Zero savings, 'dream jobs' and nest eggs
Millionaires are dreamers, but not about cushy retirements!
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:55 AM ET Oct 3, 2006
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "If you are creative enough to select the ideal vocation, you can win, win big-time," says Thomas Stanley in "The Millionaire Mind." "The really brilliant multimillionaires are those who selected a vocation they love."
Guess what, the rest of us got it all wrong. Our obsession with regular savings may be totally off-base, distracting and misleading. Why? Because the relentless drumbeat about savings may be just a broker's self-interested sales pitch to generate more fees. So maybe you should stop being so obsessive about savings. Maybe there's something more important in life than working at a job you don't like in order to save up a nest egg for a cushy retirement 20 to 30 years from now.
Warning: Our brains have a bad habit of focusing on bogus targets, then tenaciously staying the course, no matter what. We give up today's dreams for fantasies that may never come true. We waste what's really important, hoping to be relieved from life's burdens when we retire. But what if that distant fantasy isn't "there" when we get "there?" What if you sacrifice your dreams, only to discover (when it's too late), that the dream you gave up wasn't worth the little nest egg you saved?
A year ago I was in one of Starbucks' 11,000 shops and it struck me that Americans were wasting their future retirement security by indulging in the instant gratification of their daily habit that's made coffee America's second biggest import, driving an $11 billion business. The math is simple: five bucks a day per latte and muffin compounds to $200,000 in 30 years, which is larger than the nest eggs of most Americans at retirement.
That's right: The average American has less than $50,000 in savings at retirement (exclusive of home equity). Two out of three aren't saving enough. No wonder our nation's savings rate is in negative territory. Worse yet, as meager as Social Security is, half of our population over 65 would live in poverty without it.
Last year I reviewed 10 reasons why 65% of Americans were not saving "enough." Ten reasons, all negative: Too busy, distrustful, too complicated, hate math, uninterested, naïve, etc.
This year, let's look a some positive reasons why people don't saving "enough," why people are choosing to live for today rather than save for a fuzzy, unpredictable tomorrow.
Forget Starbucks, go for a 'Dream Job!'
This shift in perspective -- looking at the positive rather than negative explanations for America's subzero savings rate -- hit me suddenly while reading the October Men's Journal. Check it out, there really is a radically new way to look at the problem.
Maybe Americans aren't wasting their future. Maybe we're actually "giving it away," getting out of ourselves, helping others, serving a larger purpose, fulfilling our unique mission in life. Maybe all the saving and getting rich hype really isn't as important as Wall Street wants us to believe.
Men's Journal's feature on "Dream Jobs" was loaded with inspiring stories. For example, Dr. David Jenkins, a physician, goes on a luxury charter cruise surfing off Indonesian. Suddenly he's "surrounded by 100 desperate people ... One woman was literally brought to me in a wheelbarrow. Later she died. She had pneumonia, very treatable, but it was just too late. Malaria, anemia, tuberculosis. The chief of the village asked me to run a clinic. It was then I knew I was going to do something."
Do "something?" You bet. He "founded SurfAid which assists regions connected to the surf community." Then he said something about savings that inspired me: "Working to end suffering became more important than saving my money to buy BMWs or whatever."
"Dream Jobs" tells us: "Work defines who we are." Work consumes most of our daily lives, what we learn and contribute to life, and "to an arguably unhealthy degree, whether we're happy. That's why it's so important to find a job you love." So Men's Journal asked eight inspiring guys "what they do right that the wannabes do wrong" in the pursuit of that elusive dream job. They came up with eight "guiding principles" that create dream jobs:
1. Find your passion and follow it
Nobody will kid you that it's easy, or the money comes fast, or ever comes. But when I was doing career counseling back in the 1980s, this was rule No. 1 from every expert in the field, and millionaires next door say it still is.
2. You can't be too obsessive
Mark Cuban is hyper-obsessive. But it made him a billionaire during the dot-com mania. Enough to buy the Dallas Mavericks. Obsessions start early: "When I was 16, buying and selling stamps, I learned that most people don't do their homework." Obsession gives you a competitive edge in knowledge.
3. A little narcissism goes a long way
Men's Journal's readers' poll found 83% are deskbound, like X-Games champ, Will Gadd. Then "I quit my office job a decade ago to do adventure sports full-time." His first competition was ice-climbing. Netted him $13,000 in 1998. Red Bull is now his sponsor. "If you get good enough at anything in the world, somebody will pay you to do it."
4. Accept risk with confidence
As commander of the space shuttle Discovery, astronaut Steve Lindsey knows risk. He trains hard: "It can't ever be completely safe, but within limits there's an acceptable level of risk." You compete with confidence, ready for the inevitable curveballs.
5. Don't be too cautious
Phil Simms knows how to push the envelope and win. Proof? His Super Bowl ring from days as New York Giants quarterback: "You've got to be free enough in your mind to the point where your body is right on the edge of going out of control, but not quite."
6. Always set new goals
Born in Ethiopia, raised by a Swedish engineer, Marcus Samuelsson fell in love with cooking, and got scholarships in Switzerland and France. He keeps raising the bar: Executive chef, part owner, now of several restaurants. Michelangelo once said: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
7. Choose your allies wisely
Chris Carmichael started training with Lance Armstrong as a teen. Gifted people often "float along on there extraordinariness," never really push themselves, never reach full potential. Mentors, coaches, teachers, you need allies that drive you to achieve.
8. Know when you have a duty
Remember Dr. Dave Jenkins, surfing on a luxury cruise? The dying woman in a wheel barrow. The tribal chief who needed a clinic. A wake-up call to "do something." He knew he had to a duty, and created SurfAid: "My personal belief is that, for all of us, the best way to deal with our own problems in life is to help someone else."
Burn these eight "guiding principles" into your brain: They are "as useful for staying at the top of your game as for launching a second career or catching your first break." Bottom line: Never, never, never put saving for some distant, elusive retirement fantasy ahead of "investing" in your "dream job" today!
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