20-video series #19: Get the goalposts to stop moving: protect your assets, don’t eat the seed corn, & leave a legacy
Apr 25, 2023
Welcome to my new 20-video series, on the 20 Next Level Wealth steps to designing and then living your dream life.
The dramatic landscape changes over the past few years have created a unique opportunity for you to design and live your dream lifestyle.
In this 20-video series, which I filmed while travelling around Europe, I've aimed to articulate everything important that I've learned about personal finance, business, wealth, and designing an ideal lifestyle...into just 20 short blog posts!
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Striving for more
There’s a famous anecdote and quote from the author Joseph Heller, who was once taunted at a party that a hedge fund manager had made more in a single day than he had earned from the sales of his classic novel Catch 22.
“Yes, but I have something he will never have. Enough.”
Classic quote, and rather germane.
What is enough?
It’s an interesting and challenging question.
We’ve discussed in a previous video how one of the greatest ‘secrets’ to wealth creation is simply allowing compound growth to work for as long and efficiently as possible.
But at some point, we should stop taking undue risks, and stop unduly striving for more.
One we have ‘enough’, taking on extra risk to make more and more is not smart thinking.
Moving goalposts
One of the hardest things to do in personal finance to get the goalposts to stop moving.
I know enough about lifestyle inflation.
While once I was more than happy to live in a 2-bedroom unit in Bondi, as the years went by I needed to live in a 5-bedroom house, with golf course frontage in Noosa, with a lap pool…and a sports car…and…yep, you know the drill.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, and it impacts us all to some degree.
There’s nothing wrong with that, to a certain extent, but at some point we do need to get the goalposts to stop moving, and to realise that incrementally spending more and more on travel, accommodation and other living costs may not improve our lives all that much.
The comparison trap
It is said that comparison is the thief of joy.
Very true.
One of the many perils of social media today is seeing everyone else living apparently perfect lives.
Don’t believe it!
Looking at my Instagram feed, I’d probably be jealous of my own ‘lifestyle’.
But it’s not exactly real life.
After all, nobody ever posts a photo or a video of them standing in a supermarket queue, or doing the school run, or being stuck in traffic on a Saturday morning, or any of the many other mundane tasks that fill a typical week.
Nope!
It’s all or boating down the Saigon River near Ho Chi Minh, or taking a round-the-world cruise, or driving around Australia in a campervan.
Now I’ve done all those things, but in reality it’s just a highlights package and a ridiculous ideal to try to live up to.
In fact, if life was all comprised of highlights, then it would probably become tedious affair after a while anyway.
Nobody lives a perfect lifestyle, no matter what they might try to portray.
How much is enough?
A second part of this challenge after working out how much is actually enough.
With a decent head for numbers, it shouldn’t too hard to work out how much you need to live the lifestyle you desire, for as long as you need to.
And then it makes sense to build in a safety buffer to your numbers, for unforeseen costs, risks, or turns of events.
Finally, there are some risks you need to avoid outright, such as risks to your reputation.
Buffett said that your reputation can take a lifetime to build, but it can be destroyed in moments.
We should always try to keep that in mind as we go through our personal journey.
I discussed this a little further in the short video below.
Tune in here.
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