Welcome to The Get Real Podcast, your high-octane boost and in the trenches tell-it-like-it-is reality therapy for personal, business and real estate investing success with your hosts, power-preneurs Angela and Ron. It’s time to get real!

Ron: Hey, everybody, welcome to The Get Real Podcast. This is Ron Phillips. I’m here with Angela Thomas.

Angela: Hey guys.

Ron: We have completely shocked you today. I started the podcast.

Angela: Oh man.

Ron: So you can find us at GetRealEstateSuccess.com share us if you like our podcast, leave us some love, all of that good stuff. And man, we’ve got a great, I think we’ve got a great topic today. I think most of them that we talk about are great though.

Angela: I know, I think we say that every time but we really do.

Ron: You guys should be the judge really of whether or not this is a great topic.

Angela: Yeah. We only talk about things we’re excited about, so.

Ron: I mean, if you’re not excited then skip to the next one whatever. You should listen to it anyway because it’s good content.

Angela: Yeah. Alright. So yeah, Ron, today we’re talking about retirement again and what happens when you actually reach your goal of financial freedom.

Ron: Angela, how are either one of us qualified to talk about retirement when you’re, well, I’m not going to say how old you are, but you’re in your thirties and I’m not quite middle aged yet.

Angela: Yours sounded better than mine somehow. But yeah, I guess, you know, I don’t know. So retirement maybe we’re not qualified to talk about, but both of us have tasted a little bit of financial freedom.

Ron: Because that’s really what we’re talking about. I just want to make sure everybody, anybody who’s 30, anybody who’s 50 or younger shouldn’t turn this off just because we said the word retirement. Because really we’re going to talk about financial freedom, which ultimately is what the two words are synonymous in my mind. Although sometimes you get forced into retirement and you’re not financially free and then retirement is not fun. And that’s not what we’re talking about today.

Angela: No. And I think, you know, we’re you know, we’ve talked a couple of times about how you need to think backwards with this and we’ve talked about creating your vision. We’re going to have another couple shows that are just on creating your vision if you haven’t done that yet. So in this one we, we kind of want you to imagine if you’re not financially free yet we want you to imagine what’s going to happen when you are. Say you hit your financial goals, you’re financially free, you have all the money you need to take care of yourself and to be able to do what you want to do. Now what?

Ron: Yeah, and I think some people, some people are saying, well, I don’t really need to play on that. I’m going to know what I want to do because I’m going to do all of the things that I couldn’t do because I’ve been tied down by my job and you know, whatever else.

Angela: Yeah. I don’t know if this is relevant, but we talked about some time wasters in one of our last episodes. And I can just imagine for me, especially if it was retirement age, I suddenly don’t have a job anymore. I got all my money. If I didn’t plan what I wanted to do, I could just see myself wasting however long on stuff that I don’t care about, you know, Netflix and you could waste forever doing that kind of stuff and then nothing will get you more depressed, right. That’s nobody’s vision so.

Ron: Yeah. It’s really pretty important that you answer the question before you’ve arrived. What do you do once you arrive?

Angela: Yeah. Yeah. So take a second just with us. Just imagine you’re there, you’ve hit your goals, you’re there, now what? Is it, I mean, it can be a little bit unsettling if you haven’t made that choice yet, if you don’t know what you want to do. You know, are you really active? Are there sports you want to do? Are you going to travel? Are you more of a relaxing personality into gardening and reading? And I mean, what do you want to do everyday?

Ron: So maybe hit pause real quick and just write down a bunch of stuff and then, and then come back and join us because I don’t know, for me anyway, this is really difficult and I don’t know why it was difficult, but it was kind of difficult for me. And I think for a lot of people who have been working, working, working, but you know, you don’t realize this, but your whole life is wrapped up in either your job or your work, your business, you know, you’ve got all of these things that you do constantly. And it becomes a pattern when the pattern is just removed all of a sudden it’s different than most people think it is.

Ron: In a lot of ways. Because you do, you have all this freedom you were talking about Angela, you have, I mean, it’s not like you’re a billionaire and you can literally go to anything you want, but if you’re financially free, financially independent, man, there’s a lot of freedom that comes with that. You literally can do anything you want to do. Hang gliding, rock climbing, you know, all the sports travel, see the kids, the grandkids, visit places all over the world. There’s all these things you can do. And yet when it’s all yanked away or when you’ve chosen or you’ve been fortunate enough that it’s there, it’s a little strange. It’s just a little weird. And I think a little weirder than most people think.

Angela: And if you’re a type A personality like I think Ron and I both are, and you’re somebody who needs to be busy and is used to building business. I think it’s, you know, may be even a little more difficult because you’re not going to be happy just relaxing, right. Maybe you’ll relax for a week or two. Like Ron, you had fun. How long was your longest vacation you took awhile back?

Ron: A month.

Angela: Yeah. A month is about how long I could do nothing probably

Ron: Now that one wasn’t doing nothing. So I think the one you’re talking about is when I went to the island, we went to the island for, man I want to say we went there for like, well, whatever it was, it was too long. What did I tell you? What was my ideal trip? I think it was like nine days on island.

Angela: Yeah, yeah. I thought you said 10 but 9. Sure around there.

Ron: Yeah, it might’ve been 10, whatever it was it was longer than that. And after day 10 I was like, man I can be a beach bum for a while. I mean, I can do it. It takes me maybe a day. Every time I go it gets a little easier to get into the beach bum mood and get with it. But it still takes me a day, maybe two days, and then I’m chill. Like I can seriously do nothing and be fine. And then, you know, mix in a little bit of fishing and snorkeling and, you know, stuff that doesn’t really doesn’t require much brain power. I can do that stuff for like 9 or 10 days, but after day 10 I am done. Like I got to do I need to do something.

Angela: Yes. And I’m the same way. So I mean, I think for me it’s not so much like what chill activities do I want to do, but you know what am I going to build? What is actually important to me that doesn’t necessarily have to make money? What am I going to build once I get to that point, right.

Ron: Well, there’s some other things you’ve got to think through too. You got to think through your circle of friends before this happens because of all of your friends are broke and then you become financially free there’s one of two things that are going to happen. Either you’re going to go play by yourself because none of your friends can afford it, or you get to pay for all of your friends and all of their activities because they can’t afford it.

Angela: And you better calculate that into your financial plan.

Ron: Your really not financially free if you’re paying for the whole tribe, right. You know, but along the way, you can also make some new friends that can do some stuff with you at the same time, not telling you to go, you know, kick your friends to the curb because they’re not financially independent like you are. But I am suggesting that things are way different. It’s not fun to play by yourself and you know, if no one, you know, can go play, you know, whatever game it is you want to play with you because they can’t afford it. I was going to be a lonely world. Anyway. So keep that in mind.

Angela: So, yeah. So on this track, like I mean, I think it’s really important to keep an open mind about what this is. You may not know yet and that’s okay. And I think there’s a major mental shift that happens here, right? Your goals might completely change because although money isn’t the main motivating factor, it’s a big one during most of your life. And when that suddenly gone, you know, it can change your goals, that can just shake your very foundation in a good way.

Angela: I mean, you know, it’s how you grow, but it’s crazy when nothing is holding you back anymore and you don’t have, you know, you don’t have a boss controlling your time. You don’t have to sit at a desk for a certain number of hours or you know, being an operating room or whatever it is you do. I mean, it just, it changes everything. It’s crazy. So it’s okay if you have to think about that. And Ron, I think, you know, you were going to talk about this is why your vision so critical, right?

Ron: You know, it really is. And the reason that it is, is because so this kind of happened to me. I got to the point where I really didn’t need to work. I enjoy it. I enjoy it, right. But I didn’t need to something, something weird happens when you are not needed. I mean, and I’ve had conversations with you about this, Angela, but like if you’re wrapped up in your, if your whole being and personality and everything is kind of wrapped up in your business, if you’ve been that person for so long and then you finally get your business working to the point where it doesn’t really need you to operate and you’ve got investments over here that are paying you enough money that you can live and then literally you’re not needed, at least in your business.

Ron: I mean your family hopefully still need you to be around, right. But it’s a weird thing because so much of your time and attention has been given a to that piece of you for so long that when you’re not needed there, it’s the strangest thing in the world. And a couple of things happen. It’s not like you can go talk to your, you know, your buddy down the street about your woes that you are now board and you feel unwanted.

Angela: Yeah poor you, right.

Ron: It’s a weird thing because it’s this horrible first world problem that you have that nobody relates to. But as we’ve talked through more people relate to this then I think actually say it out loud because it sounds like you’re real arrogant piece of crap when you say it out loud. But a lot of people make it to this point and sometimes make it to this point earlier in life. And then it is weird because most of the people who are in that situation are 60, 65. Nothing wrong with that but if you’re in your forties, it’s weird. You either have to like completely level up two decades on age to be able to hang out with people who have enough money or you’ve got to go find some other people who have the same problem as you who don’t talk about it because it’s a weird thing to talk about.

Ron: Yeah. You know, this isn’t that difficult with real estate. You actually can achieve this relatively quickly if you just put your mind to it, you can achieve it. We teach people about it all the time. Angela and a lot of our clients actually do achieve this. And then the ones who have already have a plan and a vision for what they want to do, they have a hell of a lot of fun. And not fun, just playing, but fun serving and doing all kinds of really cool things that if you don’t have a vision, I didn’t. So here I am, you know, and I’m telling you guys, I didn’t, what I did every single day was build business that’s what I did. That’s who I was.

Angela: Yeah. And it happened faster than you thought it was going to. And I mean, even looking at my own plan, my own financial plan, this could happen a lot faster for me than I would’ve expected it to. And I think it does for a lot of our customers. So I think a lot of people suddenly find themselves in this faster than they thought they would be there. And they’re just unprepared. And id you know, if you get to this point in your life, you kind of have a Ron, I don’t know if you called it a midlife crisis, but, or three quarter life crisis, whatever it is.

Ron: A mid business crisis, Angela.

Angela: Yeah. But I mean, you don’t even have to own a business to get there. I mean, looking at mine I’m not that far away at all. And you know, you could just be thrust into it all of a sudden, which is a great thing. It’s what you were trying to achieve. But all of a sudden, you know, if you don’t have a plan, you just feel board, lonely.

Ron: I think for most people the plan isn’t play, play, play all the time. Because me, I did, I played quite a bit. And I hung out with a family a lot.

Angela: But whose purpose is to play?

Ron: Yeah. But that’s not, yeah. I mean, it doesn’t match my core values. We’ve talked at length about what the core values are for the company that we share. Angela, and you know, the purpose of the company was through service we build people that’s at my core, that’s who I am. So if I’m out playing all the time, I actually, it’s a really lonely place to be. Because you feel empty because you’re not fulfilling your purpose. So what you, the reason for the life vision is so that you’ve got all that stuff nailed down. It’s in there with all of the, the fun stuff too.

Ron: But you have, you know exactly what it is you’re going to do and that you’re doing all along the way. But once you hit financial independence as well, how you can like multiply them, amp it up. But if you don’t have that, like I didn’t, I was out there searching for it. Like what’s the next thing or whatever it was. And that really was, that was the wrong question.

Ron: The right question is who am I? And therefore you know, whoever I am, that’s what I should be doing. And not playing all the time. That was kind of an empty, weird thing. It was fun, you know, for a long time, but yeah, it didn’t actually bring anything real into my life. And so that’s what I mean by this. It’s a strange place to be and it’s really hard to have those kinds of conversations with most of the people in the world because they just think you’re, they can’t relate. They can’t relate to the challenge.

Angela: Yeah. Also, I don’t know. I think that you feel like because you’ve been working so hard and run, run, running for so long that you need to be, you feel like you need to be super busy and stressed and you’re used to feeling that way. But you know, there’s no, you don’t have to either be super busy and stressed or be a lazy bum that’s watching TV reruns all day, right. I mean, if, once you find financial freedom, you’ve got to figure out how to align with what you’re doing with your core values and hopefully find a happy medium here where you can be relaxed but be living your purpose, spending time with family, doing things that really matter to you.

Angela: Because I think a lot of people, you know, pick one of those two things, right? They either when they retire, they’re like, panic, I need to be stressed out and they jump into some other project they don’t necessarily want to be a part of or get another job or whatever. Just so they, you know, feel normal or they get lonely and I mean, they die young because they’re super, you know, they become a bum and they’re depressed about it because that’s a lonely, boring way to live, right, so.

Ron: I think the other thing too, that, that happens to a lot of people in that scenario is they do things because they feel like other people think that that’s what they should be doing, right. So they take other people’s visions and they tried them out because it seems to be working for those people. And that never works long term for you. You can’t do that because that’s not who you are that’s not your path, you know? And so.

Angela: Only you can decide what you should be doing.

Ron: Yeah, absolutely you have to write otherwise you’re, you’re still trapped. You’re financially free and now you’re trapped by your mental image of what other people think you should be doing at that point in your life. Which is I think for a lot of people worse than where they were, which is why you were talking about people being unhappy in that state. I was a little unhappy in that state. I mean because it was a weird place to be and I didn’t really know yet. Actually, I mean, that’s not true. I did know, but I thought it was something else. And I thought that I should be doing things that the rest of everybody thought that I should be doing. You know, I should be playing, I should be enjoying. That’s all I should be doing. And well, for me, that just wasn’t, that didn’t do it, it didn’t work.

Angela: So Ron, since your further in this than me, you know what, like you’ve gone through this, I may be close, but I haven’t yet. So what kind of tips do you have for anyone that’s, you know, coming up on this? Do you have any tips for what did you do?

Ron: Yes. So number one is get your life vision done before this happens because it’s probably easier once it’s easier. You don’t want to be, you don’t be in a place that I was, it’s nicer to have it done first.

Angela: And you can avoid the midlife crisis.

Ron: I know, it seems like we’re just like we keep dumping this were dripping this on you and we keep saying, yeah, we’re going to have an episode or two about this. We are, I just want to get my buddy, he’s so much better at explaining it than I am and I just want to get him on here so that it’s done so the justice is properly done to it. And it helps everybody else. So that’s the first thing I think.

Angela: Get your vision.

Ron: Next one. Next episode we’ll try to make that happen for you guys. Number two, I think it’s give yourself permission to be okay with the fact that you did do something that a lot of people don’t do, especially if you do it at a younger age and just give yourself permission to feel okay about the fact that you’ve done something successful because…

Angela: That’s an interesting, yeah.

Ron: So I think we had this conversation before Angela, but I used to back in the day, I used to come to the office and I would sit there all day long. And most everything was being done. I mean, I didn’t need to be there as often as I was there. I went there because I felt bad that other people were there. I felt like I should be there in addition to the fact that that’s just what I did every single day for so long. I get done at the gym the next thing you do is you hit the office, that’s what you do you just go to the office. Whether or not that’s where I needed to be. Number three, look outside of yourself. I think that’s a really important thing.

Ron: Really my buddy that I’m going to bring on his name, Sean McClosky he’s such a stud. One of the things that he harps on when we’re at our mastermind is that a lot of the things and the people that you can help are all, they’re right around you. So when you get to the point where you have some time and the ability to use your talents and use your abilities to help serve other people, help the ones who are closest to you. So sometimes we overlook our family. A lot of times we overlook the people who are in our current business. A lot of times we overlook the people who are sitting next to us in a pew at church. Sometimes we just overlook people who are in our lives their right there.

Angela: That is so true. I love that one.

Ron: Yeah. And you know, here we are looking for this really big, huge next great thing that we could do. And, um, and build because that’s who we, who we are as a type people. We will be, we want to build something really cool when in reality building people, helping build people up that can be done and it’s literally all around us. You don’t have to go searching for some big huge thing to make that happen. A lot of times it’s right in front of your face and those people they need, they need help too, right?

Angela: I love that, that’s great. It’s not as sexy as helping people, you know, in a faraway country, but if they need help just as much.

Ron: And why is that? Here’s why. Let me tell you why. And not that that’s a bad thing, don’t take this the wrong way, but a lot of times it’s because that’s a really visible thing. Like if I jump on a plane and I go to Honduras and build houses for people.

Angela: Which is super awesome.

Ron: Which is awesome and a lot of my friends do that and I’m going to go on one of those trips coming up. But it’s not as visible. It doesn’t feel like we’re doing something a beneficial because we haven’t put this massive effort into whatever it is. And when you can make a lot of difference and I would argue sometimes even more of a difference because if one person who has the ability around us to be financially secure, independent, who can also then go to Honduras and take a whole group of people with them, now you’ve multiplied yourself.

Ron: It’s a lot harder to go down to Honduras and make people financially independent down there than it is in America, in your sphere of influence all around you. And then I think, you know, if you’re in the real estate business and you don’t want to do all the work anymore, why not partner with people who need your expertise and help them learn, educate, grow, but also leverage time and your talents with other people who can do a lot of the work and need the experience.

Ron: There’s a whole lot of ways that you can continue to keep your foot in the door in the business world without having to put your whole body in and shut the door behind you. And I’ve used all of those things and they really work well. I mean, volunteer your local church or if you don’t do church then volunteer at some local place that, you know, isn’t some big, huge, massive thing, but it’s something you can do on a regular basis to help use your time wisely.

Angela: And don’t tell anybody about it because then it feels even better. It doesn’t have to go on social media.

Ron: really does. It really does. And I’m telling you, when you get into that and you’re putting, when you’re pouring into other people, no matter whether they’re in Honduras or the down the street from you, you cannot help but feel really, really good. And since you don’t need the money, I mean, why would you not?

Angela: Ron apparently, apparently we need to do on a whole episode on that. I mean, we kind of did already, but maybe we could do another one because apparently we just really like to talk, so, yeah. Yes. So those are awesome tips Ron. Thanks so much. So I think that’s it guys. I think that what Ron said, that’s a great place to start. Thanks so much for listening. Go check us out on GetRealEstateSuccess.com and give us any feedback you have and subscribe to our podcast. I’m also, if you want to, you know, write us a review on ITunes, we would not be upset. That’d be great. And thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Ron: See you everybody. See you next time.

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