8 Things Healthy High Net Worth Families Do Differently

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]As a financial adviser for over 20 years, I was fortunate to work with hundreds if not thousands of millionaires. And I also am personal friends with about a half a dozen billionaires. And in today's video, I want to share with you what I learned from those billionaires and the what I call ultra high netw worth families because what I learned from them changed my life. There's some things I took away and I think there's some things you'll take away as well. And the first one is ultra high netw worth families that are functioning well that are healthy uh families to have healthy dynamics. They view money as a tool candidly. They view it as a as a tool for for two things.

[00:00:45]One is to make more money. But more important for this video, it's also a tool to help them help the people and causes they care about become the best versions of themselves that they can be.

[00:01:01]For instance, if they have a a child that, you know, is is interested in keeping the Puget Sound beautiful and clean, you know, that person's probably never going to make a lot of money, but they can become world class at what they do. And so ultra high netw worth families will support that, will support their education. They may not start a company for them to keep the Puget Sound clean, but but they're going to support that child and help them become the best version of themselves, help them pursue that ambition. And I think we all can do that at a different scale, at a different level. But there are things that we can do to to help the people that we care about in our lives and help our family members. Uh oftentimes it doesn't take that much money to support somebody and and make a difference and allow them to pursue their biggest dream. So that's the first one. The second one is and and you know guilty as charged. They're not afraid uh to spend $10 to make $100. They're not afraid to invest in professional advisors, attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, um, to help them out because as their tax situation gets more complicated, they know they can benefit from from having best-in-class knowledge and services. Um, for instance, there's a lot they can do from an estate planning standpoint. Speaking of which, you know, I'm not an attorney, but all of us should have at least a simple estate plan. Things that um that dictate who we want our assets to go to. Things that dictate if you still have kids that are under the age of 18, who you want in their lives to help raise them. Uh things that dictate our healthc care initiatives. Uh maybe something called a durable uh I'm sorry, a springing power of attorney. So when we no longer have the mental facilities uh to make big decisions, financial decisions, we've we made we made the choice of who we want to do that when we did have those facilities when we did have that thought process. So it's not just for the ultra wealthy people. Like I said, I learned a lot from them. So having a good estate plan, it doesn't have to be crazy expensive. Um same thing with taxes.

[00:03:28]Taxes are one of the biggest expenses retirees uh have and probably 80 or 90% of the people I know are just reactionary to their tax situation.

[00:03:39]They're not thoughtful and deliberate and strategic. And you can save thousands of dollars, likely tens of thousands of dollars working with an accountant to be strategic. So, it's it it's worth paying $10 to an advisor to have them help you save uh $10,000.

[00:03:59]Nothing I'm sharing here is financial advice. I'm not an accountant. It's definitely not accounting advice and it's definitely not legal advice. I'm not an attorney, but I think we can all learn from people that have spent a lot a lot of money on advisors, but they did that because they got a return on it.

[00:04:18]Okay, the next one, and this might be the most important one. The next one is spending money to stay healthy. Uh I have a a friend who's very very wealthy.

[00:04:31]He spends a ton of money on tests and diagnostics and getting everything measured. Why? Because he's at a higher risk than many people for some different health outcomes. Uh and doing what he can to to postpone those health outcomes. So, you know, what can we take away from that? You know, we may not be spending 10, 15, $20,000 a year in health testing, but many of us can go to the gym. We can uh take the time to shop. We can invest the time in buying good quality food so that we can stay as healthy as we can. And when the time comes, we can also invest in ourselves and and think about retiring because candidly working is a super stressful thing. I retired about two years ago now and I did not realize how much stress I was under until I retired. I thought, you know, it was a hard decision for me to retire. And fortunately, I'd seen other people's past and I'd made a pack with myself. thought was going to retire in my late 50s. I wasn't going to keep working into my 60s. And I'm super grateful. I I I kept that promise to myself because yes, I was able to do most of the things that I wanted to do in my life. Yes, the people I worked with, I really enjoyed. I had a kind boss. I I loved my job. But you know what? There's a life outside of work.

[00:05:59]And there's also a price to be paid from a health standpoint. in the US uh our culture of better, faster, cheaper and and things accelerating the the pace of change just accelerating. I just look at what's going on now with artificial intelligence and just the additional opportunity but also the additional stress that that's causing people. Um here I'm in this is the Puget Sound behind me. Um, Amazon just recently did a major layoff, 14, 15, 16,000 people.

[00:06:34]Um, before the holidays and then after the first of the year, they did another layoff. Um, and and so I think things are getting tougher for all for everybody that continues to work. So, ultra high netw worth families are investing in their health and in the health of the people that they love.

[00:06:52]Okay. The next one is just experiences.

[00:06:54]We've all seen the the photos of ultra high netw worth people jumping on a private jet and flying all over the world. That might be true, might not be true. Uh I have a a a friend that's uh fairly wealthy uh and he still can't get himself to pay for a first class seat um when he flies to Europe or go somewhere.

[00:07:17]So he's back in the coach coach section with you and I in the airplane.

[00:07:21]Experiences are important and and you know some experiences don't cost much money. I used to live in a small ski town in Utah and I would go to Sundance every year and you know the tickets to Sundance back then were $15 to $20. It didn't cost an arm and a leg to do things like that. But alternate worth families don't have to worry about that.

[00:07:43]So they can they can go do those experiences. One of the things that's on my bucket list, two of them, u one that's going to require a little bit of money and one that's going to require very little. One is to to go see an F1 formula race. I saw that Brad Pitt movie on uh Apple TV and it's like, you know what, I want to see one of those live. I may go to Vegas to do it or I may go somewhere else. The other one that's on my list is to do the uh El Camino de Santiago, which is really kind of a pilgrimage.

[00:08:14]It's a It's a hike. I'll probably uh they have places that you can stay along the way. Uh that's kind of communal u living. It's uh it's not hotels. It's there's not enough people for that. So, different uh families along the route open up their house and and have a sleeping room for people. So, I'm looking forward to both of those experiences. But they ultra high netw worth families are thinking about the experiences that they want to have and and working to provide those experiences um to folks and and on that subject there's a great book called Die with Zero that if you haven't read it's uh yet it's written by Bill Perkins and it talks about doing these adventures while we still have our health. I should have mentioned when I was talking about the advisors uh and paying $10 to save $100.

[00:09:08]I should have mentioned then, you know, not all of us can afford advisors. Not all of us need to uh pay for advisors.

[00:09:15]But I do think it makes sense for all of us to have a financial plan. And if you want to do your own financial plan, the software I recommend to do it yourself is Balden. I recommend it for three reasons. It's powerful. It's easy to use. And it's super affordable. So, we don't have to find a high-powered accountant or a high-powered attorney.

[00:09:37]But we we should all have a financial plan. Okay. And and the last one is high- netw worth people invest in supporting causes that they care about.

[00:09:48]I used to tell my clients, you know, you've for somebody that's got $5 million or $10 million or 20, whatever it is, yes, that's a lot of money, but you know what? They can't keep the Pugid Sound clean. They can't keep the the air clean. Um, but there are organizations, and this isn't political. These are just, you know, clean air and clean water is something I think we all care about. And there's organizations that hire people to to work on that. And we can support those organizations. And so, high netw worth people, seek out the organizations that can make the change that they want to see in the world, and then support them. And we can all do that. whe whether we're writing a check for $20, $20,000 or $20 million. And a super important decision for all of us is what age do we decide to retire so we can pursue a 100% of our time on the things that we care about. And that's why I made this video here. Why waiting to 65 to retire might be a big mistake.

[00:10:50]I'll see you in that one. Thanks for watching this one. Bye-bye.