Living Fully Today and Preparing for Tomorrow

Ready to redefine the idea of success and embrace a more fulfilling life? Join me, Michael Kane, on Living Your Success 24-7 as we navigate the holiday season with a focus on connection and community. Together, we’ll explore how true success is measured not by financial gain but by the depth of our relationships and the quality of our lives. Discover how crafting a life plan that incorporates your career goals, personal desires, and spiritual beliefs can lead to a more satisfying, regret-free life. Whether you're contemplating a move, planning for family, or seeking like-minded communities, having a comprehensive roadmap can transform your dreams into reality.

We'll also tackle the often daunting world of financial planning, stressing its crucial role in achieving future prosperity. Dive into practical strategies like saving a portion of your earnings and organizing finances into dedicated accounts to manage your resources wisely. We'll examine the evolution of the "American Dream" and how each person can chart their unique path to success. Learn how to balance financial responsibility with the joys of living in the present, ensuring that you’re not just prepared for the future but also making the most of today. Listen in and equip yourself with the insights to not only plan but thrive in every aspect of your life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Planning for Life and Financial Success
• 14:20 Financial Planning & Life Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello there. This is Living your Success 24-7 with Michael Caine. Hey, how you doing everybody. Thank you for giving another opportunity to impart my experience, my way of thinking, my life and my purpose of helping others. Thank you for that opportunity. I appreciate each and every one of you could be doing something else, so I appreciate you. So let's jump right on in.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Ooh, this year is almost over. Man, it's inching, Wow, getting close to Thanksgiving. And then, you know know, once thanksgiving happens, guess what happens after black friday and cyber sales and stuff. Boom, christmas, christmas decorations, trees, lights everything is going up already in our house. We we're already halfway there decorating for Christmas. So it's a good time? Uh, definitely, and it's more than just the giving spirituality aside it, it's about to fellowship. There's a way of fellowship, and with family and friends, those closest to us. So it's important that, uh, it's important that you know we participate in these things. It's again, life's too short and it's good that we get an opportunity to be with those that are most dear to us. And for those of you who are challenged that perhaps you don't have a lot of family or friends, I recommend I'll do podcasts on this. Uh, probably next year. Uh, as far as get involved in community things, events and and groups and um to help to better your community, wherever that is community, wherever that is. So, um, you know to and you can attend uh events that you know that you're interested in.

Speaker 1: 2:13

And in our show, living your success, you know we talk about success beyond the almighty dollar, beyond just making money for money's sake. It's about having a quality of life, a life, yes, worth living, the life you always wanted. True, money's important to that end, but it's important that you don't lose sight of the true meaning of things, true meaning of people, places. Not to get all preachy on you, but yeah, but money is a tool, it's aptitude and you need money to get around, to purchase things, to have a quality of life. That helps you have a quality of life, because some people that have millions of dollars, they don't have the quality of life. Because some people that have millions of dollars they don't have the quality of life, they're not happy, in other words.

Speaker 1: 3:09

So the goal in my show here Living your Success 24-7, is, yes, we will save our money. We will encourage you to spend wisely, invest wisely, take vacations wisely, go out to eat wisely, not spend all your money up. So my soul, that's what will happen. Uh, you will uh be given insights to, in my opinion, because everyone's different. We can agree to disagree, but and but we all experience some degrees of hardships, challenges and obstacles in our path, wandering God or whoever you believe in or not believe in.

Speaker 1: 3:56

What am I going to do to get out of this one? Okay, just got out of another one. I'm in another pot of boiling water, so how do I get out of this? I've been there, done that. I'm in a you know another pot of boiling water, so how do I get out of this? I've been there, done that, been in several.

Speaker 1: 4:10

The key is to learn and to act upon that learning. Some folks, perhaps you can see, never learn, or they just they're not believers in being prudent. You know, I being polite here, some people just stay in that hot boiling water. They stay there and then they die there. So we don't want that to happen to you. And so I also wanna talk about and we'll jump back directly on investing in money on this show in a moment, but I want to. You said it three times yourself.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I was thinking about how can we avoid regret, and this is sort of related to the topic of money. I don't know about you, but I know I have regrets on blowing money and not investing it the way I should. So what can we do? It's called prioritizing our life based on to the plan we have for our lives. Meaning well, you say, well, I don't have a plan for my life. Well, that's a problem, you know it. You can't speak for every second. You're gonna live on this earth.

Speaker 1: 5:38

But you should have a uh, some kind of plan that says, well, this is what I want my career to be, or job, and that's a whole episode there between what a job is and career. Job is something you just do for money. You need money, survival mode, or you just like it, but it's not your passion and not your heart. It's not what you want to do with the rest of your life. A career is something that is deep and so that's part of your life plan, plan that says, well, I want to live in this state or this country, this region of the world. This is my plan. I want to have kids, four kids, two kids, five kids, one kid, no kid.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Plan for your life. This is what I want to believe in spiritually, and these things can change, by the way, absolutely, and you're not stuck just because you plan and put this on ink, to paper or video. And so what do I want my life to be? I want to be able to wake up in the morning with a breeze of the ocean, so I want to live near the ocean, within a mile or two or whatever those kind of things. I want to get married one day or stay single, or you know, plan for your life who your circle is your life, who your circle is what, what committees you want to be on could be business association, professional groups or hobby groups.

Speaker 1: 7:15

You can see that on facebook that all these groups I belong to several and it's like you're connected with like-minded individuals. It could just be for fun, it doesn't always have to be for the almighty dollar, but so and you come and go. I belong to some that I no longer participate with, but I want to make that part of my plan to, every few months, go to some kind of meeting or event. It could be a rah-rah meeting, you know, to pump you up, to keep you going, to motivate you. Everybody needs some kind of self-help or or some kicking the pants to get moving on a project or a business idea or entrepreneurship, or just, uh, one of those things you have to do around the house to get the like. Us get the fence fixed, which we're working on, very expensive, by the way, wow Anyway, but they last 20 years, 30.

Speaker 1: 8:13

So planning ensures you don't just live by accident. Now will there be things that happen to you that are unplanned, of course, good things and bad things, but you do wanna anticipate and be forewarned on many things. And so let's go back to money, money, money. What is that? The OJ's money? I like this song. There's a couple of money, that money money. What is that? The OJ's money? I like that song. There's a couple money, that money song.

Speaker 1: 8:50

And so let's say you choose your career, your job, whatever you want to call it, and you work that. You work hard, don't you? What a silly question. Work hard for your money. Was that Donna Summer? Work hard for your money? So hard for you? Okay, you get it. So hard for you, okay, you get it. So I brutalized that song, didn't I? You want to use that money. I'm leading the witness, by the way. You work hard for your money. So hard for you, man, and why give it up, something that took you hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades to build? Why do you want to wipe it out in 15 seconds an hour, two hours a day a week, without any planning? You know not that you shouldn't earmark money for fun? Yeah, we just came off our third vacation this year and we budgeted for it, knew how much we're going to spend and how much we're going to save, first of all for it, and it's important that you respect the money that you worked so hard for to go to live the life you want to live.

Speaker 1: 10:30

And I doubt many people wake up in the morning to say you're right, michael, I just want to spend all my money and go broke and go bankrupt. I'm sure most people don't say that, but many people do it. They put $60,000 on a vacation and don't have the resources to pay their credit card off in the next five years, ten years, one year. The next five years, 10 years, one year. Now I don't want to spend the whole segment of my show saying, well, that was stupid, teach his own. It wasn't wise. If you don't have money, you're already struggling. That would not be wise. I'll use nice language. That will not be wise Think about it is if you do it again right after that. Let's say it takes you eight years to pay that off. Then you do it again. Then, yeah, maybe it is another category of not smart and adding to the more number of years you'll have to work to pay it off and make it up.

Speaker 1: 11:33

You know, do you really want to have to work in something you may not even like? That's a whole nother podcast too. Do you even like what you do? Because if you do, or you own what you do, let's say you own a business. That is a little different, folks. So let's say you hate your job, why put yourself in a position to have to work there longer than you should have to? Why put yourself in a position to have to work there longer than you should have to? So balance your life should be balanced. We're looking at a balance. See, we have two extremes People that play.

Speaker 1: 12:03

That's all they do is play. Don't have anything to show for life, don't have nothing to show for it. Then you have the other extreme. People don't do nothing, go anywhere, hoard everything, hoard their wealth, money and time, energy, and then they die, never fulfilled. Maybe in the back of their mind. They wanted to go to Germany and Italy, france or Switzerland or name your country of choice. But they say, ah, that's too much, I don't spend that kind of money. But you do that every year, every year. Now you're so old, you can't, and you die. That's sad. Both of them are sad, hoarding, essentially, and foolish, playing around all the time but not taking life a little bit more serious. So those two are strings you want to avoid, you know. So I encourage you to focus on your income, because that's the source, is earning it.

Speaker 1: 13:10

We can't even begin to talk about saving, and let alone investing, without talking about earning. What are you going to do to make it, make your money? Now? Some people say, well, there's two pathways. There's going straight out of high school, going straight to college, and then the others go straight out of high school to vocational school, where they learn a trade or skill and they can start earning money faster than a college graduate after three, four, five, six, seven years going to school. Maybe they went for their master's too. And they're not all just broke, they're broken broker. Broker brokers broke, broke to broker to, and so what? The person that maybe learn how to be a plumber or some kind of software tech or something he's making money now. He or she they want, after six month or one year program, the certificate or program like that. So certificate or program like that, so?

Speaker 1: 14:20

Um, it comes down to again what's your plan? You got to take time to soul search, do your research, talk to other people in your potential field, see how, get you know, visit colleges to 10 seminars and workshops and educate yourself on on. That'll help you make you come to a decision what you want to do with your life. You don't want to be searching and wondering for until you're 40, 50 years old, half of your life is gone.

Speaker 1: 15:00

It's important that you take this serious enough to take the necessary action you need to do in order to, uh, get on the path of what they say used to the good and plenty. Get on the path of what they say used to be the good and plenty, a road that's full of gold and diamonds and pearls and platinum right, okay, silver. You want to get on that road to prosperity is what they call it, it's what I call it, and um, so it's important that you dedicate the time, energy for your life, as you do with trying to buy a car or choosing an appliance like a refrigerator, or going to see a movie. You need to take it more serious than those things and so have hope that you can participate in prosperity. Now we historically call that in America the American dream. But I don't know about the American dream and that's fine. I don't know if I care for the expression anymore because it's mutated and changed the American dream, what does that mean?

Speaker 1: 16:30

And you have to be for sure. There are obstacles in your pathway and when you plan, you'll identify those blockages, hindrances, obstacles to your promised land. Not everybody's promised land is the same. Mine is different from yours. I have a different mountain climb than yours, or maybe we're on the same mountain, but we have different reasons to be on that mountain and different expected conclusions to be on that mountain and different expected conclusions to be on that mountain. So, and my definition of success and prosperity and health may be different from yours.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Okay, everyone's different. So two people are alike. Even if you're twins and triplets and quadruplets, you still you're different. They have things that are similar, but talk to people, listen to people, observe people. But you ultimately have to decide how you want the makeup of your life. And so, and I wish in junior kindergarten they started teaching about life, real life and money making money, saving money, investing money.

Speaker 1: 17:53

So by the time you graduate high school, we're all experts, if we choose to be. There will always be people that don't want to listen to nobody, don't want to learn or whatever. They'll always be people like that, always, and so they won't, don't want to participate. That's fine. We are most. Most of us are in free countries. So hope, yeah, most of us are.

Speaker 1: 18:20

But money is a tool and so don't worship it. It doesn't need to be worshiped, but it's desired because it's a part of our means of exchange. We don't exchange rocks anymore and we do. There is bartering. For sure, I participate in bartering, but for the most part, whatever currency, whatever country you live in, that's the currency.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Uh, you need to earn and save and and move the conversation further, what do you mean by saving? I would say, for every dollar you earn, do your best to save five to 10% of that. So, off a dollar, what is that? Five cents, 50 cents or a dollar, right? Or a nickel or a dollar? And wow, let me get my math right. So, yeah, and so if it was, obviously it's exponential. You earn $100, 10% of that is what? $10, right? Or 5%, $5. So, ooh, now Michael's math is getting straight again.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Moment, a lapse of uh, math medical ability for a moment, whoa. So anyway, that was simple, but anyway, gotta laugh at yourself, say, oh my god, what did I say? Okay, come back to earth, come back to earth, come back to earth. So, at any rate, you want to save as much as possible. If you, for every dollar, can save 20 cents or 30 cents, god bless you. Not, all of us can do that, right, and I would encourage you to do as much as humanly possible, but, no, not below. Whatever that magical minimum is is good for you. And then you want to save for emergencies. You've heard this stuff before, this part. Yeah, what's emergency? Anything can happen. You want to have that whole cold, hard cash right there in this, with immediate access. And then, um, after that, you want to start thinking about saving.

Speaker 1: 20:53

What I do is I read this book and it's called I think money is my friend, I believe that's what it's called many years ago. And then gosh decades and you dedicate these accounts toward your goals, like you had a millionaire's account, a financial freedom account and vacation fund account and I wish they taught that so very. You give your dollar, you earn a name and that's all. Its purpose is to getting that millionaire accountification fund, house repair, phone, car repair fund and that's all it's meant and you know and you dedicated to it. To me that's the easy way of doing it. There's some accounts that'll let you subdivide your account. You have a main savings account. Then you could break it up into seven, eight different categories, like sub accounts. So not all of them will do that, but, um, we used to do that back in the old days the envelope method, where you have a white envelope. You write down what goes where that money goes in that envelope. So it could be house, home, car, vacation or fun envelopes, any dollars that go in that. That's meant for fun activities like amusement parks, movies, stuff like that. You get it dining out and you know where your money's going and notice balance of fun and enjoy stuff.

Speaker 1: 22:37

With the business of hard work and saving, investing for the future, you're, you're saving your investing, saving all these things, sacrificing some part of your present for a wonderful, fantastic future. Again, it's up to you. The numbers and percentages do what's comfortable, but make it meaningful, you know, and also watch your spending again. Don't knock out things that you love. Now another conversation is you know health, but we'll get to that in a moment. But it's important. But we'll get to that in a moment, but it's important that you earmark these things and you stick to it with the greatest of discipline.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Now, with health, without your health, all this is over. It's not. The game is over. Life is over if your health isn't right. So, eat as healthy as you can be, exercise, and each one is different to whatever that means. So I started doing that more. Uh, I feel better. I actually feel better.

Speaker 1: 23:54

You just have to dedicate some time and energy. Grab some money some cases like a gym and, uh, some cases like a gym and uh, don't stick to it and be committed. Don't overthink it, don't ever oh, I gotta go, just do it, have fun. And so, and after you start saving adequately enough, you start thinking about, okay, participating maybe if your job has a 401k or you don't have one at work a Roth IRA or traditional IRA. These are retirement vehicles. You can save money, you can invest and it grows over time. Money you can invest and it grows over time, and the goal is, once you build up these investments, don't spend it foolishly by pulling the money out and doing for something possibly stupid you know, I won't pick any names as far as what you, what I would call inappropriate but or they can shatter your future dreams because you pull the money out and just blew it. So don't base that means don't base things on just pure emotion and pressure from other people, your peer group. Oh man, come on.

Speaker 1: 25:20

I remember many years ago came up in family hey, let's all go to florida to disney, disney world and all that. And I did the numbers. I at the time I couldn't afford it. Well, I was pressured, put on your credit card like everybody else, like everybody else. Well, I stuck. I wish I stuck to my um beliefs in other situations, uh, but this one I stuck to it, didn't go and everybody came back broke, broke beyond that cost of that one trip. It's like take months to a year to pay that off. That's, and I knew, you know, two weeks in florida going to eptot center and Disney World but not having the cash, that would be suicide and what you possibly was for certain people. So that's their walk, that's their life. I'm not going broke over anybody again. Hey, can you lend me this? Can you do this, can you? Oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 1: 26:32

And I'm not saying not to be generous, but don't be stupid. How are you going to help someone else while you go under? That doesn't make sense, sort of like being on an airplane when they do the drill. You know the drill, the safety procedures. They say what Put the mask on yourself, the oxygen mask on yourself, before you help someone else, so you don't fall unconscious, right? So help yourself first, then help others, and so be hopeful.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Dark times do come, but just know this, they're not forever. Keep the faith, be strong, develop an action plan to get out of it and lesson learned, lessons and lessons. Right, and be mindful of when things sound too good to be true. You know what the cliche says. It probably is All these people promising stuff on all these social media. Yeah, uh-huh. You know they may sound good, but don't be pulled in by stupidity or emotion. So that's it. I hope you got something out of this episode. Please share this with your family and friends.

Speaker 1: 27:58

I'm on Apple, spotify, iheartradio, amazon Music and many more platforms. Please share, please continue to support the channel. Go to my website, livingyoursuccesscom, also on Amazon, is my book, uh, the slaying your dragons living the life you always wanted. Please, um, encourage you to buy that book. Um, I'm going to be slowly but surely working on a second book. I have two or three lined up, so, at any rate, and, uh, next year, I'm doing some speaking engagements as well. I do two or three or four at least every year. So, anyway, it's been a pleasure and thank you for taking the time to listen to me again and be hopeful. Life isn't over. You can get out of whatever mess you're in, whether you cause it or not. Don't point the fingers. Just learn the lesson and move on and be prosperous, be healthy, invest your money, save your money, invest in yourself too, and your health and your own education. So that's it. This is Living your Success 24-7 with Michaelael cain. Until next time, my friends. Until next time, adios.