What does it mean to be financially comfortable, and how does it differ from being wealthy?

On today’s episode, hosts Ryan and Roland share their thoughts on money and the meaning of real wealth. The conversation takes inspiration from a recent Charles Schwab survey, which challenged the participants by asking whether it is possible to put a dollar amount on what it means to be wealthy? Some might be surprised by numbers revealed in this research, and some may not. But in both cases - they will certainly make you think.

This discussion might help us in trying to understand when do people begin to feel they’ve accomplished what they set out to accomplish. What more do we need to feel secure? Do we feel grateful for what we already achieved? In the end, what is wealth? What does leading a wealthy life really mean for you? After all, if you only measure it by money, it will always change, and it might make you forget to invest in other aspects of your life. 

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

• What is the difference between being wealthy and financially comfortable? 
• What does the survey from Charles Shwab reveal about net worth? 
• How does focusing on earning differ from focusing on your net worth?
• How to use these types of studies to realign your goals.

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Ask Roland and Ryan a question HERE.
• War Room

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This sounds, so I'm going to get like, all kinds of hate for this.

I don't think 2.2 million as wealthy.

Hey, everybody, Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss here with the business launch

a podcast coming to you live and recorded from our studios in respective different

parts of the United States of America.

And today we're going to talk about a bunch of fun things,

Brian, how are you doing today?

I'm doing really, really well.

And just coming off of Vega, lovely beach vacation with Maya, with my bride, got

some reading in, got some writing in got a couple of, I'll tell you the seven

levels book is a, is coming along nicely.

I need to send you over the early stage of the manuscript, but

I'm, I'm very excited about that.

Yeah.

Very,

a whole bunch of books that will be out before the end of the year, which

is really dag-gone exciting since we've been trying to do it for what a decade.

Yeah, I think we're going to in the, in the next few months, I

think we're going to make up between now and the end of the year for all

of the books we haven't written.

And I'm a big believer in, you know, you write a book when you have something

to say, I mean, yes, they're a good calling card and good marketing, but

I think if, if you're gonna write a book, it needs to be fricking good.

And I think we've had relatively high standards on what.

We would require ourselves to put a book out in the marketplace.

And I like, what I'm excited about is we got some like good, like big

books coming that are more like the traditional, , business book, But as

I'm writing the seven levels book, I'm trying to figure out what are the pieces

that everybody would dog ear and making sure that there's not too much space.

In between the sections where somebody would dog ear a

page, or, you know, highlight.

Cause sometimes you need to build to a bigger point.

You can't just have like one after another and you know, there's no context.

But making sure that editing is basically driven by how long

would people have to go before.

It's something really, that's a nugget, that's a highlight worthy.

That's a dog year, page worthy kind of thing.

So it should be.

I think that's great that that's how the original leverage

exit gross scale was put together.

I As I wanted to do an event, I want it to be like the best

event I could possibly do.

And so I went back through five years of presentations and found all the

ones that the most people were like, you know, oh man, that's amazing.

You just blew my mind.

And this is, you know, that I wanted it to be ever.

And then the hard part, which you're having fun with right now too,

is, well, how do I arrange that in any kind of logical order that

seems to flow from my here to this.

So that I do get all that stuff in and it's contextual and coherent

and congruent, which is super fun.

So, yeah, cause I think we've had lots of really valuable things to say, it's

just part of it is we're busy doing them.

Right?

So that like the whole, the whole thing of the book writing can be challenging

too, because getting your vision across to even really good quality

professional writers that we've had, you know, come in and help us with things.

It's not as easy as you think, you know?

No, it's easy.

If you want to produce something that is kind of crappy, right?

If you want to produce a calling card type book, but if you want an actual people

are glad they picked it up and read it.

Which man, you and I both read.

And God dang.

Most of the business books are just garbage.

I mean, not that that's, maybe that's unfair that they're there.

A couple of decent

fluff with two or three ideas.

If not one that could be summarized in about 10 to 30 pages.

Being, and they take forever to get there.

Like it's your 30, 40 pages in, you know, and there's a foreword by, you

know, somebody who I guess is important.

So dispensing with all of that getting to the good stuff and just stacking good

stuff on top of good stuff, but in a way that builds and it compounds and it, you

know, is well structured and well ordered.

So I'm excited about that.

And also I know there's one more, we're gonna talk about, but I'm seeing more

and more people putting out mini books where you talking about like these 30,

40 page books on a, on a single subject.

And I think there's something to be said for having both, but again, the mini

books have to be good to all, all to offense like, oh God, it's a transcription

of a webinar or a YouTube video.

It's like, punch me in the throat.

Like, no, thank you.

But if it's really, really, really good I think that could be a very fun

thing to put out to the world because.

Stuff online.

I think it'd be fun to get something analog out in the world.

I agree a hundred percent.

I think that that's a really good to a really good way to go.

We've got, we got a lot of fun things going on.

I had one of the things that I talked with you about that I thought would

be fun for us to explore here And I'm just going to ask you the question.

This was a survey that I think it's Charles Schwab that's the modern

wealth survey from Charles Schwab and it basically asks people.

What do they need to have in terms of net worth?

Is can you put a dollar amount on what it means to be wealthy?

So they're asking Americans basically that, and and I, I kind of want to see if

you can guess the number and then see if you have a number that you're like, yeah.

When somebody hits this level, I think they're wealthy.

And the other one that I felt was even more interesting than wealthy

is to feel financially comfortable.

And so, and, and the

Which is first.

The two are quite different.

Well, I kind of want to just get your thought on it, cause it

will be more organic that way.

So let's, let's start with that.

What would you guess that most people say they need to have in terms of a net

worth to be financially comfortable?

Net worth to be financially comfortable.

Hmm.

So when I, when I would ask people how much, like, if I'm talking to other

entrepreneurs and they're just getting.

How much they want to make.

What's their first goal.

It's, it's almost always like nine times out of 10, $10,000 a month.

right, but we're talking net worth, not, not

I know.

Yeah, no, I gotcha.

I gotcha.

income here in a minute.

I'm getting my I'm going.

I'm going through the thought.

I'm thinking out loud, So that tells me that, a hundred thousand dollars a year

in income is when people start to feel.

And, and I would think that that would loosely aligned

to a million dollars in new.

Okay.

are feeling financially comfortable,

Okay.

Okay, great.

And

can say they're a millionaire.

yeah, and as do you have a different, like, do you have a

distinction that you would make between those since they didn't really

define them for us in the, in the brief article that I read between

like financially comfortable and then wealthy, what one means to you versus.

Yeah.

I mean, to me financially comfortable means I'm no longer thinking every single

day about having enough to basically cover my short term needs, like I'm comfortable

in like comfortable in the short term.

Whereas, wealthy is when you stop thinking about necessarily earning

and you're more thinking about You know, how do I best allocate and

utilize the resources that I have?

Like, I've heard it said that rich people sell stuff and, wealthy

people, never sell anything.

I don't know that that's necessarily true, but like, you know, I do

think a shift happens when you go from, the earning mindset to the

how do I best allocate mindset.

And to me that's a financially comfortable or.

so, so you said then financially comfortable, you think maybe they said

a million, what would you say then?

Do you think they would say for what.

Wealthy I don't know, 5 million, 2 million.

It's probably less actually.

It's probably about 2 million, although it's Schwab people.

So they're investors.

They got, yeah, I'm going to go with my, and I'll go with a million

for financially comfortable.

5 million for one.

Okay.

And then for you, like in your mind do you have thoughts that are

different, those numbers, like for you?

Are those numbers different?

You know, funny, like financially comfortable.

like I felt financially comfortable when I had enough in, you know, liquid.

To where I knew, like I got a couple a year, like if I didn't do anything

for a couple of years, I'm comfortable.

And then wealthy is like, I could literally stop everything

right now and be completely fine.

Like if I got hit by a bus, like, I'd be fine.

My family be fine.

Everything would be fine.

So to me it, and again, I'm not saying this is right.

Just the way

And I'm not, I'm not just so everybody's clear, I'm not asking you

to say, for you and and therefore I am, and therefore I've got this.

, I'm asking more like what, what do you think that number should be to feel

financed for one, to feel financially comfortable and for one to feel wealthy

using the definitions that you just.

well, so what I think being financially comfortable to me as

like, as an individual, it is if you're, relatively debt free.

Right.

I mean, maybe you might have a home with a mortgage on it or something like

that, but relatively debt-free with at least, you know, if you got like

six months in the bank, I think you should feel financially comfortable

now, for me, I'm pretty conservative.

And so I have always wanted more so there's the, what I think

it should be, which is that.

And then there's for me, you know, it was when it's

Is there a number around that first one, then like a net worth number.

No.

I mean, I think the net worth number, you know, if you figure most people,

you know, three to six months, average income probably then the financial

comfortable meter based on that would be maybe a net worth of not including

the home, you know, 150, $200,000.

If you include the home, then maybe with average home prices right

now, maybe you're more like a half.

Okay.

guess financially comfortable I'm between 500,000 and a million net worth

and wealthy 2 million and 5 million is what I believe people said now wealthy.

I don't think, I don't think a 5 million net worth is necessarily wealthy, but

I bet that's probably what people said.

Okay.

I like it.

So we're going to take a break here.

This is a cliffhanger.

We get our, our, producer's going to be very happy with us for taking a

break here and saying, when we come back after this little message from

one of our sponsors, we're going to tell you what the numbers are.

And then talk about this a little bit more.

Okay.

So now we're back.

So here are the numbers.

You were very, very close.

So for.

feeling comfortable.

They said 774,000 was the average to feel comfortable.

Okay.

So it's not that everybody said $774,000.

That's the average.

So which

And this just so we're clear net worth, including inclusive of home.

Right.

this, it didn't specify.

So,

usually does.

Right.

Net worth is assets minus

would include your home, you know, and it's a fan, it's the family net

worth, not like, like one person there.

And then I was actually surprised because this to me, I guess it was

higher than I would have thought for a survey, but 2.2 million was wealthy.

So 7 74 for financially comfortable.

And 2.2 for wealth.

What do you think about that?

I don't.

I mean, I don't think that's, I think you're doing very, I

think you're doing astoundingly.

Great.

This sounds, so I'm going to get like, all kinds of hate for this.

I don't think 2.2 million as wealthy.

I, I don't, I think, I think you done and I'm not knocking it.

Well it's because of your definition of wealth, your definition

of wealth, you said is basically I don't have to work anymore.

Right.

So if you're going to, and you said you're conservative.

So if you're going to conservatively, invest.

$2.2 million and you're going to take your house out of that.

You know, that's

Yeah.

that's not a lot of income that that's going to generate to make you

feel like you don't have to work again.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the thing like for me to feel wealthy, I think financially

comfortable is I know that I've got enough runway to where if something

bad happens and everything blows up, I'll be able to figure something out.

Before I run out of money.

Wealth is my assets more than pay for my current life.

So I don't have to go backwards in lifestyle.

Yeah.

And, and inflation you know, and, and whatever else you know, I got kids

going to college, so it needs to cover, you know, I would call my lifestyle,

whatever I have right now, projected out to where it's going to go, which

depending on who you are, it could be, it could be more, it could be less.

but but that to me is when your.

The other thing I liked that, that you said, which is for

me too, because from financially comfortable, I'm going to think much

more incoming than I am not worthy.

Like, like to be financially comfortable to me is I don't have

to look at prices for anything I can get what I want when I want it.

And I'm not worried about that.

that's to me financially comfortable, and I've got some level of savings.

Above and beyond that and my net worth doesn't I, I'm not

thinking that worthy on that.

Maybe I should be.

Cause like, if I was thinking, well, what if I couldn't work at

all, then financially comfortable would be the amount that I need to

do the income things I need divided by my estimated amount of return.

And that would come up with some net worth.

But that's.

Esoteric and, not real world, real world, I I'm with you.

I, I don't define it even with that.

it's not a million because a million wouldn't with house equity, considering

what it costs to live in, the places that you and I choose to live in you know, just

cities, it, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, but but wealthy, I think wealthy

is 10 for, you know, like, like wealth.

These tend to get to the point where you.

I don't have to work or worry about anything.

I think he gotta be around there because assume a very conservative interest rate

that you could, you know, from a combined portfolio of investments, which you would

want, if you were not going to work again.

Let's say maybe you could get 5% after taxes.

So, you're talking about $500,000.

To be able to do what you want and be able to kind of perpetuate your life.

That it's not like 10 million is a lot, but it's not as

much as you might think it is.

That's like when you watch shows where it's like, we're going to do one more

bank robbery movie, we're going to get a million dollars each and then

we're going to go off into the sunset.

It's like, no, you're not,

Yeah.

You went on a really nice vacation.

Then you went back to work.

I guess, although if you robbed the bank, you probably not paying taxes on it.

so, so I dug down into this a little bit.

So sadly that means that only about 15% of the U S population feels

financially comfortable because you have to be in the top 85 at the top, like

85% plus to have a net worth of 774.

That's so I thought that was interesting.

That means that based on that poll 85% of the people that are out there are

feeling financially uncomfortable, which

I bet it's a lot higher than that too.

I bet it's way higher than that because I bet the people who said that.

Yeah, I think 700 some thousand.

And that's why I said, does it include the house?

It would have to, if you're talking net worth, I mean, there's not really a

network calculation that doesn't include, you know, your home, but boy, I mean,

if I'm sitting on, let's say I have, you know, 400,000 in equity on my house.

And 300 something thousand in the bank.

And almost all of that is in, some kind of retirement account that

I can't touch for 10, 20 years.

You're

I don't think I'm feeling.

Yeah.

I don't think I'm feeling flushed, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

So I think, I think your 15% number as that hit me, I was

like, God, that seems low.

I think it's actually worse than that.

It probably is so I was kind of surprised at the spread between

financially comfortable and wealthy, cause it was only what 1,000,005

spread which I thought was interesting.

So basically and , to feel.

Wealthy then you would have to be in the top 5% because that's

where we get to 2.2 and net worth.

Now that, that was, that was really interesting.

And then , I couldn't help go to income because like I'm concerned about building

wealth because I'm not touching that.

And so like income, I'm touching wealth.

I'm not, if that makes sense.

I don't want to sell things and deplete my wealth to pay for my lifestyle ever.

So.

So a minimum family income to join the top 1%.

Right now it's $421,000, but that's across the entire country in the United States,

in New York city to be in the top 1%.

It's 7 44 in San Francisco.

It's 9 43 in Wyoming of all places.

Jackson hole, Wyoming.

It's.

To be in the top 1%.

And so I was thinking like the interesting thing to me about the New York number was

it was close to the 7 74 of net worth.

So like, if you think about how, you know, how long and how much you

would have to earn to get to 7 74 to feel comfortable, or to point to,

to feel wealthy based on the average responder to the Schwab survey.

Versus I think if you talk to people who have.

Higher net worths.

They're going to say higher numbers, but they've got more expensive lifestyles

because they have more money to play with.

And so to maintain that lifestyle, it's going to take more.

So that might explain the lower number that we're looking at

that was my unscientific take, but I thought it was really.

To say, you know, that like for them to ask people that, and then

it kind of goes to, well in the economy now with the stock market,

shedding five to 8 trillion, depending on, when you're measuring of value.

There's a lot of people that are feeling a lot less wealthy than they were before.

And so then we go to consumer confidence and we'll we go into, a

recession or something like that.

It's, it's kind of an interesting

I was going to ask when, when was this done?

Was it done kind of pre this most recent crash?

Yeah.

So this was done.

This is normalized.

The, the survey was just conducted recently, or it was

just published today, I think.

But the, the numbers that I was giving you in terms of net worth and

stuff, those are inflation adjusted from 2020 the next time that they're

going to measure that as 20, 23.

So these are the latest numbers adjusted for the inflation that we've had to

get to kind of, where would you have.

But pretty fascinating.

Don't you

But the survey, the, the people who took the survey took it

kind of since the most recent crash.

Cause I, I, you know, I know there's a lot of people that have.

You know, their 401ks take, you know, take a beating.

And so, you know, you might be feeling like, ah, you know, I need a little bit

more to feel more secure hard to say, but what do you think is the lesson?

Like, what's the takeaway for if I'm going to read that I'm listening, like

what, what do I, what do I do now?

Yeah, , that's a really good question.

Which I haven't thought about.

So , I guess to me I'm always measuring, like , where is it that people can feel.

that that they've accomplished what they want to accomplish

and they can feel secure.

And so I think in terms of like your customers, if you're a wealth

planner, this is tremendously valuable because it gives you a place.

It gives you some measuring sticks to say, where.

Should I be looking for clients and what is there, feeling their state of

mind for, us out there in the world?

I think it's a good measuring stick to say, where am I

right now and how do I feel?

and do I agree with those numbers?

And it's interesting if I'm wealthy, And way above those numbers,

then maybe it's, Hey, how about some gratitude for where I am?

And, you know, maybe I'm chasing everything and trying to pick up every

quarter and and working myself to death and not spending time with my family, but

maybe you're at five or four, 3 million and you're like, I'm already wealthy and

maybe I'm skewed a little bit in what.

Allocating my time in my life too.

That's too much towards money in business and not enough towards these other things.

And I should enjoy life more.

Or maybe you've over-indexed in the opposite direction of,

you know, I've, I'm traveling.

I saw an article in.

I think it was the wall street journal about a lady in the UK.

And she's like, I'm 52 years old and basically have 40,000 pounds in my

savings and I've had this great life.

About going around being a publicist for bands.

And so I hung out with, Bano and all these great people and had this

crazy life, but now I'm in my fifties and I don't really have any savings

and I'm renting a place in the rent's about to go up and I can't afford it.

And I can't, if I don't have the down payment to buy a house.

So maybe she's like I got to reallocate my focus.

So I think it could be good for that because kind of normalizing, where

is your focus on money versus time?

How about you?

Uh,

So I was going through a lot of the same emotions where I was like, I

was hearing what I was about to say and wanting to punch myself in the

face in terms of like, well, that doesn't seem very wealthy at all.

But I remember being the broke college.

Kid.

And even the first few years in business and heck, coming pretty close to

bankruptcy a couple of times, thinking, wow, I mean I would do almost anything

if I could put, $10,000 in the bank.

And so having lived a lot of those, I think the lesson is that it's

very relevant relative and wealth is I think, how you feel in a

particular moment and what you want to guard against is comparison.

You know, comparison is the thief of joy.

So I think you want to guard against that and just be very intentional.

About what it is that you want and why you want it.

And I think one of the most helpful things there is that distinction between

financially comfortable and wealthy and, and pursuing this aspect of I'm no

longer in fear so that you can then say, okay, well now what do I want to do?

Cause I know for me, I've been in seasons where I was in a state of

fear and that just became habitual.

And so it was like, I gotta go, I gotta go.

I gotta earn.

I gotta earn because you know, I'm being chased by.

Right.

It's like, there's a lion is chasing me down and there was a time when

that was true and that it wasn't true.

And I didn't adjust and I still pursued, you know, wealth and income

with the same kind of ferocity.

And that's when you burn out.

So I do think it's helpful to say, okay, what does it for me to be financially

comfortable as defined by I'm no longer worried about tomorrow the next day now.

I'm going to be okay.

And then in light of that, what does it look like for me to pursue

wealth, wealth, being a construct, not just of net worth, but a wealthy.

Right.

What kind of lifestyle they don't want to lead because you and I know

people worth hundreds of millions of dollars who are fricking miserable.

And we know people who we'd be like, God, dang, dude, you need to borrow some dough.

And they're the happiest people we know.

So I would pursue a wealthy life and be intentional on what that is

because what wealth means to you.

If it's only measured by money will only always change.

Yeah, I love it.

I think that is fantastic.

So anyway, if we'd love to hear what you guys think about this stuff

too, we have a call in thing now.

We had a question that we will talk about on the next podcast from from

one of our friends, Jerry Conti, who called in, but what is the Rand?

Do you remember what it is?

Is it business

lunch?

business lunch podcast.com forward slash ask, ask that's where you can

ask me and Roland and, and you know, we like to keep this show just you and

I chatting like we, like we do over lunch and, and this is everybody's

chance to kind of eavesdrop in.

And like the show is eavesdropping in, on one of our business lunch

conversations the business lunch podcast.com forward slash ask is

your chance to kind of, if you were.

At a restaurant, you saw us having a conversation sidling on over

to our table and being like, Hey, can I ask you a quick question?

So this is your chance to do that.

So we're going to try to do one of them a week.

and Yeah, that's funny.

Now I have this vision that we're going to be sitting down, having lunch, and

somebody's gonna come and sit down.

That's this sounds terrible now.

yeah, it's, it's really great.

We'd love to get also we have social media, so we've got a YouTube channel.

I don't know where you're watching this right now, but we have a YouTube

channel, Instagram and all those things for business lunch podcast.

We'd love to get you.

Because we look at those things.

We'd love to get your feedback on this.

Particularly what does it take for you to feel wealthy and what does it take

for you to feel financially comfortable?

And what do you think is right or wrong about the numbers that you know,

are accurate or inaccurate about the numbers that came out of that survey?

And if you enjoy listening to us and having this little time with us, we

would love for you to subscribe so that you don't miss out on any of these.

And also give us a five star rating.

So other people can say, those guys are fun to listen to.

And we'd like to listen to.

Thank you guys for being here, Brian.

Wonderful as always.