Life Starts at 40 (#46) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 46
Dustin Serviss reflects on approaching forty and reconsidering what makes life enjoyable. He explores experience, changing priorities and being present in the life you have now.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:22] A song that prompts reflection
[00:01:39] What changes around forty?
[00:02:46] Rethinking career and success
[00:04:37] Seeing risk more clearly
[00:05:16] What would you have done differently?
[00:06:33] Enjoying goals already achieved
[00:07:12] An automated financial plan
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:22] Dustin Serviss: Do you know the song when I was seven years old? You know, and I'm not a traditional crier or get choked up, by the melody, but the message of the song, you know, really hits me. It's kinda like, the Tim McGraw don't bring the girl song. But the seven year old song came the other day on Sat Radio, and it made me reflect on on my own age, which, you know, I'm just about to turn forty, and I... I'm starting to think that life really starts at forty. And this is the reality. I'm not in the past. I'm not in the future. I'm here right now. So I did some research on, you know, what happens at forty. And the phrase, life starts at forty is actually,
[00:00:58] Dustin Serviss: a popular... Or what was... Became popular in actually nineteen thirty two. There was a story, or a book written by Walter b Pitkin, who... The book was published, called life begins at forty. So this phrase means, you know, one reaches age forty, life becomes better, maybe because one has skills, experience, it means, you know, necessary for the enjoyable life. But here's another famous quote by Helen Roland. Life begins at forty, but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, fallen eyesight... Or faulty eyesight, sorry, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person three or four times. You know, so I can resonate with that for sure.
[00:01:39] Dustin Serviss: And, you know, so at forty, is there a sudden change that happens or something, you know, actually physiological or, you know, is there a secret thing that happens? And I don't think there is. You know, I've, you know, witnessed a bit of a change in in sort of my mindset in the last couple years. But, you know, what I I do think it comes back to when you hear me podcast about this is really drilling down to figure out what's important to you. Now I can remember, you know, as a small boy going skiing with my mom or dad and, you know, when they were forty, and we were standing
[00:02:12] Dustin Serviss: around then in the neon clothes and the mustaches and the perms and the, you know, reindeer beer. You know, and I thought they were old. They were adults and parents and so responsible. And, you know, off the ski hill, I had perceptions of my father in business that I looked up to, long hours, hard work, being away from home, and traveling for work, and nice cars, and always doing the right thing to impress, you know, certain business people, climbing the corporate ladder. You know, now the irony in the story is that all that networking and all the time on work and working for someone else paid off until the
[00:02:46] Dustin Serviss: corporate ladder had a different idea for, what his life was going to be like, and the corporate ladder no longer exists. So, where am I going here? You might be asking. Well, I, if you are a successful person in your field and you have the base foundation of hard work and you understand delayed gratification, you save your money and you know what it takes to create value and money and scale, you have a base and you have a bait... Great base to build from. And if you're forty, it's in your fiber. It's not going away if you live a different way now. The challenge I have for you is to think, you know, if you're trying
[00:03:23] Dustin Serviss: to achieve a goal and it might be time off, but you can't see how that would actually work. It might be be more present at home, but you, you know, always have to check your emails at night. It might be to get in shape, but you always have to take the kids to school because you're trying to be more family focused. It might be buy a boat, but your spouse says, you know, you don't want the financial burden for... To buy a toy. You know, your brain is tricking you and constantly creating this narrative. And, you know, side tangent with all the forest fires, heart goes out to everyone,
[00:03:56] Dustin Serviss: you know, that's being affected by that, and, you know, hopefully, we're getting some rain soon. You know, and forest fires have been around, you know, for, you know, nearly twenty years. And as population grows, you know, we've really become freaked out by, you know, fear based issues and, you know, the media thank you for keeping us up to speed with, you know, what's happening in the world, but it also has an element of fear. And, you know, I'm I'm downplaying it a bit, but at the same time, I wanna make sure that we are all aware of sort of our vision, our own vision, not the vision that's being shared with us
[00:04:37] Dustin Serviss: or influenced by our social media scrolling, by the media that we consume. But... Okay. So I'm tangenting big time, but let's get back to, sort of, where we can help hone in our vision and where we can... You know, what risk radars we can use that will be well serving for us so that we can see risk that's actually appropriate to us with high probability, and then we can make conclusions without, fear casting, potential outcomes that have low probability. So your challenge is think back to when you were twenty years old. If you knew you were going to be as successful as you are today
[00:05:16] Dustin Serviss: at nearly forty years old, what would you have done or bought or upgraded your lifestyle back then? And so I give you a couple minutes to think about, you know, what things or choices would you have made different if you knew you were gonna be as as successful as you are today? If you knew that at twenty, how would you have behaved different? And the the finish to the... This sort of... This challenge is now if you look forward twenty years, and if your success stays the same it is now or it grows, what are you not doing now or not buying because you're unsure? And make sure to watch for my podcast on what happens to your financial
[00:05:54] Dustin Serviss: plan if you buy a Harley, a boat, or an RV, or if you bought all three because I did distill the numbers on, you know, how a purchase decision younger in your life affects the flexibility of your, you know, plan later in life. If you've forgotten, I don't love the word retirement plan. I like the word flexibility plan, meaning you're flexible to choose to work or not. So back to life begins at forty. You may have a successful job you've worked hard to get. You may have, you know, a thriving business. But it's time to take a minute and celebrate your success and be open to enhanced way to live.
[00:06:33] Dustin Serviss: When you set out, to be successful when you were twenty, you yearned, and set intent to be right where you are. Yet, we can easily just set new goals for when we're fifty, when we're sixty, and never really get, you know, the true enjoyment of hitting a goal. So what have you done for yourself, your family, your charitable group, your company, your employees? Is there something to celebrate? And are you open to upgrading your life? You know my mantra at Service Wealth is live more of your life now yet be responsible for your future. The easiest way to actually be responsible for your future is map out an automated plan.
[00:07:12] Dustin Serviss: This is as simple as setting monthly deposits into investments or real estate or savings. And every month, just keep buying quality assets that produce income. Now lots of people say, well, what about stocks? What about real estate? I'm not I'm not debating that right now. My my encouragement to you is just you're setting intent that you want to live that life and you understand, I need to set an automated plan. Once you've done that, you can hone in on what asset to focus on. But at the end of every month, if you've taken those steps to buy quality assets or to commit to a savings, if there's extra money,
[00:07:47] Dustin Serviss: you can feel good about upgrading your life. Now, I have a spreadsheet that goes with this concept, but, you know, first get your head wrapped around life begins at forty and commit to living more. And if you wanna see your own numbers in the spreadsheet, ping me, and I'll shoot it over to you. Happy to talk through it. So if you've worked hard, I mean, hard and sacrificed weekend and evenings to get here, give yourself the permission to now live a little.
[00:08:14] Show announcer: If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend. If you found this episode super valuable, leave us a review on iTunes. It will help us continue to bring you top quality content. For more information on anything discussed on this show, visit w w w dot servicewealth dot com. That's service spelled s e r v I s s. Any investment topics covered on the show are not investment recommendations, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. This show was produced by Prodigi Podcasts. Thanks for listening.