Ben Carlson

And so I've seen these stories where you do all this planning and then life throws you a curveball, right?

The old saying like, make plans and God laughs, right?

So I do think that there has to be more balance.

And that getting older too, that's been a big thing for me is just seeing this stuff, losing loved ones and dealing with kids and all this stuff.

that there does have to be some balance.

And with our clients, we tell them the whole reason that you delay gratification is to enjoy it, right?

So find ways to enjoy it, to find those things in your life that you're going to enjoy.

It's not just about seeing number go up, right?

Up and to the right and I can never spend it.

There's a lot of people who for 40 years, they scrimp and they save and they have this mindset and then retirement hits and they go, I can't see the value of this portfolio go down now.

It's got to just keep going up.

And you have to kind of retrain your brain to enjoy the money.

So I do think giving yourself little pleasures along the way and prioritizing the things that matter to you and spending on those things, you have to make sure you do that along the way too.

Because if you get too far along the way, it's hard to turn that mindset around.

It's funny.

I wish we could have looked back and go, you know what?

From day one, this is how we plan for things to go.

But I read Barry back in the day, too.

He was one of the first blogs I read.

I read him during the Graff Hunter crisis and Josh coming out of that at the Reform Broker.