Latest / The Chiro Money Show / 042 | Why Giving Might Be the Best Investment You Ever Make
Transcript
- Chris: Welcome back to the Cairo Money Show, where we're helping chiropractors make better financial decisions so they can build stability in their finances and a lifestyle that they love. We're your hosts, Chris Sheel and Scott Campbell, financial planners with Align Wealth. Scott: We're rolling through summer pretty quick here, aren't we, Chris? Chris: Yes we are. That tends to happen when you have athletic events every weekend of the summer, hey Scott. Scott: Yes, that and your preparation for a big move out to Vernon that's a couple of weeks away. Yeah. Yeah. Chris: Yeah, it's coming close, so life is full on. It's good. Yep. Scott: Summer's flying by. But you're you're you're also making some time for some of these athletic events. Big war. Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah it was great to well, I wasn't participating, but it was great to run down and watch you do your first triathlon official triathlon event, right? Yeah. Last weekend and in Edmonton here. Scott: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. First one Yeah, the Dunor Due North Sprinter Athlon. It's a different format than training for the Iron Man, which is obviously much larger distance, so pacing is different, but I I signed up for it with the intent of just just getting familiar with the transitions, but of course, my competitive nature co came out and had Go full send and max heart rate through most of it. Zero zone two. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Chris: Yeah, there's no zone two in that one, Yeah. So yeah, that that was great to see. Looked like fun. And then couple weeks while you got Calgary, half I half Yeah. Yeah. And then we got the Canadian Death Race mixed team relay on August long weekend. Busy times. Yeah. Scott: Yeah. Calgary Aff Iron Man this weekend. That's coming up real quick. Yep. Yep. Go, go, go. And then at that point you're off to Vernon. Chris: Yeah, as soon as we get back, basically it's pack up and leave. So Scott: Crazy. Summer's going by too fast, but we're having lots of fun. Chris: Yep. Hopefully our listeners are as well. Yep. Scott: That's true. And we gotta we even though we're as busy as we are, we gotta we gotta keep showing up here each week. Gotta make sure that we're fulfilling our our weekly duties of giving our listeners something to to you know, listen to while they're driving around, doing all their their fun summer activities. Right? Chris: Yep. Yep. What what episode number are we on here, Scott? Scott: This should be episode forty two, I believe. Like we're Chris: Forty two. And That's that's impressive. We're we're close to I mean, yeah, we're almost a year in. Scott: We're rolling. For sure. Yeah. It's almost been a year in of doing weekly episodes of the Kire Money Show. We didn't think we could do it, but here we are. Making it happen. Yeah. So tell us, Chris, what what inspired you, kinda had the idea for our topic today. So tell us kind of how it came up and what we're gonna be talking about. Chris: Yeah. Wow. Making it happen. It's great. All right. Yeah. I guess yeah, so I'll start with the kind of the title or what we're talking about. It's just why why giving and generosity might be the the best investment that you make. And this is inspired by Dr. Daniel Crosby, friend of the show. he's the author of a book called The Soul of Wealth that come that's come up recently. And basically one of the short kind of essay chap essay style chapters in that book is all on the link between giving and happiness. And pretty interesting research. Scott: Mm-hmm. Chris: that we'll we'll get into a little bit, but basically just showing that giving rather than spending on yourself actually leads to a a happier happier life. And Scott: For sure. There's only so much spending you can do on yourself before the level of happiness that comes from that starts to plateau, right? Especially when you start to reach a point in life, although the research obviously indicates that we'll get into it, but it's regardless of your level of of wealth or income that giving can have that same level of of happiness that's correlated with that, right? Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's that's one of the first let's just dive right in. One of the first kind of interesting areas that to me is like what the what Daniel Crosby refers to as felt wealth. So like how do we feel wealthy? Right? Like and there's there's two main factors based on the research that determine if you feel wealthy. One, as you would expect, is a person's actual level of wealth. Right. So like actually having, you know, a higher net worth can lead to you feeling more wealthy. Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chris: But regardless of what level you're at, whether you're ultra high net worth or somewhere lower than that, at any at any bracket of like income level, if you do more giving, that correlates to feeling wealthier. That is extremely interesting. Scott: Mm-hmm. it's fascinating what the research does show in terms of yeah, just being regardless of how much wealth you have, you know, you could feel very, very poor, very, very Humble kind of income and what you have, you know, personally from a wealth standpoint, and get immense joy and happiness from from giving, no no matter how much giving that is. Like the dollar amount doesn't matter either. Like just the fact that you are making an active decision to give. And then we're we'd like to talk about kind of there's our also different forms of giving as well that we'll that we'll touch on, but it's not always just financial either. Yeah. Chris: Yeah, for sure. so next we want to talk about why generosity feels so good. And there's a couple of terms that are often thrown around. One of them is called referred to as the helper's high and or the the neuroscience version of this that is has more peer-reviewed research and and more kind of scientific research backing it up, referred to as the warm glow. So the the helper's high comes from a fellow named by the name of Alan Looks, who is the former director, ex executive director of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of New York. And yeah, basically just on his his work with that organization and interviewing a whole bunch of volunteers, he found that in his survey of like regular volunteers that these acts of kindness are are cardioprotective, they call it so they cause blood vessels to relax and widen, they lower blood pressure, reduce strain on the heart just by volunteering, by doing good for others. He also concluded that regular volunteers or helpers were roughly ten times more likely to be in good health than non-volunteers. So like you mentioned a a moment ago, like generosity or giving, it's not always financially related. Like this is people gen that are donating their time and energy to volunteer with an organization. Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chris: so yeah the the biochemical explanation is that like volunteering reduces stress and releases endorphins. These are kind of natural the brain's natural painkillers. Pretty interesting. And then kind of connected with that, you know, back in in 2007, there's a a study from Mayer and and Bugart that found that very similar things. They refer to it as as the warm glow study, but it kind of lights up the brain's reward circuitry and and choosing to give lights it up more than other activities. So very interesting kind of scientific framework here on this. Scott: Can I talk about just a quick warm glow that just comes to mind real quick? Even though it's so minor, but just a perfect case in point. I don't I don't think you visit Tim Hortons as much as as I do, Chris, for for some Tim's, but I don't know if you've had the experience of someone, someone ahead of you in the drive-thru line. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Scott: picking up your tab, no matter how large or small it is, just buying you a coffee and you y you just get this sense of like, wow, that was so kind and generous and usually what I think the first people's instinct to do is to do it to kind of pay it forward and then do it again for the person Chris: Mm-hmm. Scott: person behind you. And I don't know about you, but I've experienced that a few times where someone's done that for me and then I've done it for someone else. And you leave that drive-thru, like just having that kind of that warm glow of like, I did something good for someone, somebody just did something nice for me. the level of joy and happiness like just came from that small act, a small and like not a big financial number, but just small. It's huge, right? And obviously just a very minor example, but it's a case in point of like no matter how big or small, financially or to your point of like volunteering time, like to it it can go it can go in so many different ways in terms of getting that level of joy and happiness from giving. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I think just doing something like that, like w you don't even know the person in the car ahead of you that paid, but you feel this connection to them. And and then the person behind feels that connection to you. And that just I don't know, that positive kind of relational experience I think is a is a huge impact as well. Yeah. Scott: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. I know we both have have some experience in different capacities with like volunteering hours and time. You've done a lot with kids sports and giving back in that capacity. I know I haven't done it lately, but I've got I've participated with br big brothers and sisters and and junior achievement in the past and the the amount of the it's so true. And I don't think I realized it at the time when I when I did it when I was younger, but the level of of joy and happiness that came from giving time, giving back to others. And at that at that point in time wasn't financial, but just giving time and volunteering goes so far with just general fulfillment of life. Chris: step back to the the financial component for a second. Because people will argue, you know, and as often I'm sure you you can find this, like there are people out there that say like money can buy happiness to some degree, And and that you know maybe spending on yourself is a good use of of your financial resources. so back to Daniel Crosby and and he referenced some work by Dunn and Norton who did some happiness research and found that there's pretty short list of categories that that have any kind of correlation to w to happiness. There's there's four four categories. So first one, time freedom. Scott: Mm-hmm. Chris: So buying yourself out of tasks that you hate or that you dislike. Maybe some examples hiring a house cleaner to clean the house, right? Things like that. Buying yourself time is a is a great user of resources, financial resources that can lead to happiness. Yeah. Number two, spending money on experiences with people you love. So time with friends and family. Scott: Mm-hmm. Chris: to some degree having the resources and to to be able to do that is going to have a direct correlation to happiness. And then the third one is novelty, which is interesting. That's like kind of like taking a break, taking a step back from all the busyness of life and being able to just do something for the fun of it. Scott: Mm-hmm. Chris: most classic example here is travel, So like going to you know to New York just to see New York. Like maybe you're gonna go and watch a sporting event or you know go through a walk through Central Park, whatever that is, whatever whatever you know you like about New York, going and experiencing that can certainly lead to to a happier, happier life. Scott: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. It makes me think of how how common it is too for maybe maybe say like the generation ahead of you, maybe they've accumulated and built some wealth in the family. And, you know, what would bring them a lot of so much joy and fulfillment is treating their family, like their their kids and maybe their grandkids to a trip to wherever to New York or Mexico or whatever whatever that is. Like that can bring so much immense fulfillment and joy to not only have that own your own kind of experience. experience of traveling, but to to give that to others as well that you're close with family family and friends, like it goes goes so far. Right. Chris: Mm. Totally. And for the for the family member that's able to do that, you're hitting on three out of these four key areas that that are shown to provide like to to lead to to a happier life. And the last one here, as you could probably guess, is is giving money away. That's the last fourth indicator of happiness. So if you're in a position to be able to to treat your family to a holiday, an a vacation of some of some kind, that's novelty. That's giving money away and that's leading to spending time and ex having experiences with people you love. Now, three out of the four, that's pretty darn good. Maybe if you if you hired a travel agent to do that for you because you hate that process, you could maybe be hitting on four out of the four. Yeah. That's right. Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. For sure. There you go. You're on to something here. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. In terms of h how does this all connect to kind of thinking about maybe the big picture for our listeners when we think about our f kind of Chris: All right. Scott: putting together financial plan, thinking about our month to month cash flow. Like do you have any ideas, Chris, in terms of how we can kind of incorporate this into being more thoughtful and like planning to give, either that being financially or of course like giving time or or mentorship or anything along those lines? Chris: Yeah. So first I would say that starting small, like it it's there's so many parallels with with this and like investing, say like so many people are, you know, I I don't want to start investing or are nervous too because I only have, you know, I can only do fifty dollars a month or whatever that number is. Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chris: That's not a good enough reason not to start investing, and the same goes for giving. Small inconsistence beats big and random. So starting that consistency is going to lead to that happy happiness boost regardless of the dollar amount. Scott: Yeah, for sure. Chris: So yeah, I would say there's a huge opportunity to look at this when we dive into a personal cash flow and we map out, you know, here's how much we have coming in on a monthly basis, here's our committed expenses, how much do we want to add for giving? And just start by carving out the dollar amount first. What do we want to start with? And Scott: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Chris: said starting small is fine just start somewhere and then if we can so if we can first make sure that works with the personal cash flow plan i think that's that's the priority of the starting point then comes the fun part of deciding well where do you want to allocate those those giving resources and that's that that's kind of like the exciting part right like Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chris: What is near and dear to your heart? What are you passionate about? Like is it environmental stuff? Is it arts and music? Is it sports? Is it you know any kind of any anything, right? Scott: Yeah. And it doesn't have to it doesn't doesn't have to be necessarily one one thing either, right? Like as you grow grow your wealth, grow your Chris: That's right. Scott: available income that's coming in to do more. You I think we talked before we started recording for us like about diversifying your giving as well. Like I can think of one of our clients cash flow plan where they have like six or seven different line items of various amounts that are going out to different causes and charitable things that they feel passionate about and want to continue doing on a monthly basis. So it can be done, right? With intention. Chris: Yeah, for sure. For sure. For our our listeners it's it's pretty cool hearing like from from our clients some of the things that they are involved in and and doing to give and how that works into their their lives as chiropractors. some of the most common what you say, Scott, is volunteering of time and energy and like the form of mentorship. Yeah. Scott: For sure. Yeah. It's so common with with some of our some of our dogs who are now kind of getting more established in their in their practice in their career. Like they they want to see the profession move forward so that they're making active decisions to, you know, give time to either associations or just spending time with other docs and like taking the time to see them build and grow and continue to push the profession forward. So obviously there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of fulfill that in different capacities and have that sense of joy and fulfillment from doing from doing so. Right. Chris: Even For sure. Even bringing on associates like can be a form of that as well, Like I know two of some of our clients that that is part of like giving back is is training and you know, mentoring associates that they bring in. And that's that's pretty cool. Also neat, like this spring here hearing about the the new school plan for Calgary. and hearing our clients pretty excited about about that and Scott: Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chris: you know, looking for ways to contribute financially maybe to towards something like that that's gonna advance the the profession in in Canada. Scott: Yep. Yep. Yeah, they're all all paying paying those association dues, giving extra time and money towards that all goes towards moving and advancing the profession, right? So yeah, needless to say, lots of different ways you could lots of different ways you can continue to grow your wealth but continue to find additional ways of more fulfillment, you know, obviously kind of what we're trying to aspire with this whole podcast, like living living the best life that you can and and growing wealth, but living this great lifestyle, but also getting joy and fulfillment from from what you're looking to grow and from a career standpoint. And you can do that by finding all these different ways of giving either financially or just giving time and volunteering Chris: Yeah, for sure. One thing that I find particularly interesting is that nowhere in Dr. Daniel Crosby's work or research do they reference the tax implications and be and tax benefits of giving. And we haven't talked about that yet either. it's interesting because even though it's a pretty big incentive to to giving, like if you're Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chris: Donating to registered charity in Canada as an Albertan, like if you're doing over, I can't I think it's like $200, over $200 per year, you reach the like 50% refund amount. Like 50% of what you give is gonna be returned back to you when you file your taxes. Like that's that's huge. Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. For sure. Chris: Huge, but that's not even the key motivator or benefit of giving. That's just like a an added little bonus that we get when we choose to be generous. Scott: Yeah, there's one thing one thing to maybe make say financial charitable contributions at the end of a year when your accountant says, Hey, we could reduce your tax owing by making a charitable contribution, maybe that contribution might feel good to make so can eliminate a tax bill, but it shouldn't be you know, I I I think from our standpoints, like if you're doing that with with some sort of plan and intention, be that monthly or yearly, it's part of your part of your financial plan, part of your cash flow plan, that's where you're gonna start feeling that fulfillment and that and that joy from regular giving. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Like proactive decisions versus reactive. Obviously we would always be i in in favor of the the proactive type. but maybe one year depending on the circumstances, it does make sense to to make that large contribution at at year end. But regardless, there's a lot of other amazing reasons to to give and be generous. Scott: Yeah, for sure. Yep, for sure. Cool. Sounds good. Well thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Kyramena Show. We'll see you again next week. Chris: We'll leave her there.