Episode 06: How to Achieve Your Financial Goals in 7-10 Years

Description:

You don’t need to wait until you’re 65 to retire and live your dream life. In this episode Tom discusses the financial education he uses to help people achieve their financial dreams in as little as 7 years.  Find out if your plan for retirement is really what you want, and if it will allow you to live the life you want.

SHOW NOTES:

01:15 – How Can You Achieve Your Financial Dreams In 7-10 Years?

01:56 – Why Is Retirement A False Goal?

05:12 – Why Is Dreaming So Important?

13:23 – How Do You Fund Your Dreams?

14:30 – Why Do You Need A Roadmap?

Transcript

This is the WealthAbility™ Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes.

Welcome to the WealthAbility™ Show with Tom Wheelwright where we explain how to make way more money and pay way less taxes. What if you could get what you want and not just what you need? And you could do it not in the 30 years that the financial planners are telling you. Not in 45 years that Wall Street's telling you. But in 7-10 years. If that's what you want, listen up. This is what we're going to talk about today.

Now the key is, the key is, how do you decide what you want? Financial planners, they're all over this idea. The first thing they do when you walk in their office, they sit you down. What do they say? They say how much do you need to retire? That's the very first thing. And my question is what do you mean by how much do I need? You mean, how much do I need in order to not live under a bridge? Is this the standard that as Americans we've brought ourselves to? And what's this whole thing about retirement anyway. I mean, retirement, look up the word. It says take out of service.

I saw this movie the other day with my darling wife, Louanne. And one of the characters had retired six months previously. And his wife was wondering why is it that we don't have sex anymore? Well, he just was taken out of service. Okay? Guess what? When men are taken out of service, it's not just out of their work service. All of their service goes, okay?

So rather than do that, why not think about what we could have? What's possible? Well, the reason is all Wall Street wants to do is say oh look, you know what? We'll get your 3-5% over 35-40 years and so guess what? You can retire at 65 or 68. You can golf at the municipal golf course. Okay? You can ride public transportation. You can drive a Prius. And you can fly discount airlines. That's what you can do. Why would you do that if you had a choice?

Most of us, I've actually never heard anybody, and I ask this question all the time when I'm speaking around the world. I ask people okay, how many of you, your dream is to retire poor? And you know what? I've never had one person raise their hand. I don't think there's a person on this planet that that is their dream is to retire poor. And yet, that is what Wall Street's all about. So how do you change that?

Okay, that's what this show is about is how do you change that? Getting what you want. The very first step though is you actually have to know what you want and most of us by the time we're 11, 12, 13 years old, it's been drummed out of us. That we can't get what we want. Okay? We have to do what we're supposed to do. We have to follow the rules. We have to do those things that Grandma says are okay or Aunt Betty says are okay. Our dream of becoming a fireman, our dream of becoming a pilot, our dream of becoming a world famous singer. No, no, no. We have to be practical here. We need a job. We'd better go to school. We'd better get a college education. We've got to get good grades. We've got to focus on what we have to do now so that we can get a job so that we'll be secure. Which is a total falsehood anyway. I mean, seriously, who was ever secure in a job. I mean, literally you have one client. How can you possibly think that you're secure with your one client?

A bank would not give you a loan if you had a business that only had one client. They would not give you loan. And of course, would banks give you a loan if you have a job? Oh yeah because that business has lots of clients, right? But you don't. You have one. You have a job. So what do you do instead? Instead of this whole idea of all right, let's churn around in this rat race. Let's get a 401(k). Oh, we're going to get an employer match. Oh that's so great. And after 30 years, we have no idea what we're even going to have. We don't even know and we don't even know what we want. we don't even know what we want. So what do we do instead?

Here's an alternative, okay? If you want to get what you want, not what you need. Here's an alternative. Take the time to dream. I know. That's shocking, isn't it? Because as a three year old, I heard on a radio show a while back, the announcer was talking about she'd asked her three year old daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up. And the three year old daughter turns to her, big huge eyes, and says a tiger. Mommy, I want to be a tiger. I'm going when do we lose that? That dream of being anything we want or having whatever we want. Do we really … Is our dream to work an 8:00 to 5:00 job or 8:00 to 6:00 job, five days a week, six days a week? And then, when we're too old to enjoy money, have a little bit of money so that we can spend time with our kids and our grandkids? Is that our dream? What is our dream?

Because seriously, most people aren't even taking the time to dream. So here's what we're going to do. We're actually going to do a little dream right now, okay? So I'm going to have you go through this because if you're driving pull over because I'm going to ask you to close your eyes, okay? So don't do this while you're driving. But you can do this later if you can't do it now but I want you to do this. I want you to dream. Very, very important to learn how to dream because we've been told not to dream anymore. We've had that drilled out of us.

So here's what we've got to do. First thing we have to do is we have to be quiet, soft … if you've got a little music you can play, this is awesome. A little Ed Sheeran would work really well, right? Okay, and I want you to close your eyes and I want you to think about that perfect place where you would like to be. If you had all the money you needed. Where would you like to be? I want you to picture that in your mind. I want you to get really clear on this. Where is it that you would want to be?

Once you have that pictured, now what you can do is you can think okay, I've got that in my mind. Okay, where do I want to be? I've got that. For me it's the big island of Hawaii, not in the volcano but outside of the volcano that's on the beach. Beautiful beach on the big island of Hawaii. And picture wherever it is whether it's on the beach, whether it's with your family. It doesn't matter. Wherever that is. You need to picture that clearly in your mind because you need to be able to see it.

Number two is I want you to picture who it is you're with. Who are you with in this dream? Who would you like to be with? And then, the third thing is what are you doing? What are you doing? So where are you? Who are you with? And what are you doing? And then, what I want you to do is I want you to open your eyes and I want you to write that down. Your dream place. And I want you to describe it in great detail. It's not just a beach in Hawaii. Okay? Which beach in Hawaii? What does it look like in Hawaii? What's the weather like? What does it feel like? Is it morning? Is it noon? Is it evening? I want you to be really clear on your dream.

And the reason is because science has actually proven that the more clear we are on our vision of the future, actually in Big Potential, Shawn Achor, one of my favorite authors, talks about this specific idea that the more specific we can visualize our future, the more likely it is that A) we'll be happy anticipating that future. And B) we'll actually get to that future.

Because here's what happens. Investing is not easy. Anybody who says it's easy is just a liar. It's not easy. It's simple. There's simple steps and we've gone through some of them already on this podcast. And we're going to go through all of the simple steps it takes to reduce your taxes, massively, 30%, 40%, 50%, reduce your taxes. Take that money and invest it. Leverage it. We're going to talk about debt. We're going to talk about how to do this in not 30 or 40 or 45 years but how to do it in 7-10 years. First we have to start with a dream. What's your dream?

I did this exercise in a class a few years ago. And I always ask people if they're willing to share their dream. And this woman, she stands up and she goes my dream is to create a charity to save the bats. I said come again? You mean those really ugly things that carry all sorts of disease. She says they are the second most important pollinator on earth and they're dying out. It's worse than the bees. She goes I want to save the bats. And I don't know about you. I still get emotional about that. I'm like here's a woman who knew what she wanted.

I had another experience in Australia a few years ago. I did the same exercise. I had a 72 year old man came up to me with tears in his eyes and he goes Tom, nobody has ever had me think about my dream. And he's 72 years old. I want you to think about your dream now. Not later. And why think about retirement? There's no reason that retirement has to be taken out of service. What if we stay in service when we have enough money?

Let's talk about have enough money. What is enough money? Enough money to reach your dream. The reality is it's all about the numbers. The reason that we talk about this at WealthAbility™ is because it's about the numbers. Okay? Once you have your dream in mind, okay. So I'm thinking about this beach house, for me, okay? This is my dream. I think about this beach house that I'm looking at the ocean, right, on the big island of Hawaii. All right, that's great. I have this … I can actually see it. But what does that mean? How do I get there? I don't know where I'm going. Unless I have the numbers. Unless I know how much that's going to cost, what it's going to take, I don't know where I'm really going because I don't have the numbers.

So it's important that this is why you sit down with somebody like a CPA, a wealth strategist, and you actually work through the numbers. What is it going to cost? What do I have today? Where am I going? How much is it going to cost me? What's it going to cost to reach my dream? Not what I need. Not this retirement bologna that Wall Street's always talking about. The financial planner saying okay, here's how much you need not to live under a bridge. No, I'm talking about how much … Let's say you want to golf at a first class golf courses. Let's say you want to fly first class. You may want a plane. Okay? These things are not out of reach. Mathematically they are not out of reach. Okay? This is why I talk about this.

I am an accountant, right? You're going who's an accountant talking about dreams? Well, I'm a dreamer but I'm an accountant so I understand numbers. And I understand the math and I understand everything that needs to go in to this roadmap in order to go from where you are today to where you want to be. And not in 30-35 years. But what is it you really want? Well, most of us, we'd like to spend more time with our kids or our loved ones. Or we'd like to do charity work. Or we'd just like to work a little less, maybe golf a little more. Okay? Maybe we don't want to quit our job at all. Maybe we'd like to just work less at our job. Or maybe we'd like to start our own business. I mean, this is something obviously I love to do. I've started several businesses. Currently, in the middle of three new businesses. I love this.

So this is actually part of my dream. I can honestly say I'm living my dream right now because retiring is not my dream. I have no dream of retirement. I have a dream of doing what I like to do and having enough money to do it. Okay, well again, what's enough money? What's enough money is whatever that means to you to reach your dream. So it's so important not to let other people talk about well, this is what you should do or this is how much money you should have. Or money's not important. That's bologna. I mean, we all know that's bologna that money's not important because if you're going to have a dream, how are you going to pay for it? Really, are you going to have somebody else pay for it? Is your great uncle going to die and leave you money? It still makes money important. How you get that money, it still makes money important.

And then, there's one last piece of this. What do you want your legacy to be? One of the most powerful presentations I've ever seen, Robert and Kim Kiyosaki at an event recently, within the last couple of years, they got up and they talked about their dream publicly, their dream to leave enough money to charity that it would fund $100 million a year. Not $100 million total. $100 million a year. That's a dream. And that's a legacy.

So here's the thing. It's not that difficult. It's really simple. So remember, I taught you how to dream. So three steps. Visualize where you are very carefully. Visualize who you're with. And visualize what you're doing. Write it down in great detail. Now once you have your dream, now it's about developing your roadmap. What is the map? See, we have to start … Any time we take a trip, and I love road trips, absolutely love to travel. But I love road trips because it's just fine and you stop in little towns and it's the journey itself is great.

And the journey for investing should be fun. And we've talked about that in other podcasts. And we'll continue to talk about how to do this. Not just how to do it in 7-10 years, not just how to get what you want not what you need, but how to enjoy doing it. Right? So it's going to take some time so we better enjoy it.

All right, so we think about the vehicle that we're going to get in. We've got this destination. Now we need a map. How are we going to get that map? This is really what WealthAbility™ is all about. It's about helping you create the map because guess what? You're going somewhere different than I'm going. You're going somewhere different than your neighbor is going. Whatever your destination is which is your dream, okay? It's nice they both start with D. Your dream is your destination. Whatever that is, is different from anybody else. And you're starting from a different spot. Okay?

So you think … You get out Google Maps, right, and you plot in I want to go here. And here's … I'm starting this other spot, right? And we do that with numbers. We actually sit down with a CPA. We sit down what we call wealth and tax strategist. We go through a wealth and tax strategy and we figure out okay, what can I do to reduce my taxes so I have more money to invest. It's not just about the money that I've got now but it's about how do I actually reduce the taxes I'm paying so that I have more money to invest?

Okay, I've got to do that. And now, I've got to create this roadmap. This step by step plan. Because we don't have a Google Maps, right? We can't just plug in, okay, we've got this much dollars that we have now. We know we're going to invest so much money and then, we want to get to X amount of dollars down the road. Okay, well we can have that. That's actually a fairly simple computation. We actually have that free on our website. You can go to wealthability.com and get that free on our website. You can figure out … what you can figure out is okay, so what's my return on investment going to have to be?

In order for me to get where I'm going in the timeframe I want given the money I have now, what is the return on investment I'm going to need? That's the fundamental formula. But then, it's about let's create this roadmap. It's not that difficult. It's going to be different for every single person but that's the fun of it. Because you're going to travel in a different type of car, different type of vehicle. You're going to go at a different pace. You're going to go a different direction. Okay? It's not all about how do I get there fastest?

I made that mistake actually when I was a kid. So I did college in just over two years. I took the short route. I tested out of a bunch of courses. I got a minor in French without ever taking a French class because I'd spent two years in Paris and learned the language. And I just wanted to graduate. So I never really enjoyed college. Okay? And I listen to my friends now and I'm going wow, they really enjoyed college. They absolutely did nothing but they enjoyed college, right? And I think about it and I was always in such a hurry. What I've learned in my later years is that the journey is a big part of this, right?

So everything we do at WealthAbility™, we want it to be enjoyable. Well, what's more enjoyable than having this dream and actually enjoying what we do as we go. We've talked about this in previous podcasts. We'll continue to talk about this. How do we enjoy what we're doing? How do we build this roadmap? We'll get in some of the details as we go in different podcasts. How do we specifically reduce our taxes? We're going to talk in future podcasts about this new tax law that we just got in December of 2017. We're going to talk about that tax law and some of the great benefits of that.

We're going to do that over a series of podcasts so that you can reduce your taxes, that the government wants you reduce. We're going to talk to experts in the field about what's the specifics in this roadmap? How do we get gas in our car, right? Where's the gas station? How do we fill up? How do we check our tires? How do we make sure we don't fall down because we all know investing, a lot of investing … Warren Buffett said this before. A lot of investing is not losing money. And of course, that's the issue on Wall Street is that you don't have control, really, over not losing money.

So what we want to do is we want to reduce our risk, increase our returns, and increase our control while we're reducing our taxes. That's what we're going to do. That's the whole point of this roadmap is to get you to that dream that now you've learned how to do that dream. Now you can have that dream firmly in your mind. You can sit down with a CPA if you need help finding one, just let us know at wealthability.com or give us a call or check into our website. And we'll help you find somebody because we want you to reach your dream. Because remember, it's your dream. It's your money. And it's your life. Thanks for listening.

You've been listening to the WealthAbility™ Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes. To learn more, go to wealthability.com.