How much is enough?

Welcome to your WISE Words Newsletter -

Concept: How Much Is Enough?

As wealth grows, an important question becomes harder to answer: How will we know when we have enough?

I was speaking with a business owner who had created significant wealth and a fancy lifestyle, yet he was still working from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., five or six days a week. He desired more time with family and more time to pursue health and fitness goals.

I asked when he planned to create a more balanced lifestyle. Not to stop working, but to work in a way that allowed him to create the life experience he desired.

His answer was simple: "I'll slow down when I feel satisfied."

The challenge is that satisfaction is subjective. Left unobserved and unmeasured, the point at which we finally feel satisfied can keep moving as quickly as our success grows, creating a never-ending cycle of moving the goalposts.

The ability to fully experience the life we want can be easily overtaken by the continual desire to accumulate more. More can be productive, but more doesn't always mean better. It creates tradeoffs, sacrificing time, relationships, health, or experiences that may ultimately be more meaningful to us.

As entrepreneurs, we have been conditioned to prioritize building, however, at some point, we have to prioritize the outcomes we consciously value more.

Question: How will you know when you have enough?

If satisfaction remains undefined, the target can continue moving no matter how much we accomplish.

What would need to be true for you to genuinely feel you’ve arrived and that your choices going forward can reflect that?

First Action: Take a few moments to think about and identify two numbers.

The first is tangible, the amount of capital that will support the lifestyle you want, forever. You may have already identified with your advisor or read about in my book as Independent Wealth Capital. 

The second is aspirational, tied to what you may want to accomplish, experience, or provide for a bigger goal.

They may be closer than you expect, or further apart than you realized. Either way, having both numbers in view gives you a clearer starting point than treating "enough" as a single, undefined idea. 

P.S. Stay tuned. I'll be sharing more on the different types of enough in an upcoming newsletter.