More Money Some Problems | The Sean Trace Show

We've all heard the phrase: more money, more problems.

But that's not entirely true.

Money can solve a lot of problems. It can reduce stress, create opportunities, provide security, and give you options. The real challenge is that money doesn't eliminate problems—it changes them.

In this episode, I talk about happiness, lifestyle inflation, responsibility, relationships, the fear of losing what you've built, and why defining "enough" may be one of the most important financial skills you'll ever develop.

Because the goal isn't simply more money.

The goal is building a life that's worth living once you get it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, guys? I'm back, and I'm here to talk to you about something that was popping into my head. It just was percolating up there. It was just something that uh in my podcast, someone mentioned something, and I just wanted to talk to you guys about more money, more problems. But you know what? I don't actually agree with more money, more problems, because in reality, having more money does help with some problems. Let's be real. A lot of people believe money is the answer to everything. And I don't fully agree with that because money is a tool, right? You know, money is a tool the same way a knife is a tool. And you know, if like you have more knives, well, unless you're like a collector and a chef, more knives is not necessarily going to help you out. You know, having a certain number of knives that you can then cook things with is important. And to be fair, money as a tool can solve a lot of problems. Just like having some knives or a hammer around the house can help you solve problems as well. It can reduce stress, it creates opportunities, it provides security, and it gives you options. But here's what nobody talks about. And this is one of the things that I think is one of the most important things. Money doesn't eliminate problems, it changes them. I I had a guest on that was awesome, and they said that um money has a way of turning, or maybe this is a book. I don't know where I heard it, but it was amazing. Money has a way of turning uh disasters or problems into inconveniences. And that's what I'm talking about. Because, you know, if you have enough money, you can deal with challenges that come your way. If you have no money, those challenges become huge disasters. I want to run something by you. Now, here's one of the problems that I see. The first problem is that thinking money will make you happy. You know, many people spend years, I'm talking years, believing that happiness lives on the other side of a bigger paycheck and they chase that. They go after it and they go after it hard. And then they get the raise. Then they deal with the new challenges that come. They get the promotion, they get the business success, and they realize they're still the same person, and life has not really changed that much. And like you're so looking toward the future that you have a bigger problem, right? I saw someone wearing a shirt, and I'm always working hard. I am driven and try to be locked in. But today, my daughter had a dance show. Like, we had all these things that we had to do. And, you know, after the dance show, her teacher paid for them all to go ice skating. And I had to make a decision like whether to keep pushing hard or whether to step back and go, you know what? Maybe it's time to just go ice skating. And so that's what I did. I went ice skating with my daughter. And when I got off the ice, someone was wearing a shirt that said, This is the good old days, you know? And we don't realize that what we're living right now, this is the good old days. And someday we're gonna look back on this and go, you know what, what was going on at that time was so special. And we think that we need more money, we need more things, we need all this, and we don't realize that, like what we really need is peace, that peace of mind. So, how can we separate out the mindset of thinking money will make you happy? Well, there's some different ways that we can approach this. The first thing is to separate wealth from happiness. You know, I'm not wealthy, but today I can promise you I was really happy. And wealth is this thing that we can work on while we are also over here cultivating our happiness. They don't have to be completely connected, they can be uh interconnected, but they don't have to be completely dependent. Now, step one, build financial security. What does that look like? First of all, get your emergency fund down, get that dialed in. And the best way to do that, number one, start making more money, and number two, start spending less. And anything that you're saving goes into that emergency fund. And then once you have it there, don't touch it. Make it hard to get to. Make it so that it is removed from you in some way or that it is difficult to access this. Um, by doing that, you start creating that foundation, that base, that safety. You know, think about um, anybody who love Harry Potter? I love Harry Potter. We're a big Harry Potter family, and one of the things I love is watching them go into the dungeons at Gringotts, go into the giant golden uh vault, and there's all this gold in there. Now, getting into your vault is a challenging thing. It's not easy to go down into your vault. It's not like beep, beep, beep, you're scanning stuff and spending like this. It's kind of what I like about the finance in the Harry Potter world is it is actually much more difficult to go about spending. I mean, I don't know if they've got different types of phone scanning apps that make that withdraw galleons from your vault. But you know, having to physically go there to go into your vault, past a dragon or whatever else is there is a challenge. And that's a good thing. Now, the next thing that I think is really important when you are looking to shift this idea of thinking money will make you happy is step two to invest in relationships and experiences. Today I realized something. Uh, Goka, my daughter's dance teacher, is probably one of the best influences in my daughter's life. She, however, makes me crazy at times by rescheduling and changing the timing. Um, the girls in my daughter's dance class were supposed to do the dance recital next weekend. Every month they practice for a month, and at the end of the month, they do a dance video that they do together. And uh we've followed this dance teacher from different stance schools. And, you know, I had some challenges at one time with the school, but we are good now. And I will never leave that dance teacher because my daughter loves her classmates and she loves this teacher, like absolutely the best. And I think back to some of the early teams that I was part of and how those sports teams were so impactful for me. And I'm thinking, you know, my daughter's in that same space. And those are the relationships that we try to invest in because that's where happiness is at. Today, you know, my daughter's on summer vacation. I wanted to get back and get to work, I wanted to do all these things. And uh that's not what happened. I sat down and was watching my daughter ice skate. And then I noticed something that even with the dance teacher down there, no one could skate well. So I'm not a great ice skater, but I slapped on some skates and I'm good enough that I was able to help and support a lot of the kids while they were skating. And that was an investing in relationships. You know, my daughter's investing in those relationships and these experiences. Like I could have gone and worked more. I could have gotten onto my computer while they were all ice skating and focused on um, you know, sending out another connection, sending out another email. But I didn't. Why? Because I recognized in that moment what was most important was to invest in the people. And I think step three is really important because it's remembering that fulfillment and wealth are not the same thing. These are not the same thing, they are different. You can be fulfilled and be poor, you can be wealthy and not have that fulfillment. And hopefully, you can find a way to be fulfilled and wealthy at the same time. But those are two things that you cultivate independently. They're not dependent upon each other. They can have an effect on each other, but they don't have to be glued together if you get what I'm saying. Now, the next thing that I think is really interesting to start thinking about is to think and actively consider this all the time, lifestyle inflation. I had to check myself today that I was uh coming up on payday, and I'm sitting there thinking and I'm looking at my setup, and I was like, hmm, you know what? I right now my assistant is using my laptop. And I was like, mmm, is it time to get her a laptop so I can get my laptop back? And then I was like, you know what? I would like a really big monitor so that I can review my videos on this big monitor so my employees can look up and see that monitor and look at it with me. I don't have space, first of all. And second of all, I caught myself going, you know, more, more, more, more. You know what? Those things are not going to help move the needle. My laptop that I'm recording on right now is perfectly fine for my assistant. My monitors are more than good enough. And this is a trap. The more people make, the more they spend. And you'll see the nicer car, the bigger home, the upgraded lifestyle. The problem is that expenses can grow as fast as income, sometimes faster. And so we have a solution to that. There is a way to fix that. Here's how it goes. First of all, you need to keep a gap. What do I mean by that? Well, step one is to increase savings as income grows. So the more money you make, well, you were already saving at this amount. Well, let's get some lifestyle creep, but let that lifestyle creep affect a different area. Not your spending, but your savings. Let's imagine that you keep spending at the same rate, but you go, okay, I'm making more money. Let's put additional money into savings this month. You got more, you're intentional about it, and you start putting that money that is extra, which is awesome, into your savings. And this is important because it allows you to still harness that same emotion of wanting to spend more, wanting to do more with that money, but putting it into the right category and into the right place. Now, the next thing that I think is really good, step two would be to be intentional about upgrades. You know, we upgraded my daughter's piano right here because her 25-year-old electric piano died. And when we looked at how much it would cost to fix it, it was about the same price as a 50-year-old refurbished Yamaha U1E. Now, this is a great piano. My daughter probably won't need another piano for at least 40 years because this thing will last that long. And we're intentional about the upgrade. This was money that we spent, but it was a smart buy because it has the power to influence something for a longer period of time. Now, that's it. The upgrades are gonna happen. You're gonna deal with this stuff, but being intentional about it. Now, step three, avoid turning every raise into a new bill. Every time you get a raise, don't sit there and go, time to buy something. It's like the the the the Pavlov's dog, you ring the bell and you start going buying. Ring the bell, more money, buy. Well, how about not making that connection and slowing it down? Now, one of the things too is that as we start making more money, we get more money, people will often deal with our third problem, which is more responsibility. Now, what does that mean? Great power comes great responsibility? Is that how it goes? I don't know. Higher income often comes with greater expectations. Things like, you know, more employees. As I start making more money at my business, I've got more employees, I've got more clients, I've got more pressure, I've got more people depending upon me. And, you know, success creates opportunity, but it also creates obligations. I feel like I'm in a spider web where I'm kind of connected to all these sides at the same time. Well, what can we do to deal with that? You know, more money, more problems. Well, how can we make it so that we don't have to deal with that? One of the things that I've been working with, and I think is a great way to do this, is to build capacity. What am I mean? Thinking about what it is that you can do that it makes your overall system work better. And this is going to be important to develop systems. When I am editing videos, my company is functioning at a level right now that I can't do all of this myself. I could not edit every last video myself. But I do tell you this there are some of them that I have to jump in and take control of because I just need to get in there. I'm, you know, the creative that has been doing this for as long as I have, and I have to create the systems to make that work. Now, step two is really important as well. It's connected to that, and that's learning to delegate. I hired uh my awesome assistant, uh Jade, who is a rock star and so good, and she is helping me move the needle right away. Now, what she's doing, if any of you guys are booking on my podcast, Jade sits right next to me and helps me confirm dates. She's helping me with outreach, she's helping me find awesome and interesting people because I'm not good with scheduling. I was making so many mistakes on the scheduling and having to reschedule things and move things around. Jade is a rock star with that. And she's also helping me seek out really positive and awesome guests. And she makes me sound nicer than I am. A little bit more bitchy than Jade makes me sound. But she's great and she's running everything through me, but it's that delegation. Like anything that still needs to be flagged, she flags to me. And people that are really, you know, I've been working with a long time and are like people that are true colleagues and friends, that's all me. But I can't handle everything right now. And that's the thing that you gotta do. You gotta learn to delegate. Step three is focus on sustainability, not just growth. You know, everyone wants more, more, more. Build, build, build. But if you do it the wrong way, you are going to run yourself into the ground. Now, more money, more problems. You know, another area that people will find those problems is in protecting their relationships. Now, what do I mean by that? You'll see it. Money can complicate relationships. Think about this. Someone gives you $10 million. Hmm, think about who's going to be showing up and giving you those calls. You know, friends may see you differently, uh, family members may have expectations, people may treat you differently based on what you have instead of who you are. Think about that. You know, I saw this one guy who won the lottery recently and he got up there and he wore a mask, so no one would know who it was. And it might be one of the safest and best things that you can do because, you know, money changes things. And when people see that you have money, it can complicate those relationships. So, how do we keep that from getting as complicated? Well, I think the real solution to this is simple. Simple enough. Step one, you got to maintain healthy boundaries. Now, if you get all that money and you win $10 million, that's your money. You don't owe anyone anything. You don't have to do anything. Now, granted, you might want to. Goodness gracious knows that if I won $10 million right now, I would definitely invest in some smart investments. 100%. I would run everything through my CFP, my CPA, and get the people that can help me make the right decisions. But I also have to be very careful and think about who do I want to help? You know, first of all, I'd get my mom a safe place to live, a house that she doesn't have to pay for, but it'd be in my name. I'd invest in it so that there's not anything messy down the road and that she doesn't have to worry about having any extra paperwork when she gets older and you know, having to state things. So make it simple, make it easy, but get someone who can help you set that up. That's one thing that I'd want to do. Same thing for my dad. Get him a simple place to do live and make everything smooth as can be. But doing it the right way. And that's not because they're asking me to do it. Those are things that I want to do. But you can do it in a smart way and consult with people that are going to take your best interest in mind. Number two, step two, be generous without becoming responsible for everyone. Just like I said when I wanted to help my mom, I don't have to do that. I want to do that. I can be generous. Now, it doesn't mean that I owe every single person who ever helped me in my life to go out and change their financial fortune, like financial future. I don't have to go and find, you know, the student that I, you know, taught in sixth grade uh English class, I don't have to sit there and finance their movie. Like, that's not something I have to do. As much as they want to make that movie, that's not my responsibility. And step three, remember who was there before the success. I love Will Smith. He had a quote on this, I can't remember what the quote was, but he talked about, you know, people that are there in your success just as much as the people who are there. He was talking about focus on the people that were there before you were successful because they were there regardless. You know, my wife, she married me when I was an English teacher, making horrible money. And hopefully, when I'm the biggest podcaster in the world. Hopefully, please. I'm manifesting that. Manifest. Um, you know, our relationship will still be the same, but she took that chance on me before that. And she's gonna be there once I get there as well. And that's it. Focus on the people that were there with you through all the tough times. My brother, my sister-in-law, these people are my rock, my sister as well. These people are my rock, and they were always there for me. Now, the people who start showing up once you start getting successful, be wary of those people. Doesn't mean they're not great. Some of them might be awesome, most of them might be awesome, but be careful because you gotta have a frame of reference, and that allows you to have the grounding and the boundaries, you know? Now, uh, one of the other things that happens with more money and more problems is people have this core fear of losing it. This is a big problem, problem number five that we're looking at today. Now, you know, I have this fear all the time. As I'm making more money, I have this fear that the rug is gonna get pulled out from under me. Like in uh uh peanuts and Snoopy, like what is it, peppermint patty would hold the the football, and then Charlie Brown would come running up to kick it and she'd pull it out every time. And it's one of the strangest things about money is that sometimes the more people have, the more they worry. If this is me. And it's not about getting it, but they worry about losing it. The house, the investments, the business, the reputation. Fear can grow alongside wealth. And we have to find a solution for that. Now, what I find is to focus on skills. What do I mean by that? This first step is to build confidence in your abilities. Uh, what was it? That that one poem, I can't remember, but it goes along the lines of you can risk everything on one game of cards and then you lose everything. And know that you have the ability to rebuild in the midst of it. And that to me is an important thing. You have confidence in your abilities so that if everything were to fall apart, you've got this. You can bounce back. Now, step two is to remember that skills create wealth. And even if you lose some of the things that you have, you still have your skills. And say the skills change. Well, the core skills of your ability to learn is still there. And you can always develop new skills. And that's part of the leveling up that you can always do. And you have to have that faith in yourself and that trust in yourself. And that's step three. You have to trust yourself more than your bank account. Because at the end of the day, the wealth that you created, well, let's say you won it in the lottery, came through you. It came through your ability to do things, uh, inheritance and other things. But let's still let's go back. Say you lose that. You have the ability to rebuild no matter what happens. Now, more money, more problems. Number six. This is important. Losing sight of enough. Now, this is one of the core things that I've been talking to people about lately. Enough is one of the most important things that you can think about in personal finance. There is always someone richer, someone with a bigger company, a nicer house, a larger audience. If you're not careful, comparison becomes a game you can never win. So, what's the solution for this? We have to define enough. Now that's important to do. For me, last year I was chasing more. More, more money, more this, more that. And as I started to get more, I realized something. It wasn't what I was wanting. I wanted the ability to go with my daughter to the ice skating rink. I wanted the ability to pick my clients. I wanted the ability to choose when I work and when I'm off. And this is step one. You have to decide what success means to you. You have to say, okay, success to me means that I can turn off work on the weekends and say, not doing anything right now. Success means to me that I can develop a brand like Odie with my brother and have that be a core part of what I want to do. Success means what it means to you. It's different for everyone. And once you figure that out, you can move on to the second step. And that is building toward your goals, not someone else's. Dude, I do not, I repeat, do not want to be Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a machine. I respect him entirely so much. I respect him so much for what he's created and what he's done. Now, does that mean that I want to create that myself? Hell no. I don't want to do all the things that dude does. He's a machine, and I don't want to be a machine. I have to think about what my goals are. I want to be the biggest podcaster in the world. I want to have outdoor brands. I want to have a lifestyle wellness center. I want to have my own winery, barrels and roots winery, like that's tied and connected to my wine podcast. Those are things that I want. And that's not something someone else wants. It's stuff that I want. Now, once you can figure out that, you can move to step three. And this is to practice gratitude for what you've already built. I can have gratitude for the fact that I've got four podcasts, that my daughter has a YouTube channel with 10,000 subscribers, and my wife is a professional singer. I can have gratitude for the amazing time that I get to spend with my family, for the house that we have together, for the pets that I have, for this guitar here, for that guitar there, for this beautiful desk for podcasting that I just had made for me to podcast at night and for my assistant to sit at during the day. It's a custom-made podcast table. I love it, man. It's my perfect setup. I have gratitude for that. I have gratitude for the ability to have made money that allowed me to do that. Now, I want you to think about this. Money is a special thing, it can solve a lot of problems. It solves many problems. And anyone who says otherwise probably hasn't struggled financially. I have. But money isn't the finish line. It's a tool, like I said earlier. You can use it wisely and it can create freedom. You use it poorly and it can create bigger and more expensive problems. The goal isn't simply more money. The goal is building a life that's worth living once you get it. And that's a step by step process. I hope you guys have a beautiful day. I'll see you next time. If you're interested in getting some Odie swag, let me know. We're gonna be coming to some stores definitely not near you soon. And we're gonna be setting up an online site so you can guys can get your Odie swag. So hope you have a beautiful day, and I'll see you next time.