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054 | How Much Is Enough? · The Chiro Money Show

• Chris Scheele: Welcome back to the Chiro 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 Scheele and Scott Campbell, financial planners with Align Wealth. Scott Campbell: Alright, Chris. You nailed the intro. Good work. Giving you a hard time about memorizing this introduction that you have to do every week. Still have to read it off the screen. Chris Scheele: For a year. That's right. Scott Campbell: I'm gonna take over. Maybe you have to let the audience vote. Maybe I'll have to take over this job. It's a very, very important role. Anyways. Chris Scheele: I I don't think I've messed it up once. Because I read it off off the screen. I get every word right every time, Scott. I think there's something to be said for that. Yeah. Scott Campbell: You're crushing it. All right, you're crushing it. All right, we got a really great c topic today. And before we get into the topic, we have a great little we have to we get to get back to what we ended off on last week and it'll be a great segue into our conversation today. So tell me, Chris, is is twenty six kilometers enough for you? N No. No, it's not enough. What about fifty K? Fifty K, is that enough? Eighty K, is that enough for you, Chris? Chris Scheele: Depends on the day, man. Depends on the day. It's not enough. Not enough. Not enough. No, not enough. No. Once I hit eighty I knew I had to go further. Scott Campbell: You had to go further. So eighty K is not enough. Hundred K Chris Scheele: Hundred K is enough. There we go, baby. Scott Campbell: 100K is enough. Okay. All right. There we go. Nelson Backyard Ultra 100K Kilometer Club. If you're on the YouTube watching. So if you didn't listen to last week's Chris Scheele: Yeah. Nice little. Scott Campbell: episode, the did not finish your mug. Nice. Chris Scheele: Yeah, yeah. Scott Campbell: Nice. So if you didn't catch last week's episode, this last weekend, Chris was in Nelson, BC for a backyard ultra marathon. Real quick, Chris, what's a backyard what's a backyard ultra real quick. Chris Scheele: Yeah. It's you you run six point seven kilometers, you have to start every hour on the hour and you have a full hour to finish your six point seven kilometer yard, they call it. And yeah, that's it basically. You if you if you don't report back to the start or finish your yard within the hour, you are eliminated. Your your DNF did not finish and you can keep going until you wanna stop. So it's kind of like when when is enough? So for me, no, there's no finish line. That's right. Everyone gets to Scott Campbell: There's no finish line. You get to determine when you've had enough. Yeah. Chris Scheele: decide what what enough is. So it's as much a a mental battle as it is a physical one. yeah, for me, you know, with not really training specifically for an endurance event like this, going into it, I didn't really have high hopes, but I felt really great and yeah, was running with some good friends, new friends that I made here in Vernon that kinda invited me to join them. So yeah, Nate and Sam were just crushing it and made made the first ten yards go by in a flash. And once I got to that point, I was like, Well, I'm this close, I'm I might as well go for a hundred. So that w that's Scott Campbell: Right on. Chris Scheele: what I did and yeah. Scott Campbell: So fifteen fifteen hours, fifteen loops of this course. Hundred K. Well done. Well done. Good job, man. Proud of you. Chris Scheele: Yep. Yep. Hundred K. Yep. Mm-hmm. It was lots of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Scott Campbell: Nice work. All right, good segue into conversation that we're going to have for for today. Just Chris Scheele: Mm. Scott Campbell: really just wanna dive in and and talk around this idea of of what is enough. We obviously having some fun with this. You've had it you enough at a hundred K, Chris. You're kaput, no more. It was your Chris Scheele: Yeah. No more. Scott Campbell: Achilles that I said maybe maybe it was your Achilles or ankle that had enough. Maybe you maybe mentally you had more, but Chris Scheele: Yeah, I mean that's a good point. I I I was doing pretty good otherwise, but yeah, the ankle Achilles foot was was not happy. So that was that was really the the deciding factor of like let's just let's just call this. It was fun though. I was I was close otherwise. I I mean Scott Campbell: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Chris Scheele: you've probably been there, Scott, with your endurance events. We gotta keep going on this a little more. You know when you get the some somebody told me this this is like a a real term, the ultra wobble when you're when you can hardly run and you're kinda walking, but you're more staggering and you're going sideways as much as you are like like you look down for a minute, all of a sudden you're like way across the trail and then you you look up and you're like, no, I gotta correct. And then you correct too much and you're back to the other side of the trail. So I had a lot little bit of that going on. Scott Campbell: Yeah, you start to get a little delusional. Yeah. Chris Scheele: Yeah, totally. Scott Campbell: I feel like delusional can also segue nicely into the idea of of enough and on the financial Chris Scheele: Totally. Scott Campbell: side of life. But yes, I know what you're talking about, Chris. I've been there. Been there, done that. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Scheele: Yep. That's you have. Scott Campbell: Yeah. I'm envious. I'll get that I'll get back there soon. Yep. Chris Scheele: Yeah. Soon enough, I'm sure. Scott Campbell: Yep. Chris Scheele: So yeah, that decision, like I mean to relate it back to the financial side of things, it's like that's probably the hardest the p hardest thing that any any one of us humans have to do is is deciding when is enough. Like when are we Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. Chris Scheele: when are we ready to draw the line and stop the goalposts from moving. Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. W what do you see typically from your experience working with working with clients, meeting new people, just conversations that we're having throughout throughout the years? Like what do you see is common for for a lot of folks when it comes to this the goalposts moving and kind of always more and more? Chris Scheele: Yeah. I think if well, one thing Think it's if we're not very if we're not careful and intentional about it, it it's so natural for things just to keep progressing and and thinking that we need more, we need a better vehicle or better house or whatever the case, we need more income. I think that's just like societal, you know, n natural kind of way of life, unfortunately, whether that's right Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. Chris Scheele: or wrong, I don't know. I think it's kinda not not great, but I think that's that's the norm if we're not careful. If we're careful or considerate about what we're trying to do and and what we want out of life, then yeah. It's still hard. It's still hard to reflect and think about like, okay, well, when should I slow down or what should I change? What should I how how could I improve? How could I, yeah, get more out of life. But I think anytime we can introduce like any small decision that that lets us kind of step back and and and look at like the the big picture of of what we're trying to achieve. I think that's that's a win in my opinion. and I think we're starting to see that more and more with our clients as they progress. Like I think that's a natural part of the progression is like we all, you know, kind of looking at Maslow's higher hierarchy of needs, like once the base needs are met. We can start to focus on on those next levels. And I think quite naturally as clients work with us, they do go through those those levels. They're they're usually not starting at the bottom rung, right? They usually have some kind of stability built. But as that gets more comfortable, we can show that, like, hey, you're on track, you know, here's what the projections show, here's where you're headed. Then that thinking evolves into that next level of, yeah. What what what am I here for? What what what are we really doing this all for? And at Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chris Scheele: the end of my life, what what's the impact or what's the what are people gonna remember me by? Scott Campbell: Yeah, for sure. It's it's finding this it's a bit of a balance of having like big dreams and aspirations about what you want out of your life. Like from maybe just thinking about it from a material standpoint. You start maybe your chiropractor going through school, you're working so hard, you want to start a practice, you're kind of just scripping in and saving, paying off the student loans, like not paying yourself a whole lot, for example. You have desires of what you'd want to see life look like. I you know, you have visions of Maybe the vehicle that you're gonna drive or the house or community that you're gonna live and raise your kids in and all the experiences you wanna have throughout life, vacationing and things that you wanna do and accomplish. Obviously, there that comes with the need for financial resources to make all those things happen. But it's reflecting back then also at certain points in time of truly understanding what your values are, what you truly say is most important with you, and not letting those two things like it's it's this balance, right? Where you can get too far out. in front of your skis, maybe in terms of having way too much material stuff where you kind of forget about all this is what is really important to me. What I've said is important to me, but now you've been dedicating way too much time and energy and focus on more, more, more. Right. Chris Scheele: For sure. I think I mean the same intuitively we know like this relates to practice or personal, right? I think practice is a good like we often see this, right? Where we're talking about weekly visit numbers, maybe, and we're like, or or revenue monthly revenue, whatever we don't want to look at, like and we have a friend or colleague that, you know, their their numbers are higher than ours. So we're we're we're striving for, you know. to get to get to that level. Maybe we're looking at a hundred visits a week, then one fifty, then it becomes two hundred, then it becomes two fifty, whatever those numbers are for you. I think that happens quite easily, but then that increase kind of disappears. It's like we don't often feel the impact of that increase because we're we've been so focused on getting to that number, but we might be sacrificing other things along the way. Like we might be We might be paying more for or or spending more to achieve that number, not realizing that if we stopped, maybe maybe your practice is is great at 175 visits a week and you've got one staff and it's yourself and and things are just dialed in and and running smooth and you know, no headache, no fuss. But to get to two fifty a week, it costs you another staff member, it costs you more hours, you know, different costs that that come into that. And we sometimes can lose track of that too, right? Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. And not that any of those things are are bad in a vacuum, right? Maybe, maybe you should take make those decisions to take that next step in your practice to grow to that level. But I think the underlying point that we're trying to make together here is what are what are the potential trade offs to get to that next level that's going to create that much more revenue where you can pay yourself that much more? What are you going to do with that? You know, is it Chris Scheele: Hm. Yeah. Scott Campbell: is that trade off worth it at the end of the day? Would you agree? Chris Scheele: So basically money is just a backyard ultra unless you draw the line. Scott Campbell: Yeah, good good good resemblance there for sure. Chris Scheele: Yeah. Yeah. Scott Campbell: If there's no finish line, you know, you that's where you can kind of get caught up and just we're gonna continue to grow for the sake of growing because that's what maybe society and culture has kind of pressured us in doing. We see our peers and what they're doing, where our peers live and what they drive, etc. We want to keep up and keep keep growing. But and I I I don't want to discount The fact, like if your goal is to live in X house and drive this fancy car, whatever your goal is, if that's really important to you, then if if it were were one of our clients, we would encourage it. Like, let's get you to that goal, right? But not for the not for the sake and trade off of something else that you may have said is way more important to you. Like I only want to work X amount of hours per week because I want to be home every night for dinner. I want to make be able to make sure I can take my kids to all their all their activities, et cetera. If you start trading off some of those things that you've clearly said are really important just for the sake of spending more hours and time on say your business to grow it to create more revenue, that's that's what you need to start reviewing, right? Chris Scheele: Yeah. And that's where part of the benefit like of of working with with great people like us is that we're gonna push back when we hear a client say something that kind of doesn't align with with what they've already described to us as as being the most important thing to them. Right. And that's what your financial team should do. So Scott, why don't you why don't you tell the story here? I know you mentioned we yeah, have a bit of a client client story to to share that's pretty applicable here. Scott Campbell: Yeah, just really really high level. This kind of what inspired I've been thinking about this topic for a little while and it's something that I I I think about quite often. you know, even before I get into the client story, like I think about this for myself all the time. And we were away on a trip two weekends ago in Toronto for that for that conference. And remember we were driving around and your wife was in the car, my wife was in the car, and you guys had to make some gentle reminders to me of like, you know. Our business is doing well. We're doing great things. Like Scott, you don't, you know, it was just some reminders to myself of like I don't need to be working as much as I do. I can get sometimes caught up in like just working more for the sake of wanting to build and make make a bigger impact and do more. And I just need to be reminded sometimes of things are good. Like you have that balance in life that you say is really important to you, which I have, which is great, and have to I have to be reminded sometimes, like you gotta maintain that. You gotta make maintain those boundaries to make sure that you can continue to do what you say is important. Chris Scheele: Sure. Yeah. Scott Campbell: But as for the client story, we have in kind of reference to last week's episode, we talked about how we're moving into our fall meeting season when we're see where we're seeing all of our clients for a big annual meeting. This particular client, he does a great job with giving us some thoughts and notes of things that he wants to talk about with him and his spouse ahead of the meeting. And one of the things that he brought up was more or less to kind of summarize it was We're at a really great point in the practice. We've grown r exponentially well here over the last two to three years. Life is great. We have everything that we need almost. Like we're saving and investing a ton. His question was basically: if we cut back our revenue by 25%, could we still can you model that out for us? Can you scan are we still gonna reach our our lifestyle goals? Are we gonna retire when we wanna retire? Are all the things that we wanna do still gonna be able to be accomplished if we scale back the practice? So that we can spend a little bit of time away from the practice and have more t more freedom, more time freedom on a week-to-week basis. We haven't ran that analysis yet, Chris, but I think the answer is going to be absolutely. You can you can Chris Scheele: Yeah. Scott Campbell: do that, right? But it was just a great, great question and a reflection that this particular client had made to say, hey, like we already have a lot. Like, do I need to be spending more time in the practice to continue to grow it even further? Or can I maybe scale this back a little bit, just a little bit? And still live a great life and make sure that we have that balance. Chris Scheele: What a great question to be asking. Obviously they have the time to do to do some reflecting and yeah, another great example of just like the power of of having these planned kind of seasonal meetings where, you know, client knew that the meeting's coming up. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna do some do some thinking on this and just make sure I'm you know, see what see what what's on the table. What what do I wanna discuss with with Chris and Scott this this month and Out of that reflection obviously came this pretty powerful question. So yeah, like you said, awesome, impressive. I do want to push back though, because don't doesn't the research actually show that like more income kind of still is connected with more happiness to some degree? Scott Campbell: I think the short answer is yes, right? But it kind of if you I'm thinking back to that conversation that I had with with Sean Maslick at Future Proof that was on an episode a couple couple back. And the research that has been done where I think some previous research was like, all right, if if you reach about $75,000 of income and your basic needs are met, more money is not going to create more happiness. However, there's been some newer research out to say, Well that's not necessarily true. If you have I forget the term that Sean used, but if you have meaning in your life, if there's other areas of your life that are that are that are met in terms of, you know, you have good relationships with friends and family, you have a ho you have hobbies that that you're that you're passionate about. If you have these different or you maybe you maybe it's religion and faith, like if you have all these things in in your life that that bring you joy that don't necessarily require more money, more More money could potentially enhance all those things, right? That can create new levels of happiness that you didn't have before. Right. Chris Scheele: But if you don't have those things, it's like it's almost like the systems and structures, I think, just like to draw parallel, it's like if you have a great business, but you have no systems or structures in it, earning you more income is not necessarily gonna solve any of your problems. But if you have awesome systems and structures in a business that's just in its growth phase, it's just maybe it's just starting out, as you scale that business, it's like your options are gonna be so huge and you're gonna find. You know, great success in in growing growing that practice. same thing in life here. It's like if you know what's important to you, you focus on those things, you have community, you you know, great friendships, those types of things, and more money could allow you to to improve the quality of some of those things if you're if you already have them set up. Yeah. Cool. I think this is a great segue also into like maybe maybe a bit of a framework to to for someone to start thinking about this for the first time. Like maybe if we we're not there yet and like haven't really you know, haven't really taken that step back in and thought like, you know, what is what what what what's the meaning behind this for me? Like why am I doing all this? do you want to introduce the the kinder questions? Scott Campbell: Sure. so George Kinder of the Kinder Institute, their whole purpose is this philosophy around like life planning, right? And financial planning isn't necessarily life planning and life planning isn't financial planning, but there's a lot of parallels sometimes in terms of the questions that are asked to essentially just really determine what are your sour like I like to go back to Carl Richards' example like what are your sources of capital? That's your financial resources, your time, your energy, your attention. And then what you say is most important to you, your values, what you say is important is trying to marry those two things together to help you with making the best decisions you can about not only only your finances, but how you're going to execute and live your life and who you're gonna surround yourself with. So George has some great questions that he it's George Kinder's three questions. So I'll let you read them off, Chris. But These are the same questions, they've been around for a very, very long time. I've every time I listen to them or h hear them being being read out to me, it definitely makes you pause and think and want to actually go through this exercise and and give some thoughtful answers to answering these questions. So why don't you hit him with us? Yep. Chris Scheele: Sure. Yep. Okay. Okay. So question one. Imagine you have all the money you need for today and the rest of your life. How would you live and what would you do with it? Scott Campbell: Powerful. Chris Scheele: Pretty, pretty simple, but pretty powerful, right? Okay. So after you've had the time to sit down, maybe you want to pause right there. Write down, write down some answers to that. once you've had some time to reflect on that. Question two: imagine your doctor tells you that you have five to ten years to live. You'll feel fine, you'll have your health, but you won't know when exactly your time is gonna come. Could be five years from now, could be ten, anytime in between. What would you change? Right? So Still, you know, a little bit morbid, but powerful question. Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. Yep. Chris Scheele: And then on to the final question, number three. You find out today that you have one day left. What would you wish you had done? Or who would you wish you had been? Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. These are such great questions. And like you said, Chris Scheele: Yeah. So good. Scott Campbell: maybe a little bit morbid thinking about like if I had one day to one day left to live. Chris Scheele: Mm-hmm. Scott Campbell: Wow. But at the same time, it's kind of these layers of these questions in terms of once you answer question one, it maybe you might change how you answer question one, depending on how you answer question three. Chris Scheele: Mm-hmm. Scott Campbell: Right? Chris Scheele: Yeah. To go through them kind of sequentially, I think is important. And then after you've done that, actually going back to looking Scott Campbell: Yeah. Chris Scheele: look at the first one again and be like, huh, yeah, interesting. Hmm. Scott Campbell: For sure. Ultimately it's sli the saying as when you're on your deathbed. are you going to have any regrets about how you lived your life, what you accomplished, who you spent the most time with, how people remember you and what you how you made them feel? That's what it's all all about. We joked about this on the last episode. It's not about how large your net worth is or what your returns have been or how optimal your tax return has been. It's how you made people feel, the experiences that you had. That's what that's what matters. Right? Chris Scheele: Yeah. So people are gonna remember. Yeah. Scott Campbell: Yeah. And this all ties into what's enough? What's enough at the end of the day, right? Chris Scheele: Yep. Yep, for sure. Yep. All right, you want to wrap it up with one more story? Scott Campbell: Share one more story that I think is it's something that I've heard a couple times over the years, And it's about these two authors back, I think, in the late 90s, if I'm not mistaken. Kurt Von Gutt wrote Slaughterhouse, and this other gentleman, Joseph Heller, wrote the book Catch 22, which were the that's where the phrase came from. But, anyways, back I think in the early 2000s, Joseph had just passed away. And then his friend Kurt had wrote a tribute, which was actually a poem, in The New Yorker about a time that they were at a party. And I'll read they were at a party on this, I think a a private island, and they're it was being hosted by this billionaire, which I believe was a hedge fund manager. But so his friend Kurt, friend of Joseph, wrote this poem in The New Yorker. So this is the poem goes. True story. Word of honor. Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer, now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel, Catch 22, has earned in its entire history? And Joe said, I've got something he can never have. And I said, What on earth could that be, Joe? And Joe said, the knowledge that I've got enough. I don't know the context of that story, of course, but just Joseph was very clear in saying, I don't need to be a billionaire. I don't need to have a private island. I don't need to have all this for me to feel fulfilled and happy. Not to discount what that billionaire had done. Of course, maybe that was important to him, but he was very I I liked the way he chose those words and in saying, What I've done is enough. It's Chris Scheele: For sure. Scott Campbell: it's powerful. Chris Scheele: And maybe to contrast, without I mean, obviously knowing the full context, you've got a billionaire fund manager that maybe hasn't drawn that finish line to know when enough is enough. And so for him, the race just keeps going and going, trying to attain more and more and never quite having that fulfillment or knowledge that you know they have everything they need. Scott Campbell: All right, any closing thoughts here, Chris? Any other points you want to make? Chris Scheele: Nope. All good for me. Scott Campbell: All right, sounds good. Well, great conversation as always. As a reminder, if you have not done so and would like to maybe learn a little bit more about where you stand in your finances today as you head into the last quarter of 2026 and thinking ahead for the year of 2027, I'd encourage you to check out our clarity scorecard assessment. You can find that on our website at alignwealth.ca. Big blue button. Check that out if you have not already. Otherwise I hope to see you again here next week for another episode of the Chiro Money Show.