorse you for teaching English.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah. I did it for 20 years, man. So it's like, and I have my master's in English, so it's like it's something that I would do. That's awesome. But it's like, that's intentional for me. And like, yes, retirement for me is gonna look different than it is for other people. That's gonna be my second act. And I already know that that is exactly what I'm gonna be doing, you know. But it's like, I think if people can't plan that or can't think about what is it they want, you go into these circles. And I think there's a giant disconnect between the financial advice and how people are actually living their lives. You know, and it's like I think that we have this accumulation philosophy, but like, what if the person needs to be you hasn't figured out why they're accumulating? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, it really is. I think I think you there's a lot of reasons too. If you if you zoom out, there's no end of good financial advice, even on the internet, you know, like, and I hate to say that, but like, look, I am not the smartest guy in the world. If if I can do this job, anybody who wants to be a financial advisor and applies their applies themselves to it and works at it, this is not an unattainable job. All right. Yes, it is, there's technical skills that need to go into this, but it can be done. It could be done by taking classes online and things. Um, but that's not what people use the internet for. I think what's interesting is that we use the internet for distraction. We use the internet to distract ourselves from our lives for the most part. And this is something that was uh really interesting that from a conversation I had on my my last podcast with uh the therapist, and we are talking about how, like, really that has that's what people use the internet for. And what they're not doing is having good conversations with their spouse. They're not thinking about what do they actually want the future look like, how do they want To be spending their days. They're not sitting down and writing down what are things that we can that my spouse and I can do for five minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, a weekend that are ways that we like to connect with each other and spend time with each other. Um and so by and large, you you might look up great financial advice on the internet and you might find the right answer, but that's probably not going to fix your follow-through problem because your follow-through problem doesn't come from a lack of access to the knowledge. It comes from something else, probably between your ears.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

We um I I I'm doing um my master's in English, and I'm still still finishing off. I started during COVID, I took a hiatus, but I wanted to go back and finish it because I love writing. And I wrote this short story for a class last week, and it was literally about um sci-fi, because I love sci-fi. Guy lives on this at mining on this asteroid. Uh, and because the the workers were so disengruntled on the asteroid, the company decided to implement this AI tool that they can go and like after work jump into this, like the grid. Kind of like, you know, if you go to no Star Trek, like the holodeck, you know. And it's like, so they're getting in there, and this guy is in there, he's got this perfect like relationship, perfect family on the grid. But then, you know, he's got to go back to working when he takes off the glasses, he looks over and he sees his son sitting next to him, and his wife sits next to them, plugged into the grid as well, you know? And so here they are. We we uh so I'm with you. Like we use the internet as an escape, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

I'm gonna go it's worth not to interrupt you, but you need to s make a black mirror episode about that on Netflix. That would be that would fit the show 1000%.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I I would love to. Well, that's why I want to start writing again. And like I want to start making stuff, like that's part of my vision, too, is like making stuff because that is such a good episode. Like, and it could be a total black mirror, like they're just plugged in and then boom, and there's a person in front of you. And you know, one of the things that um my wife has to fly back to the US for a show in March. And yeah, uh, she has two of them there. And we were like, well, fly to the US and bag, fly to the US and bag. Or we stay there and we've got 10 days back stateside where we sit there and figure out, well, what are we gonna do? And so I said, and she's like, Do you want to fly back first? And if I, you know, if there's something else, you can come back over. And I was like, how about we just stay? And we figure things out. So I hit up all the people that I've been connecting to on my wine podcast and said, I'm gonna be in the Appa Valley. Can we come by and film at your at your winery and stuff, you know? And so everyone's like, Yeah, dude, we'd love to have you in in person. But the idea was like, I spend so much time optimizing my business, doing this. And I'm like, yeah, man, I just got a 10-day trip with my wife, paid for. Like, let's do something intentional and have a beautiful time. And like, that's what we should be optimizing for. That's what we should be putting things in place for, you know?

SPEAKER_02 24:59

And I think what's interesting too is like it's it's really important, I think, for couples, especially. Um, but I mean, also if you're single, but but especially for couples, because a lot of times you're both bringing different ideas of what your retirement will look like to the table to to really have um good conversations where they're listening and they're really where you're digging into just like finding out what what makes that person, I don't know, excited and what gets them going outside of their roles and outside of their job. Um, there is a there was a book that Sam Harris wrote called The Moral Landscape. And I'm I'm doing a huge jump talking now about like ethics and stuff, whatever. But I I love he uses an analogy I really like where he talks about like um morality as in a basically um a scale of like the well-being of sentient beings. Now we've got really deep on this, but you could have like two different peaks of like, okay, here's two different cultures that both have, you know, morality that's they have very different cultures. They might dress differently, have different foods or whatever, but they're both, you know, on a very similar moral plane as far as how they treat other human beings and like human rights and stuff like that. So you can have two, and and I think the translation there to families and financial planning, and taking this all way, way back, um, is like you can have other people can have different versions of what a fulfilling life looks like. And you see all these like YouTube videos and ads of like, you know, how much do you need to retire? And like, uh, is two million dollars enough? And like a lot of people, two million dollars is way too much to retire. And for other people, it might not be enough. And so it it is when you're doing this whole looking up the blanket advice that doesn't work for a lot of people, you have to realize that you know, blanket advice usually only covers one button. It's the person who's giving it. You know, if it if it covers everybody, it covers nobody. So find out what's good for you and and don't feel like you have to have two million dollars, say, for retirement, or don't feel like that that's enough necessarily. But I think I think personalization is a real to take a 10-minute ramble and turn it into like a one sentence spit uh spin. Personalization is a one reason that financial advice fails a lot of people because they're looking at rules of thumb and generalities and not realizing something can be good for me that's different than what is good for another person. And both of those things are equally good and they're not contradictory, they're just different, right? I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

One of the things, too, give me 30 seconds here. Um my little person just walked in the room.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah. Um, you know, one of the things too, with the personalization, uh I love that because you know, it's like I see people and like all the time the uh fincers are like, this is how you get it, and then like they'd spin off this one thing. And like there's one, you know, I follow one guy and I love his stuff, and he lives in a van. It's a freaking rad van. And I would be like, dude, that would be awesome. But like, that's not gonna work for my wife and my daughter and our our our fit, you know. I might sit there and go, everyone should move to Vietnam. Dude, that's that's that's not like I live here, but like, you know, I also like things elsewhere, you know. Some people are like, this is how you do it. Dude, it is so personal. And one of the things that I was thinking about is when we were talking about this and us brainstorming, I realized like money removes stress. Like when you have, I mean, at a certain point it adds it stoop, but like to a degree it can remove stress, but it doesn't create fulfillment, you know? Yeah, and that's what I I was thinking about. Like real contentment comes from somewhere else. And like that contentment comes from, you know, I don't know whether it's chasing your side quests, you know. I I I I love gaming. And like my daughter and I were talking about game, like um, like simulation theory the other day. And I'm like, I I personally think we're in a giant video game. Like, and I think it's a lot of good reasons to believe that is true. Right. And like one of the things too is like I think we are, and I think like, and she's and she says, Well, if we are in a video game, what's the goal? And I said, the goal is to figure out your thing, your quests, and to whatever game you're playing to really live it up. And I think that's where the contentment comes from, you know, getting out and playing the game well, to stop chasing more, but to to be in the game and to live the game, you know?

SPEAKER_02 29:25

A hundred percent. I think there was um, so there's a book called The Art of Dying Well, and it's written by I think it's Katie Butler. Um she she quotes a lot of people in there, but it's kind of an end of life. It's basically like a prep for the end of life starting at age 50 and going by decade and by stage. So it's really interesting. But she quotes a uh psychiatrist, I believe she's quoting Irvin Yalam, and he uh I'm hopefully I'm not butchering that connection, but he worked a lot with like oncology patients and some of his clinical uh work. And he one of the things that he said, and I'm gonna butcher this in summary, is like if if if you wait till the end of your life to start being interested in other things outside of yourself, like your family or hobbies or even the weather or whatever, like it's too late for you. You're you're not gonna get your death sentence and all of a sudden become a great person. If anything, you you're at best gonna be filled with regret, but maybe not even that for some times. Maybe you're just gonna be who you are. And I think if we dial it way back from uh the moral landscape and and death sentences in oncology, if we're just talking about like being a normal person, like hey, you you once you get to where you have arrived with money, if you haven't become a content person somewhere along the way already, if you haven't been happy, if you haven't learned how to just enjoy where you are, um, you're not gonna be happy when you get where you think you're going. You're just gonna have more money.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

100%. 100%. And and I think that the uh the um going back to the game, uh I remember I I I played games a lot when I was coming through college, and I loved Diablo. I loved the gold, I loved the loot, I loved the uh, you know, man, it's like I got this new weapon, I got this. And like one of the things too is like I had one friend and he loved to collect all this stuff, but he hated going on missions. Like he was like always sitting there and he had all of these hacks to get these different gear. And when it came to playing, he wasn't that great because he was just centered around like he was like, Oh, did you beat that guy yet? Well, not really, but I do have the sword, like a 32-level sword of enchantment. And I was like, Yeah, what what good is it, man? Like, let's go out and play. And then one day, it was interesting because we were playing that game, and I I I had one day that I it was like 12 hours that we were playing there, and I came out of that dorm room and looked outside, and I just I heard the birds singing, like chirping. It was like night, but there was still some bird song, and it just struck me. I was like, man, I'm I'm not playing this game. I'm not playing this game right, you know, and so I I kind of toned back on my gaming after that because I knew I would just immerse myself and I was like, my goal since then has been playing this game well. And, you know, and I think that if I if I had to tell people something and uh to focus on using money as a tool to build the life you want and not an emotional crutch. Don't use it as this thing that you lean on through life to kind of do what you think you need to be doing, use it as an intentional tool. You know, I'm gonna be flying back to the States and having 10 days with my wife where I get to go visit some of the coolest wineries in the Napa Valley with people that I had on my podcast. Like, that's awesome. And that came from one simple decision that I wanted to talk to people who made wine. And then I started making podcasts, and I used money at a very minimal level to be intentional about creating that podcast. Like that was a good use of money, you know? And now, even if that fell apart, and then I just get this 10-day thing where I get to go to all these wineries with my wife, wasn't it worth it at that point? You know what I mean? So worth it.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah, so worth it. No, 100%. It it really is. And you you you hit the nail on the head there of like playing the game that you're actually playing. You know, I think one way that, and and this just kind of popped into my head when you're talking about this. You know how like people on social media will think that they're doing something by like posting about their opinions, about like politics or um whatever. Like, you know, some some crisis happens overseas and they're like change, and I'm not trying to knock anybody or be belittle anyone, but like uh change my profile picture to the flag of such and such. We've probably all done it before. The nice ways that we feel like we're showing support, but like we're actually like it's not that we're doing anything bad, but we're not actually supporting or helping the people who the hurricane tore their town up. You know, like if we gave 50 bucks for the Red Cross, maybe that helps. But we're it's almost like with social media, there's like a trap of like you can feel like you're doing something because you're shouting into the void, and that makes you feel better about yourself, but you're not actually having an impact. And I think money can kind of be the same way if you look at it at a certain angle. If you always are just looking for the thing around the corner. Once I get a 250K in income, then I'm good. Once I get a 500k in income, then I'm good. Once I hit a $5 million net worth, then I'm good. You you all you can trick yourself into thinking that you're working on something, a real problem in your life, like your relationships, like your like your compulsiveness, like your greed, like your stinginess, like whatever the problem could be. You think that you're doing this because you're envisioning this mental, this journey towards wealth that may or may not actually manifest, but it's just a way of bullshitting yourself. It's a way of bullshitting yourself into feeling like you're fixing your personal problems by putting goals that have dollars attached to them. And so, in a way, it's almost like worse than doing nothing because it's like telling yourself you're doing something and then not actually addressing any of your own character problems.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

100%.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

That popped into my head when you're talking about this because I feel like what you are doing is the exact opposite. It's very intentional. It's saying, hey, I'm doing this trip with my wife. We're gonna, we're just gonna have fun. You know, this is these are the good days. I don't know if you overwatch the The Office, but like Andy on the office is like, you know, I wish there was a way to know if you're in the good old days before they were gone. And it's like, that's what you just have to tell yourself. Just be grateful for the moments that you're in and and be and uh and realize when you are in the good days and when you are lucky and blessed.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

We um we've been cleaning out my daughter's room the last uh two weeks. Her she's 10 now, and she wants to move more toward she likes her computer, she likes her art. She she bought we bought her a sewing machine because she likes to make stuff. And her grandma is an amazing seamstress. So she's like, she made some of her own shirts and stuff. And so, but we had all these little kids' things, and we had all of these baby clothes that we've been giving away to other people. My wife had found this great Facebook group, and she's like, we got all these toys, and people have been coming and going through it and loving it. But when we look at all of the things, you know, it was that those good old days, you know, like you're you're sitting there going, you know, I remember like my daughter said, Um, If I could go back in time, I'd go to this time. And you know, I I had this weird realization. If I could go back in time, the time I would go to, because it was strangely peaceful and strangely like there was this beautiful family bond during that time. COVID. When we were in lockdown and we were all stuck in a house, and everyone was like waiting to get out of this horrible time, but yet I was just with my family all day, every day. We would have these long naps, we would spend time with each other, and like, you know, and yet I remember specifically waiting to get out of that time, looking forward to transitioning. And like, I think that we don't realize that even in the hard times, it's still good times because you're with people, you have that, you know. And I I think that one of the things too is like um you're lucky to be even playing the game that you're in, even if it's tough at times, you know, and I think that if you're drawing breath, I I spoke to um Richard uh Whitehall last night, and Richard um is a uh I'm slaughtering his name. Let me just redo that so I don't mess up the name. I spoke to a guest last night that was actually a double amputee. He was born with uh with a situation that they couldn't have his legs, and so they had to remove it. And dude has run over a hundred-something marathons. He ran 40 marathons in 40 days. He's a world record holder, he's a gold medalist in the Paralympics. And you know what? He lives it, he plays the game at the best he can, and like at the same time, like it was this intentionality. And he was like, he was just said, you know, there's no reason to wake up today and to say, my life sucks. He's like, certainly you have bad situations, but you know what? If you're drawing breath, you can find the good. And and here's the cool thing, and coming back full circle, money can be a tool for you to find the good in your life, but you have to see it as that, you know?

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Yes. It's a well inside of you, and you have to continually dig it, with or without money. And if you keep digging at the the cultivating the well of goodness or the garden of goodness and happiness and contentment in your own life, then when you reach those milestones and you can spend the extra 500 or $500,000 on whatever you want to buy, you're gonna be in a place to actually appreciate it. And you're gonna have what people actually want, which is those meaningful relationships and purpose in their life to go along with your money. Otherwise, you're just gonna be some ritual geezer.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Right. I had I had someone the other day who messaged me and like they're like, You, you know, you have a financial podcast. Why are you always talking about such esoteric things? And I said, Because it's about life, man. A finance, if you want to understand money, certainly like we can give, you know, there are plenty of podcasts out there that will give you quick tips that will tell you how to invest, how to do this, how to do that. But at the end of the day, a financial podcast should be a podcast about life and meaning. Because, you know, if you're building all that money, but you don't have that purpose, that that that thing. My dad um had kind of a second act to his career. After he stepped back from being a businessman and working in in all types of different businesses, he he became a massage therapist and a massage therapy teacher and ran his own massage school. And he found more purpose in that than he ever found in anything else and paid him less money, but he found joy, he found purpose. And I I would say that he won the game. He won the game that he was playing because he figured out what his thing was, you know? That's huge.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

That's that's that's a that's amazing. But that's also very just like you said, being very intentional and with with his own life and with his own retirement. And uh and that's phenomenal. I I know of a lot of people who want to have a second act that's different than their first act. And a lot of times they though the golden years of people's retirement can be what is a work that you find that's that's satisfying, and somebody can be going and working at a warehouse job that they really enjoy, or some some jobs that they really enjoy, and they've got you know, five million dollar portfolio portfolio, but um that that's not the thing that brings them happiness in life, seeing their investments go up. It's it's a connection with other humans and the purpose that they have there.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

I saw this one post, um, and it was real post. This lady in China uh was working at this little cafe, and it was like she was working just like getting people food as like a server.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

And then someone realized, someone saw it that she was getting dropped off every day in a Bentley at the cafe. That's awesome. And then they found out that the little old lady that was just working as a server at this cafe was this like multi-millionaire who was just bored. She was sitting at home bored. And so she's like, I've always wanted to work in a restaurant. And so she rolled up to this restaurant every day and was like working because not because she had to, but because the interaction with people brought her joy. She was living in her in her ivory tower, removed from the world and didn't have any interactions. And she's like, what was important to her was meeting people and being in amongst people, you know? So true. So true.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

No, that that's phenomenal. That's a really good story. How do you think people can find that one thing, that thing that is for them? I I think it's different for everybody else. Um, I probably talked about this book on our last podcast, but in Victor Frankel's book, Man's Search for Meaning, he he wrestles a lot with the question of like, uh, what is your purpose in life? And, you know, what the way a lot of people were were raised is that they were taught there is a purpose in life, especially like if they had a religious upbringing. They're like, you know, this is the specific purpose you're put on earth for us to do, X, Y, or Z. Um, but I really like how Frankel frames it where he says, you know, the purpose of life is not an answer that you can find. It's it's a question that life is asking you, what is your purpose? It is up for you to create meaning and to create purpose. And the three biggest ways that humans do that are by giving themselves to a cause bigger than themselves, by having deep and meaningful and honest relationships with somebody else, and by suffering in a meaningful way, whether that's for an individual, like in a lot that can manifest itself as a couple who's been married for 60 years and now the husband is the caretaker for his wife who has dementia. And in a way, he is, you know, suffering by doing all this extra work and going through this, but he's finding great purpose and just being there for somebody who was there for him. So I think that answer is really as different as every person, but it's it's figuring out, you know, what are the causes that are bigger than me that I can give myself to, that I can lose myself, or I can work for 12 hours at a whether that's a restaurant or something else, and and feel like, hey, I I lost track of time because this is something that I'm really able to add value. What is that relationship that you have that's so important that That you would never lie to them, that you would tell them that shirt makes you look fat. Now that that's a bold statement, but like if you can be that honest with somebody and they can be that honest with you, that's a very, very close and trusting relationship. Um, probably shouldn't say it that way either. Um, and then you know, like w what are some ways that you can grind it out and suffer for something that you think is worth building or doing? And I think if you can find like one out of three of those things to do, then like you found probably a lot more purpose than than you think. What people think will give them purpose is dopamine, uh, you know, a positive feedback loop, milestones, accomplishments. Well, those are just things that happen on the way of chasing the other three things. Those are things that you look back and you're like, yeah, do you remember all that stuff? But it didn't come from chasing the rewards. It came from chasing the the purpose that you're going after. And as far as how they can do that individually, like I have no idea. You just have to start to raise your snails. You you can always adjust course when you're moving. You just have to do something. Just start moving, do something, and adjust from there. I would hope.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

I love that. Where can people find out more about you and what you offer and what you do?

SPEAKER_02 45:12

I'm active on LinkedIn. Uh, that's how we met. I have the uh podcast on all the podcast platforms called the Successfully Retired Podcast. And my website is brandenburgfs.com for Brandenburg Financial Services.