3106: My Single Greatest Achievement by Vitaliy Katsenelson of Contrarian Edge

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Finance Daily, My Single Greatest Achievement by Vitaliy Katsenelson of ContrarianEdge.com. And I'm your host and personal finance enthusiast, Dianna Merriam. Welcome back to another bonus Sunday episode. This is where we get to hear from one of our other shows in our podcast network. And today's comes from Optimal Relationships Daily. So with that, here's Greg as we optimize your life.

[00:00:30] My Single Greatest Achievement by Vitaliy Katsenelson of ContrarianEdge.com On Sunday, we drove my 18-year-old Jonah to the airport. He's taking a gap year after graduating high school and will spend the next two semesters in Israel. He'll be taking classes at American Jewish University, doing internships, touring Israel, and discovering himself.

[00:00:55] After we hugged Jonah and put him on the plane, my wife looked at my daughters, Hannah, 13, Mia, Sarah, 5, and said, You're not going anywhere. You'll be home-colleged. I share my wife's sentiment. Intellectually, you know that your kids will grow up, but you want to slow down the process as much as possible. Still, you know this day will come, and the only thing you can do is spend as much time as you can with them while they still live under the same roof as you.

[00:01:24] And when the time comes for them to leave, you just don't want to let them go. After we dropped Jonah off, my wife and I took our daughters to Vail for a day, where I drowned my sorrow in pasta and ice cream. I almost never eat either. This was a major off-the-wagon moment for me. When your kids leave for college, you somehow get to look back at your life through a different lens. You start asking yourself, did I spend enough time with them?

[00:01:50] Before Jonah boarded the plane, we exchanged letters. It was his idea. My wife and I wrote a letter to him, and he wrote one to us and his sisters. There was a paragraph in his letter that put tears in my eyes. Quote, Thank you for using your time to create great memories with me while still balancing everything else that you do. A while ago, you read a book about Warren Buffett. In this book, it talked about how Warren wished he had spent more time with his kids.

[00:02:19] You were worried that you weren't spending enough time with me. Don't worry. I can happily say that you were and are a great father. I have never in my life felt that you didn't spend enough time with me. End quote. This stands above everything else I have accomplished in my life. Everything else feels somehow temporary and insignificant. I remember when Jonah was a few years old. I held his tiny hand, and I was thinking, what will he be like when he grows up?

[00:02:47] I was trying to picture him as an adult. I could not. Now, I see an adult. I'm a adult, standing at 6'4", with a deep voice, a great sense of humor, curly hair, and a kind heart. Today, I look at my two girls and try to imagine them growing up. Just like with Jonah, I cannot. But they will. I have only 5 and 13 years left before Hannah and Mia Sara leave home. And though it feels far off, the time will fly, just like it did with Jonah.

[00:03:16] Now, I want to set new, higher standards for myself when I spend time with my kids. I recently read that attention is the currency of time. I want to make sure that when I spend time with my girls, I am there with them 100%. Not thinking about a stock or a book I just read, but giving them my full attention. Personal Finance Article Follow-Up I wanted to add an important point that I forgot to include in my personal finance article.

[00:03:45] Health, time, education, and experiences are categories of spending that are important to my family. And as a consequence, our budget for them is very loose. But just because they are important to us does not mean that they should be important to all my readers. Not at all. We are different. We have different values, different financial situations, and are at different stages of our lives. My categories were examples of my family's conscious choices. Here is another example.

[00:04:14] I have a friend. He is divorced and has a 21-year-old son he is very close with. He is a personal trainer and chooses to work 20 hours a week. He lives in an apartment that is slightly bigger than his car and that he shares with a roommate. His son lives on his own. He doesn't eat out much and generally leads a very modest day-to-day lifestyle. But he loves traveling. A couple times a month, he takes a three-day trip with his son to a new place in the US. They stay in cheap $60 motels.

[00:04:44] I get the feeling that spending time with his son is the main reason why he loves to travel. He also enjoys the experience of driving and, despite his modest income, leases a $35,000 car every two years. I doubt that he intentionally sat down and wrote out a budget. But he made a budget through intentional prioritization of his spending, elevating things he values and enjoys, travel and driving, and de-emphasizing things that are less important to him, like food and size of his dwelling.

[00:05:14] At this point in his life, he chooses to work just enough to cover his very limited needs. And here's the best part. He is incredibly happy. Just as a reminder, happiness equals reality, minus, properly calibrated, expectations. I unintentionally tied the two aforementioned articles together. Our personal budget should follow our values. We need to figure out what matters to us, our values, and calibrate and prioritize our spending accordingly.

[00:05:42] After all, money buys the most when it buys things we actually value. You just listened to the post titled, My Single Greatest Achievement by Vitaly Katzenelson of ContrarianEdge.com. And now a word from our sponsors at Betterment. When investing your money starts to feel like a second job, Betterment steps in with a little work-life balance.

[00:06:09] They're an automated investing and savings app, which means they do the work. While they build and manage your portfolio, you build and manage your weekend plans. While they make it easy to invest for what matters, you just get to enjoy what matters. Their automated tools simplify the complex and put your money to work, optimizing day after day and again and again. So go ahead, take your time to rest and recharge.

[00:06:36] Because while your money doesn't need a work-life balance, you do. Make your money hustle with Betterment. Get started at Betterment.com. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T dot com. Investing involves risk. Performance not guaranteed. When I started my conference, it felt like diving into the deep end. Each day brought new challenges. Design, sales, marketing. And I was drowning in decisions.

[00:07:06] Finding the right tools became my lifeline. For millions of entrepreneurs, that essential tool is Shopify. Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide and handles 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Launch confidently using hundreds of templates that create a beautiful online store matching your brand. Create content effortlessly with Shopify's AI tools that write compelling descriptions, craft headlines, and enhance photography.

[00:07:34] And mark it like a pro without a team. Plus, Shopify's experience covers everything. Inventory, shipping, returns, and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into... With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash OFD. Go to Shopify.com slash OFD.

[00:08:04] Shopify.com slash OFD. Thank you so much to Vitaly for a wonderful post and for sharing his wonderful realization about what achievement really means to him and for many others. If you know much about Vitaly, you know that he's a successful guy who has had many different ventures. I won't get into his whole bio, but with that being said, I think this article underhandedly highlights the fact that

[00:08:30] although we only have so much time, we can still harvest great family relationships while also making time for ourselves and fulfilling our own desires. One might argue that it's self-fulfillment that fuels us to do better by our family members, actually. Whether we have lofty personal goals or find simpler pleasures in life, like Vitaly's friend who he referenced at the end of the article, a portion I particularly enjoyed. It's not one or the other, my friends.

[00:08:56] It is being aware of your values, making them the focal point, and eliminating the nonsense around them. And that is how we are going to end this week. A lot to think about and hopefully some good reflection for you all this weekend. I hope you all have a great few days to unwind and relax, and I will be back with you on Monday with another post and where your optimal life awaits.