40 Years as an Accountant - This is What Rich People Regret Most

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. What if building wealth wasn't the hardest part, but realizing too late that you built the wrong kind of wealth Was? Listen, after 40 years as an accountant and advisor, I've sat across from millionaires, business owners, billionaires, families in their highest highs and their lowest lows. And I've seen some.

Painful regrets, and some of them the same that show up again and again. And it's not about money lost, but moments missed. And in the process of chasing their financial success, they realized deep down they were wondering if they actually enjoyed life and the life that they were building. Well, if you're feeling some of that too and you're just wondering, am I just chasing my tail? Am I just going to what? Then this episode's for you.

After 40 years as an accountant, an advisor, an entrepreneur, and someone who actually has walked the walk, walked through cancer twice, single fatherhood, entrepreneurship, building financial freedom, building my money machine, losing one third of it, I had a front row seat to what really matters and what people wish they'd have done differently. And unfortunately, some of them realize that when it's just too late to change it. And working with the rich for decades and seeing this over and over again, they had some regrets. But it wasn't regrets around the stock market. It wasn't regrets about entrepreneurship. It wasn't regrets about money. It was regrets about life. So in this episode, I want to share the seven biggest regrets that I've heard from the wealthy, from the folks that I've worked with, so you don't make the same mistakes. I want you to build not just wealth, but I want you to build a rich life. All right, so let's talk about. The first mistake is the illusion of enough. See, many people never defined what enough was. This was me. You know, I was just. I had a number. I didn't know if it was going to be enough for the life I wanted. So, see, instead of chasing a number, let's chase a lifestyle. And too often, when we chase a Number what we're doing is chasing a scorecard. And that number we just keep changing. We want to run up the score. So if your number is 5 million, you get there and you go, it feels empty. All right, I'll go to 7 million, I'll go to 8 million, I'll go to 10 million, I'll go to 20 million. And all of a sudden you just keep chasing the number. And they chase more and more, bigger numbers, bigger exits, bigger, bigger things. And they never looked at it and realized that the chase of the number not understanding what your enough line is, not understanding what your finish line is, was taking a toll on their relationships, on their health, on their family, on their joy, on their time. See, I think that what ends up happening if we start to look at this is that our job is to create the ability to have a life by design, not by default. This is what my whole book building your money machine was about, is to have that freedom to choose. And they had the net worth for sure, but they didn't have the self worth. They didn't have the worth in the relationships, the health, the inner peace and all of those things. And so the question is here is, do you know what your number is? Even if it's a fundamental basic number? We have a basic freedom number calculator on our website. We'll hook it up in the links below. You can get it@melabraham.com number it's free, but you can at least get a trajectory. You can at least get a target where you go, okay, if this is the kind of life I want, then this is. This is what the target is. Now you have something. But more importantly is to answer the question of why you want that number. Why? Why you want that life? Why? Because that's what's going to drive you there. So that's the first mistake that I think a lot of them did, is they just were in a race that they never understood where the finish line was. Not that we're ever finished. But here's the thing from personal experience.

Once I define my life and I knew what the price tag for that life was, I knew what it would take once we arrived over that line, the pressure was off, the stress was off, and it was a very different element each and every day. Because I could look at myself and say, hey, things are different. I don't have to push as hard and I can have more choice. And so that's what I want for you. That leads me to the second regret. I think the second regret is they delayed their joy. So many times I had conversations with folks where they said, someday I'll travel more. Someday I'll write that book. Someday I'll go to Italy. Someday, someday. And someday never comes. And before they know it, they can't travel because their health is in decline. They found excuses. They found that. And how many times that you put it off. See, I think that you can't live a rich life through deprivation. Now, that doesn't mean that you just go, go and throw caution to the wind, and you just live for today and today alone. This is why when we build the Money Machine master plans with our clients or in my, in my programs and the Money Machine blueprint, when you create a plan, I want you to find the things that bring you joy. Not the momentary pleasures, but the visceral, sustainable joy points that actually create something that make your life richer. Whether it is travel, whether it is reading, whether it is some other hobby. What is it? And build it into the plan. I think about it as like the cheat days in a diet. But the fact is this is that more joy is lost in retirement than because of the decades of work they put in without joy. And then they lost their health and the ability to find joy in their retirement years now. So I want you to live richly on the path to financial freedom. And what that means is that you need to live intentionally. That means that you're going to find those micro joys along the, along the way. The trips, the hobbies, the memories, the things that mean something deeply to you, not just momentary pleasures that you're buying on the, on the Instagrams and all that stuff. And then you get the numbers to work to support that on the path to your ultimate dream. Okay, Money is, is what I call the. It's a tool. It's. It's a paintbrush to paint the masterpiece called your life. And so that's the only reason we need the money. And so if you look at the, the first. The first regret, when we define what that finish line is, and now we also know what our joy points are already your life becomes richer on the journey. Okay, that leads me to regret number three. They didn't protect the right assets. See what they've done. Like, people would come to me and say, hey, how do I reduce my taxes? How do I get tax shelters? What do I need to do from legal structuring? What do I need to do? I want to protect my assets. I want to protect my. Those things. That's great. That's stuff. Okay, that's stuff. We can protect it. We can use trusts, we can use legal entities, we can use insurance. We can do all of that. But those aren't the assets that need protecting. The most unprotected assets that I see are health, relationships and time. And we'd never protect that. Someone asked me, does a cancer changed you? And it's an odd question because of course it did. But the fact of the matter is, is that what the cancer got me to realize? As much as we're told you have limited time here on Earth, we don't take it seriously until mortality smacks you in the forehead like it did me. I didn't take it seriously. And all of a sudden, I realized my days are numbered. But the pain wasn't from the cancer. The pain was of the thought that I didn't get a chance to live my life completely. That I had so much more life in me with my grandkids, with my wife, with you, to be able to serve and be more and do more, that scared me. And when I realized that we only have a certain number of slices of life in us, and may they be many, then we should be protecting them and not giving away our time so easily, so frivolously, because it's the one thing, it's the one asset we can never get back. I can't put it on a shelf and inventory for later, but once I say yes to something, that slice of life is gone. So I got to be able to give it 100 of everything. I have to be there fully to. To give to it fully and ask the same in return. But we tend to sacrifice our time, we tend to sacrifice our relationships by saying, well, I got to work, I got to do this, I got to do that. And look, Jeremy woke me up, and when he drew that picture of me at six years old, of me in front of computer screens. So the right assets to protect are your health, your ability to enjoy life, the vibrancy that you live it with, your time, the most fleeting asset you have, and your relationships, because the relationships is where you're going to find the richness. The richness that. That. That really matters. Okay, so start to look at asset protection, starting internal. Your time, your body, your marriage, all those things first. And then we can worry about asset protection on the outside. Okay, that leads me to regret number four. Regret number four. They thought legacy was what they left. This is a big one for me. And this also kind of came out of being a single full time dad, seeing what other people have done. And my Cancer journey. See, too often when we say, I want to leave a legacy, what we're saying is that when I die, I want to leave something behind, which is great.

But what about when I live? See, the true legacy, okay, isn't in the estate plans or the trusts and the entities and everything.

The true legacy is how you show up. And some of the folks that I talked to, they realized, you know what? I could have shown up better.

Because I left not a great legacy because of how I treated people, how I did things and everything. It's not an inheritance. It's the impact you have each and every day. And when they realize that, they wish they could go back and do things differently, whether it's with their children, whether it's with business associates, whether it's in past relationships or current relationships. So I think that when you start to realize that the moments of our life are the precious things that really give richness to our life, the richness to our wealth. Our bank account. We can have a big bank account, but if we are not creating moments that matter.

What kind of legacy are we leaving? See, I think a legacy is what you live, not what you leave. I think a legacy is what you leave inside someone. Every time you interact with the moment, you say, how's your day today? When you walk in and talk to the barista behind the counter or someone on the phone?

I have a habit of when I call someone, I call United Airlines or something. I say, hey, I'm Mel Abraham. How are you doing today? I ask them, and I legitimately want to know. You're living the legacy. And I think this is the thing that people.

Regret, is that they realize, oh, I just accumulated a bunch of stuff to leave behind. So ask yourself this. What do you want people to remember about you? Not just receive from you? Okay, build a living legacy. List the ways you can model generosity, wisdom, love, now and forever. Right? And regret. Number five, they never built wealth outside their business. This is for those entrepreneurs out there. And this was a mistake I almost made until Jeremy drew that drawing about me. But too often, entrepreneurs saw their business. That's their baby. I'm working in it. I've worked it for 20 years. That's their baby. Here's one of the fundamental premises of, of the money machine and building your money machine is the fact that you are on an earnings journey. That earnings journey can be your wages from employment, or it can be business. But that earnings journey is meant to provide services, solutions, and an impact to the people you serve. It's never Meant to give you freedom. It's never meant to be your wealth, but it is the fuel and the cash flow to create the wealth that you deserve. And so what happens is some entrepreneurs, they work all their lives in their business, but they never invest out there, but outside, outside their business. In fact, I have someone that lives literally up the street from me, works hard, works really hard. He's a. And.

He constantly is working. And as long as he's working, money's coming in. And they live a nice life and everything, but they have not built anything outside of it. They haven't built the money machine outside of it. Your freedom is getting cash, investing in a machine to support your lifestyle, not your efforts. Freedom comes from separating your earnings from your efforts to earn it. And the challenge is that some entrepreneurs, well, I'll sell my business. Did you know 80% of businesses that get listed never get sold? Or they end up in a situation where they can't sell it, no one wants it, or they have to fire sell it. And when they step away from the business, they, you know, they were in a machine, an earnings machine, which made them cash rich, but they didn't do the right things with the cash to give them freedom rich. So they were living a cash rich, freedom poor life. So once they understand that, and this is one of the things that I coach a lot of people on, whether they're employees or business owners, and help them navigate this. Okay, we've got the earnings machine. Let's get that running and making the money now. Let's use it to build the wealth. That's exactly what I did to build my money machine. Okay, you need to create something outside of your efforts to give you the freedom of choice in your life. That leads me to regret number six, and that is avoiding the conversations that mattered. I watched my mom unfortunately pass away at 91 just last year. She was six and a half years on dialysis.

I grew up in a family that had a loving family. But we weren't affectionate. We didn't talk soft and fuzzy stuff. We didn't have those conversations. And when my dad passed away, which next week will be 11 years.

No, actually 15 years since he passed away.

My mom lived with a lot of regret and a lot of regret around not appreciating who he was, the things he did, the things they had, the way they lived, and regrets around not being able to have the conversations that meant something. I learned from a friend years ago, he says, don't let anything live in the land of the unspoken and Deathbed regrets are never about the money. They're about the relationships. They're about the unspoken truths. They're about the love that might have been withheld. They're about the love that maybe wasn't expressed. And so it's important for us to look at and say what conversations matter, because financial planning and all that stuff. Yeah, it's about dollars, but it isn't. It's about dignity. It's about clarity. It's about communication. It's about building a nucleus of something bigger, something better. Don't wait to say the hard things, especially to your parents. Both my parents are gone now. Your adult children, your grandchildren, the people you care about, the people that matter you. By doing so, you make a deposit of richness in their life.

And you get a deposit back. It's huge. The last regret is this. They didn't ask the right questions. Most people, they'll ask, how do I make more? Well, the better question, I think is, what kind of life do I want? What kind of money machine will support the life? See, when we put the money at the head of the. Of the machine at the head of the line, then we have a number that's defining the race. When we put our life at the head of the line, then we have a vision that defines our race. And when you do that, I think that there's a couple things that happen. One is because it's your life vision, it's compelling, it's emotional, it's visceral. And you have this why behind it. It's one of the reasons. The first part of the book and the first part of the work we do with people is to create a compelling vision for their life. Everything starts with a vision, not a number. The number is just the byproduct to say, how do I pay for the vision? Because we can hit numbers all day long. But if it doesn't give you the life that you desire, the life that you want, why are we doing it? Why are we doing this? Wealth building, you know, gets misaligned when life goals aren't clarified first. This is why I tell people when we come in into the game, vision first, plan, second, strategy, third, tactics than action steps. But everything stems from vision. Because the vision becomes your freedom compass, your why becomes the fuel on that journey. Build it backwards from the life you want, not forward from the income you earn. Right. I hope that this helps. This was a very different episode, but I think it's important for us to have these kinds of conversations, especially around money, because too often we get caught in the statistics. You know, I, I made, you know, $5,000, $10,000, $100,000. All the, the numbers and the stats and the columns and rows. But at the end of the day, if we're not setting our, our head down on the pillow with peace at night, with joy, without regrets, then does the fancy car matter? Does the fancy home matter? If you're not around with your kids, you don't get a chance to go to the kids games. Does that, does the money really matter? If you don't have the health that you want and you can't dance at your daughter's wedding, Is that really living? You know, I have built, I have bought, I have sold businesses. I have been broke and back. I battled cancer. I built life. I built a life that I love with a person I love. I was a single full time dad. I'm not going to say I was perfect, okay? But he's doing all right. But the richest life isn't the one with the biggest bank account. It's the one where the money supports the moments and the moments support the vision. So go build your money machine. Build the life that you really want and make it happen your way. All right? I hope that this helps. I hope you found this valuable and I hope that you'll share this with other people because I think this is an important message, especially in today's times, to get it out to the world. And if you haven't done so already, smack that subscribe button. Stay with me on this journey. I want to help you understand the ways to build the wealth, but more importantly, to use that wealth to build the life that you deserve. All right, until I see you on the next one and on the road to your financial freedom, always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. See you in the next one. Cheers. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of building your money machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.