In this episode, we discuss how we can either get everything we want or be satisfied with what we have, to be wealthy. And which is one is probably the best path to take.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the two ways to become wealthy. And those ways are to get everything you want and to be satisfied with everything with you have. Now the quickest way to become wealthy is to be satisfied with everything you have. I used to live in Washington, DC and it was so expensive to live there. With rent, car payments, food expenses, and every other expense necessary for living, it requires me to work really hard and do stuff that didn’t really satisfy me.
I hated sitting in traffic in order to make a meeting in DC. 395, 495, and 66 are some of the worst highways in the world for traffic. Now I live in Medellin, Colombia and I love my life. I live in a great neighborhood where I can walk to all my restaurants and cafes. I can take taxis and they cost me $2-$4. My rent costs $425-$450 based on the exchange rate, and I only have to work 8 hours with my clients to pay for all my expenses for the month here.
This allows me to work on so many creative projects and do my MBA Syracuse without stressing that much. I love my life and I feel very wealthy. Even though I’m not making as much in DC, dollar-wise, my purchasing power here in Colombia is much higher. I definitely could be chasing more stuff but it’s not necessary for me. I’m chasing other things than stuff. And stuff can be materialistic things and it can be status. For myself, I’m just focused on how many people I can help out. If I just focus on this and live my best life, and my best life is about creating and taking care of myself. And I’m doing what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I feel wealthy because I have a lot of control over my life. If I need to go to the doctor here in Medellin, it cost me $65/mo to be apart of their health care system. To go to the dentist it costs $25 for cleaning. I don’t like cars and I’m not interested in getting the fanciest stuff, and I’m satisfied with my one-bedroom apartment. The way I see it, the more stuff I have, the more it can weigh me down. There are somethings I like. For example the latest Smartphone, mostly for performance. I can’t stand when things slow me down. And on my computer. I will buy software to help me out too. They are investments in my eyes. So I’m at the point where I’m satisfied with everything in my life. There are some life experiences I would like to have like front row blazer tickets to a Lakers Game or another big matchup. Plus I want to travel more.
But when you’re constantly trying to accumulate more stuff and more titles, most likely, there is always going to be someone with more and doing better. And why spend all this time chasing those things because once you’re gone from this planet, you can’t take that stuff with you. In my mind, it’s better to have experienced. Then you will have a memory bank of experiences that you can draw on, and those are things you can have forever. If you want to chase things, then that’s fine but just make sure that you’re heart is in the right spot.
Any time we do something, it can be for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. And it’s real easy to lie on why we need these things to be happy. And lying to ourselves is the worst thing we can do to ourselves. It causes a lot of problems that aren’t necessary. I’m so glad I got out of the rat race in Washington, DC, and moved to Latin America because when you win the rat race, you’re still a rat. And is this a prize that we really want to win? I know I don’t.
And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, the two ways to become wealthy are to get everything you want or to be satisfied with everything you have. It is much easier and faster to be wealthy if you are satisfied with everything you have. Obviously, there is a balance between the two and there are things we need to have in our lives, but as people, we get to decide what that level is. Just make sure you’re choosing the path that is of most virtue to yourself. If you end up getting a lot of stuff in your life, then make sure that you won’t be devastated if you lose those material things or status. Plus if you think about it, when we pass away, we can’t take these things with us, so why don’t we focus more of our time on experiences. If there is an afterlife, then these are things that we can remember. So pick wisely and continue living your best life.
If you would like to get the journal questions for today’s episode, you can sign-up for my monthly journaling subscription newsletter, where you get daily journal questions Monday through Friday, and as a bonus, you will also get my time management course and my personal development cheat sheet. You can get all this for $13/mo, which is less than the cost of an audible subscription and it’s less work to gain more wisdom. You can get this offer at growwithjoe.me/journal
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my Audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
The greatest way to support this show is to share it with someone else.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
Additional Resources
Get my personal development book for free
