Month: May 2023

I first became familiar with Derek Sivers in 2015 after hearing him on the Tim Ferris podcast. Shortly after I read his first book, Anything You Want, which was recently re-released with additional chapters.

Today I listened to his latest interview on Tim’s podcast. It’s a great episode, and clocks in at a strong three hours. The entire interview is great, but I want to share one thing I learned. If you’d like to listen to it, this part begins around the 2:11:00 mark.

Derek is talking about video games. He shared about how there is the temptation to continue playing even after you’ve beaten the game; even after there are no additional rewards. Then he said, “Isn’t that the definition of addiction?” He then defines addiction as “Continuing a behavior even though it’s not rewarding you anymore.”

Then he made the jump to how he thinks about making money. He said, “It’s a game I decided to stop playing because I had enough.” Understanding what you need, and then making the intentional decision to stop once you get there, is something I’ve been thinking about for awhile now.

Sivers shares two examples of people who have done this. Gotye wrote the song “Somebody that I Used to Know” in 2011. It was a huge hit, and could have carried him for years. Yet a couple of years later he retired. He decided that he didn’t want to be singing that song for the rest of his life.

Cameron Diaz was the 5th highest grossing actress, and yet she too decided to quit. She wanted something different from life.

Sivers then referenced Felix Dennis, the author of How to Get Rich. He said that he read that right after selling CD Baby and had a lot of money. He made the decision to put the company in a trust before the sale, which meant that he never touched any of the $22 million it sold for. I believe I read that he receives a small percentage every year, which pays all of his expenses. He knew that he didn’t need $22 million.

Here’s the quote he shared from Felix Dennis that impacted him: “If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably, as quickly as I could, by the time I was 35. I would then cash out and retire to write poetry and plant trees.”

Sivers decided to heed this advice. He quit the game of making money. And it seems to me that he continues to bear fruit as a result of this intentional and counter-cultural decision.

So why do we continue to make money when we have enough? It seems like a simple thing, yet it is very normal. I don’t know if it’s the case for everyone, but I see two primary reasons for why we do this.

First, we continue to play the game because we fear that the money will run out. It’s just human nature, and the amount of money that we have in the bank is the not the primary indicator. We can live with a scarcity mentality, or we can live with an abundance mentality. It takes discipline, but it’s our choice.

The second reason we continue to play the game of making money is that it makes us feel better about ourselves. I believe that we were created to be creators and cultivators. This is part of our core identity. Yet it’s so easy for it to be taken to an extreme and become corrupted.

It’s important to understand your motives for making money. It’s important to understand your motives of why you want to do a certain deal. Sometimes we make money because we need to eat. That’s where things start. But as we get older and grow in our careers, our motives change.

Our identity is tied up in our work. When we are producing, we feel better about ourselves. Ego can be a good thing, but it can also lead us into dangerous territory.

In a future post I plan to share how I’ve been working through this issue in my own life and business.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by money. I remember a time growing up when I was aware of the fact that we didn’t have much money. And I remember times when I was aware that we were very comfortable. I don’t believe there was a time in my life where I ever felt that my parents didn’t have the financial resources to take care of me. We always had enough. Though “need” and “want” often get confused, I don’t really remember times when my parents said no to something I needed.

I have always been frugal. I’ve always loved getting a good deal. Even when my parents were buying things for me, I never wanted to pay full price.

When I was in college I opened my first mutual fund after reading a book by Larry Burkett. And then after college I moved to Nashville. My first job had me sitting at a desk doing accounts receivable all day, but my manager allowed me to listen to the radio through headphones. It was there that I discovered The Dave Ramsey Show, and I listened to it everyday.

It was from listening to Dave Ramsey that I began budgeting and investing. I didn’t make much money, but my expenses were very low. In a notebook I wrote down every expense I had on a daily basis. Through Dave Ramsey I was also introduced to compound interest, which taught me that the earlier I got started investing, the better. So that’s what I did. I opened a Roth IRA, contributing $166/month.

Mandy and I were dating at the time and were seriously contemplating getting married. We had some conversations about money, but not that many. I’ve come to believe in the years since that every person has a relationship with money. Some relationships are good, while others are not so good. And we’re often unaware of how that relationship impacts our daily decisions. And then when we get married, we bring that relationship with money into our new marriage.

We’ve all heard the stats that say that money is often at the center of strife within a marriage, and this was true with us as well. Because we hadn’t taken the time as individuals to understand the role that money played in our own lives, we had no idea how to bring it into our marriage. It’s human nature to assume that everyone thinks like we do. This can get us into trouble on a lot of things, but it’s definitely true with money. Often one spouse is a spender at heart, while another is a saver. We found early on that we’re both spenders, but what we spend money on is different.

Mandy and I have been married for almost 24 years. There were a few years in which we both wondered if our conflicts over money might do us in. I imagine I’ll share some of that in future posts. But for now let me just say that we met the conflicts head on and over time learned how to talk about money. We developed some habits that have not only allowed us to survive but actually to thrive. We still come at money differently, but we’ve learned how to value and learn from those differences.

So money has impacted my individual life as well as my marriage. I’ve also seen how it impacts the lives of others, in both positive and negative ways. When I was a young pastor, money was one of those things that I tended to avoid talking about. I knew it was a taboo topic, and I really just didn’t know how to talk about it. But over time I began to understand what a central and critical role it played in people’s lives, so I began to learn how to talk about it.

In November, 2022 I taught my first Mastering Money workshop at my church. Over the previous six months I had spent countless hours going back over my favorite resources and then writing the curriculum. That Saturday morning in November I spent three hours with a group of about 20 people from my church. There was great discussion amongst the group, and I think we all took things from the morning that will continue to impact the way we handle our finances.

I remember being exhausted when I got home that Saturday, but I also remember feeling very grateful and satisfied. I had spent many hours preparing for this, but I felt like it was totally worth it. I had helped to meet a real felt need, and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. Over the coming weeks I decided that I wanted to help people learn how to master their money. This was a clarity that I normally do not have, but I had it with this. I didn’t know exactly what that would look like, but I wanted to begin to try to figure it out.