Hello, everybody. It's Sam and Cindy from Financial Samurai. And in this episode, we want to talk about the best reason to retire early, which is years and years of greater happiness. And I don't think retiring early just provides years and years of greater happiness. It also provides an earlier rebound in happiness, and a higher peak level of happiness.

So I didn't really discover or realize, come to this epiphany until recently. And it's been over 10 years since I left my job in 2012. And only now do I see the light. After 45 years on earth, after more than 10 years of early retirement, I see the biggest benefit is greater happiness.

In the past, well, at least in the earlier years, I wrote about how early retirement isn't all sunshine and rainbows. I went through plenty of struggles trying to find meaning and purpose during my first two years, post traditional work. And I've also encountered plenty of miserable rich people. They have a few money, they can do whatever they want by any nice car, any nice home, fly private, whatever it is.

But yet, they still don't seem completely happy, because they're always comparing themselves to those with more. It's almost like they're their permanent black cloud. Years ago, I stumbled across this very famous American Time Use Survey chart. And it charts life satisfaction or happiness by age. And you start off at about a seven and a half, and it plummets down to the pit of uncertainty and the unknown, which is at around 6.7, when you're about 20 to 22 years old.

And then it creeps back up to a plateau of when you're 30 years old, and then it flatlines until about 52 years old, kind of dips down, and then it increases up, up, up until about 72. And then it kind of declines until you die. So that's kind of what we've seen before.

And I really didn't pay much attention to it because I was just too young and eager to make my money and make my mark in life. But now that I'm 45 years old, I see the meaning of the charts so clearly now, please click over to the show notes and to the post to see the chart for yourself.

Life satisfaction improves for most people once their lives become simpler and more secure, financially secure in particular. So Sydney, what are your thoughts on happiness by age? Do you believe in this chart? And how has your happiness risen and fallen over the years and particularly since I guess you retired in 2015?

I think my chart is very similar to what's pictured just at a shifted age range. So I definitely started out low with a lot of uncertainty in my career. And then as I got stable, it my happiness did plateau was just kind of every day was the same. There was different stresses involved, but my happiness wasn't significantly high or low, it was just kind of in the middle.

And then once I left my traditional job, I definitely felt like my happiness went up. Can you quantify the numbers like while you were working? What was it out of 10? While I was working on some days, it was probably like a five other days, maybe it was a six, seven.

So it's just kind of, you know, plodding along. And then after 2015, I would say it's definitely been above an eight. Wow, above an eight. Yeah, it's pretty high. I think so. I think I'm pretty happy. I think I'm happier than you on most days because I'm permanently smiling.

I often walk down the street and people smile back and I'm thinking to myself, why are you smiling me and then I really strong facial muscles. I think Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. But I think smiling a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, quick pro tip, life tip, just smile more.

It's free. It's easy. And it actually tricks our brain into thinking that we're happy even if we're faking it. I learned that. And then maybe you overcome the fake to actually turn into a happier person. There you go. So it's good to hear that you were happier after retiring.

For me, I was happier too. But I felt a lot of uncertainty for the first six months from 2012 to 2013. Because I wasn't sure whether this was the right thing to do. And you're also doing it alone. When I when I left, I had you and we were doing it as a team.

So you didn't feel as uncertain after you retired early? No. What about money? What about your career aspirations? You know, what are hopes and dreams in terms of my career? I I did. I did everything that I wanted to add that job. So I didn't feel like I was leaving anything on the table.

I didn't want to stay and try to become my boss. I saw what he was doing and the types of stress that he had. And I did not want that. So I I left at what I consider my high point, which I think is a good thing. And I knew that the next phase of career, I wouldn't call myself retired.

I'd call myself semi retired, was just going to provide a lot more flexibility and more opportunities to use my creative side, which I was really excited about. Can you provide some examples of the creative side you're talking about? Sure. So writing, doing editorial work, also a lot of parenting, which involves a lot of creativity and patience.

So I had I had, you know, a lot of my life in parent, like in the depths of parenthood after I left traditional work. And I think that's also why my happiness was higher. Yeah, it is definitely hard. But it also brought a lot of joy and new adventures into my day to day and yours, too.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about this creative side for a minute, because let's say there was no writing or editing, anything to do with financial samurai at all. Would you still be as happy? I think so. Well, what other creative things would you do if I had all the energy and time in the world?

Maybe I would create some kind of organization, business or something to do with landscaping. But obviously, that's not something that I want to actually turn into a career. But you put me on the spot. So that's just the two creative things that came to the top of my mind.

I think I think most listeners in terms of retiring early, I mean, the biggest fear of retiring early is not having enough money, not, you know, running out of money. And that was my anxiety for a long time. And then that anxiety kicked in again in 2017. After our son was born, even though we had enough passive income to cover our expenses, I think there's like a DNA component to parents, maybe to fathers in particular, that we've got to go out there and forage and hunt and earn money.

So I'm just curious from a female's point of view, father's point of view, the correlation with money, stress and happiness, I just want to learn more from you. Well, I feel like now that we've, we've, you know, been together for so long, I don't view our finances as, you know, only mine and only yours.

Sure, we still have separate bank accounts. But I feel like we're a combined team, because there are a lot of things that we do together as a team in terms of our, our financial goals, our savings goals and investing. And I, it's not like I was starting my retirement with nothing, right?

I had all the money that I've been saving and investing throughout my career. So I didn't feel like, you know, how am I going to buy groceries today? I have nothing in my bank account. I didn't have those kinds of fears. And thanks to your insights along the way, you know, I've been able to build passive income streams of my own.

So, you know, I have that money coming in as well. And it's not like I was planning on never working ever again. I'm working part time and generating value to the business. Yeah, that's right. And I think it's great that we have something intellectual to do, which is, you know, write and edit, writing books and podcasting, figuring out all the back end stuff that happens behind the scenes as well.

That takes a lot of brainpower. Sometimes, you know, running a website's not as easy as it may seem sometimes. Yeah. And that's the thing, folks, when you listen to a podcast or see creatives do work, there's a lot, there's tons of behind the scenes work that needs to be done.

So it seems seamless, so that the end production value is what you hear, which is generally usually flawless. Well, not flawless, but really good enough. And so let's give some support and a round of shout outs to people who take the time to create and take risks. Based on your feedback, Cindy, it seems to me that happiness after retirement or before retirement increases if you have someone, if you have a teammate, if you can rely on someone, you're rock, who will never let you down.

Because if I like, I don't know, it's one of those things where yeah, if you have, I don't know, a trust fund or family wealth, whatever, will that make you happy? I don't think it'll make you happy. I think it'll make you comfortable. And hopefully, maybe it'll enable you to take more risks.

But what I'm trying to say is, life is probably less happy and harder if you're alone. Oh, yeah, for sure. So let's say hypothetically, I was not around to grind all those years after you left work in 2015. You know, you only had to rely on yourself. I was not in the picture.

Do you think your stress or happiness level will be would have been different? Yeah, of course, it would be different. My whole life would be very, very different. If I was alone at that time, would I have a lot more fear? Certainly. You know, I wouldn't. If I was by myself, and you know, FS wasn't a part of the picture, then I would have, you know, a lot, a lot harder time figuring out how I could work independently, for sure.

That'd be a very, very different experience. Right. I think it's just, I'm just trying to understand the differences with men and women. That's really fascinating to me. I actually felt tremendous stress at some point after 2012 to be a provider, and it was after our son was born. And I felt, you know, stressed with the pandemic, in terms of protecting our children from an unknown enemy, invisible enemy.

And but now I don't feel as stressed anymore. I've decided to take things easier. I've tried, I've decided to throttle my efforts. Because I'm just tired. And I think we have enough money. And what do you think about the importance of matching efforts in a relationship? I think it's really important.

It also goes back to having a partner that you share financial values with. I think a lot of marriages and partnerships run into trouble when, when a team's financial goals are too divergent from each other. And it can just create so much stress and tension. So the closer aligned two people are with their finances and their career goals and any kind of goal, and for that matter, I think the better things tend to turn out, don't you think?

I think so. Yeah, alignment is really important. It's one of those things where you don't want to take an eight hour road trip with your best friend because you might end up killing each other, because something is eventually going to be misaligned. So relationships take work, alignment takes work.

I'm curious, you know, over the past 20 plus years that I've known you, when were you the least happy? The least happy was during certain phases of the last job that I had, because the stress that I went through was immense. I was doing a lot of project oriented work.

And there was so much pressure on me to figure out how to solve a bunch of problems. And if I couldn't figure it out, then not only was I letting down my boss and my teammate, but I was also letting down a client. And that impacted a lot of things.

It impacted, you know, my, my employer's business significantly. So I just had so much weight and pressure on me at certain times. And it was really, really hard to go through that for long stretches of time. Right. One of the best reasons to retire early is you can escape from toxic people or people who bring you down or don't appreciate you or expect you to work like a dog with no commensurate reward.

Yeah, I could see that. Speaking of no commensurate reward, I recorded over 100 episodes of the Financial Samurai podcast since 2017 with no financial reward. Did you know that? I did not. Yeah, I've gotten no sponsors. I haven't looked for sponsors. Yeah, I've I've mentioned affiliate partners before, as well as my book, but there's no specific sponsor for the Financial Samurai podcast.

And I've done that on purpose because I wanted to go light to be able to go far. I didn't want to have to negotiate business development deals and negotiate rates and all that I just wanted to record. And I like to communicate and share our thoughts and feelings in a different medium.

So this is something that's really important for those of you who are working now or who want to retire early, definitely retire to something that you enjoy doing, that there might not be any money involved. I write because I enjoy communicating. I like to do this podcast because I hope one day our children will be able to listen to what mom and dad said during the pandemic, pre pandemic, post pandemic, I think it'd be wonderful for them.

Yeah. And we're just going to continue to do this because we enjoy the work. I would say my happiness today is about an eight out of 10. I'm happier because the pandemic has died down and our daughter is three. So based on our experience with our son, between the ages of three and five is when my anxiety decline about him hurting himself all the time.

Now we can, you know, let her be for, it's not as scary to get out of the playground. We can just kind of kick back a little more or just letting her be by herself in a room. Maybe she's not going to like ingest. I didn't tell you this, but she almost clogged her toilet the other day.

She was in the bathroom and I was doing something and the other room and I was like, wait a minute, it's too quiet. What's going on? And I went in there and she had stuffed about half a roll of toilet paper in the toilet and thank God she hadn't tried to flush it yet.

So I was able to save that disaster from happening, but she didn't hurt herself, but she can still cause mayhem. Yes. But yeah. So hopefully she won't swallow that metal ball or anything and just fall off a cliff and all that. Anyway, so I'm happier because I'm less worried about our children.

Our daughter is specifically hurting herself. I'm happier because our son is happy to go to school every day, which is the most a parent could hope for. I'm hypersensitive to bullying. I remember growing up in a really bully atmosphere in Taiwan, Malaysia, in Northern Virginia, and maybe it's just me.

I'm always getting the fights, but I think it's always because I'm sticking up for myself. Like you can hit me and I will feel the pain. I'll take that pain, but I'm going to hit you back if you come for me. So I've had that kind of attitude my entire life.

I don't demur to aggression. So this is going to be interesting as our kids get older. How are they going to deal with hardships and conflicts? I'm also happier because we go play pickleball once or twice a week when both our children are in school full time, which is right now, Tuesday and Thursday, and it might shift to Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the fall of this year.

So we have more free time. And here's something interesting. So most of the pickleball players we play with are in their sixties or older. Yeah, definitely. Their children are adults and they seem pretty happy. They seem worry free. And some of them bring their children to play and they seem really happy.

And while on the pickleball court, it also feels like I've transported 20 years ahead while still having the fitness of a 45 year old. So it almost feels like cheating a little. Like I feel like we're both retired kind of, but I'm 20 years younger, so I'm going to be able to womp on them on the court.

Yeah, that's true. I don't look at it that way with the people I'm playing with. I'm playing with like, you know, nice retired teachers and whatnot. But I look at it as, you know, as a fun way to get to know friends through the game and also get, you know, insight into the wisdom that they've learned in those 20 years that we haven't lived yet.

Yeah. Yeah. Just my competitive nature. I'm thinking, hmm, best reason to retire early is to gain this unfair physical competitive advantage to do more fun activities before our health fades. Our health will inevitably fade. So it almost is kind of like cheat mode, you know, to fast forward in time, let's say when we're 65 years old, but to have the physical fitness of a 45 year old or younger.

Yeah. I mean, especially as an athlete for you, I can definitely see how great that is. And for me too, just I'm not in really into sports, but just still being able to do fun things that do require being physically healthy are great because both of my parents are in their seventies now and man, they are in a lot of trouble, like health wise, they just have so many ailments and aches.

And, um, you know, when I was looking at the happiness chart, I was like, yeah, they unfortunately didn't get that peak of happiness, you know, after they retired, I feel like they just had too many health issues. So being able to cheat that early, um, can definitely lead to more happiness.

So I think everybody, it's important to stay active, eat properly, and don't just wing it. You've got to take action to consistently stay active, be in the sun an hour a day, go for walks, stay physically active because, you know, our health is everything. Our health is everything. What is that great saying?

A sick man only wants one thing. A healthy man wants everything. Basically, if you don't have your health, you just want your health and nothing else matters. I think it's also important to diversify our happiness. You know, the people who retire or retire early and who are in the most trouble had too much of their identity wrapped up in their job.

You know, they too much recognition, desire for recognition day to day, no, not as many hobbies or no hobbies, no, you know, people they hang out with. It was just all about their job. And so when they lose that through retirement or otherwise, there's more hardship. And for you, I feel like you didn't really like your job.

So you're, you're happy to leave towards the end. Yeah, it was just becoming too much for me. And for me, I loved my job for the first, let's say, nine, 10 years, and then financial crisis hit. And then the correlation with effort and reward didn't correlate anymore. And then there's too many office politics and you know, the business suffered.

So it was not wasn't as fun. So I think diversifying your sources of happiness is important. So right now, I think it's very, very important. We don't just focus on our children for our source of happiness, because our children will inevitably have rough times. There's another great saying, our happiness is only as great as the sadness of our least happy child or something like that.

Our happiness is only as happy as our least happy child. Okay. And the reason why is because when our children are in pain or hurt, we feel that pain, right? We absorb all of that. So currently, I'm trying to diversify my sources of happiness through pickleball, to try to be the best pickleball player I can be.

And also, as an author, I plan to write a second book and a third book to come up with that wonderful all time classic bestseller that will be backlisted for decades to come. I think that's gonna be a fun challenge. It's a daunting challenge. But those are my sources of happiness, family, creativity and athletics.

How about you? What are your diverse sources of happiness? Family is obviously a huge one. Pickleball is my newest one from November of last year. And then volunteering at school, which is still kind of related to kids, but I definitely love doing that and being involved with the schools.

And I also would throw gardening out there. Deweeding is my fun way of meditating and getting fresh air and making the yard look good. Oh, sounds good. It's good diversification. Finally, I want to leave you all with my one word definition of happiness. And that's progress. So long as you're making progress, whatever it is in your relationship, in your profession, in your business, with your children, you're happy.

But as soon as you stop making progress, something has to change. You have to mix things up. You've got to try something new in order to get that progress back. Because if you're coasting, right, there's another saying if you're coasting, you're going downhill. And when you're going downhill, that's not a direction that most of us want to feel.

Yeah. Feeling happy is priceless, folks. If you're miserable at your job, then retiring earlier or taking on a better job for less pay is absolutely worth it. I know it's hard to quit the money. I know it's hard to quit maximum money. But the problem is there's always more money to make.

And there's never another second to create. So if you're on the fence about retiring early or taking things easier, and you have enough savings and enough passive income, at least you're on the right direction. I would take that leap, you will find something you enjoy doing. And inevitably, I think you're going to find something you enjoy doing that will also pay you some money in the process.

There is that term, this term called ikigai, which is to do what you love, to do what the world needs to do what you're good at, and to get paid for doing what you love and you're good at. And so if you can find that it really will bring up that happiness level and reduce the amount of grits you will feel in your life.

So thanks so much, everyone for listening to this latest episode. If you would like to subscribe to the weekly newsletter, check out financialsamurai.com/news. If you would like to support my work, check out financialsamurai.com/buythisnotthat. And we'll see y'all later. Bye, everybody.