Retire Early And Win The Wealth Game

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Your Money, Your Life

I'm Alfred Edmond Jr., Senior Vice President and Executive Editor at Black Enterprise

And as usual, we got a great show for you and some great guests. listen when we talk about building wealth managing money and if you're in a committed

relationship or better a marriage it better be a team effort it's just going to be some challenges

some problems listen we have a perfect uh couple of guests a team joining us for this conversation

and we have julian and kirsten saunders a rich and regular and i definitely want to get into the

the meaning behind that brand. But they're more than, you know, obviously financial educators

financial influencers. They're the authors of Cashing Out, Win the Wealth Game by Walking Out

I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit about that. They have a regular blog, a regular podcast

And what I didn't know about, I thought I knew a lot about you guys. I haven't seen the Money

on the Table video series. I'd like to hear more about that. But listen, welcome to the show and

Just give me an idea of how you're doing. I'm good. I'm good

I'm over here, you know, being the husband. I'm ready to pass it off to him

That's right. Are we good? We're good. We good. We good. So tell me the story behind Rich and Regular and what that stands for

Yeah, it's kind of our playoff of Rich and Famous because there's nothing better than

being rich and famous than being rich and regular. Right. It was meant to capture this desire that we had to be ambitious and be rewarded for our ambition, for our talents, but without sacrificing our privacy and being extraordinary to the point where you catapult into fame

For us, it represents like the middle class ambition, right? When you want to go beyond what your parents did, you just want to be comfortable

You just want to not worry about money. You just want to be rich and regular

You just want to have one foot into the rich life and one foot in the regular life and be able to go between the two

So it started as our story towards financial independence. We started writing, what, five years ago

Yeah. Yeah, five years ago. And we started documenting our journey to financial independence because we couldn't find like-minded people who wanted to talk about money or who felt comfortable talking about money

But we knew there was so much that was left unsaid. And so we started just writing about what we were doing, and then it grew into a community and a podcast and a book and a video series and a number of other things

But it's our little place on the Internet where we discuss what the modern family is dealing with financially

Well, now that I know the backstory, let me tell you why that resonates with me. First of all, anybody who knows me knows I talk about the classic Millionaire Next Door, the classic book

When we found out the really wealthy people are not famous, they're not on TV, they're not playing ball

They are often really people next door. If they're balling out, you can't see it

They're doing it. So I really get that. And that was a turning point for me in my journey. I was raised in a working for family and a working class community

And as my mindset evolved, as I moved into the middle class and upper middle class during my years of Black Enterprise and got to talk a lot with folks like you who are experts in the space over the years

there was a mindset shift around the difference between fortune and fame

And like the old TV show, Fame said, fame costs. I mean, it's a high price

And I learned early on, I was like, listen, the only thing I want fortune and only want fame, I could be famous for being rich, but I don't want to be just famous because famous is famous costly

So, I mean, was that your experience as you moved around? Because real wealth is freedom to move and freedom to make decisions and not be under a spotlight and not everybody trying to spend your money for you

And those are all the things I associate with fame when people say they want to be famous

No, you're absolutely right. And you mentioned the book, The Millionaire Next Door, right? Our version of that was thinking about, well, all right, well, what does the black millionaire next door look like? I was very clear with what other versions of that look like, but I didn't really have anyone or family that I could immediately call out and say, oh, people like them

So now I do, because we've done a pretty good job of attracting those kind of people. And we can say, regardless of the city that we're talking about, I know my folks over here in Houston, I've got some folks out there in New York and L.A., D.C., like they all represent the idea or this identity that we're looking for

But I think there was another sort of side to that story, too. And it was actually coming from a place of frustration where it was also saying like, all right, you know, it's not to completely knock anyone that is rich and famous, but it was also just the idea of excellence and like that term or that phrase black excellence

And we know that that sort of phrase owns a lot of real estate in the hearts and the minds of our communities. But on the back end of that, I think it's like Black exhaustion, right? It is absolutely excellent, or I'm sorry, it is absolutely exhausting to be excellent all the time, right

And so what we wanted to do was offer people a little bit of a middle ground and say, hey, man, you don't always have to go so hard

You don't always have to sort of achieve and continue to achieve and always raise the bar

There are simple ways of doing things that might take you a little bit longer. But what it will benefit you is privacy and health and wellness and intimacy with your partner and the ability to sort of create memories with your family

And so it was really just a matter of like offering people a different sort of path and giving them license to sort of slow down, trust themselves and really just say, hey, like I can achieve my goals, even though it may not necessarily look like what I see on television

You know, everything you just said fits right in with the ethos of this show, which is about financial wellness, with the emphasis on the wellness part

And I can speak from, you know, personal experience. I remember, I mean, I'm older than you guys, but when I started, when I reached my mid to late 40s, and I just was hitting a wall

I mean, I was successful. I mean, at that time, I was editor-in-chief of Black Enterprise Award-winning editor when we were at a magazine

I was at the top of my game at a publication that was at the top of this game

It was good. And I couldn't put it into words at the time

But, you know, years later, what I realized and what I decided was I'm still committed to the hustle, but I don't grind no more

I'm like, I'm not doing the grind thing. You know, I just watched too many people literally grind themselves into the ground, grind relationships into the ground

I've been married three times. grind marriages into the ground and you lose perspective. And even during the pandemic

I came out of it with another level of appreciation for what it means to be really wealthy

And now my thing is I work to live. I do not live to work. I got to find a way to still be

productive, still make the money I want to make. I still want to continue to increase my wealth and

my income, but not at the expense of mental health, not the expense of physical health

I'm really big into physical fitness. My hobby's bodybuilding, as you probably see in the background

Not at the expense of my relationships. Not at the expense of traveling for enjoyment because, as we were talking before we came on set, I've been outside

The reason I've been outside is because I realized during the pandemic that almost all of my travel was work-related

Even when I went to nice places it was work as opposed to traveling to enjoy what I earned to be able to do So I really resonating And I think our audience will or should that yes we want to build wealth Yes we want to be productive

We want multi-generational wealth. But, and I'm, you know, speaking specifically as a Black man

and why I really live this health is wealth ethos, that too many Black men died, which should be our

peak earning years. Too many black women live, but they're not healthy enough to really maximize

all that they've invested in their lives. And that has a direct effect on us in the community

in terms of the ability to build and accumulate wealth in the long haul. So as you can tell

I'm kind of geeked out over what you guys do. I'm geeked out because you're geeked out because

it's hard, especially in the digital age, the internet age, it's almost like this

middle-aged, you know, I'm using the word loosely, but this period of life where you're in your late

thirties or mid forties, where you're trying to figure this out, you don't believe in instant

cures, but you are looking for relief from some of the decisions that you've made and some of the

commitments that you've made. And so it's nice to feel validated and heard and understood in that

matter, because a lot of the content that is out there today is just for like really young people

who can and want to and have all the energy to grind all day and have 19 businesses and work

around the clock versus a more proven strategic strategy that helps you build wealth and actually

relax and enjoy that wealth while you still can? You know, believe it or not, and this show is

was launched pre-pandemic. It's one of the, probably our oldest series. And I'm thinking

I don't know if I've ever had a married couple as guests on this show, which is

which creates a unique opportunity for me who has, you know, done it three times and open to doing it a fourth

You talked about defining for yourself what wealth means to you, that you kind of do have to back away from all the different examples and all

the different messaging about what it really is to have and build wealth and

to enjoy wealth during the course of your lifetime and having it. I could speak from personal experience that as important as that is, if you're in a partnership, it's also important that you and your partner come together and have a shared, not necessarily absolutely identical vision, but a shared vision for what wealth means for you as a couple and as a family

Talk to me about that journey for you guys. well when we met um we actually i mean listen you know sparks flew pretty quickly and then i would

say they got out of control uh because we had our very first conversation about money which actually

led to a breakup right and through that process we learned very clearly that we come from opposite

sides of the tracks and while we can try to make these things work there were questions about whether

or not we were going to like be able to stay together going forward because it just sort of

felt like we were just very, very different. All of that to say, looking back, we have great

appreciation for that conflict because it really, again, forced us to go deep on ourselves and to

say, all right, why did I feel so passionately about this thing that she completely disagrees

with? And she had to go through that process as well. And so even now when we have whatever you

want to call them, disagreements or sort of an inability to get on the same page, like those

things happen. It's natural, but we now know that a lot of those things are really just a byproduct

of growth. If you're not having conflict, then you're likely not growing. The two go hand in

hand. When these things happen, we almost realize, oh, wow, this is interesting because that means

that there might be something really ... There's a breakthrough probably right around the bend

We just need to hang on, make sure that we hold on to those core values and stay respectful and

understand that the other person is there for us. But yeah, all of that to say, whether it's early

in our relationship, whether it was having a child and figuring out how we wanted to raise him

starting a business together, this is on top of sort of our real estate portfolio

things that we did a couple of years. We have done a pretty good job, I think, over the years

of kind of starting things, sticking to it. We learn a lot about each other through the process

And I think that's really, at least for me, part of the key is just coming to appreciate the role

the conflict plays because otherwise you sort of look at it as a big red flag and ready to sort of

throw these things away. But for us, we've kind of chosen to do those things as opportunities for

growth. Yeah. I mean, we definitely set up our marriage as more of a partnership than the

traditional one person is always leading and the other person is always submissive. We really do

look at each other as equals, as partners, and there's room for growth in that effort. There's

room to say, okay, yesterday you weren't into fitness, but now you are. So that means we got

to change some things around the house and change the grocery list and just to accommodate that

growth. And that's just one example, slightly superficial, but also really important. But

there's a lot of little examples like that too. And that's the kind of training or counseling that

you don't really get around marriage until you're in one. And it's specific to the person that

you're with. Every marriage is different. And so I would encourage anyone that's out there in a

committed relationship or in a marriage to do what Julian said, audit the conflict that you are

having and try to find if it is a byproduct of growth. Has something changed since you first

got together? Is there something you need to revisit? Have some circumstances shifted? And

that kind of helps you stay in check with whether the conflict is toxic and unnecessary or whether

it's natural and just needs to be worked through. What I've found is, in my experience, I believe

in community relationships. I was saying, I'm not closing my, I'm not one of those people that said

I've done it three times, I'm never gonna do it again. I don't have to do it again, but I would do it again

But I think the lesson I finally learned, and I got married at different stages of my life

First time I got married was in my 20s. Second time I got married was in my 40s

Third time I got married was in my 50s. But this idea of change is gonna happen

You are the people who are growing. This is not a deal you negotiate once

and you're done. Okay, and then you get mad because the person says

well, I negotiated that deal when we were, you know, single or a couple with no kids

Now we got two kids or we got a home or we got my career has changed or my happiness

And the ability to not see change as a violation of commitment

otherwise is really, really critical. When I look at the successful long term relationships that are healthy and happy

a common denominator is that they don't look at change as a betrayal of long-term commitment

and they're willing to adapt accordingly. And that's certainly true in the financial markets

because we see, I mean, financial markets are going to change. COVID changed everything

You got to go back. You got to be willing to go back and do that over and over again. Yes. Talk to me a bit about, and this goes again into the bucket of defining what wealth means to

you. When I was having that, I call it an epiphany in my mid 40s about what I wanted the rest of my

life to look like, it became about defining wealth for me. And you start out with small things like

wealth for me meant not doing any real work before 11 o'clock. Like I've known since I was in junior

high school, I am not the eight to five person. I don't really get going until like 11, but I can

go till nine, you know? And I've been like that my whole academic career

And it was in my mid forties. I was like, I don't know what my day is going to look like going forward, but I got to figure out a way

where I'm not doing, even if I'm up, you know, I can be up but I don really want to talk to people before 11 o I don want to do meetings before 11 o But I willing to do that until and so that started out with me really visualizing what does my day look like

And then what are the financial goals I need to meet or strive to meet as, you know, from year to

year to get my life to where I want it. And I'm about 85% there, meaning 85% of what I have to do

to get paid for actually things I want to do. And only like 15% of the things that I have to do

but I don't want to do it. But if I want to have the lifestyle I want, then I got to do it. And

the goal is to get to that 95% where, and then the other 5%, somebody got to pay me a premium

to do the other 5%. Right. That's real. Talk to me about both as individuals and whether somebody's

single or they're part of a couple, having those conversations, what I call visualization and

dreaming together about what do you want your life to look at when you're in your 50s? What do

you want your life to look like when you're in your 60s, 70s, especially if you're happily married

and you want it to last? Talk to me about how you approach that. Yeah, I love that you said

visualizations because that's actually exactly how I approached it. I didn't know how to describe it

I didn't have the language. I didn't have the role models in my direct family. In my family

I knew retired people, but they retired because they were sick or not physically able to do the

job anymore, got let go, but with a package. And so I hadn't seen anyone who opted into a retirement

and were living their true golden years. And so when I started thinking about why I would pursue

this, I had to just look around in the community and I would see those people at a bar, at a

restaurant at like 12.30 or 2.30 in the afternoon. I'm like, what do they do? Do they work? Why are

they out there? Or just walking on the sidewalks during the day. Or I just imagined myself having

like a hot breakfast every morning. That was my thing. I wanted to sleep in and I wanted a hot

breakfast every morning. I did not want to drink out of a can, my coffee out of a canister or

you know, eat a bar out of a wrapper. Like those are my two things. And so you're right. Like

that's what it started as is just seeing people who were living a life that I was confused by

and really saying like, why not me? Like, why can't I see myself taking a walk

in the middle of the day? Why can't I see myself eating at a restaurant for lunch

during the work week instead of like, you know, in the break room at the office

So yeah, it started with just noticing other people and really just being observant

Yeah, and mine is similar, excuse me. And it really started with just being confident

and brave enough to ask people that you admired the question, right

Like, hey man, how did you guys do it? Or what do you do, right? and being willing to just be uncomfortable for a little bit. And you're not always going to get

the sort of inside or big secret that you're looking for. But I mean, for me, that's really

been the key. That's how I've met several people and couples that I've sort of looked at and said

wow, that's a great model of a relationship that I would like to have someday. What are the things

that they did? What are the things that they do? And then saying, all right, well, I'm not necessarily

going to copy that play by play, but I can think about what my version of those things are, right

And once you go through that process, more often than not, you sort of evolve and grow into the type of person

Hopefully the partner that you're with is on board with that and doing their own set of those activities

And before you know it, you've designed this life that is very much in line with the things that matters to you

And now I will say on the back end, that more often than not means that you've got to remove some things, right

So once you've identified what those values are and you say that you want more time for this, well, there's only so much time in the day

There's only so much money that you can spend. And so more often than not, that means that you have to go through that prioritization exercise and say, well, these are the things that I need to do, start doing more of. And as a result, these are things that I need to go ahead and remove from my plate. And that could be activities. It could be foods that you eat. It could be people or social circles that you were a part of that may not necessarily help you in the effort or the thing that you're trying to accomplish

So that's kind of been what we've done. And that's a work in progress. It's something that just continues to go. But I will say in the moment or the sort of era that we're in right now, I'm really happy with where we are because I look back and think about like where I wanted to be and how I wanted to spend my days, just the same way that she thinks about how she wanted to spend her mornings

And I think when you do that and you can say, wow, I'm doing all the things that were my wildest dreams 10 years ago, it gives you a lot of confidence in your abilities, but also a lot of confidence on what you can expect in the next decade or so

I view time as the ultimate currency, as the one non-renewable resource

We don't know how much we got. We don't know if we can make any more. We can do our best to extend our life as much as possible

We don't really know what we have. and and you i remember having the realization and again we're talking about financial wellness

um and financial behavior again i'm not i'm a financial journalist but i'm not a like a

professional financial you know professional um so i've always approached it from why even with

me as a 25 at that point 25 year financial journalist do i know what to do but i don't

always do it. And that got back to emotion and how I felt about money and financial behaviors

But I remember realizing that I wouldn't make, if I thought about financial wellness and thought I

had to deal with the finances to get well, I would never get well. As soon as I started about what

would make me well, what would make me feel better, what would make me feel good, then that became the

motivation to make some changes financially to get there. And I'm talking about you, like I said, it starts at little things

For me, it was also, I didn't want to eat at my desk anymore. I wanted, when I had my meals

I wanted to not be in front of a computer, not be in a meeting, because at Black Enterprise

we eat it. People are like, it's part of our meeting culture. We're in a meeting, bring your lunch, we're going to eat

And I remember having to literally wean myself away to say, when it's time to eat

go in another room away from your desk and eat. And, you know

that situation created other, like I said, it's a domino effect in terms of

okay, What do you have to do with your workday to still remain productive, but literally step away for a half hour, you know, two or three or four times a day to literally eat

And because I'm a bodybuilder, I eat more than your traditional, you know, three meals a day

But I was like, no, I'm not bringing my food to my computer

So I'm really digging This whole idea of How do you create a whole life

Around which your financial plans Fit in versus I got to make X amount of money

To buy X amount of things And whatever I got to do to get it I got to do to get it

Before we run out of time though I want you guys to talk about

Cashing out Win the wealth game by walking out And maybe we've already been talking about it

And I just didn't know it But talk to me about that, because that sounds like a fascinating book. I haven't read it yet. Like I said, when I got your bio, I was like, oh, I need to add that to the list. Talk to me about that book

Yeah, Cashing Out is, it came out last June. It's been out about a year, but it was really our

love story to Black professionals. It's our love letter to them. And it was talking about

wealth building as a Black professional. So many of us are the one who made it in their family

and we pride ourselves on our Black excellence. But while doing that, we forget to plan for future

you that may be a little less excellent, that may be tired, that may just want to sleep in and not

talk to anybody till 11 a.m. And so in the book, we have been talking about it because there's a

whole chapter on being rich and regular and exploring concepts like stealth wealth, which

is what we're talking about. But in the book, it's also laying out an investment strategy and a career

guide as to how to manage your talents and your time in the way that is most efficient and create

a financial plan that supports the laziest version of you because that just as important as a financial plan that supports the most excellent version of you But it just a it a it a new career guide book I think most of us at this point in our lives know that

our careers are a game and, you know, you got to play the game, but in most cases

a lot of us are still playing to win this coveted position or this, you know, fancy

high visibility job, but winning today in today's day and age really means being able to walk away

on your own terms with your dignity intact. And so what this book does is set people up for the

ability to have less regrets, to have more options, and to be able to walk away from any situation that

isn't right for you. Yeah. And I'll also add, right, it is a little bit of a reconciliation

or sort of asking readers to deal with some pretty uncomfortable truth, which is just around

what our experiences are in corporate America, right? I mean, and it's not always great. It's

not always a smooth sort of easy road. We know that more often than not, that we're dealing with

some really ugly isms in the workplace and whether it's struggles with mental health or just the

role that work or overwork plays in deteriorating our bodies. We know that more often than not work

especially the more demanding the job is, is a very direct impact on your ability to sort of

raise a family, right? Like the United States ranks pretty low in that area. And again, especially

for black professionals who more often than not are the first or the only in their family to make

it. There's so much pressure on us that more often than not, we tend to just sort of try to put the

whole family on and that sort of pressure sort of breaks us down. And then the cycle or the process

just repeats itself. And so what we wanted to do was offer people an alternative and say, hey

you don't always have to be excellent. You don't always have to put all of this pressure on yourselves. In order to get there, here's what you need to do financially. Here's how you need to

manage your debt. Here's how you should start thinking about investing. Here's how you should

start thinking about monetizing your talents instead of just focusing on one employer. Here

are a couple of other things that you can do. And if you do that over a period of 15 years and you

do that well, you're going to come out on the other end significantly ahead of the vast majority of

people that you know, and you're going to have some options, which is ultimately all that matters

So if you find yourself at the end of that or in your 30s or 40s and you're tired, well, now you

have the option to take a break, right? Or maybe you're forced to deal with a parent that you have

to take care of over a child or a child with special needs or all of the above, which is not

unrealistic. You now have at least put yourself in a position where you can choose to walk away

from a job that sort of forces you to just be sucked in and miserable. And now you've got an

opportunity to kind of take a break without sort of sacrificing your financial wellbeing

And so that's what we have done for ourselves. That's what we want for the vast majority of

families out there, especially Black families. And that's essentially why we wrote the book

You know, I got to read the book. And certainly I'm going to recommend it

because you guys have described my journey. Now, what's different is I've worked at Black

Enterprise. I'm in my 36th year. Very, very happy. Great place to work. But I, well, it's a Black

company. So we come from an environment where we got to be excellent. We got to be twice as good

we get to get half as much, you know, and we're black media. So that's another layer

but I can't even put it on my company. Again, I come from a working class black family

where you said the word lazy. I had to change that word for me because there's all kinds of

judgment around that. And my bodybuilding hobby helped me with that. My coach in bodybuilding

said, you ever heard of rest and recovery? You know why people break down because they keep going

without rest and recovery. He says, stop saying you're lazy when you say you need eight hours of

sleep. Stop saying you're lazy when you say you don't want to start working till 11. Say that you

need that rest and recovery to be able to perform at a high level of excellence over the long haul

And again, going back to where did I get those feelings about those words? Why did I? Because I

was raised by a divorced single mother who worked two or three jobs to get us through. And we were

taught, you work sun up the sun down, and you got to earn every penny you get. And you do, but

you don't got to pay with your life or you shouldn't. And so again, this whole financial

wellness conversation that we have in these episodes of the show, a lot of it is digging

deep into why do we feel the way we feel emotionally? When I started reorganizing my

work life, again, starting in my mid-40s, and ultimately stepped down as chief contact

officer of Black Enterprise. I worked that way. I was only going into the city twice a week

This is all pre-COVID. And it took me literally a year to get used to, you know, you don't really have to get

up at nine. You know, you're not a bad person if you decide to, like, even though it was what I wanted

It took me a year to get the feelings out, to get the guilt out

And by the way, my productivity never flagged. It was nothing about performance

It was about how I felt about money and work. And like you said, a lot of those things are just unhealthy

Maybe it worked once upon a time for a different generation, but we are moving into new opportunities, new options

But if we still think the way we used to, we're not going to exercise those options and opportunities

Exactly. Yeah, I was the same way. I think it took me three years to unlearn all of the habits that I had picked up from corporate America, from when to work, when to eat, how to talk, how to respond to people. Like, it's a journey. And I want more of us to be able to experience that while we still can

Or you're weak if you take your vacation time. Like, you know, like, what's wrong with you? You must not really be down, you know? Why are you

Yeah, you must not really want this job. You must not really want this promotion, right? And again, we're not judging. We were there. We talk about this in the book, right

But when you're in your 30s and you start to, we always talk about, for me, it was the eye twitch

It had this little eye twitch. I didn't really know what it was. And then that started to

turn into weight gain. And then that started to turn into an inability to really

sort of get my resting heart rate down, right? There are really devastating consequences

right and in american culture we don't really have a word for it in japanese culture they do

have a word for it right people literally do pretty regularly unfortunately drop dead from

overwork and it happens here as well but we don't really have a name for it right

we don't call it heart failure we call it stress induced whatever but yeah we don't we call it the

the medical condition but we don't call it by a cause it's root cause but if we were cars and we

never took the car for servicing and it seized up in the engine dropped out of transition then we'd

say, oh, man, you ain't take care of that car. Exactly. We do that to ourselves all the time

Man, I got to have you guys back. We out of time already. Listen, what's the best way for the Your

Money, Your Life audience to stay up on everything you guys are doing? Telling you guys now

reading assignment, get cashing out, win the wealth game by walking out, read it with me

What's the best way for everybody to stay in touch? you can find us online at richandregular.com we also have a podcast called rich and regular

and all of our social handles instagram facebook youtube twitter all rich and regular

you guys are the best people know i don't say that unless i mean it uh you are the best so if

somebody asks tell them you heard it you heard it from alfred no listen i really really appreciate

Thank you guys being a guest on Your Money, Your Life. Thank you for having us

This was really fun. And that's it. You know how we do it

Your money, your life. We're all about it. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time

I'm Alfred Edmonds Jr., Senior VP, Executive Editor at large for Black Enterprise

Take care of yourself. Really, we mean it. Bye-bye