Jun 11 • 3 min read
Millionaires want 1,000% more
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You may know the old parable of the Mexican fisherman. A banker meets a fisherman who works just a few hours a day and spends the rest of his time with family and friends. The banker can't help himself: Why not catch more fish? Buy more boats? Build a fleet?
Do it for 20 years, sell the business and cash out — and then he could finally retire to a little fishing village to relax with the people he loves.
Which, ironically, is exactly the life the fisherman already had. The usual lesson is that we may already have everything we need. But there's a second lesson hiding in there, one that matters even more after a career spent building wealth: The chase for "more" doesn't switch off on its own. In today's email:
*** Before we dive in, did you catch this week's podcast? 👇 The Chase Doesn't Stop on Its OwnThe parable's banker assumes that once he's made his millions, he'll finally relax. But the chasing "more" doesn't disappear once you're wealthy. Often, it gets stronger. In fact, Harvard Business School researchers surveyed more than 4,000 millionaires and asked how much more money they'd need to be perfectly happy. Across every wealth level — even among those worth $8 million or more — the most common answer was 1,000% more. In other words, people who had won by almost any measure still felt they were 10x short. 🤯 It's part of the human condition. And while that restlessness has fueled a lot of progress over the centuries, at the individual level it creates a quiet problem: We blow right past "enough" without ever noticing it. Trading Good Hours for Bad DollarsHere's how the problem usually shows up. We keep climbing — one more year, one more deal — long after we have what we need. I call this trading good hours for bad dollars: Spending irreplaceable hours earning dollars you don't need, instead of investing that time in the people and pursuits that bring you real joy. Research shows how costly that trade can be. In 2017, PNAS researchers published a study spanning more than 6,000 people across four countries. The result? Those who used money to buy back their time reported greater happiness than those who spent it on more things. Time, it turns out, is the thing money should be buying. None of this is an argument to stop working or growing, it's simply an invitation to be honest about the trade you're making. The Version I See Most in RetirementFor many of the retirees I talk to, this trade often looks a little different. They've already saved enough. The chase, in theory, is over, and yet they struggle to spend it. Drawing the balance down feels scary and/or reckless, even when the plan says it's perfectly safe. So the good hours keep getting traded for the comfort of an ever-growing balance. The data shows how common this is. Retirees with at least $500,000 spent down just 11.8% of their assets over the first two decades of retirement, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. About one-third actually saw their savings grow. In other words, many people spend their healthiest, most active years guarding money they'll never use, and often never get to enjoy. That's its own version of trading good hours for bad dollars. So, Do You Already Have Enough?There isn't a magic net worth that delivers permanent happiness...the millionaires in the Harvard study are proof of that. But there is a number at which you have enough, and it's usually more achievable than people believe. The hard part is recognizing it and giving yourself permission start enjoying what you've built. That's the real job of a retirement plan. Not to chase the highest possible number, but to tell you, with confidence, when you've already won:
Bottom LineThe novelist Kurt Vonnegut once told his friend Joseph Heller that the host of the party they were attending — a hedge fund manager — had made more money in a single day than Heller earned from his classic novel Catch-22 in its entire history. Heller's reply stuck with me: "Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough." Knowing you have enough may be the most valuable asset of all. The trick is recognizing it before you trade away too many good hours chasing more. 📚 What I've Been Reading
Thank you for reading! Please reply to this email with comments, questions, and/or feedback. Stay wealthy, Taylor Schulte, CFP® |