Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast! I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor and I’m using my 15 years of experience as a financial advisor to help you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision.

On this podcast, I cover everything from investing, to retirement spending, to taxes in retirement in just a few minutes each day, so if you’re 5-10 years on either side of retirement, and looking for some daily doses of retirement planning wisdom, stick around this week as I talk about The Downside of Being Wealthy.

I know someone who sold his business for several million dollars a couple of years ago. After working hard his entire life, building a successful business from scratch, this business owner had reached an idyllic end to his working life - a financially secure retirement, free from ever worrying about money again.

But then something unfortunate but not uncommon happened…he realized that his identity and sense of who he was was handcuffed to his identity as an owner of a successful business. He didn't know how to be retired, enjoy his comfortable income and assets. 

He felt like a purposeless rudderless ship, and the discontent spilled over into his marriage as well. Less than 2 years after selling his business, he was divorced and lost half of his wealth. 

The lesson here is twofold. First of all, many people fall into the temptation of letting the source of their wealth - in this case his identity as a business owner - define who they are, and it's like building a house on sand. He built his entire life on the wrong foundation and the wrong identity and as soon as he got what he thought he wanted (selling his business and attaining comfortable wealth and financial security) everything else fell apart. 

The other lesson is that a higher net worth doesn’t mean you’ll be happier or have a better life. There are, in fact, real downsides of being wealthy. And it’s important that each of us understands those downsides, so we don’t blindly pursue more with the misguided idea that it will lead to happiness and fulfillment.  

So this week, I’ll talk about how the pursuit of money can cause you to waste your life, how it can distort your relationships, overcomplicate your life, and lead to unhappiness if you’re not careful and learn to develop a rightly ordered relationship with money. I’ll also give you some practical tips on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of being wealthy. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! Come on back tomorrow…where I’ll talk about 

My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

----------

>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

 

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance