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Welcome to the Balanced Blueprints podcast , where

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we discuss the optimal techniques for finances

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and health and then break it down to create an individualized

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and balanced plan . I'm your host , justin Gaines

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, here with my co-host , john Prober . In

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this week's episode , John and I discuss what

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I refer to as the 10-year gap , as

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well as other lies that

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we are told as youth or

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just as we go down our financial

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journey . We hope you enjoy the episode . Thank

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you for listening . A

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little bit more of a somber intro than we're used to , but that

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is what it is . It

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seems like a lot of times we get talking

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about what

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sounds best on paper but

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isn't necessarily achievable

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. We're

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always talking about optimal and our closest way to get there . One of the things

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that I constantly talk about with clients is

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that a lot of times the

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advice that we get in our youth

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or as we start down financial journeys

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, a lot of times those targets are 10

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years ahead

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of when they should be . So I refer to it as

1:04

a 10-year gap because you have

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people who want to be

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a millionaire by the time they're 30

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, which is highly unattainable

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. People will do it . It is

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possible . It's just the vast majority of

1:17

individuals will not , but

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with some planning , some sacrifice

1:21

and dedication to an investment

1:24

journey , doing it by the time you're

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40 is totally doable

1:28

. The

1:30

other one that falls in this gap is high

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school kids being told that they need to know what they do when

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they turn 17 or 18 . But

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then most people don't actually figure out the

1:40

career they want to be in or what journey they want to

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go on until they're 28 , 29 , 30

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, which is part of the reason why that

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million-dollar target gap becomes an issue

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as well . And so I

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like to tell a lot of my clients that whatever financial

1:53

plan we're working on , add

1:55

10 years to it and that's a realistic

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target that's not going to cause you a ton of stress

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and

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, at the end of the day , a lot of these financial targets

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. They really shouldn't be causing you a ton of stress

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unless you have a lot of bad debts

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or you're living paycheck to paycheck

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because of expenses , or maybe your income's

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not high enough . Those situations are going

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to be inherently stressful . So

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that's not necessarily what I'm talking about . I'm talking about more of these

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situations where we place a target

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on something and then we're dissatisfied

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because of the stress that we're putting

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on that target . Well , if we just added a 10-year

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window to it , if you were a millionaire

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by 30 versus a millionaire by 40 , your

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life's not going to be significantly impacted

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by that , because you're still going to work

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. If you hit a million at 30 or 40 , you're

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still going to continue to work , because what else would you do

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? A million dollars isn't enough to retire on

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, especially

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not at that age . So you're still going to continue to work , because what else would you do ? A million

2:50

dollars isn't enough to retire on , especially not at that age . So you're going to have to

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continue to work . And hitting those investment targets at that age isn't isn't doing much

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other than causing you a ton of stress in

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order for you to aggressively hit that target definitely

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.

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Yeah , you see that with fitness stuff too . I mean , you

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just put so much stress and pressure

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on what you want to achieve and

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it's a very long life . You forget

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that this

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off camera . But this just popped into my mind too , of like , I'm sure if at 17

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years old , if your only goal was to be a millionaire and you did not care at

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all what job you worked , I

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I'm sure a ton of people would be able to achieve

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that . But the problem of

3:37

well , I hate this job comes in and

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you keep switching jobs or looking for other ones , because

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otherwise people like we've talked about , if

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that was your only goal , you didn't care what work you did

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, go right into the trades and you'd be pretty

3:49

, pretty well off , probably .

3:51

But that actually right now , yeah , going to the

3:53

trades and you'd be golden making 30 40

3:55

dollars an hour right , but

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we run into that problem where that's .

4:00

That's a tough motivator in my

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mind like I think it may get people started

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or it drives them

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for a while , but long term I

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think that's that money

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motivator itself usually Like

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, is it ?

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bragging rights . Is it the ability to say you're a millionaire , like

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what is driving you to want

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to have that target and , a lot of times , what's actually

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driving you did that would be a lot

4:44

less stressful , but

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a lot of times the wanting to have a million dollars comes from , you know . Maybe they

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lived a childhood

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that didn't have a ton of vacations

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or a ton of things that they could have , and so

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now they want to be able to have that . So they want to have a million

4:57

dollars , because they feel that that is their point

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at which they can do whatever they want and

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they're not going to have to stress about it . Or

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there's that other fallacy where they want to hit

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that point and not have to think about money

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anymore which we talked about in a previous episode

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where that's just not going to happen . The way

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to get to having a million dollars is by

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thinking about money consistently , not

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in a unhealthy

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, obsessive kind of way , but in a healthy

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, slightly obsessive kind of way , where you're tracking

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it , staying on top of it , making sure that you

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have a balance there . And so

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if we can

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get down to the root of why do we want to be at

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this target , that's going to actually highlight

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the insecurities that we have and

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determine why we're trying to get there . And

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then that's going to allow us to back up and determine

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how to set our financial journey

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in a way that'll make us successful

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and achieve our actual goals

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. Because the number one way you can

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debunk somebody saying that they want the money just

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to have the money is okay . If

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I could write you a check for a million dollars right now

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, but you couldn't spend it it could only go into

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an investment account or a bank account would

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you be satisfied ? If you achieve that

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goal today by me writing you

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a million-dollar check , would you be satisfied ? Most

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people are like no , I'm like okay , why ? Well , because I can't

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spend it , I can't do anything with it . If you had the million dollars in

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the bank , what would you do with it ? And

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that's another way of asking why do

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do you want the million dollars ? So then you get a

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mindset where they're primed okay , I have a million

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dollars in the bank , what am I gonna go do ? I

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would say , half of the time , people give you answers

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that they can achieve

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on a smaller level without having

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a million dollars . It might be a vacation , it

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might be going on a yacht , it might be a helicopter

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ride , all these sorts of things where

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in their mind they're thinking about I want to own the yacht

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, I want to own the helicopter , be able to do it whenever

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I want , instead of just paying to

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go on a helicopter ride or paying to

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go on a

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yacht trip in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean

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Sea , wherever the case may be . But you can

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rent those experiences without having

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to own the depreciating

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asset that comes along with that . So

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there's other ways to achieve those outlines and

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I would say , the other 50% of the time it

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comes from wanting the security

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, wanting to be able to not have to stress

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about money and not realizing

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that not having to

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stress about money comes from having

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that healthy , slightly

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obsessive view on tracking your

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numbers , being on top of your budget and

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making sure that you

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have a window for emergencies and , on

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a day-to-day basis , you are

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living below your means and

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not overspending .

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It's funny too , because my mind

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goes to I don't know this for certain , but the

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concept of oh , I want to do that whenever

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I want , especially

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a lot of the things that people want to do whenever

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they want . I would imagine once you do it once or twice , they probably lose

7:56

a lot of the things that people want to do whenever they want . I would imagine once you do it once

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or twice , they probably lose a lot of that like excitement

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. So it's funny because it's even a better idea

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of , like , like you said , go rent

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it and do it once . Like , if you do it once , like

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that might get your fix and it's like , yeah

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, now you realize , well , you shouldn't have spent all the money

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to to do that . You don't need that

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type of money to buy those things whenever you want

8:16

because , like you said , you could rent them . But

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yeah , I just think that

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you can also find out that you hate it yeah

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, that he wants to you .

8:24

Take somebody who wants to buy a boat , like for me

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for instance , I want to buy a boat . I really , really want to buy a boat

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and so I've

8:30

rented boats . I've gone on

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boating trips with friends and family and

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love it , know that I

8:37

would get a lot of satisfaction

8:39

and joy out of doing this consistently

8:42

. Okay , I should go and

8:44

buy a boat . I shouldn't take that off the table

8:46

and say I shouldn't go and buy a boat . There are plenty

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of financial reasons why you shouldn't buy a boat . But

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I'm saying , is this a hobby

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that I want to put into the expense

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categories , onto my income

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statement and put the money into

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this and enjoy it ? Or is it something

9:02

I'm going to put a bunch of money into and I'm going to be like

9:04

90% of boat owners who complain about

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all the expenses associated with the boat and

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that's because they bought a boat without

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doing their research and also aren't

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getting the joys and satisfaction out of it

9:15

. I

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could have gone boating and been like , oh fun , but it's kind

9:20

of boring . I'm not really into this , like

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what's the point ? And then in that

9:24

case I would have spent a couple hundred dollars renting

9:26

a boat for a few hours versus

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spending tens of thousands of dollars

9:31

buying a boat yeah , yeah

9:33

, and the other thing I'm getting at too , because

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I like this scenario of like , okay , you have

9:37

a million dollars in the bank .

9:38

You can't touch it , like you mentioned , because

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I think it's a great way to try and figure out . If

9:44

someone's like , what do I want to do with my life ? Like that's

9:46

a good way to figure it out . Like , okay , now

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you can spend it , what would you

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do and that's why I kind of mentioned

9:52

that before , cause it's like , oh , I would buy a helicopter

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, I do this . It's like I think those are

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cover up things . It's

10:01

like , ok , you can go do those one , like one time , but I don't think they're as fulfilling as

10:03

like what would you do your entire life ? You

10:05

know , I mean , if you're 30 and you're a millionaire , if you're

10:07

40 , you're a millionaire , I don't think you're

10:09

, unless you love . Like some people would

10:11

want to fly helicopters for a living . But

10:14

it's like what do you want to spend most of your

10:16

time doing ? I think that's a good way of finding

10:18

it out , especially because I was going to say this , but

10:20

you already said it . You know being balanced . It's

10:23

like I know people that know

10:25

what they want to do , but

10:27

for some reason they're still focused on the money

10:29

and I'm like , well

10:32

, like you're , you're almost more miserable

10:34

because you're trying to achieve

10:36

this type of money . But you could go work at the job

10:38

you want to work , but it doesn't make enough money for

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you . I'm like that makes no sense

10:43

in my mind . I was like just go work the job you

10:45

enjoy , save like and

10:47

do the nice strategies we've talked about in

10:49

all of these podcasts of how to save

10:51

money long term .

10:52

Right as long as .

10:53

long as what they want to do will actually cover the

10:55

expenses .

10:56

Yeah , right , as long , as long as what they want to do will actually cover the expenses and

10:58

allow you to not jeopardize your financial position ? Yes , I mean that's where you

11:00

fall into , that you know , your hobby , your

11:04

hobby has to , you know , make you enough to actually cover

11:06

your expenses , but that's . The

11:08

other thing that I would say is that's

11:11

another fallacy that we get told in our

11:13

youth is go and do what you love . And

11:15

most people that I know that

11:18

have followed their hobbies into

11:20

careers now hate their

11:23

hobbies . And it's because once

11:25

you turn into a job and you have to do it 24 seven

11:27

, it's no longer enjoyable . And

11:30

so you know , both of my brothers are in that

11:32

situation where they followed their hobbies and

11:34

they loved what they did , but

11:36

now it's 50 , 60

11:38

hours a week doing that stuff and it's just no

11:40

longer enjoyable . And so

11:42

they will . Both of them will tell you if

11:46

you're looking to figure out what career you want to go into

11:48

, line up your hobbies from

11:50

first to fifth and don't

11:52

choose your top one . Choose something between two

11:54

and four and

12:12

don't choose your top one . Choose something between two and four , something that you enjoy . But

12:14

that isn't what you do to get rid of stress and have a good time . Don't go after that thing . Go after

12:16

the next rung on the ladder . Go after something you enjoy that can . That , too is job . Satisfaction

12:18

isn't talked about in

12:20

a sliding scale . It's talked

12:22

about as you either love your job or you hate your job , instead

12:26

of a level of satisfaction , because

12:28

I think I would say that I'm somebody who's very fortunate and

12:30

I absolutely love what I do for a living . It's very

12:32

hard for me to pinpoint what that is because I have

12:34

several different businesses and so I'm constantly running

12:36

around doing different things , which I think plays a role . But I pinpoint what that is because I have several different businesses and so I'm constantly running around

12:38

doing different things , which I think plays a role . But I love what I do . But

12:41

I also would tell you that I'm at about

12:43

65% 75% job

12:45

satisfaction . There's still 25%

12:48

to 35% of the time that I absolutely

12:50

hate what I'm doing , but

12:52

I firmly believe that once you crest

12:54

that 70% or better of satisfaction

12:57

, you have found the job

12:59

that you're going to love and you've found what

13:01

you're meant to do , because even

13:04

at 50-50 , 50% of the time

13:06

you love what you do , 50% of the time you hate what you do

13:09

. You're in a good

13:11

spot . But I think society

13:13

has told us oh , follow your dreams , follow your passions

13:16

, do what you love . But

13:18

I think society has told us , oh , follow your dreams , follow your

13:20

passions , do what you love . And that's been misinterpreted as

13:22

do what you love is loving what you do 100 percent

13:24

of the time , and getting out of bed is not going to be hard

13:26

for it . It's going to be very easy . Every single day

13:28

You're going to be jumping for joy and

13:31

that's just not reality .

13:32

That's not reality .

13:39

It sounds nice , it's great , it's very easy to sell , it's very easy to swipe and listen to and buy

13:41

into that , but that's just not reality , like if you want to be able to have an income

13:43

that's going to cover your bills and

13:45

live a moderately stressed

13:47

life instead of a high stress life , because

13:49

I also don't think , you know , the idea of a stress-free

13:52

life just doesn't exist . There's

13:54

a reason why there's shows like the

13:56

Real Housewives and all this stuff that follows

13:59

very wealthy individuals who are chock full

14:01

of stress and drama because money does not

14:03

solve that , and so backing

14:07

up a little bit and just finding

14:09

something that gives you a manageable

14:11

level of stress covers the bills

14:13

. You're going to have to do some things that you

14:15

don't want to do and that you don't like to do

14:17

. That is part of it . Whether

14:20

it's trying to get to your financial freedom target

14:22

, whether it's going to work , going

14:25

to a family party , hanging

14:28

out with friends , there's always

14:30

going to be a certain level of friction

14:32

as a result of us

14:34

being humans , and so I

14:38

would take the same approach that we do in

14:40

friendship relationships as you do with

14:42

your job . You're your best

14:44

friend . It's not because you've never had any

14:46

struggles , it's not because you've never gone through

14:48

anything . It's because you've gone through things successfully

14:50

. You've been able to have stressful moments

14:53

and you've gotten past them . That's

14:55

what solidified and firmed up that relationship

14:57

and what makes you love it so much . The

15:00

same attitude should be approached when we're talking about jobs

15:02

, where it's not that we want

15:04

the easiest job with the least amount

15:07

of friction and the least amount of stress . It's

15:09

one that we want that challenges us , but

15:12

that also allows us to grow

15:14

as an individual and learn things

15:16

about ourselves , get through them , and

15:19

there's going to be crappy days . There's going to be days that you want to quit

15:21

. There's going to be days in your best friend

15:23

relationship that you're like screw

15:25

this person up , like I'm so done with this person

15:27

, I'm cutting them out of my life , and then two weeks later

15:29

you have a responsible conversation

15:32

about it . As adults , you know like , okay , we're

15:34

both emotional and overreacting and let's

15:36

get past this . That's going to happen in the in your work life

15:38

too . If you take your best relationships

15:41

and you compare those

15:43

to your your work life and your job , are

15:45

you approaching it with the same level of you

15:48

know realistic attitude ? Or are you trying

15:50

to say like , okay , I should have a job that's going to be perfect

15:52

all the time and I'm never going to have any issues ? If

15:55

you do , you're going to end up jumping from job to

15:57

job to job , because the minute something

15:59

gets tough , you're going to walk out and you're going

16:01

to want to leave , and then your ability to get the

16:03

next job is going to become that much more difficult

16:06

and that is going to then compound

16:08

into your financial position where you're

16:10

going to have to take a lower salary because nobody

16:12

wants to hire you , because they only think you're going to be there

16:14

for a year or a year and a half before

16:17

you leave . And so now , okay , you take

16:19

a lower salary . Now your finances are pinched

16:21

and your ability to hit your financial freedom target

16:23

gets strained . There's all these different

16:26

levels that as

16:29

a society we don't want to step

16:31

into the uncomfortable and we're constantly

16:33

trying to avoid it . And the reality

16:36

is is that , from a financial perspective , if you

16:38

want to get

16:40

to a point of financial freedom , you're going to have

16:42

to go through financial hardships

16:44

and financial stress in order to build

16:46

those skills and those tools to

16:49

get to that level of success

16:52

that you're looking for , where things become less stressful

16:54

. And I firmly believe that as

16:56

you grow your savings and your investments

16:59

, it becomes less stressful

17:01

. Yes , because you

17:03

have the safety net , but it's

17:05

also because now you know how to get

17:07

out of those tough situations , you know

17:10

how to weather those storms . You know , what timeline

17:12

it's going to take . And so , instead of you

17:14

being stressed because it's not happening , now , you know that it's

17:16

going to take three to six months to take . And so , instead of you being stressed because it's

17:18

not happening , now , you know that it's going to take three to six months to take care of

17:20

that problem . And now , when it takes three to six months , you're like

17:22

okay , I know , this is the process

17:24

, this is what we have to go through , and so a portion

17:26

of it comes from the experience of walking

17:29

through that and now knowing the timelines

17:31

, how to handle it , how to get past it

17:33

, how to handle the , the objection . And

17:36

I just don't think that's the attitude that we approach

17:38

with these things . We take the attitude of I

17:41

want it now , I want it easy and I

17:43

want to stress , free , and that's

17:45

just not realistic clip

17:48

it .

17:48

I mean that was good . Um , no

17:51

, that's yeah , that was

17:53

a great way of putting it . I'm

17:55

not even going to try and add anything

17:57

to it . But , like you said , I mean , yeah , we're

18:00

black and white , that's

18:02

how we're taught to think . And now

18:04

the other thing too , not like it's

18:06

that because we want that stress-free life . But

18:09

I saw one researcher , someone

18:19

, talking about the brain , where the brain's a problem

18:21

solver . I mean that's what it's made to do . So

18:24

if you don't have problems , it will create problems

18:26

. And that's what the housewives makes

18:28

me think of . And I've seen people that don't

18:31

work or you know , or stay

18:33

at home and you sometimes

18:35

look at , like the problems they have and you're like like

18:37

really that's a problem . So it's

18:39

funny just because even as people try

18:41

to escape the stress , it's

18:44

like then you'll start stressing about the dumbest little

18:46

things and not even realize that , because the

18:48

brain just wants to solve problems .

18:51

Right , yeah , that makes sense . I've definitely

18:53

experienced that myself .

18:54

where you like , you're trying to de-stress your life and

18:57

you get to a point where you're like , oh , there's not

18:59

a lot of stress .

18:59

And then like little stupid stuff is what puts you over the edge

19:01

and it's like yeah , I might work

19:04

tough about that , it's not really a problem . But that

19:06

makes sense that your brain is trying to solve . Your

19:08

brain is trying to work and

19:11

you're not giving it anything to work on .

19:20

So yeah , but when you were doing like 10 jobs at once and it's like

19:22

the little things , they even bother you .

19:23

Well , sometimes . Sometimes people blow up too , right

19:28

. Well , but even from a stance that you know the statement of

19:30

if you want something done , give it to the busiest person schedule

19:32

. When I have really busy weeks , I get three

19:35

to four times as much done as

19:37

I do on slow weeks , because when I have a slow week

19:39

I'm like , oh , I can putz around and get

19:41

this done in 45 minutes , instead of just

19:44

getting it done in 20 because , oh

19:46

, I can look , I can follow this little trail and

19:48

figure out what what's going on here , dive a

19:50

little deeper into it . But it's not necessarily

19:52

important to do those things , and so you just

19:54

get distracted .

19:55

But when you know you have a

19:57

very limited amount of time to do it , you're

20:00

going to get it done in that time frame yeah

20:02

, well , I just added that

20:04

in not to take away from the nice thing

20:06

justin said , but but , um

20:08

, yeah , I mean that that was . I

20:11

was like that was a good episode . I like that well , yeah

20:13

.

20:13

Well , it emphasizes the point of the

20:17

fallacy that if

20:19

I get to this financial target , I won't have

20:21

any stress , because the minute

20:23

you remove all stress from your life , your brain is going

20:25

to produce it and make it out

20:27

of nothing . So having

20:29

a certain level of stress is important and

20:32

it's not a bad thing . It's not something we should be trying to get

20:34

away from . We should be getting away from the unhealthy , toxic

20:37

stressors and making

20:39

sure that we have the appropriate levels of stress in

20:41

there that are allowing us to grow as individuals and

20:44

build whatever we're trying to build

20:46

, whether it's a larger financial

20:49

pie that we're a part of , whether it's a

20:51

bigger family , better family relationships

20:54

, whatever the case may be but your

20:56

brain is always going to be attacking some

20:59

sort of stress .

21:00

Thanks for listening to our podcast .

21:02

We hope this helps you on your balance freedom journey .

21:04

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below

21:06

. Until next time , stay balanced .