How and Why I Spend a Quarter of My Life Retired | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 216

On this week's episode, we're going to talk about how and why I spend a quarter of my life retired.

Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, owner of retirement, realized financial. And yes, we are here to make you better. And obviously, if you don't have your contracts with us and you've been with us for a while or been listening for a while, you know, you can also do our academy as well. If you're interested in any of those.

Give Caleb a call at 512-798-3500, extension 5.

Can you say that again, please, Caleb?

512-798-3500, Extension 5.

Perfect. And don't call me at all, because I want answer. I'll be at a point.

I don't know your number off the top of my head to give it to him.

Oh, you know my number. You pick it all the time and.

It drives me nuts.

So let's just. Let's be real here, okay?

There's a difference between having Chad's number and knowing.

Yeah, yeah, lucky Caleb's still alive. But, yeah, you know what?

I love him, so call it luck, whatever.

No, love. Definitely it's love and luck. You wouldn't be alive. Your rabbit's foot would be gone. So, yeah, speaking of which, how is a rabbit's foot lucky? Because it's not lucky for the rabbit.

It is not. No. That's a good question.

Yeah. Do you want to tell your chicken joke? No.

Anyway, so.

All right. How and why you spend a quarter of your life retired now? Oh, you're gonna answer it?

Yeah, I am. Because, you know, people ask that a lot. And the number one thing people tell me is I just passed 29 million, you said for the year, and I think I've taken off, what, eight or nine weeks? I think at least. At least.

At least, because you had all of August.

Yeah, I did. Oh, that was so nice. Yeah.

You took a goose egg for production in August.

Oh, but I have more. I scored way more points with my wife than I ever did any sort of production. Way more important there. Memories, everything.

Yeah.

Yeah. Except I did outspend her by far on souvenirs.

That's impressive.

Alaska's not her place to buy, you know. Nice.

Yeah. But take her to Germany.

Oh, Germany. They're all her height. Yeah. Germany, Sweden. Norway. Like when we went to Sweden. Oh, my gosh, everything fit her perfectly. And I'm like, yeah, this is getting expensive.

Yeah.

But it's actually pretty affordable.

There you go.

Yeah. So a Win, win, right? Yeah. I mean, if you can't enjoy what you're doing Right, then why go?

Right?

You know? And when I say it's not about the amount of money you're spending. When we did, we did two weeks out of the four weeks we're gone in an rv, just traveling now with gas prices, that was pretty expensive.

Right.

But when we went to stay at RV parks, it wasn't RV parks, it was like state parks. And no, they didn't have all the Minis, but man, it was just in the middle of nowhere. Perfect next to streams and waterfalls. It was incredible. But they ask, they say, you know, to me, it's not the cost of the vacation that gets me, it's the cost of not doing business.

Yeah.

And so if I'm writing a million per week in annuities, you know what that vacations costed me when I was gone for a month.

Right.

But what good is it to sit there and get all this cash and you have no memories to go along with it? And the other thing I've really learned from my clients is don't wait till you're too old. You know, that is. And there's a balance because there's also a younger generation saying, why wouldn't you get all my travel out and then have kids? But we actually had our kids early and then we traveled with them and there were so many incredible memories there. But you also don't want to wait till you get older and you can't enjoy it. So I would say start from wherever you're at and enjoy it. Now, if you don't have the money to do that, I mean, you can do all sorts of things that don't cost a lot of money. One of the best trips I just recently took, I think it was in March or May as one. I think it was March, the trip where I just. Me and God. Yeah, yeah.

Drove out west Texas.

Yeah.

New Mexico and Arizona.

Yeah. And I just had a tent in the back of my truck and I just stopped wherever popped it up. And I mean, it cost me nothing.

Sure. Just diesel fuel.

Yeah. Well, once again, pretty expensive. But, you know, it isn't about the loss of time in writing appointments. It would be the loss of time and not enjoying memories.

Right.

And I'll take memories over money all day long. And then you say, well, why don't you spend your entire life doing that? Because I could absolutely. Right now, I could retire and Leilani and I could literally travel the rest of our life. Yeah. But the reason why I won't is because it's not about that too. It's also about helping mentor others further generations. Leaving a legacy, living a legacy. In other words, all the visions and dreams I have right now will take way more than me to get it accomplished. So it's future generations to do that. So the balance is, how much time do I take off?

Right.

And you still have work to do. I still have work to do. And you know, it really comes down to when do I feel like I'm going to collapse on the floor and die? That's when it's time to take a vacation. How often does that happen? I'm feeling it right now. I mean, sometimes I like even after that month of taking off because I got sick while I was on the vacation. Didn't stop us from doing anything. Sure. Still did it anyway. But after the first week, I'm going, man, I am very tired. And so it's time for a vacation again.

There you go.

Or an ER trip. One of the two.

A lot more enjoyable.

That's so the number one thing. And I know you have some things to bring up, but the number one thing is never sit there and hoard what you're gaining or getting from off of your commissions. Enjoy it. Give it away. Some of the greatest things we ever do. We just had someone just recently. We just thank God for Venmo. We just sent them some money and it's like they get impacted so much by that.

Right.

And you know, it's not. Once again, it's not even about the dollar amount. Sure. Where your heart is.

Yeah.

So my heart is to be well rested when I can, but work my tail off when I'm focused. As you know, I don't take a vacation before vacation, I don't take a vacation after vacation. And often Leilani, my wife, she is just taking care of all the packing and everything. Why? Because a lot of times I am working up until the last time, last minute, before we go.

Yeah, yeah, I, I wrote this down. I said that there's an element of income surplus helping to provide time off, and then there's the element of time off catalyzing income surplus. Right. So it's like if you want to take out the memories, take out the fact that you're a family man and you want to spend time with family, like you want to look at it for the pragmatic type listening that wants to look at it strictly from a business perspective and, oh, I can't take time because then I'm not getting these things Accomplished. It's like. Well, you're averaging a million in production a week. Okay.

Of working weeks.

Right. Working weeks.

I haven't figured out yet how to do it when I'm gone, so. True.

We'll get there.

No, no, we won't. You will.

Not for you. I'm saying there's.

I think we'll get our. We'll get our team working it up. But, you know, I have no interest. There's some people that will. Now, I check my emails every day. I signal, you know, I'll go through those, but that is almost always a very, very quick. I'm checking them, I'm answering. If I have voicemails, I answer those.

Back for fires, basically, is all.

Well, I mean, not even fires. Just making sure they don't turn into a fire.

Yeah. Fair enough.

You know, so if I get it taken care of really quick.

Yeah.

Then I'll never have fires.

Yeah. Well, I do think that there's an element of you writing a million a week. If you were to just work every single week all year long. Your current average does not equate to necessarily 52 million over the course of the year. Right. Because there's a drop off because of the fatigue and the draining that. The pushing. We saw it in 2020.

Yes.

You know, when you couldn't take the.

Time off, long time without a vacation.

And it was a. It was a gradual, slow tape. You started the year really great, and then it gradually, slowly tapered. So there's an element to recharge, fueling. Yeah, yeah.

And that was. Physically. I felt the same way, too.

Right. So it's not a deal where, I mean, we look at it from a numbers perspective and think, okay, Chad's writing 3 to 4 million a month on average this year, which is crazy. Really good, you know, monthly average. You take off the month of August to help maintain that average. The assumption would be, well, you missed out on 3 or 4 million in production. It's like, well, did you really. If you work that month, what happens in November when you've not taken the time to rest and recover?

So here's a balancing statement. You know, I have four companies that are very active right now, and then I have two that don't really take a lot of time. They're just venture capital, real estate. I have a nonprofit that's not fully working right now. We're looking for a director. So, I mean, let's say I have four companies that are really working hard right now. So it does take my time, energy and effort plus my brain just doesn't shut down and I'm working, always working on other deals. But if I just did annuity sales, right, I could probably work 35 to 40 hours a week and still be.

Writing every bit of what you're writing or more exactly.

And I wouldn't need as much rest because I'm only working 35 to 45 hours a week. And you know, I'm very deliberate in my drive time too. Most of you guys know, but I do audiobooks, the bible, worship music, you know, anything that can feed my soul and my mind while I'm driving and being very efficient with it.

Right.

That also gives me a lot of peace too. I mean there's. Sometimes I will just turn off everything and I'm just listening to nothing other than just talking with God. And I know that may sound weird to people, but that's my rest time. That's when I recharge. That's when, you know, my relationship with him is kind of like he's my father and. And so I want to hear what he has to say. And sometimes he's just like, good job. And other times he's like, you need to get better at this. And other times, I told you no. Right, true. Like true, Father Woodman. True. But you know, you gotta be very deliberate with your drive time too. It's not just about vacations. It's being deliberate with your time. And you know, I know some people, they just listen to mindless stuff and that's fine when. But you know, especially like country music. What are you thinking? You know, 80s or 90s music. I mean, come on, that's just like brain damage right there. You see here cells, your brain cells just imploding. 70s is even worth it's instant coma and death. I can't stand 70s music. In jazz, that's even worse. I know, I'm just making, I'm making a saxophone.

Oh yeah.

That's actually explains a lot.

Yeah, so it should.

Yeah. Okay.

You know, the tough one is so for you, you determine when you're going to break based on just your physicality. Like your body tells you when. You take time. For the most part.

For the most part.

Because there's not necessarily though an opportune time. Like it's never, it's never an ideal time.

No. Because I used to think there were down times in our business.

Sure.

And it's really not. It was all based on my mindset. So I had a set my mind that summertime was going to be slower. So in my Mind, I was thinking sometimes slower, therefore I didn't do as much business because I didn't put as much effort because I'm like going, it's going to be a coast. Yeah. And you know, through the last few summers I'm going, man, I've had some kill. Well, this last summer, I mean, I had million dollar weeks almost every single week.

Yeah.

During the summer.

Yeah.

And you know, obviously not in August, but June, July, it was so consistent. Yeah. And so the mindset is, you know, and here's another thing people say, well, the market's tanking right now.

Right.

Why would you take off?

Yeah.

Well, in our industry, when the market's going up, you're capturing those gains, you're giving peace of mind. When the market's going down, you're capturing those protection or trying to protect it. So they have a peace of mind as well.

Right.

So you're right. There's no such thing as a perfect time to take off other than. And I also watch my wife as well. You know, if I see my wife missing me.

Right.

Which is a good thing.

Right.

You know, she's like, I haven't seen you that much. And you know, because I'm usually home by 9 to 10 o', clock, even on Monday through Thursday.

But we always have a date day too. Sure. I'm not waiting till that vacation. We usually will take the entire day of Saturday and we just go on a date day.

Right.

But we're very deliberate in that time. But if there's a time where she's saying I miss you and you know, the jerk thing would be, well, what do you miss me? I'm earning an income for the family. Shut up. She misses you. That's a good thing.

Or respond like that and she won't be missing you.

No, exactly. I mean, that's an honor that she, she actually wants to be around me.

Right.

And so make yourself a person that other people want to be around.

Yeah.

You know, that's what it comes down to.

It's true. I think, I think it can be so easy, like you say for agent because you're, you don't have a set 40 hour week, you've got a whatever it takes to get the job done kind of week. And that goes for anybody and everybody that's out there selling annuities.

Yeah. But there's a side to that too. You know, I hear people, they, they maybe have one or two appointments. I'm like, what are you doing? Well, you know, I'm this and that, like your Job. I tell, I used to. I still tell people this all the time. If you don't have a job, your job is getting a job.

Right.

So if you want a 40 hour a week job, then you spend 40 hours a week getting that job, period. Yeah, there's no excuse into it, what.

You'Re planning to be spending.

I mean, and I know a lot of things go by e applications right now as far as when you're applying for a job, but if I go in once a week in a place I really want to work, that person's gonna look at me and go, this person has drive more than anybody else. That's who I want. And so you can do there.

Yeah.

So when you're not having appointments for annuities and you have some leads, then make your calls. Yeah, I mean, you know me, I make calls Monday from. Well now it's 3:30 to 7:30 because I have more leads except for today. So I still have a ton of leads, but other things happen where I probably won't be able to start till 4:30 today.

Right.

But what am I doing? I'm preparing for the week. I'm doing my illustrations, I'm checking on pending business. I'm finding out why I have 18 applications pending right now and I don't have enough movement on that side of it, you know, so. And granted things are real busy right now, but I'm going to be proactive in everything I'm doing. So by being proactive in everything I'm doing, I can also be proactive in taking the time off that I want to.

That's so good. And I want to. I want to give one quick note that doesn't inherently pertain to taking time off, but I think it's an important business note. Take an audit of what goes right as much or more than you take audits of what goes wrong. I think what happens a lot of times is people will be doing their stuff and then something will go awry, something will not be right. And then they try to figure out why did that go right rather than proactively and preemptively taking audits of what does go right so that you can continue to do those things rather than just react to the thing that goes wrong.

So, you know, it's interesting you say that because I just went to a conference this weekend at our church and the speaker said, if you spend so much time worrying about what the devil's doing or what God is not doing, you'll never focus on what God is doing. And I'M thinking about that. If you focus on so much what is bad or what's not going right, you on focus. You don't take time to see what actually is going right in your life and think about that. If you spend a lot of people, spend so much time, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. And this isn't going right for me. And this is if you would focus more time on what's going right in your life. I woke up, I'm breathing, I have a car, I have a job, I have a way of making money, you know, whatever it is, and you just focus on that, it's going to be way better. That's why I hate these people that just sit and watch news all day. I situational study, you know, I obviously know what's going on with economics and current events and global situations, but I'm not going to sit there and dwell on it and let it play in my house, which plays in my head, which creates a different atmosphere inside of the house. And then I wonder why I would. Someone walks into my, you know, office or whatever and I got some stupid news station on and they walk in, hey, how are you doing? Shut up. Yeah, I just said hi. Well, I'm putting all this poison in my head.

Yeah.

I'm not all about butterflies and unicorns either. I mean, life, realism, life does happen. But you know what, you just have to be a different set. When you wake up every day, the first thing I'm thinking about is what do I get to do today for others? How do I get to impact other people's life? That takes a focus off of me. Instead of going, I don't want to get up. I feel tired. I didn't sleep good, you know. Yeah, that's. It's just a different. That's how I get the energy and the drive from. That's good. Yep.

That's really good. So, yeah. And I would say to you, use your. Use your time off, use your vacation time to take an audit of what goes right. Right. If you're vacationing, you're trying to figure out everything that's wrong. Number one, you're probably not going on a vacation.

You're not. You will not have a good vacation if you're doing that.

But to highlight and reflect on what is going right I think is probably something that can be both energizing and still productive.

So my priority when I'm on vacation is number one. My number one focal point is who am I with? Yeah. So if I'm with my wife, then that's the focal point. If I'm with my family, that's my focal point. If I'm with friends, that's my focal point. And so it's not a. You know, I'm not doing this. Right. I'm not doing that. Right. I'm not. But it's also about dreaming.

Yeah.

And reflection and what's next and where are we going to be going? Because. Because when I shut my brain down, it's funny. We were in that RV for two weeks and the second to last day, we pull into the state park and there's a beautiful waterfall with a glacier above it. There's a stream right in front of me. I mean, the clouds are coming over the mountain. Just kind of like the real kind of cool looking where they're sneaking over the mountain. And I just went to this moment of thank God for what I get to do. Thank God for my wife. You know, I just went this moment of gratitude and thankfulness and. And I went to this crazy. And I. I've never taken a drug. Okay. But if there's like a relaxing type of drug, whatever that is, there's plenty of them. If I OD'd on something like that, I'd be like, cool, man. Really awesome. You know, I kind of have that feeling. But I went in this complete zone and Leilani's watching me and I'm just kind of like in a daze. She goes, why did it take you the second to last day to. Were you full on able to relax? And I said, well, because checklist was done. I saw everything I wanted to see. So, yep, this is it, guys. I hope that helps you remember. Take some time to relax, enjoy what you get to do and enjoy the people around you. Hope this helps you have a great day. And of course, happy selling.

Sa.