Russ Lowry argues you should define your own threshold of enough instead of chasing endless wealth. He shares how he put his business on autopilot so a parent could stay home, and says more money creates as many problems as it solves.
Today we're going to talk about enough is enough. So often we get caught up in what's going on. Everyone wants to have more money, more things, a bigger house, more cars. And we've kind of discussed this a little bit and we got caught up in that ourselves. You know, when we were younger and people actually try to shame you if you want to stay home with your kids, if your business is big enough right now. I basically put the business on autopilot whenever you guys were younger. I was coaching everybody because I wanted to spend more time with you. Because my dad, back in the day, everyone thought men were like, the more I work, the more money I make, the better dad I am. And we still somewhat think that. But I didn't get to see him a lot when I was younger because of him working so much and traveling and stuff like that. So I wanted to change that. And I was growing agent, big agent. People were like, why aren't you growing your business? I'm like, well, we're, we're holding our own, growing a little bit. But I'm choosing to take this time, which is very short in your kid's life, I recognize that at least, and be more present in their life because in the future they're going to be gone just like now. You know, when they hit start driving at 16, you see them a lot less. And, and by 18, your time is limited because they're growing their own career. So set your own bar. Don't use the society's pace of saying you need to have a giant house, you need to have brand new cars, you need to make a quarter million dollars a year, whatever. Look into yourself and decide what's going to make me happy with my family, my spouse, what trade offs. We made the trade off of mom always staying at home because I didn't want you guys to be a daycare. I remember I was with my, one of my buddies who took me to his daycare that he had their benefits on and he wanted me to write their insurance. And I was just like, it was horrible in this place. This was a decent daycare at Norman. And I was like, I will deliver pizzas at night versus my kids spending time in some place like this. So I always did what I could so mom could stay home with you. So that was what we made in our lives. The decision that that was our enough was just to do that and grow. But don't get caught up in having to always have the newest, the best, the biggest thing. Because trust me, I have a lot of Friends who are much wealthier than me that are millionaires. And there's been times in their life, or they are now they're as miserable as the poor guy working the, you know, daily grind out there, the janitor in the school or something, who might even be happier than them. So set your own bar. And that's a good thing about having a good spouse that you agree with things on. You guys discuss that and decide when enough is enough for you, not for society, not for everybody else. You make that decision, and there's a lot of pressure. And like I said, we fell into that somewhat, having a bigger house and always having new cars. And then you look back and you're like, why the hell do we need a car like that? Or why do we need that giant house? We could have lived a lot better life and done other things than have a giant house and constantly buying new cars, which we've always paid cash for our cars. But still, it's a big expense. Talk about that another time. So figure out what's enough in your life. It makes you happy. I mean, growing and scaling your businesses, growing your career isn't always, you know, fun and games. It's. It's stressful, and you want to shoot for the, you know, as top, as high as you can get. But there might be periods in your life where you're like, okay, we have kids. I'm going to step back and enjoy this short time I have with my kids before they get to where they don't want to, you know, be around us anymore. You know, your wife or your husband, you don't want to lose them because you're working too much. So I just thought I'd mention this in a short video about, you know, when enough is enough, because we all fall into that trap. And I just constantly talk to young people and they're like, I want to be a millionaire. I want to do this. Well, being a lonely, broke million or lonely millionaire isn't fun in life. Having a good spouse and kids and a nice house means a lot more as you get older. You can understand this, but when you're young, it's hard to see sometimes, but I just thought I'd address that. So set that and talk to your spouse and say, when is enough enough? Do you have to keep. We have to keep moving cities to make more money. Do we have to keep doing this? Is more money going to solve our problems? It might create as many as it solves. So think about that as you guys get married. As you. You're dating somebody. Make sure you align on your values with that. And the things and the pressures of the world, ignore them. I know we talked about that too. That goes along with that immunity to criticism. The immunity just to not let the world influence you as much as people wish it would can change your life. So hope that helps out.
