#1785 - What Does It Actually Mean To Be “Wealthy”?

Have you ever wondered what it means to be wealthy? In this episode, Kevin and Alan explore the true meaning of wealth beyond just money. They discuss how having plenty of what truly matters lets you be generous without running out. Sharing personal stories, they talk about the emotional impact of wanting to help others financially and the idea of short-term sacrifices for long-term abundance. Whether you want to improve your finances, relationships, or overall well-being, this episode challenges traditional views of wealth and offers a fresh, holistic approach to living a rich life.

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Show notes:
(1:51) Kevin’s definition of wealth
(5:26) Sustainable giving
(7:22) Alan’s definition of wealth
(9:46) Knowing your numbers
(10:55) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coac

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. Today, for episode number 1,785, what does it actually mean to be wealthy? I went on a podcast yesterday technically it'll be like three days ago when you're hearing this that Alan was on, hosted by a young man named Stoy Stoy Really really good human, a really good human. That was a great interview. It was a great interview and it was all about wealth.

Speaker 1 0:32

It was the no BS Wealth Podcast, I think is what it was called. And one of the questions he asked was what does it really mean to be wealthy? He said, even if we're not talking about money to you, what is your personal understanding of what does it mean to be wealthy? He said, even if we're not talking about money, to you, what is your personal understanding of what does it mean to be wealthy? And I said I think that's a really good question.

Speaker 1 0:51

For me, my definition is an abundance of all the things that you want, with the ability to give those things away, all the things that you want with the ability to give those things away. And I said, just as an example, if I have an abundance of energy. If I have a wealth of energy, I can get on this mic and I can pour, and I can pour, and I can pour and I can give you all the energy I have. But I have an abundance, so it doesn't matter, I'm going to be fine when I leave here. I'll still have an abundance and I can go do it again. Same with money.

Speaker 2 1:26

Not lately.

Kevin's definition of wealth

Speaker 1 1:31

I might not have had an abundance. His episode was right before the super deep one. I had abundance and then I became scarce shortly thereafter. But money is a really good example. If I go and I Alan and I we pay all of our bills and everything gets paid and then we have more money left over, that's an abundance. We have an abundance of money. And then maybe an abundance of love is I'm able to make sure I love myself, I'm able to make sure I love Alan, I'm able to make sure I'm giving love to the team, to Taryn, to everybody. I'm not scarce. I'm not scarce in a resource.

Speaker 1 2:06

And you know how it is when you get stressed out, you get overwhelmed, you get triggered, you become scarce.

Speaker 1 2:11

You don't have that much love to give because you're triggered, you're hijacked, you're scarce. But when you're abundant it's different, if you think of it, as I think everybody kind of has a different, a different energetic flow of it, as I think everybody kind of has a different energetic flow of it. But you might feel, say, you go out to dinner with your partner, you have a romantic, great, intimate night, you wake up the next day and you just feel on top of the world energetically, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, from a place of love. That day is going to be a lot different than a day where you wake up and you don't know how to pay your bills, and you don't know if your partner even cares about you or you're single and lonely. It's just two very, very different places. So that's my definition Abundance of the things that you value, with the ability to give them away and still have plenty left over for yourself, nice and still have plenty left over for yourself, nice.

Speaker 1 3:04

Not bad right.

Speaker 2 3:05

Very, very, very strong. I appreciate that, especially the giving away thing. That's abundance If you can openly give, and that has to be earned too. 100% it has to be earned.

Speaker 1 3:16

I'm telling you. One of the things that has made me deeply sad is that I'll see people and again you can take this too far but I'll see people and again you can take this too far. But I'll see people on Facebook that I know personally and they'll have like a GoFundMe for like $2,000. I want to give them all the money. I don't care if it's dumb, I don't care if it's not a good financial choice. That's what I want to do. I want to say it's $2,000. It's a lot of money. $2,000 is a lot of money and it will always be a lot of money. Even if I make a million dollars a day, $2,000 is still a lot of money. That's a good chunk of change. I want to be able to give that to someone and say, hey, you're good, pull this off. You don't have to have this up on Facebook, pull it down the paradox about that and I think that's awesome.

Speaker 1 4:05

That's a great scarce to yeah, you gotta be that scarce in the short run to be abundant in the long run yeah, kevin and I said we've talked a lot about finance.

Sustainable giving

Speaker 2 4:14

Obviously, money, wealth is one of the top three health, wealth, life and love. That's four. But life, love, wait, love, health and wealth. And in wealth, we created a quote created. We talked a lot about a quote last week where it was if we can stay super level 10, humble and scarce while we're abundant like because a lot of times we'll get really abundant and we'll have a big month or a big quarter and then we'll be overly abundant, we'll overly invest in the future, we'll be very generous and a big quarter, and then we'll be overly abundant, we'll overly invest in the future, we'll be very generous and that's great, that's great. But if, but if you're not careful with that, you end up scarce again, and so I call it sustainable giving. We did awesome christmas bonuses and everything for the team on uh last last year and we were super abundant. And it's not that we're not abundant now, but if we can stay super humble and super scarce in our actions, like there's a, not a mentor, but there's a man named michael burt who we had on the show way back. We went and saw him speak and he has a concept that I think is really powerful and he says it all the time and he's one of the very few people actually at this stage that I really adore. Every like I watch every one of the very few people actually at this stage that I really adore. I watch every one of his things. I just think they're very on point and they're super motivating. And again, there's a lot of people with great content on the internet, but I think Michael Burt is the best from what I've seen. So he says it all goes to zero at midnight. In other words, he wakes up and pretends he's broke every single day, because that's how his drive is ignited. And if Kevin and I can wake up every single day and work like we're broke, then we'll be abundant. But, that said, what does wealth mean to me and I'm going to speak a little more financial than a wealth expert in other things like energy, love, all those other things you mentioned I said simply, wealth is the ability to consistently and sustainably generate more income than you have going out each month, and that's a very practical answer. Obviously, I think wealth is abundance, like what you said. So I do agree with everything you said, but from a practical perspective, and this comes down to my business coaching. So I have 25 people, 24 people, on my roster and the youngest is 16, the oldest is 63. And it's all different walks of life, all different countries, all different cultures, and the one thing that all of them have in common is they all want to generate more income than they have, than they spent. That's abundance.

Speaker 2 6:52

I have one client who's making 10,000, $11,000, probably averaging about $10,000 a month, and he spends about $6,000, and he's just abundant as hell. That's a net four every month. Now, is he going to buy a yacht? No, can he buy a yacht? No, but I'll tell you what. Can he buy a yacht? No, but I'll tell you what. He's abundant as hell. The dude grinds and to me, I just think that's what everybody wants. I think we all want. There's no one I've ever met who's like you know.

Alan's definition of wealth

Speaker 2 7:19

I really, I really hope that I can't pay my bills yeah we regret the things that that are painful, we regret the poor choices and and I think everything starts with humility and personal responsibility. So we all have to sit here and have the humility and take personal responsibility. Like I, am spending more than I make and I need to take ownership for that. In order to change it, you have to stop the bleeding, and so wealth is created and, by definition, it is an abundance. And the definition it is an abundance, and the only way to have an abundance is to make sure that more is coming in than is going out, and not just once, but consistently. And so he paid his taxes. We do finances every month, and we just did ours for July. It was a good month. That's great. June was terrible Not terrible, but not great. July was really good. So we're on it.

Speaker 2 8:14

And, by the way, way this all presupposes you actually track to the last episode. By the way, could you hear tucker? Yes, last episode you could hear tucker. Yeah, I might. I don't understand what was going on.

Speaker 2 8:18

I hope he's okay, it's all good, um tucker was barking in the background of the last episode. I apologize if although maybe, maybe the um audio editing will will make that better. The filter We'll see, but anyway. So he paid his taxes and he had a down month. We do his finances at the end of every month. We did it yesterday and he made, like I want to say $11,000, and he spent, I think, almost $12,000. He's in the negative by $617,000, something like that $617,000, $17,000, no, but he's in the negative by 617, something like that 617, 17. No, but he's in the negative by like 600 bucks. And I said what happened here? And then we went through the month and we saw, oh, he paid six grand on his taxes. Okay, so that's, that's okay.

Speaker 2 8:59

You're not gonna have an up month every month Like sometimes things are gonna happen. But you better have more up months than you do down months. You better be in the green more often than you're in the red, and I like green and red. A lot of people use red and black. I don't know why.

Speaker 1 9:12

I think that's like an accounting thing I've never understood. It doesn't make any sense use green and red I think, red is bad, green is good.

Speaker 2 9:19

I mean, we all kind of understand that from nature the forest fire is red and the the green is growing. So anyways, I use green and red Kev. But ultimately that's what wealth means. Can you consistently and sustainably earn more than you spend each month?

Knowing your numbers

Speaker 1 9:37

And if you can, you will be abundant even if you don't have a yacht or whatever. Well, I think it creates certainty. I think it just creates certainty. I've told this story many times. I don't know if I've ever really told it on the podcast, but I've told it in group coaching and one-on-one coaching. I've told it many times.

Speaker 1 9:51

I had a podcast client this was in 2019, maybe and I said how's the business doing? You've had a business for a decade, how's it doing? And this person said I don't know. I've never looked at the numbers. I was like what do you mean? What do you mean? You've never looked at the numbers. And they said I have no idea how much is in my bank account. And I said you're so scarce and money is running your life and you have no idea. What if there's $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 in there? Wouldn't that change the way you feel? Wouldn't that change the way you live? Wouldn't that create some level of certainty, even if it's not as much as you hoped? Eventually, this person got to the place where they were ready to look and I think they had $20,000 in there. I remember saying to them I guarantee you have more money in your account than I do. I would bet any amount of money on it, any amount. I'll bet you $20,000.

Speaker 2 10:45

Yeah, I'll bet you the $418 I have in my account that you have more than $418 in yours.

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Speaker 1 10:51

But it wasn't even the amount it was the fact that the person knew what the amount was, and that's another. Going back to the previous episode, I think that's another thing that it used to seem cool. That's why I said it seems cool to be out there and reckless and not know how much money you have. Anytime there's a meme about something, there is some layer of truth to it, and there's a lot of memes about when you whatever it is when you order Taco Bell and you have no idea how much money is in your account. You're just hoping, wishing, that the credit card transaction goes through Stuff like that. It seems funny and it seems cool. But this is real life shit we're talking about here. You've got to know. You've got to know how much money you have. You've got to know how much money you're making. And again, this is coming from somebody who didn't know any of that. I knew how much money I was making.

Speaker 2 11:49

I had no idea how much money was going out. I was spending recklessly. You had half the equation. The equation is on both sides. It's how much comes in and how much goes out. That's the whole equation, and as long as the in is higher than the out, you are winning, and if the out is higher than the in, you're in trouble, unless you're investing that into something that's going to be a lot more in later.

Financial Awareness

Speaker 1 12:08

And it's not sexy, into something that's going to be a lot more in later. And it's not sexy, and that's okay. It's not sexy to save 500 a month. It probably doesn't seem very sexy, but that's a really good place to start.

Speaker 2 12:16

That's progress there's someone I coach who's literally a multi-millionaire and he saves like 20 bucks at a time whenever he has like extra cash. He has a savings account right now, I think, with like 140 bucks in it.

Speaker 1 12:33

Just every time you'll throw 20 in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's.

Speaker 2 12:38

He's literally a multi-millionaire and Most of it is invested in properties, right. So I don't think anyone really understand not no one. I don't mean to be condescending. A lot of people are not taught what wealth actually is, and we do this in group coaching, I do this in my one-on-one coaching. But if anyone's curious, please reach out Because, honestly, this client, who's a multimillionaire? He owns assets that are worth millions. He's not making millions of dollars a month. There's a very big misunderstanding and whenever you're on the high end of the bell curve in anything, you basically don't have any clue what anyone else doesn't know. So, for example, I mean, if you've been playing tennis your entire life, you've forgotten more than I've ever learned. I have no clue. I don't even know anything. I can't.

Speaker 2 13:29

What there's a serve or something Like. If you've been playing tennis your whole life, you just walk around probably thinking people understand tennis and everyone around you talks about tennis and everyone around you kind of knows tennis. And hey, did you see that match? I've never watched tennis in my life. So when I spent my whole not only corporate but like college I talked money all the time with a bunch of really intelligent people at my tech school. We always talked money. We were mining for bitcoin in 2007 in our dorm room.

Speaker 2 14:02

So I have no concept of what it's like not to understand finance and and when I the more I learn from certain people, the more I realize oh you, you just don't understand. You have no idea that how it, how it actually works. And so we teach the seven fundamentals. Maybe we'll do an episode at some point. I know we've taught it in the past. It's just been a long time since we've talked wealth and finance and, truth be told, we you need, you need to. I don't want to project on anyone, but you kind of need to know finance. You can't really win in the economy without knowing finance.

Speaker 1 14:36

Unless you have like a yeah, or unless you get very lucky.

Speaker 2 14:40

Yeah, or you have people who do your finances. So I know a lot of people have financial advisors, right. So the financial advisor takes a piece of your money to make sure that you consistently have more money and create abundance. Their job is to create abundance. Their job is to create abundance. I coach a financial advisor with a net worth goal of 75 million and he's on his way. He does very well and he's got money in all these different places.

Speaker 2 15:06

And I'll always keep these things anonymous, of course, but I just you can be your own financial advisor. You can. You have to make. There's certain fundamentals. You have to make more each month than you spend. And I know that's hard. I'm not saying that's easy. That's really hard to do Seriously, Especially if you have a family and all that stuff. I mean, when I was younger it was easy. I didn't spend any money, I didn't have a mortgage. So it gets harder as you get older, but it also gets easier because you make more money, hopefully assuming you're getting better at your craft and all that kind of stuff. So, anyways, I I nerd out about finance, I love wealth, I love talking about it, I love numbers and you definitely have to track.

Speaker 2 15:44

But back to the original point of this episode. Wealth is knowing your numbers. Wealth is earning more than you spend consistently. Wealth is learning how to invest it into things that generate more income later, like investing in yourself or investing in the stock market and that kind of thing. And then the leftover is what you use for lifestyle and for experiences and things like that. So I think it's very easy to get cocky when when are big and we've been guilty of that as well, Definitely and then all of a sudden it's a skimpy month. I mean January 1st, all of us are going whoops because December is the holidays and we are all super generous and I appreciate that and I respect that. But why not be generous all year with an abundance rather than just the? The whole big month, small month, big month, small month like the the roller coaster is quite alarming and I want to help people. I really do.

The leftover

Speaker 1 16:40

I want to help people with the roller coaster and you got to be generous with your future too. If you're going to be generous with generous generous with other people in the present you have to be generous with yourself for the future, and that means making sure that you're building abundance and building wealth for the future. All right, if no, we got to go, son. Yeah, yeah, you got to.

Speaker 2 17:01

You have a podcast.

Speaker 1 17:02

Yeah, I have a call with the NLPS team. Baby, oh nice, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 17:07

Nice.

Speaker 1 17:07

You know make some jokes, you know have some coffee, just kind of hang out.

Speaker 1 17:12

Track some metrics. If you are looking to level up your wealth, I know we don't talk about it a ton, but we are really trying to lean into more health, wealth and love. Even if the whole episode is not about wealth, even if the whole episode is not about love, even if the whole episode is not about health, we're trying to put in the stuff throughout the episode. So, if you're trying to level up your wealth, make sure you're subscribed, because you never know when we're going to drop an episode on wealth and you never know when we're just going to talk about it in the middle of an episode. So subscribe on Apple and all the platforms, or YouTube, if you're watching us there.

Speaker 2 17:46

There will be a link in the show notes for a half an hour free session. Book up my calendar. I will teach you the eight fundamentals of finance. I promise you there will be at least a couple of them that you hadn't really thought much about. That will give you a roadmap to a bigger, better, brighter future when it comes to finance. I adore finance, I love teaching it, I love talking about it, I love numbers. I know that sounds really boring. I promise you it will help your future and your future self will thank you. So book, it's completely free. I'm not going to sell you anything. I'm just going to teach you the eight fundamentals of finance.

Speaker 1 18:21

And sometimes principles are boring, and that's okay. It's okay for it to be boring. Sometimes the most boring things create the most success, fulfillment and abundance. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2 18:40

Stay wealthy, next time on Nation.