After 40, Never Disclose These 7 Things To Anyone

I lost money to a Ponzi scheme, not because I was careless, not because I didn't know about money, but because I had built enough wealth that people knew about it and I hadn't learned to keep quiet. And so in this episode, I want to break down 7 things I don't want you to disclose in your 40s, 50s, and beyond about your finances. Because here's what nobody tells you about in your wealth is that What you can say can cost you just as much as what you invest. And I say that with someone with 30+ years as experience that learned the lesson the hard way, even though I had the experience really hard, like Ponzi scheme hard. This is Building Your Money Machine, where we help you master your money, eliminate financial stress so you can live life by choice. Because earning more doesn't make you free, a money machine does. And I'm your host, Mel Abraham. And like I said, 30 years as a CPA, an entrepreneur, a money mentor, and someone who's walked this financial freedom path from nothing to something, broke it, had to rebuild it again. I realized what, what it takes, and it isn't about bigger numbers. It's about bigger and better choices. So today I'm gonna walk you through 7 specific things you need to stop disclosing after 40, not to scare you, but to protect you. All right, let's do this. So you work hard, you build something that is real, and somewhere along the way you started talking about it. Um, and that might have been the very thing that's working against everything that you're building. So today I'm going to go through 7 things that I think that you need to stop disclosing after you're 40. Not because you have something to hide, but because you actually have something to protect. See, before we get into the list, I want us to think about things a little differently. I want to flip something for you. We grew up being told that transparency is a virtue. Be open, be honest, share yourself. And in most areas of life, absolutely, go for it. But when it comes to building wealth, there is a version of openness that will cost you more than you know. And I say that as someone who has learned this the expensive way, like the really expensive way. We're talking about lost money in a Ponzi scheme expensive, like really expensive. More on that when we get into it though. Here's the reframe. Staying quiet about your finances isn't about fear. It isn't about paranoia. It's strategy. See, the people who build real wealth, lasting wealth in their 40s, they're not broadcasting it. They're not performing it. They're focusing on it. They're moving with it. Then that's the focus that requires a kind of privacy that most people never give themselves permission to have. And when, when you stop announcing what you have, you get to choose who comes to the table. And that changes everything. So let's talk about the 7 things. And the first one is this: your net worth, your income, or your savings balance. I'm not going to disclose that, and that's the place I want to start because this one seems obvious until you realize how many smart people still get this wrong. The moment someone knows the number, the dynamic shifts. Doesn't, doesn't matter whether it's a colleague, a cousin, a close friend at dinner. The second they know what you have, or what you make, something changes in how they see you. And they stop looking at you as a person. They start possibly looking at you as a resource. Now, I'm not saying that it's everyone, because there are some people that know where I am, what I do, and all that type of stuff. But I think we need to be really discerning about doing this. And I'll tell you, the hands come out pretty fast when they start to see that you have large dollars. It's It's like announcing that you're buying pizza and suddenly everyone's hungry. All right, here's what happened to me, and this is why I think this is important. In my 40s, I'm building, things are going well. I'm starting to build wealth. I'm starting to get momentum. And a dear friend of mine came to me and he's— I trusted him. He was a client and a dear friend for many, many years. And he introduces me to someone that he's in an investment with. And because the introduction was framed around, someone I might want to invest with, the assumption was already baked in that they presumed I had money and they presumed that I was looking for a place to put that money. And because it was an introduction from a dear friend, I actually let my guard down and I trusted the relationship far more than I should have at the outset. And that's exactly how I got pulled into the Ponzi scheme. The entry point wasn't a cold call from some stranger. It was a conversation with someone I already had had a relationship with and someone who then got introduced to me who presumed that I had a financial position that could work. And that's the part I had to sit with afterwards. I had the income, I was building the wealth. I just didn't have the maturity yet to carry it quietly. And I thought fraud and cons happened to other people, people who didn't know what, what they were doing. People that didn't know what I know. It turns out I was one of those people. Just happened to be in a nicer office. And that belief right there is what made me vulnerable. And it's the same belief that most people in their 40s start to carry. Listen, this is important. Adults 60 and older reported $2.4 billion, with a B, in fraud losses in 2024. That's a real number. And, and when you start to really look at it, because most fraud goes unreported, this becomes the single biggest thing to consider. Because one of the biggest elements to fraud is investment scams. And that, that data tracks with people that, that get into this game. You're 40s, you're building, you're building towards the number, which means that you're in a window where visibility of your wealth draws the exact people and deals you can't fully evaluate. See, your financial advisor needs to know your number. Your CPA needs to know your numbers. Your attorney needs to know your spouse. That's the list. Nobody at dinner needs to know your 401 balance, full stop. If someone asks, so what are you worth? The correct answer is enough to know that it's none of your business. And I know that sounds harsh. You could say it warmly with a smile, but say it anyways. I remember a good friend of mine that was sitting with her children and her children came to her and said, so Mom, we're rich, huh? And she looks at her kids and says, no, your dad and I are rich, you're gonna have to build yours on your own. And I think that's the thing we need, we need to consider. So that's the first thing. And if it felt personal, hold on, because the next one, this one is something that nobody really wants to admit because it's, it's a threat that isn't always from the outside. So the second thing to avoid is your investment activity and your financial moves. I'm not going to tell people what I'm necessarily investing in. Now, I tell people on this channel some of the investments, but not all of it. And I don't talk about all my financial moves. I talk about the ones that apply to you, because what I do in my financial world doesn't apply to everyone. What you do doesn't apply to everyone. So this was different from the savings balance in, in, in the sense that This is about what you're actively doing with your money, what you're buying, what you're selling, what moves are you making, how are you structuring it? And, and I need to say something that's really uncomfortable here. Sometimes the person that you least expect to be the threat is sitting right across the table from you. Think about this. I had an advisor and it was someone I trusted, someone that I believed had my best interests at heart. I went to college with this person. I knew this person, and they presented me with an investment and multiple investment opportunities. They made— they made sense consistently. They were giving me investment opportunities enthusiastically with PowerPoint decks and everything. It was professional, the good slides, by the way. I mean, they were convincing for sure. Now, apparently the things that they didn't tell me about were things like fees, how they got paid, commissions, the bias around it, the downsides through it, the risks associated with it. Now, I didn't fully understand it at the time because that bias was just baked into every single recommendation. Now, let me be really clear. The investments weren't necessarily bad, but the question I ask, and I tell my students and everyone else, and you should be asking this, Is this investment the best for me? Not is it suitable? Because there's two standards and there's plenty of investments that are suitable, but you want the best. And the answer to that question was no, they weren't the best for me, but they were the best for them. Big commissions, high fees, expenses that were quietly eating at the returns and the performance. I think that this is an analogy that will capture this perfectly because when you look at it, if the only tool in someone's toolkit is that hammer, guess what? Every problem looks like a nail. Like a nail. You've heard it before. So if the person that comes to you happens to be an insurance salesperson, but they say, I'm a financial planner, and the only license they have, the only thing they, they have in their wicker is— or their tool belt— is an insurance policy, guess what? They're going to find a way to fit your situation into the solution that they have. Not because it's dishonest, but because that's their toolkit. That's the, that's the max of what they have. They'll find a way to make it work. And the thing is that with this person, I handed him my whole financial picture, disclosed everything, gave them all they needed to build the recommendation that worked for them and wasn't the best for me. Here's a number that should make you pause. Fewer than 5% of financial advisors in the United States operate as a true fee-only fiduciary, meaning fewer than 1 in 20 are legally required to put your interests first. That's a problem. So I want you to ask yourself, what's the bias? Be really clear. And if they're uncomfortable telling you how, how they get paid, where the commissions are, where the, the fees are, where they invest, there's your first indication to run. All right, because again, remember, I want what's best for you, not what's suitable for you. Ask them the question directly: Are you a fiduciary? How are you getting compensated? What are the conflicts of interest that exist here that maybe I don't know about? And, and like I said, if they get defensive, there's your answer. All right, that's number 1, that's number 2, and now let's look at Number 3, and this moves to, to the one nobody talks about in the office. Number 3 is this: do not disclose your financial position to colleagues or employers. Now, I get it, your 40s are typically your peak earning years, 40s and 50s for the most, most part. And you've put in the time, you've climbed, you've built a reputation, and at some point your financial life starts to show a little. Maybe it's the car. Maybe it's an offhanded comment. Maybe it's just the assumption that someone draws from the neighborhood you happen to mention. I'll tell you something, something that really, that happened to someone that I love. My wife, Stephanie, before she was my wife, she had been with her company for decades. She's extremely talented. She is amazing. She's good. She's valued. She was a senior executive and They moved her, relocated her when we first started dating on a 1-year contract. And part of that contract was a benefit program and all the things. But then we got engaged and I gave her a ring that reflected what I wanted it to reflect. Okay. And for the record, I stand behind that ring completely. I'll do it again. But the comments started immediately. Not congratulations, but comments about the ring, about the size of it, about what it meant. And within weeks, the whole dynamic in the office changed. Subtle at first, but then not so subtle. The assumption that people started to make was that, mm, she doesn't need this job. She's just kind of going through it. She doesn't need the salary. She doesn't need the benefits. She doesn't need the promotion. But you know what? She had her own person, her own identity. She was building her own career. Whatever the ring was, whatever her lifestyle was, isn't it because sometimes you work and do things because it's a mission for you, it's a purpose for you? And, and she— they assumed that she didn't need that. They assumed that maybe she didn't need to earn as much because of what she was coming into. Now, that's not a story about a ring. That's a story about how visible wealth, or even the perception of it, changes how people think of you or treat you professionally. They certainly didn't know my background. They certainly didn't know our situation. They certainly didn't know how we lived or how I lived. And they certainly didn't have the right to judge her and, and do the things that, that they did. Okay, here's the thing. 2 out of 3 workers 45 and older have seen or experienced age discrimination at work. And the research shows that age bias often starts in the late 30s into the 40s. But that discrimination can also be economic discrimination. You add visible wealth signals on top of that and you've handed them a story about you that you didn't authorize and can't take back. So now look, I'm not saying to dress like you're auditioning for a modest living contest. I am saying that there's a difference between living well and announcing it to people who will use it against you. Now, and I know this, this whole thing can sound like I, I don't trust everyone. Well, that's not the case. I'm just saying be discerning. Because just because you've built something doesn't mean everyone in your workplace gets to tour it or should be part of it. All right. So, this is the thing that I think we need to do. Now, the next 4 get closer to home as we jump in. In some ways, that's where the real danger lies and lives. But before we get there, if you're in your 40s and you're building towards something, something meaningful, a number, but you don't really know what that number is, then let's calculate it. It's called the Freedom Number. And I have a Freedom Number calculator, it's totally free. You can go to melabraham.com/number and get access to it. Download it, run some numbers, get an idea of what your number should be to give you the financial freedom you deserve. It's a ballpark. Then we'll get more precise later on. All right, onto number 4. What you paid for things is the next thing that I won't disclose. In most cases. And this one lives at the intersection of psychology and money. And it's the one most of us won't fully admit. In your 40s, especially if you're coming into real money for the first time, there's a pull, a strong pull to show it off. The bigger house, the nicer car, the watch, the vacation photos with the captions. And it's not meant to brag, But it can be seen as a brag. And that's the thing that we need to consider. And I'll be honest, I drove a car that I bought in my 40s that I didn't even enjoy. I didn't love it. I didn't even want it. But from the outside, it looked right. See, I realize now in hindsight that that entire purchase was made for an audience that mostly didn't notice and wouldn't have cared if they did. See, I was paying a car payment every single month for people who are too busy stressing out about their own car payments. But I did it because I was concerned about what it would look like and my success in front of my clients. Now, I told this story in, in my book, Building Your Money Machine, about a friend of the, the kid who cuts my hair. And his friend went out and bought a $5,000 watch. Now, this friend was 22 years old. And the interesting thing was I asked the kid, Ethan, that cut my hair, why did he do this? Does he make a lot of money? Does he, you know, does he have a, you know, he loves watches. He says, no, he doesn't make a lot of money because he's only 22 years old. He's like me. But he said he thought it would be cool and it would impress his friends. Now, I thought about that and I think about how I've done that in the past when I was younger. But what I didn't understand, and he didn't understand, and I wonder if his decision would have been different, is that $5,000 invested instead at that age would go up 80 times by the time he's age 65. So in his eyes, he made a decision to buy a $5,000 watch to impress a bunch of friends. In my eyes, he made a decision to use $5,000 that could have turned into $450,000 by the time he was ready to retire. Now, I'm okay if he did that consciously and he was fully aware of it, but my guess also, and I don't know this, is that he bought the watch on debt, which makes it even worse. Not the watch itself, but why he did it. And that's the thing that I think we need to think about. The car could look successful, the house could signal arrival, the dinner to perform abundance, all those things. And at some point we have to ask, Who exactly is the audience we're doing this for? And what are they giving me in return? See, that's not money or a money machine. That's people pleasing in a people pleasing machine. And those are terrible investments, quite frankly. So the question isn't what does this cost? The question is whose opinion am I buying this for? And if the answer is yours, great, buy it. Enjoy it fully. I mean, that's okay. That's the whole point of building the machine. But if the answer is someone else's, sit with that for a minute, okay? Just sit with it. Because what most people get wrong is this— they miss about this— is that they think conspicuous spending is a confidence problem. Like, if you just believed in yourself more, you wouldn't need this external signal. It's not a confidence problem. It's deeper. It's an identity problem. At 40, most people haven't fully decided what the wealthy is gonna actually feel like on the inside, what it looks like for them. So they keep reaching for what they think it should look like on the outside. And that's why I say, define your life first, define it based on your values, your vision, and get everything in alignment with it. Because here's the thing about performing well, the audience is never satisfied. You'll always need a bigger prop, a bigger car, a nicer car, a bigger house. The people though who build real wealth quietly, they stop performing it. And the moment they did, the machine started working faster and faster because every dollar stopped spending for someone else and started building for you instead. And I think that's the thing that we need to think about. The external performance piece is one thing. But what happens inside of you and inside of the family, that's next. And that actually even gets missier. So on to item number 5, thing number 5 not to disclose. And that is your financial situation to extended family. Now I'm gonna say something directly because I think you need to hear it from someone who's seen this play out over and over and over again. When people find out you have money, some of them, not all of them will put their hands out. Okay? And like I said, not everyone, but usually not from a bad place. Sometimes it's genuine need and you get to make that decision. Sometimes it's history or familiarity. Sometimes it's love expressed in financially complicated ways, but it comes. And once that dynamic is in place, it's really hard to walk it back. You go from being someone's cousin to being someone's ATM with a face. Same person, but a totally different relationship. Now, I have one rule and I do not go into business or do financial deals with family, period, full stop. That's the deal because I want family to always be family. I don't want to have uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinners. I don't want to have uncomfortable meetings. You know, the only exceptions I have made are with my son and my brother. And even those come with clear eyes, clear agreements, and boundaries. The rule doesn't come from cynicism. It comes from 30 years of watching what money does to families when there are no boundaries. I've worked with wealthy estates and families for decades, and I've seen what happens when the siblings who shared childhoods and millions of memories turn on each other. When all of a sudden assets are involved and they think that they're entitled to more. I saw it when my own mother passed away. There was a trust in place, legally binding, crystal clear, and still family members, not my direct family, my siblings were amazing, uh, still had family members approaching me with, well, she promised me this, she promised me that. And it wasn't about money. It was about like jewelry and things. And over the years in conversations, she might have done so. But my job as a trustee, as an executor, was simple. Follow the document. Not someone's memory of a conversation. The document, the legal binding document. But here's the most important thing. Do the people in your life know specifically what your wishes are? Have you written them down? Have you created something so, so it's clear and there isn't interpretation? That's not coldness, that's protection for everyone. Okay, it's protecting the family unit. And there's also something that I think we need to think about because almost nobody will. When you've built something, truly built something, and through work and through discipline and through sacrifice, good decisions over the years, there will be people in your orbit who look at what you have and somehow forget that you actually created it. Like the wealth just showed up one day on your doorstep, like it fell out of the sky and landed in your house, and you went from modest to wealthy. See, you don't have to share your balance sheet with anyone unless they've earned the right to see it. Keep those financial details like close— closed. And close. Family can know your values. They can see your generosity. They can understand your vision, but they don't need to know the numbers. That's the complicated piece. That leads me to number 6, inheritance specifics. This whole idea of what is going on, like I talked about with my mom, you know, have the conversations in a proper way. Because this one, this one's going to be a pushback against something a lot of parents in their 40s think is, is being responsible. You've built something, you're proud of it, you want your kids to feel secure, so you sit them down and say, here's what's coming to you, here's the plan, here's the number. And it feels like love, okay, but it feels like preparation. But here's what it actually does. You just handed your kid a permission slip to stop trying as hard. I've seen it. They don't mean to. You want the best for your children, but the brain does the math and they go, I got a comfortable cushion coming. And those cushions are so comfortable, I don't need to try. And the moment your kids have a number in their head, they start making decisions around the number. Career decisions, debt decisions, lifestyle decisions. They take on bigger mortgages or bigger risks because they think something's coming. They stay in the wrong job because the inheritance will eventually fill the gap. And then life happens. Medical events happen. Long-term care costs happen. And you actually need to change some things. And now you're not just managing your own financial plan. You're managing the expectations that you created for someone else. And when those expectations don't match what the documents are or what they previously thought, That's when families break. It's why I have a chapter in my book that says, 'Skill sets before assets.' Sure, let's have the conversations with our children, but those conversations need to revolve around values, alignment, stewardship, and having them show and prove that they have earned the right to get what you might give them. Jeremy, just by virtue of being blood, was not going to inherit anything if he didn't prove that he had the, the ability to be independent on his own, the skill sets, and to be able to steward whatever he, he did. Here's the thing, there's a study out there that was done by the Williams Group, 3,200 families that varied, but 70% of those families lost their wealth by second generation. They created it in the first generation. By the second generation, 70% lost the wealth. Why? Because they transferred assets before skill sets. And here's the deal, 90% was gone by the third generation. It's not because the kids were bad people, it was because we passed on just the assets and not the skill sets. So we fund a life without first building the capability to steward it. No, I talk about this in the book. It was that important. So, so really dial that in. Now let's go to the, the next one, because I think this one starts to drive home the things that we need to deal with, and that is understanding your wealth identity. This one doesn't show up in other finance videos, and I think it should. Because it's the root cause of most of the other 6. You know, your 40s are the one— it's the time where you start to form your financial identity, your wealth identity. This is when you start to understand what you have and what you're building, why you're building it, and who you're building it for. And there's this fork in the road that most people don't ever see until they've already gone down the wrong path. See, 'cause fork one is your identity is built around how others see you from the outside. Fork two is that it is built around what feels like to you on the inside. See, one of those will make you wealthy and allow you to live a rich life. The other one will make you look wealthy and have an ex— very expensive, rough go. So See, we need to look at it and say, what do I want? This is your life. What is that identity? And in order to do that, you have to get really convicted and clear on your values, how you see it, how it plays into your world, the money, the wealth, and everything. Performing wealth is the most costly subscription service that you're ever gonna have in your life. And it's unlike Netflix, it keeps raising the price, you know, over and over again. And I'll be honest with you, at 40, I was already building the machine. Jeremy had already drawn the picture. So, I had this fortunate lesson from a 6-year-old boy. I had already decided that I needed to separate my earnings from my effort. I never wanted to actually be trapped anymore. So, I had a perspective, but yet I still bought the car that I didn't like. I still felt the pull to look the part, not because I needed it, but because somewhere in me I hadn't fully decided who I was building this for. Here's, here's what I, I should have been doing instead. Instead of performing success, I should have been listening to that voice that already knew what mattered. The one that said, gosh, if someone is in your life because of the car you drive, or the watch you wear, they're not in your life for the right reasons. And that sounds obvious now, but at 40 with the peak income and the real momentum and the whole world watching, it takes a real spine to live it. And what most people get wrong, ah man, is that they don't understand what wealth identity does. Privacy around finances isn't about hiding. It's about filtering. And when you broadcast your financial position, you don't get to choose who responds. You get whoever was listening, the mixed crowd, the different agendas. And boy, do I see it coming out of the woodworks on my YouTube video comments and Instagram, all that stuff. And when you're building quietly though, you attract people who respond to who you are, not what you have. That's the difference between building a network around your wealth and building one around your character. See, one of those compounds into something that serves you for the rest of your life and your children's lives. The other one will cost you and keep costing you each and every year. I've known people who, who have waited their whole lives to start appreciating the things that they had. Because they didn't understand why they were doing it. And it's not because they didn't have good things, but because they were so focused on the next thing, the next signal, the next benchmark, that, that they couldn't actually feel the life that they were already living. Don't do that. Build the machine and then actually live the life it creates. Real wealth, it's truly quiet. It doesn't need to prove anything. It doesn't need to perform. It just Works. So, 7 things, 1 underlying truth: discretion isn't fear, discretion is strategy. And the people who build real wealth in their 40s and beyond aren't the loudest in the room. They're not, they're not posting the number, they're not performing the success, they're building it quietly, intentionally, and on their own terms. Your 40s and beyond are the decade that determine everything that follows. This is when the machine either gets built or it doesn't. This is the window. And if you're watching this thinking, well, wait a second, I've already disclosed some of these things, that's okay. Most of us have. The lesson isn't to panic. The lesson is to get smarter from here. The person who walks into the room without needing anyone to know what they have, that person has already won. Because face it, because earning more doesn't make you free, a money machine does. So listen, if this video gave you something today, share it with someone who's in their 40s or in their 50s that needs to hear it. Hit the thumbs up, let me know. Okay, if you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button. All right, it helps the algorithm, it makes YouTube like me, but also warms my heart. I'm putting out new content every week and is designed to help you on this journey and to elevate the conversation of money beyond just the tactics to the life level, to how it is to live fully fulfilled, fully expressed, as I call it. I hope that this helps, and I, I'd love to hear from you. Shoot me a comment, shoot me a DM, let me know which one of these hit, and let me know what you want to do with it. All right, thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur. 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 Podcasts 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.