If you want to give back to the younger generation…

Transcript

One of the things I try to do to give back to the younger generation as a retiree is I try and acknowledge my privilege as much as possible. I've been the beneficiary of a countless list of privileges, and not very many people are going to have that same massive list of privileges that allow them to retire. So I want to acknowledge those to people when I'm talking to them about my retirement so they understand that I had some advantages they may not get. And one of the biggest privileges that I had was I was insanely lucky. I just stumbled into one lucky situation after another, and not everybody's going to be able to do that. So I try and acknowledge to young people when they talk to me about their privilege. I tell them, you know, what did you do? When did you start planning? Tell them, I just got extremely lucky. It takes away my agency, yes. Like, I lose a little bit of that credit for my success. But I'd like to think that it also takes away some of the futility they might feel. Because they might be doing all of the things that I could say they should be doing. Working hard, making the right decisions. Delaying gratification. And still not be seeing a pathway to a happy retirement. So if in their mind they can say, well, the only reason that guy's retired is because he got lucky. It doesn't mean that they stop doing what they're doing. It just means it takes away some of the indictment they may feel for not being more successful at the time that they're in. So if you want to help young people, acknowledge your privilege. Say, well, I've got a lot of money. I really got lucky. Or, well, my uncle was in the business. And he was a super smart dude. And he kind of took me under his wing. And I don't know that everybody's going to have that. And like I said in a previous video, I had probably hundreds of privileges. You know, other than the obvious privileges. I had hundreds of privileges that I was able to take advantage of. And, you know, I'm not going to list them all in every conversation. But I think people need to know. That sometimes some of us were able to retire when we were because of advantages we had that they may not have. It doesn't mean that they give up. It just means it takes a little pressure off of them to feel like it's 100% on them to make it happen.