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The Mental Trap That's Sabotaging Your Retirement · Retirement Answers

• 0:00
  Jacob Duke: Hey, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Retirement Answers. My name is Jacob Duke. I'm your host as always. Today on the show, I want to cover this idea that kind of came to me over the last few weeks and specifically on vacation with my family. Now, if you're wondering, hey, where have you been?
• 0:17
  What's going on? Why did the podcast stop? Well, good news, it hasn't stopped. We just had a little hiatus, okay? We had a couple weeks off.
• 0:23
  I needed to take some time to take care of things on the family side. Just a lot going on there. But also on the business side, we're growing and we're adding team members that are amazing. And so trying to focus on getting those people up to speed in the right way so that what we do here at River Tree is exceptional and what clients come to us for is delivered every single time. So that's where my focus has been, but also kind of in the middle of all that, the family and I, we went down to the beach and enjoyed Easter weekend down there.
• 0:50
  So had a little bit of time to slow down and enjoy and just kind of think and process. And as we were there, the thing that came into my head was, as I was walking on the beach and just kind of reflecting over the last couple of years, which have been great, but also a lot, is that this idea of more is not better, but better is better. And so, I wanna share this with you today as I've kind of thought through how a retiree or someone who's approaching retirement might can use this to their advantage. This idea of just having more is not the best thing always, but just doing something better is. And so, more is not better, better is better.
• 1:27
  Let's kinda walk through that. And I want to just jump into this and say, I've got four different points here that I kinda wanna think about for you as a retiree. And maybe you can apply this to your own life. Because one of the biggest questions that a retiree or a pre retiree has is, do I have enough? Right?
• 1:44
  How much more money do I need? And so the question there is always, well, how much more do I need to get? But what we often forget about is that word enough. And so what I want you to dissect and kind of understand and process as we go through this episode, what is enough for you? Right?
• 2:01
  And sometimes we define that as a number. Sometimes we define that as a lifestyle. Sometimes we define that as a purpose, and maybe it's a combination of all these things, okay, to be fair. But I wanna talk through four things. But number one, I wanna do this from a money perspective.
• 2:16
  I wanna do this from an optimization perspective. Number three, I wanna talk about why more stuff in general is not always the right thing and also why more time might be a problem. So let's first start back with the money issues. Like what is the problem with having more money? Well, if you ask anyone who does have some sort of wealth, typically they would say, yes, it does help and it makes life easier, but it also comes with a weight.
• 2:45
  It comes with a problem attached to it because there's this idea of, hey, now that I have this, I have to protect it or grow it or steward it or invest it. And so what money can often do is it can actually create more fear instead of more freedom. So whenever you think about that, it's like, okay, I've got a million or two or three or five. Whenever you get to certain levels and you reach your goal, now your optimism, what you were hoping for turns into, oh my goodness, I can't lose it. Right?
• 3:20
  So what's interesting is that a certain level of money or wealth, it often doesn't increase your confidence, it actually increases your anxiety because your fear of losing it or missing out on something is greater than the opportunity it actually creates. And to speak into this from an anecdotal perspective, I don't have $3,000,000 to my name, okay, so just know that. But I've seen people with $3,000,000, clients of ours who have 3 or more million dollars, they often feel less secure than those with even half that, a million or a million and $0.5. Now, what that's really interesting. Right?
• 3:55
  Because we often equate more money or more wealth with more security and more freedom, but that's often not what I see firsthand. It's not what I see in my clients. And so why is this? Well, whenever you think about it, you've got more to lose, right? Whenever you got three versus one.
• 4:12
  And maybe there's a higher emotional attachment to that, because you've worked so hard for it, you put everything into having more and more and more. And so the thought of losing it or making a mistake creates a lot of anxiety or fear. Now, what this ultimately lends itself to is this analysis paralysis. And so you kinda get lost in your head just a bit. Should I convert more?
• 4:33
  Should I spend more? What if I mess this up? And so what you end up doing is you actually get a little bit clammy and clam up and you're like, ah, I don't I'm not trying to do anything. And I've seen this, clients who could spend way more, but they end up not because of fear or anxiety around the number. So at some point, just having more money can actually stop solving problems and starts creating them.
• 4:57
  There's a weight, there's a responsibility that comes with that, and actually restricts you a bit. It makes you kind of concerned. And so the first thing I want to throw at you here is that money does not always create more freedom, it actually can create more fear or anxiety because of the weight or the responsibility that comes with that more. So here's the takeaway on this one. Don't strive for more money, strive for a better use of that money, or a better purpose around that money, or a better structure so that that can actually lead to confidence.
• 5:29
  Because I see this all the time, more money just it doesn't create more confidence. So stop thinking about more money, but how can I use my money better? How can I structure it in a better way? How can I create a better confidence around it? So that's number one.
• 5:43
  Now, number two is something that I run into a lot with people who reach out to us Is Jacob, how do I optimize what I have? How do I save on taxes or time the Social Security perfectly or, you know, make sure I pull the exact right amount of income or do this or that. And so this optimization loop that you get into. Right? So the point number two here is more optimization can actually lead to a worse life.
• 6:06
  Okay, so chasing the perfect financial plan, it often leads to missing the life that you were actually trying to to live. That what the plan's actually supposed to support and create. So this this comes in, you know, a few different ways, but really comes down to this constant updating or tweaking or improving and trying to get things right down to the nth degree, right, through tax strategy or withdrawal rates or investment allocations. If I invest my money 82% stock and 18% bond versus 80% stock and 20% bond, guess what? That's not gonna move the needle enough for the worry or the anxiety around it to be worth it.
• 6:46
  And so what this leads to is over optimization. And there's a cost that comes with that, right? There's the time costs, there's a mental capacity, there's constant second guessing yourself. So this over optimization ends up making you less happy around where you're at in life, which retirement should be really fun. You've got opportunities and you finally have more money than you've ever had, now's the time to go enjoy it, but you're trying to constantly improve things or over optimize it.
• 7:14
  So what ends up happening is you say, I'll end up doing that trip next year after I do a conversion this year because Jacob said Roth conversions are awesome. Right? So what I don't want you to get caught in is this constant improvement, constant trying to find the best thing to do with your money or the best way to save taxes, because you end up losing out on the opportunity to go on that trip, or to give to your favorite church or charity or your family member or pay for the family vacation because you're trying to optimize taxes and do everything perfectly. So the danger here of trying to optimize all of your financial life at one time is that you're constantly pushing your enjoyment into the future. Ultimately to one day figure out that you pushed way too far into the future and you don't get to enjoy it for as long as you otherwise would have hoped.
• 8:04
  So here's the takeaway, you know, the goal isn't the most optimized or efficient plan, okay? It's actually a plan that you can just live with and enjoy and be confident in, okay? So sometimes that means spending more right now and not doing the Roth conversion or, hey, I'm not perfectly tax optimized across the board. Oh, well, is it a plan that you can sleep at night knowing that if something bad happens in the world around us outside of my control, I'm gonna be okay. So number two here, more optimization could actually lead you to a worse life and a more worried life if you're not careful.
• 8:40
  Now, point number three here I wanna make is that more stuff doesn't just create more meaning or purpose. Because what you might've figured out over time is that spending and increasing your spending doesn't work in a linear fashion in regard to your happiness. Typically, you see your spending go up, right? And then your happiness kinda flattens off at some point. So here's the idea, whenever you're in retirement, a bigger house or even the second home, all that does is create more maintenance, more complexity, more responsibility, upkeep, but also it creates decision fatigue because here's the reality, whenever we talk to many of our clients who have the second homes or the Airbnb or this or that, what they've gotta figure out is when do I sell or do I sell?
• 9:25
  And how does that impact my plan? And what does that look like for my kids and my grandkids and my legacy? Right? And so what actually happens here, whenever you have a complexity to life and especially around your money, the more complex it is, the more it compounds that complexity because the value of your different holdings and the value of your stuff is going up, but also you're probably adding to that amount of stuff each and every year if you're not careful. So this leads to decision fatigue, more responsibility, and what I would argue here is actually the opposite.
• 9:56
  I've seen this many times. How can we simplify things? How can we get rid of the unnecessary parts of our entire situation? Because a simple lifestyle actually leads to more margin, which can then lead to more presence and more capacity. So everything that you own or purchase or add to your collection, it takes a piece of your time with it.
• 10:18
  And so you might have heard this said before, but sometimes whenever you own things, they actually own you, and you're just not aware of it yet. So point number three here is what can you do to simplify your life? Because more stuff doesn't create more meaning or more purpose. Now, four is that it's an interesting paradox where more time isn't always a good thing because more time without purpose is actually a problem. And maybe you've seen this in different studies that you might have read, where the dissatisfaction of retirement or depression in retirement is actually increasing because of a lack of purpose or fulfillment.
• 10:57
  Right? Maybe you've gone to work every day for thirty or forty years, and you're like, man, I really enjoy that. I like the people I work with, and so if I retire because that's what I'm supposed to do, stepping off into that with no intentionality or anything on the other side of it actually creates a void and ultimately leads to dissatisfaction, loneliness, depression, and so forth. And so retirement isn't simply just about having more time, it's actually about what you're gonna do with it. What are you intentional about what you're gonna do with your time?
• 11:26
  How are you gonna fill your day? What does a day in the life of you really look like? So here's the way to think about this. Most people retire away from their work, they retire from it. But I'd argue that you should be retiring towards something, especially something meaningful that you care about, a new hobby, a friend, a relationship, family, what is it for you?
• 11:46
  Because endless time actually leads to lower productivity, a loss of identity, boredom, and often depression. We've seen this in the studies I mentioned just a minute ago, right? But the happiest retirees, they don't have the most time, they just have the most clarity. They know what their day looks like, they know what they're going to fill it with, they know who they're going to be around. Right?
• 12:04
  So if we go back and think through these first three, you know, alongside number four here, being your time, whenever you have a purpose, purpose is greater than your portfolio value, right? Because your portfolio value is actually fulfilling the purpose. But if you walk into retirement with this unlimited amount of time and have no idea what it's gonna look like or who you're gonna spend it with or what this purpose or fulfillment looks like for you, you can have as much money in the world and guess what, it's kind of meaningless. Because the goal of retirement really isn't just having more free time, it's actually about using your time in a better way for things that are important to you and valuable to you and can lead you to the life you want to live. So whenever we think about all these things in retirement, the real risk is not just running out of money.
• 12:49
  Yes, we've got to cover that, but it's about building a life where the money that you do have is used for something that you value or is fulfilling for you. So what I wanna leave you with is this idea of that more is not better, better is better. And by the way, I'm deploying this in my personal life. More things I say yes to hurts me and my family. So I'm saying no to a lot more.
• 13:12
  More clients we take on is actually potentially hurting the clients that we do have in our team and satisfaction and fulfillment because they might be stretched too thin. So instead of having more all the time, what if we just did what we have really well? So more is not better, better is better. Hope this helps as you think about your path to retirement, how much you may or may not need for all the things you wanna do and really think about what is enough for you, because I would argue many people already have enough, they just don't know it yet because they see what everybody else says or what everyone else is doing, and they don't know that that's not the right thing for them. So again, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Retirement Answers, excited to be back doing this on a weekly basis.
• 13:55
  Excited for what's to come here through the rest of 2026 and all the things we're gonna be talking about. So thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you again next week.