Millionaire Interview 426

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.

This interview took place in July.

My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.

Let’s get started…

OVERVIEW

How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?

I’m 48 and my wife is 41.

We have been married for 8 years, but we have been together for much longer than that.

She’s amazing and I should have married her sooner!

Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?

We have a 6-year-old son. We got a late start, but better late than never if you ask me!

There are some definite downsides to being an older parent (my back and knees can attest), but also some major upsides – like being financially secure, knowing ourselves better than we did in our 20s and even early 30s, and having finally settled down after a lot of moving around for our academic careers.

What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?

We live in a medium-sized, lower-cost-of-living Midwestern city, not too far outside a major one. My wife and I are both coastal people (I grew up on both coasts and spent significant time in Hawaii, where my family still lives), but the Midwest has grown on us.

The people are friendly and down to earth, Lake Michigan is beautiful, and the cost of living is ridiculously cheap after living for long stretches in places like Boston/Cambridge, San Diego, and New York City.

What is your current net worth?

$2,941,896 (over $3 million if we include everything we own).

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?

• Assets – $2,941,896
• Liabilities – $227,532 (mortgage)
• Net Worth – $2,714,364
• Investment Net Worth (used for FIRE purposes) – $2,358,691.74

Aside from our house, which is likely worth around 650K post-renovation, and the run up in real estate prices we’ve seen recently (we originally bought it for $260K), our assets are mainly invested in low-cost index funds and passive real estate. While I do include the value of our house in our net worth, I don’t use it for FI calculations.

Here is where we stand currently with our investment net worth, along with our desired and current asset allocation.

Our only debt is our mortgage. What might be interesting to some people is that this loan is from the “bank of mom”.

Although my parents began with literally nothing, they ultimately became quite well-off through lucrative careers, moderate frugality, and principled savings. Post-retirement, they were able to build their dream house on the oceanfront in Hawaii (sadly, my father passed away several years back, but my mom is still going strong).

My wife and I are lucky that my mother was able and willing to loan us the money to buy our dream house, which sits on three acres overlooking a beautiful river. We have amazing views.

When the trees change color in the fall, they’re reflected in the water. It’s a magical place – a little sanctuary on beautiful land, yet still close to town (I often bike to work).

We never could have afforded this type of property in the HCOL cities we lived in previously.

I should note that this type of lending runs in my family. My grandmother was able to make the same type of loan to my mom, and I hope to do the same for my son one day.

This way, we get to keep more money in the family, and I’d love to keep that cycle going in perpetuity.

As for the interest rate, we pay my mother more than she could get in a safe investment like a CD but a bit less than what a bank would charge us. So, we both win.

Because I’m a tenured professor, I’m a pretty safe bet!

EARN

What is your job?

I’m a full professor at a top-ranked private university, and I have long considered research and teaching my primary calling. However, this has begun to shift in recent years, and reaching FI may inspire me to change careers.

I have a professional speaking and consulting business that I run on the side, and over the years it has done very well. I’ve built it up to the point where it could easily become a full-time job (though I’m not sure I want that).

I am privileged to be able to share my science with the corporate world, making it digestible and applicable to leaders in myriad industries. Watching the lightbulbs switch on in the minds of my audience is often just as gratifying as mentoring and teaching, though in a different way.

My wife, who also has a PhD, decided to leave academia when we left the Northeast. She now works part-time doing consulting and online teaching.

We love the flexibility this type of work affords our family. It allows her to be a more active primary parent, and it allows all of us to travel much more that we would be able to if she was in a conventional corporate job.

In fact, we are considering a 3-month long world-schooling experience in 2024 while I’m on sabbatical. That wouldn’t be possible if she were working a standard full-time job.

What is your annual income?

It varies a bit from year to year depending on my business income, but last year it was over $400K.

My W2 income is around 180K (this varies a bit depending on summer salary from grants).

Tell us about your income performance over time. What was the starting salary of your first job, how did it grow from there (and what you did to make it grow), and where are you now?  Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them, give us a feel for how much you earn with each, and offer some insight into how you developed them?

My first job was cleaning local business offices. Throughout high school and college, I worked at a car wash, in various coffee shops, and at a homeless shelter.

I’ve also been a diversity training instructor, a waitress, a swim instructor, and a chambermaid at a motel in a summer beach town (the hardest job I’ve ever had).

I spent so long in school and postdoctoral training that I didn’t start making real money until I was in my mid-30s. In this way, I guess I’m similar to many of the physician millionaires who pursue FI.

My graduate school stipend started at 12K a year (with an additional 2K in the summers from teaching) and topped out at around 15K. That was hard to live on, but I got my PhD for free (tuition and healthcare are paid in exchange for being a research or teaching assistant, which is typical in the sciences), and because I lived in a low-cost-of-living city, I was able to make ends meet.

When I started my postdoctoral fellowship, my salary jumped to 38K. I remember thinking that would feel like a fortune!

But because I moved from a relatively low cost of living area out west to a very high cost of living area on the east coast, 38K didn’t go far. I was disappointed, but I was so engrossed in my research that I barely noticed.

I hardly ever thought about money back then. It just wasn’t a major motivator in my life.

In the psychological sciences, researchers used to talk about the primary motivators of human behavior. Money is a big one, but it’s certainly not the only one.

Mine is fulfillment, although if I’m honest that has certainly been mixed with status – another of the major motivators.

Midway through my postdoc, I stumbled into what eventually became a very lucrative professional speaking and consulting side career. And I really do mean stumbled, as I’ll explain shortly.

Because I’m an academic scientist by training, I had lived exclusively in an ivory (and ivy) tower, consumed by “the life of the mind”. I thought very little about money and figured it would come if I kept pursuing my academic goals (and yes, I realize how privileged I am to have been so oblivious!).

While I’d had some valuable discussions with my dad about investing in my childhood which would become important later, I spent many years focused on writing, research, theory, and the pursuit of scientific discoveries.

In those days I thought of money in a narrowly utilitarian sense and believed that the pursuit of money for money’s own sake was for those who’d gone over to the dark side. I’m embarrassed to admit that now, but it’s true, and I think it’s often true for academics (at least until we have kids or near retirement age).

The philosophy in academia is that we are supposed to care only about ideas. We are both too busy and too “intellectually pure” for something as pedestrian and potentially sinister as money.

What’s ironic is that science and academia are increasingly dominated by money. For example, we are expected to get large research grants, not because we necessarily need the money at that particular moment or because a foundation or organization is the best fit for our work, but because that’s what the university administration wants.

Grants bring a huge amount of money into universities. We scientists have to seriously pad our grant budgets, anticipating the substantial chunk the university will take, in order to actually get the science done.

Obtaining funding is a big part of how we are evaluated at tenure and promotion to Full Professor, arguably as big as or bigger than the work we produce. Though I have my issues with this, it is what it is.

It just seems silly and shortsighted to pretend that money isn’t a major part of even supposedly “untainted” industries, and that is exactly what academia has become – an industry. There are pros and cons to this corporatization of academia, but I resent the hypocrisy.

I’m also becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the price of a university education in this country, but those sentiments are for another interview!

During my postdoc, it became clear to me just how important grants were becoming, even while government shutdowns and scientific funding cuts were cause for serious concern. It was a conundrum for me.

At one point in my career, I thought I wanted to be a soft money scientist, which is someone who works exclusively on research and for whom teaching is optional. But because I learned that I love teaching, and because I didn’t want to be fully responsible for my own salary plus those of my lab coordinators, techs, and postdocs, I decided that becoming a research professor at an R1 (Research 1) university was the path for me.

At least this way, my salary would be secure, and I wouldn’t have the responsibility of employing others. Yet the funding environment was still tight and my research does cost significant money, so maybe there was something I could do to fund myself, or at least pad the coffers enough to bridge my lab during bad years.

Around this time, my postdoctoral advisor, being the consummate absentminded professor, triple-scheduled himself for various events around the country. He asked me to give a talk in his place at an event at the business school, which would be hosting high-level executives from Fortune 500 companies.

The talk was (loosely!) about my research, but I’ve never been so nervous to give a lecture. I couldn’t sleep the night before, and could barely leave the bathroom to get myself to the auditorium.

But instead of the suits who I expected to judge or be bored by me, I encountered some of the most creative, friendly, and interesting people I’d met in a long time. I found myself thriving at the event, and I was invited back the next day to lead some think-tank type breakout sessions where we thought about how to design organizations around neuroscience principles.

I didn’t want to leave. Suddenly I was allowed to think about how apply my research in the real world, to brainstorm and innovate, and make connections between my work and best business practice – especially in the realm of leadership.

I left on cloud 9. As if that that wasn’t already enough, I learned that I would be paid $2K for the talk.

Paid!? For a TALK? Speaking is one of the main currencies of academia, but we are decidedly not paid for lectures.

We talk for free, all the time, to anyone who will listen, all over the world (again, status is our currency – not money). Two thousand dollars seemed absurd.

I thought it was a mistake. Maybe they accidentally added a zero?

I was overjoyed with the windfall and proceeded to buy my lab-mates drinks at the bar. Still, I thought the event was a one-off – a nice break from the lab and academic grind but nothing more.

I mean, what else could it be? That was when my phone started to ring.

“Would you consider speaking at our company”? “Would you fly to x city to help us understand how we might apply your insights to our emerging leaders”?

Not knowing what else to charge, I charged $2K per talk at first. Then various kind mentors told me that I was undercharging and that $2K made me look cheap.

Again, I was astonished by the way money works in the real world, but finally I determined that I’d increase my prices until the market pushed back. Today I charge *much* more (although I use a sliding scale and often give talks for free to nonprofits).

It has been hard for me to get over the guilt of charging so much, but apparently this is what my content is worth to organizations. What’s crazy to me is the fact that I have all the corporate work I can possibly handle without ever having advertised (all my business has come via word of mouth).

In fact, pre-tenure, I deliberately hid my side career for fear of looking like a money-motivated, non-serious scientist sellout (particularly important for women in science). Only last year did I develop a website (well, my wife did anyway!).

I will forever be grateful, not only to my brilliant, hilarious, and over-committed advisor, but to the handful of CIOs and CLOs who first called and asked me to visit their organizations. Those calls started what has become a second passion for me, which is applying my research to the world of business.

What is now my professional speaking, consulting, and executive coaching business provides me with an excellent source of side-income (it regularly surpasses my W2 income), an independent means of funding my research, and an ideal balance of academic and real-world work.

As for my academic salary, I started out in summer 2009 at 75K, which was pretty standard for my field at the time. Today I make 180K, and that’s likely to be about the top unless I move into academic administration (not interested).

Other than the major promotions (tenure and full), professors do get raises each year, but even the good merit raises rarely exceed 5%. 180K is an excellent salary but it’ll be slow growing from here.

This is clearly is not the case for my 1099 income, which continues to grow and is essentially limitless (or would be if I could clone myself or figure out how to be two places at once!).

What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?

I’m not sure I have much all-purpose advice to give, other than the standard work hard, be personable, make and maintain connections type advice, which is essential in most if not all careers. I have plenty of specific advice for academics, especially scientists, but I doubt that would be helpful here (please reach out if I’m wrong).

In fact, I’m thinking of developing an online course called “Financial Independence for Burned Out Academics”, because it is astonishing how little academics know about money or investing. Even some of the best statisticians in the country use advisors who charge high fees and have them in proprietary funds.

What I will say in response to this question is more general and I do believe applies to everyone. Stay open, remain curious, and always be on the lookout for doors that may open to you.

When they do open, walk through them, even if you’re terrified and even if you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid to push on doors that look closed or may only be open a tiny crack.

If I had refused to give that talk at the business school in the first place (which, out of sheer terror, I was tempted to do), or had I declined those initial speaking/consulting offers because I had never heard of “professional” speaking, knew little about consulting, and nothing about the corporate world (I remember when one company talking about how they wanted to brand my content, and me, I just laughed and said, “ouch, that sounds painful!” – I literally had no idea what they were talking about), I wouldn’t be in the strong financial and psychologically free position I am in now.

Much as I love science and academia, I knew I’d eventually feel hemmed in if I didn’t have an outlet in the real world. Given my personality, I need the combination of doing science, writing about science, applying my science, and talking to lots of different types of people in order to feel fulfilled.

One chance encounter allowed me to combine these endeavors in a way I never would have known was possible. Think about that for a second.

There was a whole world out there – comprised of vastly different industries – that wanted and needed my expertise and content, that I didn’t know existed. Because academics rarely think in terms of “business”, I never would have known that combining science and industry in a way unique to my knowledge and skill-set was possible had I not walked through a pretty scary door into the unknown.

Now it’s a rush every time I’m thrown into something new.

It blew my mind to learn that I was really good at speaking, consulting on a variety of topics, thinking on my feet, and innovating in a corporate environment. Who knew I had such skills?

I certainly didn’t, and I never would have had my advisor not promised to be in multiples cities on the same day. So, take some chances and broaden your life experience.

We all live in a world that’s self-created and constrained by our mental parameters, which are in fact barriers. Those expand and change with each new experience as the invisible becomes visible.

It can be frightening, but it can also be exhilarating. My advice is to trust in this process of shifting world views that come with changing experiences.

To me, change and expansion are what life is all about. It has been a blessing to experience both in a way that has fueled my personal and financial growth.

What’s your work-life balance look like?

It’s excellent. And here is where I have to say something about why academia is so utterly amazing (and why I’m certain to face OMY syndrome when I attempt to retire).

Academia is quite literally the only career I could have chosen other than being self-employed because I can’t have a boss. That’s something I’ve always known about myself.

Academia may not pay nearly as well as equivalent corporate careers, but the flexibility and freedom it confers is second to none. Let me be clear about this though – as an academic you never stop working.

Postdocs and graduate students don’t disappear over the summer, and labs never shut down. There are always grants to be written, papers to publish, new ideas to develop, students to mentor, and courses to prep.

But the truth is that you can do most of this work whenever you want. And if you add up all the academic breaks – summer break, fall break, spring break, Christmas break, etc. – professors get roughly 4 months “off”, at least at the best schools.

To be sure, we do work during these times, and we need it to think and develop new ideas, but imagine not having to wake up at a certain time or go to any meetings for up to 4 months a year, and you’ve got the idea. Your days are your own.

Even during the academic year, no one sets your schedule. With some exceptions, you are free to set your own.

To me, this flexibility and freedom are priceless, a sentiment that is underscored when I’m out in the corporate world working with leaders at various levels and witnessing their lack of flexibility and incessant need to grind.

Given the travel that accompanies my LLC work, I’m often busy out of my mind. But it comes in streaks, and I’ve learned not to overdo it.

In fact, when everything stopped because of the pandemic, I realized just how burned out I’d become by essentially working two jobs. But I was growing so much and (generally) having so much fun that I barely noticed how run down I’d become.

Since then, I’ve been much more careful about pacing myself. Most importantly, I have plenty of time with my family, and I am able to focus on spending lots of quality time with my son while he’s young.

I’m never awake before 8 am, and my mornings are typically quite leisurely. As a moderate night type, most of my best work gets done in the afternoon and evenings anyway.

SAVE

What is your annual spending?

I have delayed finishing this interview for 3 years because I still don’t know! We are currently detailing every expense, and plan to do that for the next few years in preparation for potential retirement from academia.

That said, I know how much we save, which is in excess of 50% of our gross income. We are probably living on around $120K/year – more if you include taxes.

What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?

Again, we’re still working this out in more detail, but the biggest categories are taxes, travel, and, until recently, daycare/private school. Our son is now at a public Montessori, which he loves and so do we.

Going public has saved a nice chunk of change. Costco was such a big expense that we paused our membership last year, and I reckon that saved us around $8K.

I think I love Costco a little too much! Lol.

Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?

Nope, and I never have. I’ve always been pretty good at “intuiting” how much is okay to spend, and I think our savings rate confirms that.

Still, we need to do a better job of tallying our spending over the next few years before I retire from academia, as I noted above. My wife and I are moderately frugal by nature, so that has helped us get by without a budget until now.

What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?

Usually in excess of 50%. Last year it was 65%.

The lowest it has been since we were married was around 35%, and that was due to so much corporate work getting canceled during COVID.

What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge? 

Slow travel, good wine and whisky, books, and all things health-related.

The moment I got tenure, I started studying to become a sommelier. Wine is a huge passion of mine.

Now that our wine collection has crept out of the wine cellar in the basement and into various rooms in the house, I’ve been called a wine hoarder.

My family won’t let me buy any more until it’s corralled. Anyone want to come help us drink it?

My wife is much more frugal than I am. She’s a great influence.

When we travel, we like to stay in boutique hotels or Airbnb’s, and when we travel internationally, we fly business or first class. Our travel is funded largely through credit card kickbacks.

I’m a total nerd about credit cards and travel hacking. I have a spreadsheet that goes back nearly 10 years.

We’ve gotten some insane redemptions over the years, like flying to Milan via Dubai (where we stopped over for 4 days) in Emirates First Class for just over $1K each. I took 3 showers and ate my weight in caviar.

My wife now hates me for ruining “regular” first class for her.

INVEST

What is your investment philosophy/plan?

Mostly to stay the course. Because I might retire from academia in 3-5 years, we are slowing building up a ‘safe’ account of treasury notes and CDs, with the goal of hitting at least $360K before that life change.

We are gliding to a slightly more conservative asset allocation with the idea of staying on the safe side for the first 10 years of “retirement” (although that’s hard to define given that I have no intention of winding down my consulting and speaking business, which might actually grow), and then becoming more aggressive again (90/10) for inheritance and gifting purposes.

What has been your best investment?

In terms of life, my wife and son, hands down. In terms of money, my business, and using income from the business to achieve a high savings rate.

In terms of my intellectual life, my research, writing, and theory-building. In terms of giving back, teaching, and mentoring.

What has been your worst investment?

A business I built with a former student. The time and money lost wasn’t the worst of it.

The stress of the fallout was. Never again.

What’s been your overall return? 

As of now, slightly better than the market return over the past 3 years (although I doubt that edge will last). However, I should note that I care less about my return and more about the amount of money we’re ultimately able to save and invest.

Though we automatically invest the majority of our savings into low-cost index funds, I have tricked myself into investing even money by learning about interesting investment strategies (e.g., private markets, emerging markets, small-cap value), funds and ETFs (e.g., Wisdomtree’s Trust Alternative Income Fund, Baron Partners Fund for access to SpaceX), and (occasionally) individual stocks (Tesla, Vistra Corp, Meta, PWR).

I invest in these when prices plunge, not because I expect to them to help me beat the market, but because they function as ‘fun’ purchases for me. These ‘purchases’ may lower our overall return in the end (although I doubt by much), but because I find it fun, we will have invested more money than we otherwise would have.

This is a psychological trick that allows me to research and buy into interesting investments rather than research and buy fancy gadgets or other stuff we don’t need. Most of our investing is automatic.

This part (10% of our portfolio) is just fun.

How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?

It depends. Sometimes daily, sometimes less often (when I’m traveling or when the market is down).

I’ve trained myself to only look regularly when things are good. When things are bad, I force myself to look occasionally without taking any action (a good stoic exercise!), but I look a lot less.

NET WORTH

How did you accumulate your net worth?

Slowly and steadily, by making good money and investing most of it. Each year, we max out all retirement accounts, then our son’s 403b, then contribute to investment accounts and passive real estate.

The bull market we’ve been in since we started investing (in 2009) has been a very nice tailwind.

What would you say is your greatest strength in the ESI wealth-building model (Earn, Save or Invest) and why would you say it’s tops?

I think we are pretty good at all three, but I’d probably say Earn and Invest. I’m so thankful for excellent blogs like this one for teaching me the basics of investing and motivating me to get started.

Big shout out to JL Collins, Mr. Money Mustache, and the White Coat Investor as well.

What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?

No major road bumps, although the company I started with a former student and the breakup of a relationship in the early 2010s slowed things down a bit.

What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?

Just keeping on keeping on, as they say. If I do retire from academia in 3-5 years, we’ll still have 1099 income to fall back on.

If things continue to go well with the business, it will fund most (if not all) of our living expenses for the next 10 years.

Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?

$3 million, plus $360K in short bonds/CDs prior to retirement from academia. Otherwise, not really, although 4 million is our stretch goal.

There was a time when I wanted to shoot for 10 million, but then I read Die with Zero, thought about the purpose of money more, and realized that I want to spend money on my passions more than I want to achieve a certain number in the bank.

How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?

I was 44. No major behavior shifts, but perhaps your readers will get a kick out of what I wrote at the time…

“Total Investments as of 9/9/16 – $361,162.32, as of 11/22/16 – $372,622.99, as of 12/11/16 – $386,198.43, as of 1/29/17 – $396,694.06, as of 2/4/17 – $401,334.34, as of 2/18/17 –
$408,083.77, as of 3/12/17 – $412,087.06, as of 5/8/17 – $430,661.57.

(I stopped paying much attention here, although I continued to invest steadily. I really got serious about tracking in 2020.)

2020: $848,724.42 as of 2/11/20. COVID emerges – went down to $669,857 on 3/12/20; $645,000 on 3/20/20, and yiiikes $598,429 on 3/23/20 (the bottom?). So much money lost!

But remember, those losses won’t be realized unless you sell. And we won’t need to sell for a very long time!

DO NOT SELL! $788,796.67 on 4/19/20, $801,286.10 on 5/8/2020, $878,385.78 on 6/4/2020, $903,000.00 on 6/8/2020, $860,311.39 on 6/13/2020, $970,733.67 on 8/11/2020, $995,235.71 on 8/27/2020 – Holy moly, we’re getting close to 1 million!

$1,002,265.73 on 8/29/2020!!!!!!!!!! In a little less than 4 years, we’ve gone from $361,162.32 to over 1 million.

And…. Now we’re not millionaires anymore. It’s Sept 26, and we’ve just experienced a (healthy) correction.

We are now at $958,477.92. It sucks, but I know it’s normal and that we’ll get back to that 1mill mark at some point.

Making myself look when the markets are rough is a good, stoic exercise.”

What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from?

No major mistakes, except for the failed business enterprise. My advice there is to be very careful about who you go into business with, always considering the downsides of such a relationship.

I wish I’d done a better job of that, but still, it was a good learning experience and it didn’t slow us down too much. I also wish I’d begun saving in earnest earlier than I did even though I didn’t have much extra during my training years.

What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?

Educate yourself by reading blogs like this one. Decide what you really want to spend your money on and consider ‘financial freedom’ as something you can purchase.

You can buy your freedom just like you can buy a new car. Do you really want that new car, boat, whatever, or would you rather delay those purchases and buy your freedom first?

I think that’s a question everyone should ask themselves on a regular basis. Consistent investment in the stock market is a time-tested way of becoming wealthy.

Pay yourself first and automate your savings and investments. Don’t fall for get rich quick schemes.

Work on your money mindset, have an investment statement, and stick with it. Having a high income certainly helps but it’s not absolutely necessary (I was convinced of this by reading JL Collins’ most recent book, ‘Pathfinders’).

FUTURE

What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?

We are devoting a lot of time and energy to lifestyle design these days, so these decisions are in progress. After retiring from academia, I will have even more flexibility than I already have.

We are thinking of spending a year or two world-schooling our son before settling down again for his middle and high school years. Much as we love our house and land, we may relocate – perhaps to Hawaii to be near family.

Our current net worth allows for this flexibility. I’m so grateful to my younger self for self-educating on investments, increasing our savings rate, and automating our savings and investments.

What are your retirement plans?

This is another thing we are currently discussing. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to fully retire, but I do yearn for more flexibility and more and different experiences.

Most of these are related to travel, but others are related to giving back. We are exploring creative ways to combine the two.

Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?

My biggest fear is boredom, but I suspect that’s just another mental limitation to knock down – another challenge to take on and figure out.

Another fear is healthcare. We have modeled our healthcare expenses in various ways, but it’s one of those unknowns that seems to bother a lot of us ESI interviewees. I’m no exception.

That said, I won’t let that fear keep me in stasis. As a wise writer once wrote, “Fear is the mind-killer”.

MISCELLANEOUS

How did you learn about finances and at what age did it ‘click’?

My dad told me about investing when I was in my very early teens. He even took me along on a visit with his financial advisor.

I remember being told that if I saved a dollar a week (or something like that) for some period of time, I could be a millionaire by the time I retired.

That made only a very ephemeral impression on me back then, but his words came back to me when I neared the end of my postdoc, realized I was in my mid-30s with very little saved, and got serious about investing.

Later, my dad realized he’d been paying astronomical fees to his financial advisor, who he fired. That story also served me well as I avoided many advisors offering to help for only 1%+!

Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?

My parents. Both of them were far more motivated to help others and change the world for the better than they ever were by money.

They both did precisely that while making good money along the way. They saved and invested regularly and remained moderately frugal while slowing increasing their standard of living.

While I don’t think they knew the concept of a savings rate, my belief is that they, intentionally or not, set a pretty high savings rate and kept it there the whole time they were working.

When I was born, we had very little. By the time my parents retired (early), they had built their second dream home (this time on the ocean in Hawaii).

They were incredible role models, both in terms of how to live generous and fulfilling lives, and how to slowly build wealth without worrying too much about money along the way. They modeled the adage that ‘the money will come’.

While I recognize my privilege and understand that not everyone can take this to heart, I suspect that many can. Learning about and focusing on money are essential to financial success.

But it seems to me that both too little AND too much focus on money can create real problems. Clearly, many Americans barely save for retirement, kicking the can down the road too far, sometimes until it’s too late.

But others obsess far too much about money, watching the goalposts move over and over again and never feeling like they have ‘enough’ – that’s a scarcity mindset that I teach my clients to avoid. Not only does it lead to anxiety and unhappiness, but it also leads to a clingy possessiveness of money that impedes giving.

Neither of these strategies are healthy. I’d like to see us educate our kids about finance, investment, and the psychology of money.

It’s crazy to me that we don’t have high school classes devoted to the topic.

Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?

We do. We give primarily to international charities through GiveWell, but we also give nationally and locally.

We are in the process of setting up a DAF and also hope to do charity work in person, ideally combined with international travel, post-retirement.

Do you plan to leave an inheritance for your heirs (how do you plan to distribute your wealth at your death)? What are your reasons behind this plan?

Yes. Our son will inherit most of our wealth.

However, as he gets older, he will participate more in formulating our donorship plans. I’m currently managing my mom’s money (as well as my own family’s money), and we are all, as a family, engaged in conversations about how to leave a meaningful legacy.

That work might end up being focused in Africa (a chunk of it definitely will be), but we are still researching different charitable organizations and different giving strategies that will help us find meaning in retirement (or partial retirement for me!). Money will be a big part of that, but so will our volunteer efforts.