More Money Won't Free You

You've been chasing a number since you were twenty-five.

You're about to find out it was never the prize.

Welcome to The Real Jason Duncan Podcast.

Today's episode is a Wednesday Special Edition. Every week I write a newsletter called What's Real? where I expose the lies most people believe and reveal the truths they were never taught. And every Wednesday, I bring that week's edition to you in audio, right here.

Because the most dangerous lies don't look like lies. They look like golden cages. They look like success. The most successful people are the most deceived, because the lies that trap them look like achievements. That's what this whole show is about.

On Mondays I sit down with somebody who believed one of those lies and discovered the truth the hard way. Wednesdays, like today, I bring you the Wednesday Special Edition. Either way, the mission is the same.

Go to therealjasonduncan.com/articles and subscribe for free to get the What's Real? newsletter delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before this episode drops. That's therealjasonduncan.com/articles - link is in the show notes.

This week's post is called "More Money Doesn't Buy Freedom. Most of It Buys a Bigger Cage."

Holy crap, we're halfway through the year.

Take an honest look at the last six months. You hit some number, or you missed some number, and either way you're probably telling yourself the same story I told myself for years. The next milestone is where the life actually starts. The next zero buys the freedom. The next deal closes the gap between the life you're living and the life you keep promising yourself you'll get to.

That story is a lie. And it might be the most expensive one you'll ever believe.

I'm not going to tell you money doesn't matter. Money does matter. If you're broke right now, anybody who hands you a check is going to make your life immediately better. Money fixes real problems. It pays the rent, the medical bill, the kid's tuition.

The truth I want to give you is this. Past a certain point, more money doesn't buy what you think it buys. And the chase for more of it costs you what actually does.

The research on income and happiness has been chewed on for half a century. Here's where it landed. For most people, well-being keeps inching up as income rises, but the gains get smaller the higher you go. For the unhappiest twenty percent of people, the benefit of more money flatlines around a hundred thousand dollars. After that, more income does nothing for them.

The very people we tell ourselves money would rescue, the deeply unhappy ones, get no help from the extra zero. None.

Money can buy relief. It cannot buy love. It cannot buy contentment. It cannot buy joy. It cannot buy the kind of peace you take with you to bed at night.

Now look up from the spreadsheet at the people you've been comparing yourself to. The guy with the jet, the Lambo, the yacht, the real estate in fifteen states.

He's on his third wife. The first two left because he was never home. His health is held together by prescriptions because the body keeps a score nobody on his payroll is allowed to mention. He hasn't had a real conversation with his oldest kid in two years. His phone is a sleep deprivation device. His calendar is owned by people who would not recognize him at a gas station.

The wealth he's built has bought him a beautiful set of cages that lock from the outside. And the world claps for the cage because the world can't see what's missing.

Let me tell you what I'd put on my own balance sheet if I had to write one honestly. Not the kind a CPA puts together. The kind that actually matters.

I've been married to my best friend for over thirty-one years. I have two adult kids who actually kind of like me. My parents are still around, and they live close enough that "close enough" means something. I have my health, which means I can get on a motorcycle and ride for a thousand miles, or jump in an RV and disappear with Kristie for weeks. I have friends who'd take a call from me at three a.m. and would call me at three a.m. without thinking twice.

And yes, I have some of the nicer things. The RV. The motorcycles. The income to take real time off. I'm not pretending I'm a minimalist monk.

The point is that those things sit at the bottom of the list, not the top.

So which one of us is wealthier? Me, or the guy with a tenth of a billion in the bank and none of what's above? It depends entirely on what wealth means. And the world has been lying to you about what it means.

So here's what I'd do about this. Before Q3 starts, take ten minutes with a piece of paper.

How many days in the last six months did you spend the way you would have spent them if money were not a factor?

Who's on your calendar that wouldn't be there if you were free?

If you died next Friday, what would your family say about what you traded for what you have?

Then change one thing your money is buying this week so it buys you a day instead of a thing. Trade it for a real day with the people you'd actually choose if nobody was paying you to choose differently.

There's a proverb that nails this. Proverbs twenty-three, verses four and five.

"Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven."

The writer isn't telling you money is evil. He's telling you not to wear yourself out chasing it, because the second you fix your eyes on it, it grows wings and flies. The thing you're killing yourself to catch is the thing least worth catching at the speed you're running.

Wisdom is knowing when to stop pedaling. Now would be a good time to get some.

Read the full post at therealjasonduncan.com/articles. Link is in the show notes.

Everything I just talked about comes down to one question. If the number isn't going to buy you the life you actually want, what does that mean for how you build your wealth? Most people are building toward a finish line that doesn't actually buy anything they care about. Which brings me to this week's sponsor.

If the number was never going to deliver what you actually wanted, the strategy you've built around chasing it might be solving the wrong problem.

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Bank On Yourself is a strategy designed to support a life, not to chase a number. It's predictable, controllable, and built for the long arc. It's the kind of wealth-building you can do while you're actually living, instead of after you've finally hit the finish line.

My financial advisor is Mark Willis at Lake Growth Financial. If you want to find out what this could look like for your situation, you can get a free consultation with Mark by going to therealjasonduncan.com/bankonyourself.

That's therealjasonduncan.com/bankonyourself. Link is in the show notes.

Build wealth that serves your life, not the other way around.

That's a wrap on this Wednesday special edition. If today you saw a bar on your cage you hadn't noticed before, if you've been chasing a number that was never going to deliver, send this episode to one person who needs to hear it before they sprint through another year of the same chase.

The gold is the lie.

As always, I am your host, The Real Jason Duncan, and Jesus is King.