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I am going to talk today too on the subject of “It’s not the money, it’s the lifestyle.” You hear that at the end of most of our advertisements. You hear me say it flippantly during shows occasionally. “It’s not the money, it’s the lifestyle.” And the concept is challenging to most people. We have discussed it before, but I want to go to the opposite first so that you understand what I mean. This is so hard for people to conceive because they are like, well, with money you can always buy the lifestyle that you want. And it’s just not so.
The Train Analogy
Let’s start off with a little train analogy, a train analogy. What happens is when you first graduate high school or you graduate college you get your first job and it’s never as much money as you expected it to be. And you start, we’ll say, at a certain speed. And let’s call that speed, just for fun—I realize this number has nothing to do with anything—but let’s say it’s $25,000 per year. Imagine the train going down the tracks at $25,000 per year.
So you can use your imagination, we are talking speed—train’s moving. You have very low bills though. You just graduated high school, so maybe you have a car note and you have got rent. Or you graduated college you have got car note, rent and a student loan. So your bills aren’t that high right out of the blocks. But what happens is you go a year down the road, you are a year down the tracks and you get a promotion. You get that annual review, and they say, hey, you are doing a really good job and they speed that train up just a tad to $30,000 per year.
People Tend to Trade Up
Now, here’s the question: Do you keep your bills identical? You don’t, do you. You have a celebration. Maybe by this time you are married. You walk back to your spouse and go woo-hoo, honey, we got a raise. We are kicking booty. Let’s go trade in that five-year-old Camry and get ourselves a brand new Cadillac or brand new little Mercedes, whatever it is. In other words, you don’t take that $5,000 and just throw it into savings or start building wealth with it.
Another thing that might occur is you might go back to your spouse and go, man, I got a raise, and you go let’s have a baby. So you have the child. Then another year comes by, child is born, you got a bunch more expenses. Starting to really stress the budget, stretch your lifestyle. So you get up the courage and you go talk to your boss and go I’ve got a baby, you know, my car’s six years old. I need a new car. I really need a raise.
Appearances
And because you are a really good employee and the economy’s doing real well, man, they move you up to $35,000. But, of course, you don’t spend any of that $5,000. You save it all. Oh, no, no, no. That’s not what happened. You have got to have better suits for better job because you know that’s how you get a promotion. It’s not who you are, it’s what you look like. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. It’s all about appearances, so you have got to buy better clothes.
And you go get that car you promised yourself. But then the baby’s there, and it gets a little cramped in your little 1500 square foot home. You go buy a bigger home. Now it’s five years down the line. It’s ten years down the line. You are not making $35,000 anymore, you are making $60,000 — and don’t forget you are on a train. That train is now going 60,000 miles per hour. Suddenly you realize, man, I am not happy with this job anymore. I want to change. I just realized, man, I am working 50 hours a week.
Yeah, I have had a baby, but I never see her. I have gained 40 pounds. Go to the gym? When? I know, if I just keep plugging along and I make enough money, I can get out of this. I can, you know, cut my hours back and get my life back. Five years later making $70,000 per year. Driving a Mercedes, two Mercedes, Mercedes and a giant SUV, gigantic Suburban, and the $300,000 house and keeping up with clothes and partying and enjoying your life. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things. What I’m talking about, though, is do you see the speed of the train eventually controlling you?
Turn Back the Clock
For this example let’s go back to 25,000 a year, 30,000 a year. Train wasn’t going so fast, was it? If you walked into work one day and went, man, this frigging stinks. The company has no integrity. They’re selling a product I don’t believe in. Their overall corporate philosophy is negative. I don’t really want to be involved in this much anymore. I want to quit. It’s not so hard to jump off that train at 25 and $30,000 a year because you can go jump on another train at 25, $30,000 a year, right? You have choices then. How about when it’s at 60?
How about today? How easy is it to jump off that train? It’s very difficult, isn’t it? You are trapped. And you know why? Because you did the opposite of “It’s not the money, it’s the lifestyle.” You did it’s the money and I’ll buy the lifestyle later. But 20 years of mentoring 8,000 members, it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work.
Begin With The End in Mind
Stephen Covey brings up the point in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People you have got to begin with the end in mind. He uses an analogy. I am going to use it slightly differently than he does, but he uses an analogy. If you were going to build a house, would you just run down to Home Depot—you have got a lot—would you run down to Home Depot and just start buying stuff and dumping it off at the lot? And what you would say is, oh, it doesn’t matter.
Whatever I don’t have I will just buy more wood later. Whatever I don’t have I will buy later. Can you imagine how expensive that house would end up being just to finish it? Because you had to change order, you had to change this. You got halfway through, you go oh, man, I really need another bedroom, got to add that. Back to Home Depot buy more concrete, buying more wood, getting the guys that put that in back to the site to do the work.
You would never in a million years build a house without having an end in mind. You want to know everything—the square footage, the number of bedrooms, where the plumbing’s going, where the electrical outlets go, what type of roof you want—everything is outlined in advance. Not one of you would consider building a stinking house without a blueprint, but you will go out and lead your life without a blueprint.
