July 7, 2025 • 15 mins
We often focus on the fear of running out of money in retirement—but what if the bigger risk is running out of health before you can enjoy it? After watching The Amazing Race, I was reminded of a client story we hear all too often: years of diligent saving, only to be sidelined by health issues just before retirement begins.
At Root, we’ve seen clients retire with more than enough—only to realize the extra working years came at the expense of their physical well-being. One client had $3 million saved but told us she would’ve been happier (and healthier) retiring with $2.2 million if it meant enjoying her travel plans pain-free.
That’s why we encourage thinking about your money in terms of “movement speeds”:
- Walking dollars: short-term cash for 1–3 years
- Jogging dollars: mid-term goals for 3–7 years
- Sprinting dollars: long-term investments for 10+ years
This framework helps you balance living well today with planning wisely for tomorrow. The most consistent advice we hear from our clients? Don’t just plan to retire—plan to enjoy it. Prioritize your health alongside your wealth.
-
Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Viewing this content does not create an advisory relationship. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult an investment, tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.
The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.
Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements
Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educational in nature and are not a substitute for personalized financial advice. Advisory services are offered only under a written agreement with Root Financial.
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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's episode is story time.
I'm going to tell you the notso obvious reason that people
retire early, or should at leastbe planning on retiring early,
and it's not the traditionalyeah, I want to spend time with
family or I want to travel.
Now why on earth am I recordingthis episode?
Well, I was watching theAmazing Race this weekend and
it's the first time I've everseen it.
(00:20):
I promise I'm going to connectthe dots from the Amazing Race
to retirement planning, becausemany of you are probably very
confused right now, especiallyif this is your first time
tuning into the program.
Now I have all of my episodeson YouTube in addition to the
podcast.
If you're listening, today'sepisode will be equally
effective.
Sometimes I will have a casestudy where I'm going into great
(00:40):
detail and I want to show youhere's exactly how this couple
is going to save on healthcareand how exactly they're going to
spend and how they're going toshift that when markets do X, y
or Z.
I think you should watch thison YouTube so you can actually
see me do it, versus listen onthe podcast.
Today's episode.
Whether you're watching onYouTube right now and can see me
, or you're listening on thepodcast, it will be equally
(01:01):
effective.
Now here's the story and whywe're going about this.
So right now, we have about 53employees that work here at Root
.
They are amazing team membersthat make all the magic happen.
I make a lot of differentvideos and podcasts, so people
like yourself who are listeningor watching reach out and go wow
, this sounds different.
It sounds like if I work withRoot, I'll have my finances
(01:22):
optimized and doing everything Iwant to do, which is awesome.
But there's a large majority ofyou who like managing your own
money or who find that anadvisor might be helpful, but
just not right now.
It just might be a matter oftiming.
I'm the weird advisor that sayseveryone doesn't need one.
It just depends on when itmakes sense for you.
So here's how the amazing raceconnects to this.
(01:43):
I will talk to a lot of peoplewho will say Ari, I'm finally
retiring.
I'm really excited.
I'm going to spend time doingslow travel, because
traditionally I would take aweek off work.
That's fun, but it's not thesame.
If I'm in Portugal, and I loveit, I want to be able to stay a
week, and I can't do that untilI'm officially retired.
I'll have other people who saylook, I just want to redate my
spouse.
It's been a long time I've beenworking the last 30 years we
(02:05):
have kids.
I feel like we haven't reallyconnected and it's more us time.
I'll go awesome.
But then there's a whole batchof other people and these other
people are retiring, but it'snot due to choice.
Technically there is theirchoice to some extent, but it's
really a health decision wherenow they can't really retire and
be excited to go travel becausetheir health won't allow them
(02:26):
to.
Very sad, it's something that Ididn't really consider when I
started the podcast.
How many people would reach outand say I want to retire early.
And here I am giddy and excitedto help and they're explaining
in a sad tone yeah, I just amnot going to be able to hike,
and that was my dream, and sonow I'm going to be seated and
(02:50):
you know, I don't even know ifit makes sense to keep saving to
my 401k.
Those are real toughconversations.
That is really rewarding whenI'm able to help someone go
through that.
But here's why I'm telling youthis story today.
So right now at our company wehost the very first Survivor
Draft, where we literally draftwithin the company.
Okay, who do we think is goingto progress of the TV show
(03:11):
Survivor.
I've never watched reality TVshow before, so this was a new
experience for me.
It's fun because every Fridaywe'll have an internal team
meeting and talk about okay, howdid it go, what surprised.
It's fun.
That is survivor.
I was telling my fiance Alicehey, alice, I don't really think
I would do well on survivor,but wouldn't it be funny if I
(03:32):
applied and I was on it?
And she's like no, you wouldhate it because you're so pasty,
you would get sunburned so fast.
You are the worst person in theworld when you are hangry,
hungry and angry.
So you'd absolutely not go onthe show unless you want people
to try to really be upset withyou.
And I was like okay, tell mehow you really feel, you know,
but I didn't say that.
Anyways, the reason I'mbringing this up.
(03:53):
Alice said if you were to go onsome TV show and she loves me
very much, okay, so for those ofyou who go, you should not let
her talk to you that way.
No, no, no, she's, we'reawesome, okay, I'm just being
dramatic here.
So Alice said if there's a showyou should go on that I think
you really would do well on.
Where she gave me a complimentwas the Amazing Race, and I said
(04:13):
I've heard of it and in myopinion, it wasn't as good as
Survivor.
However, I took a lesson awayfrom it, as I do from almost
everything in life, which maybethat's just personality.
Whatever, here's my point.
When I was watching the AmazingRace, this couple was so nice
(04:37):
and they were interviewed by themain host, who said why are you
guys doing this?
Not because you're terrible,but they weren't good.
Okay, they were like second tolast or last in almost
everything, in the first episodeat least.
They said why are you doingthis?
It looks like you're almostdoing it for a bigger reason.
And they said when our momretired, she wanted to travel
and go on adventures and she gotAlzheimer's and had other hip
(05:00):
issues and so our mom was neverable to do any of the things she
wanted to do.
She's still with us, not fullythere, but we're doing this for
her.
And it made me think.
Okay, I would love to ask themom how it all unfolded, but I
had a few thoughts.
The first thought was imagineand this is the truth for a lot
(05:20):
of people saving and investingthroughout your whole career for
this magical day of retirement.
And then, all of a sudden, youretire and now your health
doesn't allow you to do what youwant to do.
Would you look back and go God,I really wasted all of that
time?
Probably not.
You probably would say I had alot of good memories along the
way.
But some of you really aregrinding really hard, and so I
(05:46):
just want you to pause and go.
Is it worth the level of grindthat I'm doing today?
The reason I bring that up iswhat I don't want you to do is
sacrifice your health to the nthdegree, where now you retire
and can't really do what youwant to do.
For some of you, not a problem.
For a lot of you, you arehonestly saving and investing to
your 401k.
You're sitting at a desk allday and there's probably a part
of you wondering okay, does itmake sense if I retire in the
(06:06):
next year or three years?
Well, the risk is, as mostpeople see it, you retire too
early and run out of money,which is a real risk.
But there's another hidden risk, which is the risk that you sit
there for two more years andnow, because you didn't move
your body, your health isn't ina good position and now you
can't really enjoy what you'veworked so hard for the last 30
or 40 years.
There's a balance there,obviously.
(06:32):
The reason I'm bringing this upis it's really sad when I hear
people who want to retire andthey can't do what they want to
do.
I've told this story many times,but there's one woman who
reached out to me and she had $3million and she said she was
upset.
And I said listen, lady, Idon't want to be mean or
anything, but I don't hear thatevery day there's a lot of
people that would love to have$3 million.
So why are you so upset?
And she said I'm upset becauseI didn't need 3 million.
(06:52):
I just thought I needed more,just a little bit more.
If I had two or two and a halfmillion, I could do everything I
wanted to do and more.
Now I've been sitting at mydesk and I have bad sciatica and
so, yeah, I can still hike andtravel, but I'm uncomfortable In
the process of actuallytraveling.
I was worried that if I didn'tsave enough money and I wanted
(07:12):
to fly first class, that Iliterally was not gonna be able
to travel or enjoy it Like Iknow.
I could go.
But if I'm going in and I said,how much money do you need?
And we talked about it and shewas right With about 2.2 million
she could have flown firstclass for the rest of her life,
(07:34):
went on plenty of trips andwould have been fine.
Now she has 3 million.
She's not upset legitimatelythat she has 3 million, but she
doesn't need the 3 million.
So it's almost like sheoversaved, which sounds weird.
But what I don't want you guysto do is like over invest for
retirement, where you're puttingso much time and energy into
this retirement word when thereality is along the way.
(07:55):
You should be saving, but youshould also be spending, and I
see too many people thatundersave and I see too many
people that oversave.
Because you're a human, you'renot a robot.
I'm not expecting you to beperfect.
What I am expecting you to beis honest with yourself.
Take myself, for example.
I am a workaholic and I love it.
Now, for a long time, I was theperson that wanted to respond so
(08:17):
quickly to every email becauseI wanted to improve and show my
manager that I was reallycompetent and I wanted to make
sure everyone knew that I waswilling to do what I need to do
to climb the ladder.
And then my family said hey,ari, you're always working on
Fridays, even late.
When are we going to get to seeyou?
And it just went over my headand I realized, wow, that was
(08:38):
six months of times.
I could have been watchingmovies in the evenings with my
family instead of working more.
Now, maybe at that time that'swhat I valued more.
Whether it be right or wrong,that's just the truth.
The reality is I love my family.
I just at that time maybe,wanted to really grind and show
and move up the ladder.
Nothing wrong with that as Ilook back on it.
But I wasn't honest with myself.
(09:00):
I wasn't saying I'm making aconscious decision here, I'm
choosing this over this, and I'mgoing to explain to my parents
hey, I love you guys so much.
I'm really trying to grind sothat I can move up to this next
role and get paid X amount andhave X responsibility.
That is not where I'm at now,in my stage of life.
Now I recognize that I want towork forever as long as I love
what I do.
If I don't love what I do, Iwant to have the option to do
(09:23):
something else.
I think all of you probably wantexactly that as well.
You want to work because youwant to, not because you have to
.
That's everything I preach.
I just want you to know when isthat possible?
And I'm not trying to say Ineed you to go save and invest
like a crazy person, where nowyou're absolutely sacrificing
everything along the way.
And I'll have people who reachout and say, yeah, I'm doing the
(09:44):
backdoor Roth and I'm maxing my401k and I'm doing the
superhero, and so it's prettyawesome, I'm on track to retire
by 48.
I'll say great, how many tripsdoes that let you take along the
way?
They'll say none, because I'msaving and investing all my
money, I go.
That's defeating the purpose ofthis, unless that's your
specific goal.
Most people want to enjoy lifealong the way.
They want to save and invest aswell for their future.
(10:07):
So why am I bringing this up?
When the amazing race washappening and this person said
we're doing this for our mom, Iwent wow, I hope the daughters
learned.
There's two daughters.
I hope they learned, and Ithink they did, because they're
going on the amazing race.
Now they go.
We're in good health.
Our mom would have loved to dothis.
We're doing this now for ourmom.
Well, if that mom could go backand change anything about her
(10:29):
life.
The reality is, maybe she dideverything she could.
Who am I to judge?
I have no idea, but she in thevideo at least, she was severely
overweight.
She seemed like she was verystressed.
She seemed also like she wasn'tfully there.
Now, a lot of that could be dueto poor diet.
A lot of that could be due togenetics A lot of assumptions
(10:49):
that I don't know.
But what is in your controltruly is how you take care of
your body along the way, andthat is the most precious thing
you have.
And my clients tell me ifthere's anything that I could
preach to all of you, because wehave hundreds of clients here
at Root and there's hundreds ofthousands of you and millions
that watch the content everysingle month.
They said, ari, if there'sanything I could do as a client
(11:12):
to tell you, to tell youraudience, is prioritize your
health.
I know it's cliche, but it'sreally easy to sit through lunch
.
Nowadays A lot of us arevirtual and it's I'm going to
work through lunch, or we don'tend up standing up, or we go to
the bathroom and we take ourphone and we're still on our
phone and we find that we goeight, nine hours and we didn't
really take the time to breathe.
(11:32):
I'm guilty of that.
We are actually startinginternally, at root here.
One of our advisors also is ayoga teacher and breathwork
coach, so she's starting to takeus through intentional breaks.
So are things getting done?
You know 0.01%.
You know slower than if wedidn't do that.
Yes, but that's something thatwe view as worth it, because we
(11:53):
want our team members here tolove their lives and to be
healthy.
It's what we preach.
So, all of this to be said, whenyou're saving and investing,
just be very honest withyourself.
Are you maxing out your 401kbecause you want to retire by 45
and that's the dream?
Are you currently listening tothis 60 years old going hey, I
really want to retire by 62 andI really need to ramp up how
(12:16):
much I'm saving and investing,even if that means I take two
less trips this year, awesome.
Now you're doing it for a veryclear reason.
What frustrates me is whenpeople are saving and investing
but it's not clear.
You want every single dollar.
You have to have a goal, andthe way I like to explain it is.
You have dollars that walk,dollars that jog and dollars
that sprint.
(12:36):
You want dollars that arewalking.
When a dollar is walking, youcan tell it to turn around and
you can grab that dollar reallyeasily.
It's not far ahead of you, it'sjust walking.
That's like emergency fund orcash, or what I call your sleep
number how much money's in yourbank account that lets you sleep
at night.
Maybe you're going to buy a carin the next year or you're
going to downsize.
Those are dollars you wantreadily available in the next
(12:58):
one to three years.
Then there's certain dollarsyou want jogging, where, if you
had to go tell them to turnaround, it's not the end of the
world, but you can't just get ittomorrow, and that's a good
thing.
When you have dollars jogging,that means you can get more
(13:18):
return for the dollars becauseyou don't need it as quickly,
which means you want toinvesting, which means it's more
subject to, of course, growingmore quickly, or what some call
more aggressive.
Now for jogging dollars.
I view that as dollars that are, for example, in a brokerage
account that you don't need,maybe for the next three to
seven years.
Maybe in the future you'regoing to want to retire and pay
for travel or healthcare orremodel or kids college.
(13:38):
Those are dollars you wantjogging.
Then there's dollars you wantsprinting like Roth IRAs or
dollars that you're not going touse for 10 plus years, that if
you yelled at that dollar andtold it to turn around, it would
be hard to catch because it'strying to make as much money for
you as possible.
So put your different dollarsin different buckets.
(13:58):
Understand how much you need tosave and invest.
Once again, the reason peoplework with Root is that they
don't have another job having todo this in retirement.
But working with us is abouttiming, which is why I offer
that Early Retirement Academy.
This is that solution for thoseclients not clients, excuse me
for those listeners or viewerslike yourself who still want to
get optimal with your finances.
(14:18):
You're not sure you need anadvisor yet, but you want to see
what are you on track for.
If you are interested inchecking out that, you can see
it in the description of thisepisode.
That's it for this episode.
The next episode will be backto my traditional series.
I just wanted to share thisafter watching the Amazing Reese
.
I hope you guys are all ingreat health and that you're
doing everything you can to makesure your health stays that way
(14:39):
, even if it means saving alittle bit less and spending
time or money on things thatwould help improve your health.
That's it for this one.
See you guys next time.
Thank you all, as always, forlistening to the Early
Retirement Podcast.
I love getting to host theseshows and make different content
for you guys every single week.
I've not missed a single weekin years and that is because I
(15:00):
love getting to do this.
Now, please be smart about this.
Before you actually execute anystrategy that you see me talk
about or hear me talk about,should I say Please talk to your
financial advisor, your taxpreparer, your estate attorney.
Please be smart about this.
None of this should beconstrued as financial advice.
This is for fun, educational,informational purposes only.
(15:21):
Once again, just quickdisclaimer here.
Guys, please be smart aboutthis.
Appreciate you listening.
As always, you can, of course,submit a question on my website,
earlyretirementpodcastcom, ifyou, of course, want me to
address a specific case study ortopic.
I will not promise I can get toit, but I respond to every
single person and if I find itwill be helpful for a lot of
(15:43):
people, I will absolutely makean episode on it.
At the very least give you someinsight.
That's it, thanks, guys.
Today's episode is story time.
I'm going to tell you the notso obvious reason that people
retire early, or should at leastbe planning on retiring early,
and it's not the traditionalyeah, I want to spend time with
family or I want to travel.
Now why on earth am I recordingthis episode?
Well, I was watching theAmazing Race this weekend and
it's the first time I've everseen it.
(00:20):
I promise I'm going to connectthe dots from the Amazing Race
to retirement planning, becausemany of you are probably very
confused right now, especiallyif this is your first time
tuning into the program.
Now I have all of my episodeson YouTube in addition to the
podcast.
If you're listening, today'sepisode will be equally
effective.
Sometimes I will have a casestudy where I'm going into great
(00:40):
detail and I want to show youhere's exactly how this couple
is going to save on healthcareand how exactly they're going to
spend and how they're going toshift that when markets do X, y
or Z.
I think you should watch thison YouTube so you can actually
see me do it, versus listen onthe podcast.
Today's episode.
Whether you're watching onYouTube right now and can see me
, or you're listening on thepodcast, it will be equally
(01:01):
effective.
Now here's the story and whywe're going about this.
So right now, we have about 53employees that work here at Root
.
They are amazing team membersthat make all the magic happen.
I make a lot of differentvideos and podcasts, so people
like yourself who are listeningor watching reach out and go wow
, this sounds different.
It sounds like if I work withRoot, I'll have my finances
(01:22):
optimized and doing everything Iwant to do, which is awesome.
But there's a large majority ofyou who like managing your own
money or who find that anadvisor might be helpful, but
just not right now.
It just might be a matter oftiming.
I'm the weird advisor that sayseveryone doesn't need one.
It just depends on when itmakes sense for you.
So here's how the amazing raceconnects to this.
(01:43):
I will talk to a lot of peoplewho will say Ari, I'm finally
retiring.
I'm really excited.
I'm going to spend time doingslow travel, because
traditionally I would take aweek off work.
That's fun, but it's not thesame.
If I'm in Portugal, and I loveit, I want to be able to stay a
week, and I can't do that untilI'm officially retired.
I'll have other people who saylook, I just want to redate my
spouse.
It's been a long time I've beenworking the last 30 years we
(02:05):
have kids.
I feel like we haven't reallyconnected and it's more us time.
I'll go awesome.
But then there's a whole batchof other people and these other
people are retiring, but it'snot due to choice.
Technically there is theirchoice to some extent, but it's
really a health decision wherenow they can't really retire and
be excited to go travel becausetheir health won't allow them
(02:26):
to.
Very sad, it's something that Ididn't really consider when I
started the podcast.
How many people would reach outand say I want to retire early.
And here I am giddy and excitedto help and they're explaining
in a sad tone yeah, I just amnot going to be able to hike,
and that was my dream, and sonow I'm going to be seated and
(02:50):
you know, I don't even know ifit makes sense to keep saving to
my 401k.
Those are real toughconversations.
That is really rewarding whenI'm able to help someone go
through that.
But here's why I'm telling youthis story today.
So right now at our company wehost the very first Survivor
Draft, where we literally draftwithin the company.
Okay, who do we think is goingto progress of the TV show
(03:11):
Survivor.
I've never watched reality TVshow before, so this was a new
experience for me.
It's fun because every Fridaywe'll have an internal team
meeting and talk about okay, howdid it go, what surprised.
It's fun.
That is survivor.
I was telling my fiance Alicehey, alice, I don't really think
I would do well on survivor,but wouldn't it be funny if I
(03:32):
applied and I was on it?
And she's like no, you wouldhate it because you're so pasty,
you would get sunburned so fast.
You are the worst person in theworld when you are hangry,
hungry and angry.
So you'd absolutely not go onthe show unless you want people
to try to really be upset withyou.
And I was like okay, tell mehow you really feel, you know,
but I didn't say that.
Anyways, the reason I'mbringing this up.
(03:53):
Alice said if you were to go onsome TV show and she loves me
very much, okay, so for those ofyou who go, you should not let
her talk to you that way.
No, no, no, she's, we'reawesome, okay, I'm just being
dramatic here.
So Alice said if there's a showyou should go on that I think
you really would do well on.
Where she gave me a complimentwas the Amazing Race, and I said
(04:13):
I've heard of it and in myopinion, it wasn't as good as
Survivor.
However, I took a lesson awayfrom it, as I do from almost
everything in life, which maybethat's just personality.
Whatever, here's my point.
When I was watching the AmazingRace, this couple was so nice
(04:37):
and they were interviewed by themain host, who said why are you
guys doing this?
Not because you're terrible,but they weren't good.
Okay, they were like second tolast or last in almost
everything, in the first episodeat least.
They said why are you doingthis?
It looks like you're almostdoing it for a bigger reason.
And they said when our momretired, she wanted to travel
and go on adventures and she gotAlzheimer's and had other hip
(05:00):
issues and so our mom was neverable to do any of the things she
wanted to do.
She's still with us, not fullythere, but we're doing this for
her.
And it made me think.
Okay, I would love to ask themom how it all unfolded, but I
had a few thoughts.
The first thought was imagineand this is the truth for a lot
(05:20):
of people saving and investingthroughout your whole career for
this magical day of retirement.
And then, all of a sudden, youretire and now your health
doesn't allow you to do what youwant to do.
Would you look back and go God,I really wasted all of that
time?
Probably not.
You probably would say I had alot of good memories along the
way.
But some of you really aregrinding really hard, and so I
(05:46):
just want you to pause and go.
Is it worth the level of grindthat I'm doing today?
The reason I bring that up iswhat I don't want you to do is
sacrifice your health to the nthdegree, where now you retire
and can't really do what youwant to do.
For some of you, not a problem.
For a lot of you, you arehonestly saving and investing to
your 401k.
You're sitting at a desk allday and there's probably a part
of you wondering okay, does itmake sense if I retire in the
(06:06):
next year or three years?
Well, the risk is, as mostpeople see it, you retire too
early and run out of money,which is a real risk.
But there's another hidden risk, which is the risk that you sit
there for two more years andnow, because you didn't move
your body, your health isn't ina good position and now you
can't really enjoy what you'veworked so hard for the last 30
or 40 years.
There's a balance there,obviously.
(06:32):
The reason I'm bringing this upis it's really sad when I hear
people who want to retire andthey can't do what they want to
do.
I've told this story many times,but there's one woman who
reached out to me and she had $3million and she said she was
upset.
And I said listen, lady, Idon't want to be mean or
anything, but I don't hear thatevery day there's a lot of
people that would love to have$3 million.
So why are you so upset?
And she said I'm upset becauseI didn't need 3 million.
(06:52):
I just thought I needed more,just a little bit more.
If I had two or two and a halfmillion, I could do everything I
wanted to do and more.
Now I've been sitting at mydesk and I have bad sciatica and
so, yeah, I can still hike andtravel, but I'm uncomfortable In
the process of actuallytraveling.
I was worried that if I didn'tsave enough money and I wanted
(07:12):
to fly first class, that Iliterally was not gonna be able
to travel or enjoy it Like Iknow.
I could go.
But if I'm going in and I said,how much money do you need?
And we talked about it and shewas right With about 2.2 million
she could have flown firstclass for the rest of her life,
(07:34):
went on plenty of trips andwould have been fine.
Now she has 3 million.
She's not upset legitimatelythat she has 3 million, but she
doesn't need the 3 million.
So it's almost like sheoversaved, which sounds weird.
But what I don't want you guysto do is like over invest for
retirement, where you're puttingso much time and energy into
this retirement word when thereality is along the way.
(07:55):
You should be saving, but youshould also be spending, and I
see too many people thatundersave and I see too many
people that oversave.
Because you're a human, you'renot a robot.
I'm not expecting you to beperfect.
What I am expecting you to beis honest with yourself.
Take myself, for example.
I am a workaholic and I love it.
Now, for a long time, I was theperson that wanted to respond so
(08:17):
quickly to every email becauseI wanted to improve and show my
manager that I was reallycompetent and I wanted to make
sure everyone knew that I waswilling to do what I need to do
to climb the ladder.
And then my family said hey,ari, you're always working on
Fridays, even late.
When are we going to get to seeyou?
And it just went over my headand I realized, wow, that was
(08:38):
six months of times.
I could have been watchingmovies in the evenings with my
family instead of working more.
Now, maybe at that time that'swhat I valued more.
Whether it be right or wrong,that's just the truth.
The reality is I love my family.
I just at that time maybe,wanted to really grind and show
and move up the ladder.
Nothing wrong with that as Ilook back on it.
But I wasn't honest with myself.
(09:00):
I wasn't saying I'm making aconscious decision here, I'm
choosing this over this, and I'mgoing to explain to my parents
hey, I love you guys so much.
I'm really trying to grind sothat I can move up to this next
role and get paid X amount andhave X responsibility.
That is not where I'm at now,in my stage of life.
Now I recognize that I want towork forever as long as I love
what I do.
If I don't love what I do, Iwant to have the option to do
(09:23):
something else.
I think all of you probably wantexactly that as well.
You want to work because youwant to, not because you have to
.
That's everything I preach.
I just want you to know when isthat possible?
And I'm not trying to say Ineed you to go save and invest
like a crazy person, where nowyou're absolutely sacrificing
everything along the way.
And I'll have people who reachout and say, yeah, I'm doing the
(09:44):
backdoor Roth and I'm maxing my401k and I'm doing the
superhero, and so it's prettyawesome, I'm on track to retire
by 48.
I'll say great, how many tripsdoes that let you take along the
way?
They'll say none, because I'msaving and investing all my
money, I go.
That's defeating the purpose ofthis, unless that's your
specific goal.
Most people want to enjoy lifealong the way.
They want to save and invest aswell for their future.
(10:07):
So why am I bringing this up?
When the amazing race washappening and this person said
we're doing this for our mom, Iwent wow, I hope the daughters
learned.
There's two daughters.
I hope they learned, and Ithink they did, because they're
going on the amazing race.
Now they go.
We're in good health.
Our mom would have loved to dothis.
We're doing this now for ourmom.
Well, if that mom could go backand change anything about her
(10:29):
life.
The reality is, maybe she dideverything she could.
Who am I to judge?
I have no idea, but she in thevideo at least, she was severely
overweight.
She seemed like she was verystressed.
She seemed also like she wasn'tfully there.
Now, a lot of that could be dueto poor diet.
A lot of that could be due togenetics A lot of assumptions
(10:49):
that I don't know.
But what is in your controltruly is how you take care of
your body along the way, andthat is the most precious thing
you have.
And my clients tell me ifthere's anything that I could
preach to all of you, because wehave hundreds of clients here
at Root and there's hundreds ofthousands of you and millions
that watch the content everysingle month.
They said, ari, if there'sanything I could do as a client
(11:12):
to tell you, to tell youraudience, is prioritize your
health.
I know it's cliche, but it'sreally easy to sit through lunch
.
Nowadays A lot of us arevirtual and it's I'm going to
work through lunch, or we don'tend up standing up, or we go to
the bathroom and we take ourphone and we're still on our
phone and we find that we goeight, nine hours and we didn't
really take the time to breathe.
(11:32):
I'm guilty of that.
We are actually startinginternally, at root here.
One of our advisors also is ayoga teacher and breathwork
coach, so she's starting to takeus through intentional breaks.
So are things getting done?
You know 0.01%.
You know slower than if wedidn't do that.
Yes, but that's something thatwe view as worth it, because we
(11:53):
want our team members here tolove their lives and to be
healthy.
It's what we preach.
So, all of this to be said, whenyou're saving and investing,
just be very honest withyourself.
Are you maxing out your 401kbecause you want to retire by 45
and that's the dream?
Are you currently listening tothis 60 years old going hey, I
really want to retire by 62 andI really need to ramp up how
(12:16):
much I'm saving and investing,even if that means I take two
less trips this year, awesome.
Now you're doing it for a veryclear reason.
What frustrates me is whenpeople are saving and investing
but it's not clear.
You want every single dollar.
You have to have a goal, andthe way I like to explain it is.
You have dollars that walk,dollars that jog and dollars
that sprint.
(12:36):
You want dollars that arewalking.
When a dollar is walking, youcan tell it to turn around and
you can grab that dollar reallyeasily.
It's not far ahead of you, it'sjust walking.
That's like emergency fund orcash, or what I call your sleep
number how much money's in yourbank account that lets you sleep
at night.
Maybe you're going to buy a carin the next year or you're
going to downsize.
Those are dollars you wantreadily available in the next
(12:58):
one to three years.
Then there's certain dollarsyou want jogging, where, if you
had to go tell them to turnaround, it's not the end of the
world, but you can't just get ittomorrow, and that's a good
thing.
When you have dollars jogging,that means you can get more
(13:18):
return for the dollars becauseyou don't need it as quickly,
which means you want toinvesting, which means it's more
subject to, of course, growingmore quickly, or what some call
more aggressive.
Now for jogging dollars.
I view that as dollars that are, for example, in a brokerage
account that you don't need,maybe for the next three to
seven years.
Maybe in the future you'regoing to want to retire and pay
for travel or healthcare orremodel or kids college.
(13:38):
Those are dollars you wantjogging.
Then there's dollars you wantsprinting like Roth IRAs or
dollars that you're not going touse for 10 plus years, that if
you yelled at that dollar andtold it to turn around, it would
be hard to catch because it'strying to make as much money for
you as possible.
So put your different dollarsin different buckets.
(13:58):
Understand how much you need tosave and invest.
Once again, the reason peoplework with Root is that they
don't have another job having todo this in retirement.
But working with us is abouttiming, which is why I offer
that Early Retirement Academy.
This is that solution for thoseclients not clients, excuse me
for those listeners or viewerslike yourself who still want to
get optimal with your finances.
(14:18):
You're not sure you need anadvisor yet, but you want to see
what are you on track for.
If you are interested inchecking out that, you can see
it in the description of thisepisode.
That's it for this episode.
The next episode will be backto my traditional series.
I just wanted to share thisafter watching the Amazing Reese
.
I hope you guys are all ingreat health and that you're
doing everything you can to makesure your health stays that way
(14:39):
, even if it means saving alittle bit less and spending
time or money on things thatwould help improve your health.
That's it for this one.
See you guys next time.
Thank you all, as always, forlistening to the Early
Retirement Podcast.
I love getting to host theseshows and make different content
for you guys every single week.
I've not missed a single weekin years and that is because I
(15:00):
love getting to do this.
Now, please be smart about this.
Before you actually execute anystrategy that you see me talk
about or hear me talk about,should I say Please talk to your
financial advisor, your taxpreparer, your estate attorney.
Please be smart about this.
None of this should beconstrued as financial advice.
This is for fun, educational,informational purposes only.
(15:21):
Once again, just quickdisclaimer here.
Guys, please be smart aboutthis.
Appreciate you listening.
As always, you can, of course,submit a question on my website,
earlyretirementpodcastcom, ifyou, of course, want me to
address a specific case study ortopic.
I will not promise I can get toit, but I respond to every
single person and if I find itwill be helpful for a lot of
(15:43):
people, I will absolutely makean episode on it.
At the very least give you someinsight.
That's it, thanks, guys.
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