Here’s our latest interview with a millionaire as we seek to learn from those who have grown their wealth to high heights.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
My questions are in bold italics and his responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
I am 60 and my wife is 56. We have been married 24 years.
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
We have one 18-year old daughter who just headed off to college.
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We live in a suburban area of a very popular vacation & retirement destination in the Southwest. We left the cold Midwest about 13 years ago and have never looked back 😉
What is your current net worth?
$9.049M
What are the main assets that make up your net worth (stocks, real estate, business, home, retirement accounts, etc.) and any debt that offsets part of these?
- Joint Retirement Accounts: $3.938M (Employer Deferred Compensation, (6) 401Ks, IRAs, Lump sum portion of a pension that I can take at 60 or roll into my annuity and take higher monthly payments.) Basically, I have an option to take 150K in a lump sum or add about $800/mo. to the annuity portion of my pension, beginning at 60. My wife will have the same decision when she turns 60.
- Joint After-tax Accounts: $2.349M (Company Stock & Options/RSUs, Mutual Funds, ETFs, (3) PE funds)
- Savings Bonds (EE & I- Series): $311,484 (Consider the EE portion of this as my emergency fund)
- College 529 for daughter: $316,339
- Angel company investments: $220,000
- Cash & Money Market: $25,584
- Universal Life Insurance Cash Value: $52,422
- Home Equity: ~$1.4M (Appraised value ~$2M and remaining mortgage is ~$600K)
- Art and Coin Collection, plus other large-item personal belongings: ~$436,000
- No other long-term debt other than the $600K mortgage which is under a 15-year, fixed-rate loan at 3.5% and will be paid off by 1/1/25
What is your annual income?
Currently around $235K per year. My wife is in sales so she has salary and commissions. At plan, she makes $175K per year. I have recently co-founded a healthcare startup in software and services. We put seed money into the business and are currently only withdrawing $5K per month in salary until we get the business going, hence why our combined income is currently only $235K per year. Once the business is generating stable revenue, my income will be $300K per year. We anticipate this to be in 2018.
What is your job (type of work and level)?
I am EVP and Chief Commercial Officer running sales, marketing and business development for our new healthcare startup.
What is your main source of income (be as specific as possible — job, investments, inheritance, etc.)?
Our jobs are the main source of income that we use to cover expenses although we have had to dip into savings while I take this reduced salary to get our new business off the ground. Our portfolio has been growing about 7% per year on average which equates to ~$500K per year in appreciation so our investments are clearly a major driver of total income. About 60% of the portfolio is tax-deferred and the remaining 40% is in after tax dollars.
All of our money has come from what my wife and I have earned, saved and invested through the years. My father passed away in 2014 and my mother is relatively healthy and self-sufficient at 82. I am an only child so when my mother passes we will inherit about 1M based on her current net worth. Of course, none of that is considered in our current net worth.
What is your annual spending?
We spend about $17K per month, or ~$200K per year, of which half of that is the PITI related to our home mortgage, (yes, I probably made one of the classic mistakes of buying more home than we needed but I will explain that rationale a little later.) Part of the reason for the higher mortgage payments is we did convert to a 15-year mortgage and I am paying bi-weekly which adds to the monthly payment but reduces our principal a little faster.
How did you accumulate your net worth?
In short, good career planning and risk-taking to position ourselves for promotions and higher paying jobs which allowed us to save 25%-30% of our combined incomes for nearly 25 years and moderately invest that money. Our investments are mostly passive index funds but we have diversified to include some actively managed funds. Diversification has been key as we have tried to invest in mutual funds and ETFs for Growth and Value as well as Large, Medium and Small Company Funds, both domestic and international. We have stayed nearly 100% invested and about 97% funded in equities through the years which has served us fairly well.
Over the last few years, we added some PE funds and some of our Angel investments. Home Equity is pretty robust as we have a desirable home in a good neighborhood and high growth area of the country. As mentioned, we refinanced our 30-year mortgage to a 15-year mortgage about 8 years ago. Originally, we put in a 25% down payment, made some healthy extra payments toward principal and now make bi-weekly payments. Realizing some appreciation and accelerating payments to reduce principal and save interest on a very expensive home has created a nice chunk of home equity.
We have been of the “buy and hold” mentality and have closed our eyes and ridden out the tough years (i.e. 2008) and have tried to dollar cost average our investments over time. I was able to take advantage of some executive deferred compensation programs at my former Fortune 100 Company which added considerably to our tax-advantaged nest egg, along with 2 stock splits, one 2:1 and one 3:1 over a seven year period. Our home is our big extravagance and quite the money pit, but we have kept some of the other luxuries to a minimum.
Our daughter attended decent public schools, my wife has a company car, and I drive a 9-year-old BMW after passing down my 18-year-old Jeep to my daughter when she turned 16. We do eat out quite a bit due to the nature of our jobs and busy lives but we don’t entertain or socialize an abnormal amount. We have the usual complement of social technology entrapments, (cell phones, computers, digital programming, cable, etc.) which tends to entertain us at home rather than a lot of discretionary spending outside the home. We will generally take one big family vacation a year and then a few long weekends throughout the year.
What have you learned in the process of becoming wealthy that others can learn from (what can others apply to become wealthy themselves)?
Earnings are the gasoline that fuels your savings and investment engine. I graduated with my undergraduate degree in 1979. I went into a sales management training program with a large agriculture and truck manufacturing company. I did so because the 18-month training program looked good and the $18K/yr. salary was a solid offer in those days. Times back then were difficult. We were in a major recession and interest rates were 21%. I knew very quickly this was not an industry I was going to be too excited about for the long-term. I was in Sales and the industry for sales jobs that paid the best was medical capital equipment. However, it was difficult to crack with no healthcare experience so I went to work for a pharmaceutical company to get enough healthcare sales experience to become more attractive to a medical device company where the big bucks could be made. After a couple of years in Pharma, I was offered a sales role in diagnostic imaging for a small division of a major industrial conglomerate. This began a 30+ year medical device career in sales and sales management.
Eight years after leaving college and at the age of 30, I made my first six-figure income and that has continued for nearly 30 years. I had moved on to another large European conglomerate in the same area of medical devices. I went into national account sales and eventually ran the program for five years. I met my wife who worked in marketing for the same company during this time. We dated for a couple of years and then married. One of the things I noticed very quickly about my wife, beyond her beauty, was that she was talented, hardworking and extremely personable. I knew she would be great in sales and if we could transition her from marketing, her income potential would be significantly better.
A year later I was offered a chance to move to the West coast with the largest company in our field and was able to negotiate a package deal such that my wife could join me at the company and move into sales. The next year, 1995, she made her first six-figure income and has never fallen below that mark. Having two six-figure incomes and the ability to invest 25%-30% each year and let that compound over a 20-25 year period does wonders for the net worth.
We continued to make a series of moves that kept our incomes growing. We moved to corporate headquarters in the Midwest for five years where we both had a number of increasingly responsible roles and both of us were able to find time to go back to school to further our educations, me to get an MBA and my wife to complete her BS, all covered by the company.
In 2004, we moved to our current home location in the Southwest. We made a conscious decision this was where we ultimately wanted to retire. Our daughter was in kindergarten at the time and it was our desire she would go through high school without being uprooted because of another move. We kept that commitment and she is off to a good Northeastern university in the fall.
I had to make some tough calls along the way. In 2007 I was offered a significant role as an SVP for a major player in our industry but it would have required a move to the Northwest and a significant amount of time on the road. It would have bounced us into a new income and investment level but my daughter was 9 at the time and it would have meant sacrificing quality time with her. We stuck to our guns and stayed put. My final analysis on this decision was, “I can get another job, but I can’t get time back with my daughter.” I think the time I’ve had with her has been priceless and there was no formula I could come up with that rationalized me doing anything different.
In 2012, my company restructured, eliminated my job and asked us to relocate back to the Midwest. We said no and I took a package and left the company after 18 years. Two years later my wife left the company after 20 years, due to another restructure and elimination of her job. I consulted for a year, took another corporate job for 2 years and then was restructured out of that role. I’ve now gone a different route as a full-time entrepreneur with our new venture. I’m excited about this twist of fate and look forward to the challenge. Fortunately, my wife has another stable job and benefits and interestingly enough, she has come full circle and gone back to the original company we worked for when we first met. And of course, the financial position we are blessed to be in now allows me to follow an exciting but riskier path without having to worry too much about the financial implications if it doesn’t work out. This is where FI comes in handy!
Summarizing our path to success:
- Marry and stay married to your best friend. Invest time with your spouse/family just like you invest time in yourself and your investments
- Make a conscious plan on how to increase your odds of landing better, higher paying jobs. Investing in yourself to become more attractive for higher paying roles is important
- Start as early as possible with investing, be consistent and stick with it
- Try to save and invest as much as you can before 50. Careers get very tricky after you turn 50 if you work for someone else. The risk of losing your job increases and the opportunities of finding another job get harder the older you get
- Take calculated risks with your career and some of your investments. Be smart and do your homework
- Be nice to everyone you meet. You never know who is ultimately going to be successful and who can help you down the road. You will be amazed by who wins and who loses in the game of life and corporate politics
- Forgo instant gratification for future gratification. Push yourself to “invest regularly” until it hurts a bit
- Invest consistently to take advantage of dollar cost averaging and compounding interest. Both are your best friends!
- Good index funds really are hard to beat, especially in the long run. 85% of active investors will not beat the long-term market returns and as they try, their turnover and fees will be higher which costs you more than you need to be paying in taxes and expenses on your investments
- Take care of yourself. Eat right, exercise regularly, find time to enjoy life. What a shame to do all of this hard work and drop dead of a heart attack before you get to enjoy it
- God and Family always come first. Everything else is never as important as those two. Take care of those and they will take care of you!
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
I’m 60 and starting my second career as an entrepreneur. I’m also an Advisor for another Silicon Valley Medical Device startup that has an interesting and disruptive technology they hope to launch in 2018. They are about to submit their filing to the FDA for approval which they expect to take 9-12 months. I have been helping them develop their commercialization strategy in preparation for going out to raise money for their Series A funding. If things go well for them and not so well for my existing venture, this could be a good Plan B for me a year from now as they will need a VP of Sales and Business Development when they receive FDA approval and are ready to go to market. I’m always looking to hedge my risk 😉
I also belong to our local Angel Investor group in my city. This is where I evaluate and make small investments in up and coming companies that support our local economy. I know the risks are high but I’m committed to making several investments to improve my odds. I’ve set aside a little mad money and will stop investing in this sector when that is gone. I’m learning a lot and the connections I’ve made have already paid dividends. I met one gentleman who became a good friend and helped raise a considerable amount of money for my new company during our seed round. Working with the local angel group also gives me a chance to mentor some of these new companies in exchange for early equity. This is one of those things I’d like to do more of as a retirement hobby and a way to keep active and my mind alert when I’m finished working full time for myself. It is also a nice way to give back to others following the same path.
I think continuing to grow our income from my new business opportunities and my wife’s steady sales job while investing a good portion of these earnings, with the possibility of a decent score from one of our angel investments will be the best way to continue to grow our net worth over the next 5-7 years.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
I guess we are close enough now that I would like to shoot for becoming part of the “8 figure” net worth club. My goal is $10+M of invested assets and home equity in excess of $2M and no debt by the end of 2024. Seven years from now at a continued average rate of return of 7%, not including any new investments we make in our current portfolio, would yield over $10M by the end of this time. The timing also coincides with when my mortgage will be retired which should leave us with home equity around $2.2M-$2.3M and no other long-term debt. Last, my daughter should have completed graduate school by then and be on to her own career and off our payroll.
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle (for instance, will your net worth allow you to retire early, downsize jobs, etc.)?
As previously mentioned, I will spend more time with our Angel Investor’s group working and mentoring other promising startups. This will give me an opportunity to exchange my time for equity in a number of businesses without risking any of my personal capital unless I want to. I believe exercising and keeping both the mind and body active are critical to increasing your odds of longevity and remaining vital well into your later years.
I will also look forward to donating time and money to my church and other causes that interest and need me. I want to prioritize time with my wife and travel to places we’ve talked about but been too busy to do anything about. Leaving a good financial foundation for our daughter is also very important to me. I have no idea what kind of world she will face in her working years but I hope what we have built will support her and allow her to make decisions for herself that don’t always have to be financially motivated. Being happy and healthy is better than being rich, although being all three is pretty nice too! As things stand now, we should be able to fund our retirement on our pensions, social security and some of the RMDs we will be forced to take when we turn 70. My goal would be never to touch our investments beyond this and we plan not to take any tax deferred money or Social Security until we hit 70. All of this is very doable, particularly if we hit and exceed our remaining 7-year goals while we are still working.
Is there any advice you have for ESI Money readers regarding wealth accumulation?
Nobody is perfect, particularly when it comes to investing. I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes but three things specifically come to mind. Don’t buy more house than you need and don’t invest too much in your own company stock. I’d also like to highlight something I said earlier about creating as much of your nest egg as you can before you enter your 50’s.
The home we purchased and plan to retire in is bigger than we need. However, when we made the decision to purchase, we did so with the idea that we might have to take our parents in at some point. Since we moved into this home, we both have lost our fathers but our mothers remain fairly healthy and active into their 80s. We still think one or both of them could wind up with us and we are prepared for that either way. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have made a better decision on how much we spent on housing, particularly with the benefit of hindsight. However, we do love our home and not every decision needs to be solely about money.
The company my wife and I went to work for on the West coast is a Fortune 100 company with a long and successful track record. We began investing in their stock as new employees and the returns over our first seven years at the company were incredible. I got kind of lulled to sleep with our success and continued to invest our 401K money exclusively in the company stock. Over the following 16 years, we had a CEO change and the stock performance has been dismal under his “leadership.” Several years ago we finally stopped investing in the stock and it is now less than 15% of our invested assets, which is still too high but better than it was. It is rumored they will be announcing a new CEO shortly and when that happens I expect the stock to get a decent bump, at which point I will move our money from company stock to mutual funds. I did benefit from expiring options at much higher stock price points through the years that paid for down payments on homes, contributing to our robust home equity but I can’t rationalize our decision to stick with this stock for 20+ years when we could have probably had another 1M of net worth by simply moving that money to an S&P fund 10 years ago. Oh well, win some lose some but those self-inflicted wounds really do hurt a little more.
Regarding my comment about trying to save and invest as much as you can before you enter your 50s, let me tell you from personal experience, age discrimination is alive and well in the good old US of A. I really believe corporations in America have a designed plan to weed out older workers once they hit a certain point in their careers. Companies know older workers are more expensive, perceived to have less energy, set in their ways and will begin to tap more of the company’s healthcare dollars as they continue to age, not to mention being able to limit pension exposure by moving these employees along sooner rather than later. You can hire folks at half the age for half the cost so why wouldn’t you try and take advantage of that. The laws these days are much more favorable toward employers than they are employees so their legal risks are minimal regarding age discrimination, particularly in right to work states. My wife and I both experienced this first hand and so have many of our friends and former colleagues. We were blessed to be in such good financial shape when this behavior started to impact us. Many others are not so lucky so please do everything you can to save and invest early so you can protect yourselves if and when that time comes.
One last comment, if you have a significant other, it is very important you agree on who is managing the money and also on a risk tolerance you are both comfortable with. In a perfect world, you would share equally in learning, planning and investing your money. In the real world, generally one of you will take the lead in this area. That is the way it is has been between my wife and me. She likes to focus on earning it and let me focus on investing it. It works out well because I do enjoy the research and investment side of money. I manage our budgets, pay our bills and invest our savings. I try and sit down quarterly with my wife and show her where we are and what I am thinking as we move forward. She doesn’t seem to relish these “sessions” as much as I do. Of course, it is a lot more fun to discuss with her when we’ve had a good quarter vs. a bad one 😉
Good luck to everyone and I wish you happy and successful planning with your ESI and hope you all catch FIRE!
Awesome story – thank you for sharing these.
Thanks Chris, I checked out your new blog last week. I think you guys are off to a great start. Best of luck and continued success!
Thank you very much !!
M27- thank you for writing this up. The comments about maximizing your investments and earning power before hitting 50 are quite helpful and I have another 5.5 years to go before hitting the 5-0 so it was interesting feedback to hear.
From the stock you are mentioning, I’m assuming that you both worked for GE. Good for you to be able to work there for so many years. John Flannery has his work cut out for him and we’ll see on the dividend cut and plans for the future shortly. GE is one of the key holdings in my portfolio but makes up less than 4% of the total dividend stock portfolio so I’m going to wait through this turn around.
Is your daughter expecting a big inheritance or “adult economic outpatient support” after finishing school or how have you managed to set her expectations? I ask because I had my daughter at near your age when you did, and have already started to give this some thought.
Congratulations on achieving so much and sharing your story and key lessons!
Best regards,
-Mike
“Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” on the GE guess. Are you a GE-alum as well? It will be interesting to see how Wall Street receives John’s plans for the company and its future. The stock was up .50 on Friday so I assume some of the institutional investors may have picked up on some of what he plans and must have liked it. It is so disappointing to see “the house that Jack built” fall into such disrepair. I really hope John can put it back together and salvage this great US institution. Right now we plan to hold on to our stock as well and hope for the best.
As far as our daughter goes, I don’t think she really has any expectations at this point about her inheritance. She is focused on trying to get through her first semester of college and seems to be enjoying it. She is very independent and wants to make her own way in life. We set up a trust such that if something happens to both my wife and me, she would only see “allowances” managed by the trustee until she is 30, at which point she would then take full control of her estate. We have not had that discussion with her and need to figure out the right time to do so.
Thanks MI 27. I worked for a ‘sister’ company of GE, AlliedSignal and became a shareholder a few years ago.
It looks like the performance under Jeff Immelt was pretty ugly over a fairly long run of nearly 17 years. I actually met him when he came out to SouthEast Asia last year (I work at a hospital there in administration). He is a very personal, affable, charismatic individual. But history won’t be kind given how long he had and what was achieved.
Best of luck with your start up.
-Mike
I worked for Jeff 20 years ago when he was CEO of the Healthcare business. He did a good job there but Healthcare was also a great business back then so it would have been pretty hard to screw up and he inherited some great leaders that he mostly left alone to run the business for him.
We made him look good and Jack chose him as his successor. There was a school of thought back then that GE needed a softer edge and better “face” to the outside world in order to make everyone forget the perceived stigma of “Neutron Jack.” Jeff was a good sales and marketing guy and great with customers but was not very operationally focused. That has turned out to be the Achilles heel for GE and is now coming home to roost.
Jack will probably never admit it in public but I’m guessing behind closed doors and a few cocktails he would say pushing Jeff to be his replacement was his greatest management mistake.
Congratulations on all your success, very impressive! Love your bullet points summarizing your path to success, especially taking care of yourself, being nice to everyone, and God and family come first.
I wonder what motivates you to continue working for the next 7 years though.
Wishing you continued success!
Hi Amy, thank you for taking the time to read our story and for your kind words. As far as working another 7 years, that number is pretty soft and could change at any time. My motivation is to help improve a healthcare system for seniors and the chronically ill and their families, who are woefully underserved. Our startup works with both providers and payers on better solutions and improvements in this area of healthcare. I guess you would call this our “give back” strategy to an industry that has provided a great life for me and my family.
I have no idea if we will be successful but working this opportunity and continuing to engage with other startups just seems like a worthy plan that could even continue on a part-time basis in retirement to keep us feeling vital and needed. We will make time to enjoy what we’ve worked hard for but I also want to feel like we can still make a difference and help others, even in retirement.
Thanks for the further explanation, MI 27. Sounds like a marvelous plan and a much-needed one. Best of luck!
Very well written. I totally agree with life after 50. Almost to the day of my 5-0. Lost my job and a few years later finding it impossible to get work. Thank goodness no marriage or children. Saved 2m cash and studying investing now as I can clearly see I have limited chances of finding another well paying job despite being the perfect candidate (Caucasian male with multiple languages, citizenships and university educated). This man and his wife are waaaaaay doing well! Enjoy it!
Hi Mattej, I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had such a difficult time getting back into a role that suits you. It is so sad that in today’s economy layoffs have become so commonplace. I’m glad to hear you have a nice nest egg to help you through it and hope the right thing comes along for you very soon!
Thank you but I hope people here can learn that after 50 despite credentials and being perfect for the role, age will work against you. I’m told to lie and say 38-42yo but the truth would come out eventually. Ageism does exist and prepare for it. Thank goodness I hoarded savings for 25 years overseas and traveled and enjoyed a lot. The next chapter in life…still working on that. Save all you can as I see my friends in early 40s being told they are too old…younger and cheaper?
My wife a also dorsnt reliah our sir do diwn financial sessions. What an inspiringly post! Thanks for sharing and congrats to a life well lived.
DDD, thank you for your comments. I think my wife prefers time with the dentist and a root canal compared to our quarterly review 😉
Love the insights! I laughed at the quarterly reviews. When my husband and I first married some 39 years ago, we had quarterly “state of the union” meetings that involve a lakeside bench, some wine and beer, and a net worth statement I prepared for our review. We’ve mellowed over the years and now do the net worth reviews about once a year. We use net worth metrics rather than operating budgets to measure whether we’re making progress or not. I still enjoy it, and the reviews have been a great way to “stay on the same page” in spite of very different financial perspectives.
Hi Becky, your reviews sound like a lot more fun than ours! We’ve also begun to focus more on the net worth gains rather than a deep quarterly portfolio analysis. Our next priority is to look at some of the tax implications coming our way and also coming up with a good drawdown strategy.
Now that I’m past 59.5, I have more options for my tax-deferred retirement accounts that can be put into play to help in some of these areas. I can start to be more proactive on tax loss selling to help at year end and also begin to develop a strategy to reduce some of the tax-deferred savings and pay the taxes now and shove those into less risky, income-producing investments for our future cash flow in retirement.
Love these stories. $9 million I think is the highest you’ve reported so far! Very inspiring.
We actually had one over $12 million:
https://esimoney.com/millionaire-interview-18/
Yes, MI 18 was a great story, very inspiring!
Thank you for sharing MI 27! I hear you on age discrimination. I haven’t had this affect me yet (I am 43), but have been on interview panels and suggested an older hire only to be shot down. A VP even told me someone was “too old”, which I reported to HR in my exit interview, that that is a dangerous comment, even if not directed at me. I am very aware of this and plan to earn as much as I can prior to 50. You also touched on something I am thinking about, going into sales. Currently I am a manager in clinical research (having worked for pharma and medical device). I think I would excel at sales yet don’t know how to get into the field and my current salary is around 126k, so it is a robust salary, but I could potentially do better in sales. Any feedback would be appreciated.
As for your net worth, I would be happy with a fraction of that as my goal! Take care.
I was in a similar spot 9 yrs ago staring at a dead end in IT making $80k. Got laid off and spent about a year looking for a sales role. Now I have 8 yrs of sales experience (sales engineering and SE management) behind me. I make $185k, several of my employees made more than me. In addition to MI 27’s solid suggestions below, my advice is below (I’m probably leaving out stuff but this is a start):
1. Learn as much as you can about what your company sells.
2. Network inside your company to find the sales guys/gals in your territory and in a nearby one.
3. Ask each to meet for coffee. Gather intel about what they do, territory, team structure, how quota works, what the sales process is like, etc. End by asking 2 things: can you sit in on a sales call as silent participant, can you help them in any way?
4. Debrief with the sales guy/gal afterward. Was it typical? What did he/she think about it?
5. Try to find out who their manager is and do the same thing. Mention to the manager that you sat in on a sales meeting and your observations. Express enthusiasm. Ask them how to get involved and learn more. Ask them how you can help them.
6. Tenaciously follow up with all of them. Jobs may not be available now but they may come up later. You want to be in the pipeline when they do.
Good luck!
Solid suggestions and well worth the time to pursue!
Thank you both for the suggestions! I work in a field where we sell medical research services, vs. products – though I did work in the medical device field at one time, but it was always in clinical research. One area I could explore is business development and bid defense, basically a group that goes out to “sell” our services. Thank you both for the solid suggestions!!
M27, really admire the way you describe your wife, somebody on your side can make a lot of tough days bearable. Also admire your sanguine approach the vagaries of a…dynamic *ahem* work environment, and your ability to say ‘no’ when your employer attempted to ‘change the deal.’ I’ll bet they were very surprised when you declined to relocate!
Your example of ‘busy mind and busy hands’ is fantastic, ESI is also a model for this positive approach, and a model for me to follow. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Jay, you always have such great comments and insights that I have enjoyed reading in the past. I hit the “wife lottery” over 24 years ago. I’m looking forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary in 2018. We’ve been good partners and shared the load along the way.
It is not easy when you both work together for the same very large corporations and try and raise a family at the same time without any other family around to help. We could not have kept all the balls in the air without a willingness to share and make sacrifices along the way. I realize this isn’t all that unusual because other people do this every day as well and many are not nearly as blessed as we are.
I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers. All I can say is it really does take a village to be successful in life and who you choose to surround yourself with will make a huge difference. Keep positive people in your life who will really care about you, encourage you, and support you during the good and bad times. And most importantly, be willing to do the same for them.
Great story with great detail. Echoing other comments, the “don’t expect security after 50+” is scary and something to plan for.
And, $9M … that’s a great accomplishment. Congrats to your and your wife for executing to a great plan.
Thanks RS, not everything we try works as planned but if enough things go right, you can weather the storm and come out the other end better than you thought. I think the key is always to just keep moving forward and not let the weight of disappointments keep you down for too long. As they say, “it is hard to hit a moving target” and as long as you keep making progress you will eventually arrive at your intended destination.
MR, thank you for your comments! From 1979-2015, I experienced 3 layoffs and 1 company sold out from under me. I recovered from them all but it is certainly more difficult the older you get.
As far as getting into sales, your best bet might be to work with HR and your current boss to see what avenues you might have within your own organization. I realize this can be tricky but the annual performance review is a good time to soft-pedal the idea and see what sort of reaction you get. It might be easier working with people you know and, more importantly, people who already know you.
It is tough to break into sales, mid-career, without experience. I’ve tried to help a friend who is a successful chiropractor make this transition and he has not had any luck. Recruiters who specialize in healthcare sales are another avenue but they may be lukewarm to you without that dreaded experience on your resume.
There are companies who offer some specialized training in medical device sales and have a placement component to try and get their candidates placed. I think they run about a six-week program and there is a fee involved. I have no idea how successful these are. If you Google, “medical device sales training” you can see various options and even some reviews on their success.
Good luck and thanks again for your comments!
Love these article as always some great nuggets of advice and so many different ways to get to the end goal but they all have some combination of living below your means and hard work.
Thanks Jarret, I’m glad you found a few things to consider as you work toward your own goals. Best of luck and to your investing success!
Very nice read. I had to laugh about not wanting to move back to the cold Midwest. That’s where I reside and I don’t blame you. The winters just take it out of a person. We have a lot of family here though so moving would be tough but it is something I want to do eventually.
I just hung up from speaking to my daughter at college. It was 7 degrees this weekend where she is. It was sunny and 85 here. I miss the people and friends we had from the midwest but I certainly don’t miss the long winters. Family around you does make it “warmer” but, as you said, when the time is right you will enjoy making that transition to a warmer climate. It really does affect your mood on a daily basis 😉
Great story and very inspiring. I love how you found a second career as an entrepreneur. I can also relate how you would turn down a better job with higher pay so you could spend more time with family. Kids are only young once and if you miss that time, it’s gone. I could have taken a job with more call and longer hours, but I chose not to early on. The trade off of losing family time is just not worth it.
Hi MD, I appreciate your thoughts. Yes, we only had the one child so there were no “do overs” in my family if I chose incorrectly. I don’t have any regrets. She is a terrific young lady and the time we spent together was truly priceless.
I have a soft spot for physicians since just about my entire career has been geared toward working with your profession to provide medical devices that improve care through therapy and diagnostics. Our new venture is also geared to help improve care transitions, care coordination and better communication between patients and providers and the caregivers in between. If we can help physicians be more productive and use technology to allow them to spend more time with their patients, rather than providing needless documentation that does not serve a credible purpose, then we have accomplished our mission.
BTW, our daughter is studying to become a Nurse Practitioner with a focus on Pediatrics so our legacy in Medicine continues to be passed on to the next generation in our family 😉
Thank you for your wisdom and insight! Your words have resonated how important it is to focus on career and investing early and do so consistently. Also your point about housing is well understood. you have a good intention and since you enjoy the comfort and pleasure it brings, then it is worth it. Best of luck in your new career, 8 figure goal and well wishes to your family.
SMM, your comments and well wishes are much appreciated! I know my story doesn’t have a lot of novel ideas but sometimes just following the tried and true practices that have consistently worked for others is all you really need.
“Forgo instant gratification for future gratification”
That just about sums it up. What an awesome story.
Now if I could just get my daughter to buy into that one 😉
Excellent result and great words of wisdom throughout. Yes the 50 is real. Happened to me, but just could be timing. We had a new CFO and new guy wanted his new team under him (I was 50 on the nose). So I was moved on. Now my position (new company) is being moved to Detroit (I am in Dallas), but they offered me the Controller position at one of our companies in Seattle (now 54). So not really due to age, just dynamics of business and company as I was offered a very good position in a good city. I declined as my parents and siblings are all near me. I am just under $4M so I am good for now. Staying on till mid February and then transition to my semi-retired life. If not what I like or market crashes then I will make other decisions about worklife. But in the interim I will be working on my personal investments in the market a bit more diligently.
Again, congratulations.
Hey Kevin, sorry you’ve been through these restructures as well but it sounds like you have a great perspective and were well prepared financially to weather the storm. Good for you to maintain your family priorities and stay in Dallas.
Enjoy semi-retirement and best wishes and prosperity in your future endeavors!
Great story! Certainly a solid benchmark for many of us aspiring financiers. I am curious when you hit 1m, 3m, 5m, etc. I am currently 31, me and wife make about 300k combined. We are worth 700k or so but believe it or not, we often feel behind our friends here in silicon valley. Although to our credit we’ve grown our net worth 100% from earning and saving. Neither me nor my wife have had any stock options or company equity to speak of. Which definitely 100% of our friends have larger net worths but with successful IPOs and the like. Would be interesting to see a quick net worth timeline of you over the years so we can all try and stay on track for that big 8fig mark!
Sean, I think you guys are doing great and well on your way with 700K net worth at 31 and awesome combined incomes. Congrats! I will do my best to remember some of the earlier benchmarks. From what I recall, we hit the first million when I was about 38. I believe 3M came around 46-47 and 5M came at 55. My original thought was that I might retire when we hit 5M but instead, we reset our goal to hit 10M by 65 and have continued to work to this point.
Stock options and deferred compensation really helped jumpstart our net worth and our growing home equity helped as well. One thing you always have to keep in mind is much of the net worth is on paper and when you actually start converting some of those dollars, there are the tax considerations.
For example, about 60% of our investment portfolio is in pre-tax dollars so when that starts to come out, we have to give Uncle Sam his fair share and then also pay the capital gains tax, which of course eats into our NW. Waiting until 70.5 when we are forced to begin to take the RMDs is a consideration but each individual situation is different and it is better to review all options before that time and be proactive in assessing the best fit for your future circumstances and tax implications. You have quite some time before you have to worry about this but the time is now for us.
One of the things I’m beginning to consider now that I have passed the 59.5 milestone and in the “penalty-free zone” is to go ahead and take out some of those pre-tax dollars and pay the tax now and then re-invest those after-tax dollars in safer, tax-free assets and maybe other passive income strategies to cover any future gap in our projected retirement expenses.
I’m finding you have to spend just as much time figuring out the best way to preserve what you have as you did to accumulate it. You have to come up with the right drawdown strategies in retirement with an eye on tax implications during this time. It is clearly a different way of thinking about your money and how to manage it, but no less important than what it took to get there in the first place.
And last, all of this has to be balanced with a solid social security strategy and when to begin taking those payments. See what you have to look forward to 😉 Best of luck to you guys with your own planning and I’m confident you guys are on the right track with great success to come.
With $10M you are going to just have to suck it up and pay the taxes. 🙂 You probably have too much in the IRA to take out large chunks and stay in a lower bracket, but even with $200K in RMDs, you still won’t be in the highest tax bracket. If you were to quit at 62, you can go a few years in a lower bracket and convert or live off IRA money. or give money to charity to reduce it. We are going to face that issue and we plan on donating money out of the IRAs and tap the IRA starting at 60 to reduce the RMDs. We are going to have at least one pension. I doubt I last long enough at my current job for the next 2.5 years to get my pension. Our RMDs might be around $175K a year when we hit 70.
Great comments Jeff! I’m taking a retirement engineering course through a local community college to help me get some ideas on how best to think through all of this and create the right plan. All of your thoughts are good ones and I will certainly be looking into some of those ideas as well.
Good luck with the days you have left until retirement. One thing I can say, there are not a lot of great things about getting older but I am glad that my working career is just about over and I don’t have to begin anew during this era. I think I am blessed to be at the end, rather than the beginning! There is no more loyalty among employees or employers and it just seems to be a really cruel and heartless business world these days.
Maybe the next generation will figure out it is better to start their own small businesses and create their own corporate cultures. That is why my “second act” is focused on helping startups and budding entrepreneurs. Our country will need them to be successful in the future.
Awesome interview and story. I agree with the earlier comment that forgoing instant gratification would be the biggest takeaway from this to me. When you boil things down, if you had to give an elevator speech to be a millionaire, that would be it
Living in the moment places a mortgage on your future. I think what I’ve learned through the years is that balance and restraint afford you more options and a better chance to live a happier life, longer. Proverbs 12: 11, “Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.”
Congratulations on building an impressive net worth. You are set to have a great retirement. Thanks for sharing how you achieved your success.
Thank you, Dave. As they say, nothing comes easy without hard work and sacrifice. I tried to be as detailed and transparent as I could be because that is what I really appreciate when I read these stories. There is no right answer but there are a lot of choices to make and many paths to both success and failure.
PS Dave, I just read your blog article about your Uncle Xavier. What a great story for you to share with the world. With those kinds of genes running through you, I have no doubt you will meet your financial goals and lead a very successful life.
Thanks for sharing MI27. So much to learn from each of these interviews. I like your plan to move to your retirement spot when your daughter was young. It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
Hi Jason, thank you for reading through our story. Yes, I took advantage of being able to have the company move us when they were covering so many of the expenses. They paid for the physical move, allowance for incidentals, bought our existing house for 3% less than our asking price and no RE commissions to worry about, paid up to 3 points to reduce our loan rate on the new home, etc. Unfortunately, most of these perks are now long gone in today’s business environment.
I think it was one of our better decisions and fortunately, after 13+ years of living here, it has worked out really well for us. We love it just as much as when we first moved here and it really has become our home since it is also the longest we have ever lived in one place. Great area for retirees so things like healthcare are terrific. It also attracts a younger crowd as well since there is a focus on entrepreneurship. Great universities in the area and many Silicon Valley types setting up shop here as an alternative to the high cost of living in Northern Cal.
We feel very blessed and very happy to call this our home, now and for our future retirement years.
One of the best interviews of the millionaire series and very inspiring story. Lot to learn from the answers to the comments section as well. Congratulations on your success!
I’m 30 and in technology sales so was carefully reading each word you said. I had the good fortune of doubling by income and enter the 200K mark when I got to 28 luckily in a non NY-Silicon valley setting.
Bunch of questions I had for you:
1) Your opinion on Sales as a profession? High pressure, lot of travel that can affect family life and a less stable. I’m sure you’ve experienced each of the above. What are your thoughts, do you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?
2) Advancing your career: Being in sales, what are your thoughts of expanding knowledge and continuously learning in other areas like domain, technology expertise, other business functions? How important was it for you to advance in your career?
3) Comp. – What do you think is a good total package for someone at the top of their game? The Bonus, incentive portion of sales is highly negotiable. How did you approach that? What was the highest income year for you?
4) Doing your own thing: Going back, do you have any regrets. My dream is to start my own small business, Insurance technology startup and I’d be more than happy to make half of what I make if I had my own venture? In hindsight, do you regret not doing a startup during your younger days?
Hey Feisty, I’m happy to provide some insights into your questions and I’m glad some of the previous commentaries were helpful. First of all, congrats to you on obtaining such a high level of income so early in your career. That tells me you are a real “go-getter” and passionate about what you do. Tenacity and a strong work ethic are attributes that will serve you well in sales. I think your nickname is appropriate as it shows you have a plan and are willing to work hard to achieve it 😉
Your questions and my responses:
1) Your opinion on Sales as a profession? High pressure, lot of travel that can affect family life and a less stable. I’m sure you’ve experienced each of the above. What are your thoughts, do you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?
I’m sure you would agree when it comes to answering this question, “one size does not fit all.” My wife and I both pursued sales careers and it has worked well for us. It is in my DNA. My father was in Chemical Sales. I fondly recall in high school when I was off for the summers I would take a couple of business trips with him. I thought it was so cool that we could fly to great places, stay in terrific hotels, eat whatever we wanted and the company paid for everything. He let me meet a few of his customers and it seemed like all they did was sit around and talk golf and sports. It seemed like quite the life and a path that I was anxious to follow.
Like anything else, everything changes over time. I certainly had a lot more fun with it earlier in my career. Things seemed more laid back when I was coming up the ranks and not nearly the pressure that companies put their people under these days. I still consider it a very noble profession and if you are good at what you do, the compensation tends to be very good. I like the freedom of being out in the field and the ability to somewhat manage my own schedule. I was never a corporate office kind of guy even though I did have (2) five-year stints in executive roles in the home office for two different companies.
I was lucky that I had a spouse who clearly understood the lifestyle and expectations. For us, that made it easier and the long hours and travel were just something we adapted to and accepted. Our marriage really is a good partnership and we have shared many of our responsibilities and home duties so neither of us feels the other isn’t pulling their weight with work or our home life. If you and your partner are not in sync in many of these areas, this kind of work commitment can be difficult.
For us, I would have to say it has been worth it. I think we both have felt fulfilled in what we do and are happy with the lifestyle it has provided for us. Our daughter seems to be well adjusted and was a real blessing for us. She took a lot of the parenting load off of us by being very low maintenance and having a great attitude and personality. Not everyone is so blessed and we try not to take that for granted.
2) Advancing your career: Being in sales, what are your thoughts of expanding knowledge and continuously learning in other areas like domain, technology expertise, other business functions? How important was it for you to advance in your career?
I think it is very important to be well-rounded and constantly learning and developing new skills. I think it is also important to be willing to take on new challenges, and especially ones that others may shy away from. My biggest promotions came when I took on tough assignments and turned them around. It is much easier to show progress with an under-performing team than taking a top performing team and trying to figure out how to make it better.
Another area that helped me was stepping out of sales and doing an operations role. It gave me great experience and perspective and allowed me to demonstrate my “process chops.” From that point on, I was viewed as more than just “a sales guy” and that opened up new doors and opportunities throughout my career.
I was pretty ambitious when it came to learning new things. I did the “weekend warrior” stint to obtain my MBA when I was in one of my HQ assignments. That was a great experience and one I would highly recommend. It is never too late. My BS and MBA degrees are 24 years apart. I embraced our Six Sigma Quality initiative, did (6) Green Belt projects and became certified as a Quality Leader, etc. Constantly sharpen the saw!
3) Comp. – What do you think is a good total package for someone at the top of their game? The Bonus, incentive portion of sales is highly negotiable. How did you approach that? What was the highest income year for you?
My individual contributor sales roles were from 1979-1989 at which pointed I moved into management and a variety of mid-level to exec-level roles from late, 1989 through early, 2015. During those early years, my best sales comp was between 105K-125K from ’87-’89. Using an inflation calculator you can double those numbers to get them to equate to today’s dollars so my best year in 1989 would equate to 250K today. Once I moved into senior management, there were a lot more perks that drove the needle considerably higher throughout my career. Moving into management is always something you will have to weigh and consider when the time is right.
The packages I’m seeing today, “at plan,” tend to land between 150K-175K, with top 10% of performers coming in around 250K-300K. A lot depends on the industry. If you catch a high flying company in an “in demand” industry, compensation can be significantly higher for a few years. Once things become more established, you get a reversion to the mean in compensation and plans start to normalize accordingly. Generally, speaking, once you are with a company, you have very little leverage to negotiate. All your leverage comes from new opportunities and how bad people want to keep you or attract you away.
4) Doing your own thing: Going back, do you have any regrets. My dream is to start my own small business, Insurance technology startup and I’d be more than happy to make half of what I make if I had my own venture? In hindsight, do you regret not doing a startup during your younger days?
No regrets leaving the corporate world and “retiring” from that part of my life. I was burned out and ready for new challenges and I probably do have some regrets about not pulling the trigger sooner. However, there are advantages to being financially sound now and not having to rely on the second act if things don’t work out. There is a lot less stress on me doing startups if my financial survival is not directly tied to the survival of the company, especially since these are very risky ventures with high failure rates. It is also easier now that our daughter is out of the house and in college. Doing a startup while trying to raise her would have added another element of challenge I’m glad we didn’t have to go through.
Regarding your dream startup, I have a friend in Milwaukee doing his own insurance technology startup. We worked together in the past. He is a very sharp guy, (Harvard MBA) and seems to love what he is doing, although it has been quite some time since we last connected.
There you have it. I hope these responses are helpful and I wish you all the best in your career and financial planning.
Thanks MI 27 for your elaborate response especially sharing Statistics. Good luck to you in your journey!
“I will also look forward to donating time and money to my church and other causes that interest and need me. I want to prioritize time with my wife and travel to places we’ve talked about but been too busy to do anything about. ”
Congratulations on all of your accomplishments!
Regarding your response on plans for the future, why wait? Do you feel financially secure yet or not? I would think you would want to travel to all those places you’ve talked about earlier rather than later while your body can still handle the adventuring.
Will your new startup be keeping you even more busy?
Thanks Joe, our situation is a little complicated 😉 The first issue is my wife is not ready to retire. As mentioned, she is almost 4 years younger than me and really enjoys what she does so her free time is limited right now. We have to squeeze in what we can until she is ready to pull the trigger for good. Next June is our 25th anniversary and we are planning a 2 week trip to Italy to see and stay with friends. They are our daughter’s godparents and just retired and purchased a top floor apartment right on Lake Como sitting directly across the lake from Bellagio. The apartment is in Griante. We are very excited to spend time with them and have plans to head down to Venice as well.
It is hard to say right now how much time will be invested in startups. I’m currently full time in one and in an advisory role with another and now a possible third venture has approached me. I have enough motivation to spend time on this until my wife truly decides to hang it up and then we can really start to plan out our retirement and travel together. She does some European travel for work (German company) and I plan to start joining her on some of these trips which will allow us some time to do some things sooner rather than later.
It’s not exactly the ideal situation but our partnership has always been about compromise and sacrifice so we seem to find a way to make it all work out and keep each other happy. I’m sure this will be no different. I also think as she continues to see how much fun I’m having with a more flexible schedule, she may decide to call it quits earlier than planned.
Sounds great, perhaps some short trips may change her mind.
Italy’s one of my favorite countries to visit in Europe. Don’t know if you have plans to visit the Amalfi coast, but the scenery and quaint towns along the coast are among my most enjoyable memories.
Love the idea of Amalfi and will definitely check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!
MORE ON THAT COIN COLLECTION PLEASE!!! 🙂
Hi J, the bulk of the collectibles are more on the art side than coins. When my Dad passed three years ago, my Mom was nervous about having my Dad’s coin collection in the house. I flew to see her and brought an empty suitcase with me that was full to the brim when I returned home. The truth is I have no idea what the real value is and have not made time to even dig into it. I’m pretty sure this isn’t something that has tremendous value. Dad bought what he liked more than worrying about how much it might be worth someday. Some gold but mostly silver coins, presidential collections, annual US Mint sets, etc.
The art is stuff we purchased over a 3-year period from a private dealer a friend introduced us to over 20 years ago. We have more than 50 pieces, most hand-signed. None original, all Litographs or Serigraphs. We have multiple pieces from Chagall, Picasso, Miro, Durer, Cassatt, Degas, Van Dyke, Lautrec, Matisse, Dali, Renoir, (1) Rembrandt and a half dozen Neiman’s.
Unfortunately, we keep having to buy a bigger house to hang all this stuff ;(
I really enjoyed this interview! We are the same age (60). I am a physician who is now working part-time. My net worth is less (7+mill) mostly stocks and bonds. I too hope to hit 10Mill at some point. I think it is great that you are keeping yourself active with start ups. I think the 50+ age discrimination is real also. I used to be involved in Angel investing also. The PHD who founded the company I was investing in took out a roomful of people with a handgun which ended the company. I decided not to continue with angel investing after this experience. I think in reading your interview and comments that two things helped your success is starting investing early and having high earning spouse. It sounds like you also kept your expenses low until you bought the large house. Winning the game is a series of choices. Although the blog is not mine I am a frequent commenter and I would like to invite you to post on the White Coat Investor forum. I am sure the folks who read the blog would enjoy your perspective. Not all posters are physicians.
Hello Hatton1, what a horrific experience you must have had with that Angel investment. We have tough days and ups and downs in the groups I’m involved with but it is so sad to see someone take it to a life-threatening extreme. I can’t blame you for swearing off angel investments after going through that situation.
I would agree with you that our success was greatly helped by starting the investing process early and having high dual incomes. We certainly have not lived the frugal lifestyle but we haven’t tried to “keep up with the Joneses” either. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m more focused now on how to protect and preserve and for the first time, seeking some advice from experts who help plan for retirement. I’m seriously thinking about converting some of our tax-deferred money to Roth IRAs and holding those for 5 years for the tax-free benefits I will enjoy afterward. Timing will be good since that is when I hit 65.
I appreciate the head’s up re: White Coat Investor and will definitely check it out. I’m sure I will enjoy it and certainly like to comment and interact with like-minded readers.
I will look for your posts.
FYI, I generally post under “Paper Tiger.”
You suggested getting married and staying married to your best friend. I unfortunately could not stay married sparing you the details, I’ve also never invested. I find it confusing to say the least.
Like life or investing, marriage is a roll of the dice. No guarantees for any of us and it seems 1 out of 2 don’t get it right but I hear those statistics are getting better. I think one reason for that is later generations seem to be waiting longer to get married and I believe that is a good thing. I think I was fortunate for two reasons. First, I recognized that I had to wait until I was ready for that kind of responsibility and commitment. I talked about “delayed gratification” in my post related to investing and I think that applied to me when it came to finding a good partner. I waited until I was 35 to get married and I enjoyed the single life and got most of it out of my system 😉
The key for me was just getting comfortable and ready to be a good partner myself and then taking time to find someone as ready as I was but who also shared my values and vision for the way I hoped our lives would turn out. The second thing I really looked for was finding someone who I felt I would be able to count on when times got tough and who would hang in there with me under any circumstances. I took my time to find this person and when I did, I married her!
I’m guessing you may be pulling my leg about your lack of investing knowledge since when I click on your name it takes me to a free online financial planning site 😉 Creative way to market!
Thanks for your story, MI 27. I really appreciate your honest comments on age discrimination. We watched as my 2 of my brothers-in-law had the same experience – both executives at Fortune 500 companies.
Learning from their experiences, we’ve been on a FIRE journey for the past several years. Once you reach a certain level of financial independence, downsizing can actually be a welcome event.
I have a soft spot in my heart for GE. I grew up in a small town with a very large GE medium voltage transformer plant. I even wrote a recent post about GE on the blog and worked as a project manager for a competitor in power equipment for several years.
Hi Cindy, thank you for your comments. You know age discrimination is real when they give it its own name, ageism. it is just a shame companies know they can get away with it because most people don’t have the patience or financial ability to fight it and the laws today really favor the employer because the courts know the practice is rampant and don’t want their dockets full of these cases. You correctly point out this is a major reason why planning your exit and creating FI is going to be even more important going forward. No one, employers or employees, value loyalty so neither side has any incentive to be loyal and turnover and job “insecurity” will continue to be a wave of the future.
Congrats on starting your blog. I read your article on GE and thought it was very good, even though certainly sad for all of us who cared about the company. Flannery is no Welch but he is a lot closer to it than Immelt ever was. I know Jeff and worked for him when he ran GE Healthcare. He was a solid leader in that business but certainly over his head when it came to running the entire company. I blame the BOD for not being more assertive and addressing the leadership issue years ago when things had a better chance to turn around. Jeff was a good salesman and I guess he had them convinced he was on the right track. His downfall was surrounding himself with poor leaders and “yes men,” selling and buying the wrong businesses at the wrong time and just plain bad luck and overall timing on virtually every decision he ever made. He was always too late to the party when it came to his decision making and the company has paid a dear price for all of his mistakes. The culture became very arrogant and paralyzed with too much bureaucracy and too much control across a very small circle of advisors. They used to write great case studies about the Welch era in business schools and what went right at GE. Going forward, many of these case studies will be based on what went wrong at GE under Immelt’s leadership.
I too hope Flannery can turn things around and return GE to some semblance of what it used to be. Unfortunately, he has a very high mountain to climb. Maybe you can write an article on what we should all do with our stock 😉 I’m glad you didn’t cash in your winners and invest it all in GE like you mentioned in your post. My wife and I still sit on quite a slug of shares and will probably continue to hold on a while longer to see if Flannery’s strategy starts to take hold.
I love what you wrote on “Summarizing our path to success”:
Marry and stay married to your best friend. Invest time with your spouse/family just like you invest time in yourself and your investments
-I wouldn’t agree with you more. Marriage is not easy and most people take it for granted. Spending time with your spouse is the important important investment you can make, I learned it the hard way!
Take calculated risks with your career and some of your investments. Be smart and do your homework
-I also spend lot of time studying and researching all my potential investments. There’s always a risk to any investments and I have been lucky so far. But I always have the mentality that my next business venture might bankrupt me so I need to be extra careful.
Take care of yourself. Eat right, exercise regularly, find time to enjoy life. What a shame to do all of this hard work and drop dead of a heart attack before you get to enjoy it
-I agree with you 110%!!! Exercise and meditate are the first things I do when I wake up everyday. I love it!
I also moved to the Southwest area about 15 years ago from California. It’s a better and more relaxing place to live, perfect for retirement lifestyle~
https://esimoney.com/millionaire-interview-77/
Hi MI-77, I wrote a previous comment back to you earlier but it doesn’t seem to have gone through so I will try again. I loved your interview and applaud your entrepreneurial talents. You figured out how to succeed with having to go the traditional route. I too have a healthcare business I’m trying to get off the ground after being laid off from my corporate role. Fortunately, I am FI and playing with house money at this point so if things don’t work out, we’ll still be just fine.
I wish you continued success in your financial endeavors and a happy silver anniversary next year. We just had our 25th in June!
I can certainly appreciate the frank discussions regarding age discrimination; alive and well and here to stay indeed. GE, not so much, apparently near insolvency on this particular day, year 2019. Never thought I’d live to see that, or the Great Recession, which I believe set employers and employees at permanent odds through a collective hardening of sorts. At 51, I can at least credit my workplace for the virtual non-existence of age discrimination; we’ve had dealers with visible signs of Parkinson’s and sluggish hand rates, but with a pulse and a Class III and reasonably good attendance, you are eminently employable. Not a job for many or all, that’s for sure, but for the time being it remains my best move, especially as I train for a career shift, going solo. More than anything I miss my old college job, working at a collectibles and antiques shop. You meet so many interesting people, basically collectors with specialized knowledge. No benefits to speak of, however, as opposed to what I enjoy now. There is a vague sort of misdirect or lightly scratched record feeling as I graze through most of these interviews, however. Hard to relate. I didn’t wake up till my early 40s . . . my life was almost destroyed, then 10 years under the gun, grinding to victory. Live and learn, though. Best of luck to all.
Hi Richard, I don’t venture back much to my original interview but happened to check it out today and saw your response from August. I appreciate your comments and wish you all the best. It can be tough starting late on getting the financial house in order but you’ve taken the hardest step which is always the first one. I hope the breaks you get in the future are all good ones and they help mitigate some of the challenges of the past!
Yours is a great story. There’s so much for all of us to learn from and admire. Thank you for sharing it.
But, respectfully, I wonder why you would drive a nine-year-old car with your net worth? Why would your wife continue to work with your level of net worth?
Could you please help me understand why you would make those choices with the level of wealth that you have? I really don’t understand it. Especially when you factor in your forthcoming pensions. I don’t understand why people continue to accumulate so much wealth, and don’t seem to really enjoy it very much.
Sorry, I meant this for a different post. Please ignore or remove.
No worries, if you had a chance to read the update, I am guessing most of these questions were answered.