185. The Highest Form Of Wealth Is Control

Freedom is not a luxury item you buy once you hit some magic number. For us, it is the ability to wake up and know you have choices, even when life does not go to plan. We dig into Chapter Seven, “Freedom”, from Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money and get honest about why so many people feel trapped despite earning well, and why others have time but not enough money to live with ease.

We talk about the real target: balancing time and money in a way that matches your lifestyle and values. That does not require billions of rands. It requires clarity on what “enough” looks like for you, steady saving, and a plan that can bring forward your options long before traditional retirement age. We also explore the hidden cost of being permanently busy, especially in demanding careers, and why chasing income without time can create problems that money cannot easily fix.

A big part of financial wellbeing is preparing for the “what ifs”. As financial planners, we do not only plan for the version of you who is working and earning today. We look at what happens if you get sick, cannot work, or need to protect your family. We link this to research on happiness that points to one powerful driver: a strong sense of control over your life. Like a farmer cannot control the weather but can prepare for drought or floods, you cannot control every curveball, but you can build resilience through smart protection, savings, and goals.

If you enjoy practical conversations about financial freedom, financial planning, and building real-life options, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave us a review.

Transcript

Welcome To Know Your Money

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello everybody. Welcome to Know Your Money. I'm Bronwan Wayner.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

And I'm Craig Finch, and we are from Growth Financial Planning. We hope you enjoy our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hello, everybody. We are back here today. Hello, Craig. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yes, good thanks in you. Next chapter of this exciting book.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

So

Defining Freedom Beyond Wealth

SPEAKER_01 0:30

again, we have Morgan Hausel's Psychology of Money book with us, and we're on chapter seven. And that chapter is called Freedom. And the tagline in the beginning is the highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, I can do whatever I want today. And I don't think very many people can do that. And we strive for freedom. I think one of your core values is this chapter, which is how do you live a life full with time and money? So not just money and no time for family or things that you love, and not just time and no money. So what would you define freedom as?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So I I think this the money side of it doesn't have to be billions of rands. I think that's where people get it wrong. It's your lifestyle that suits you, whatever it might be. And it might be a very frugal lifestyle, but it but it must be a situation where you've got enough money that you have enough time to enjoy it.

Balancing Time And Money

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And we see too many people around in careers, especially in big business, and businessmen and women, and they spend all their time at work, working hard, no time for their family, no time for themselves. And that's a real problem later on. And yeah, there's other issues that come with that. And then we see people who don't have enough money and all the time in the world, and that's another problem as well. So you need to have that balance. The balance is very important, but I'm saying that you don't have to have billions of rands to have the balance. Whatever your lifestyle is, you need to have saved a bit more that you can have the time, and you can at a point in time, whatever that point in time is for you, it doesn't have to be retirement age 65. It's it could be earlier than that. You could plan it, that you can opt out of doing what you're doing and have more time to whatever you enjoy doing, whether it's travel, being with your family, helping other people, whatever it might be, and that's the balance that's hard to get, but it's

Control, Happiness, And The What Ifs

SPEAKER_00 2:34

important.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So important, and I think that's where our philosophy that we have at growth is is so important. And freedom is the ability to know that any version of you would be okay if something happened, because you're not just saving for retirement and then not enjoying life today, and you're not just working and then you don't have a policy in place for if you get sick, for example. I think freedom is so Morgan talks about the control, but I think freedom is the ability to have a sense of control around all the what ifs that could happen in your life. And as financial planners, we are supposed to help clients see not only the version we see sitting in front of us, so the career person and what they're gonna do. It's what happens if that

Farmer Analogy And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_01 3:33

person gets sick, what happens to their family. And I think that's where the wheel of wealth that we've created works so well. Because if you can see, okay, I've got a policy in case something happens to me. Okay, I'm saving a portion of retirement, I've got my savings goal. If you're doing all of those, you allow yourself time and money in any of those versions, and it is so much about trying to find the balance. In the book, they talk about um doing all these studies and trying to figure out what happiness, how you can define happiness. And the biggest thing that they've found is that happiness is where people want to be able to know that they can control their lives. And Angus Campbell's definition of happiness is having a strong sense of controlling one's life is more dependable, is a more dependable predictor of a positive feeling of well-being than any of the objects, conditions of life we have considered. So you're gonna feel more happy with your life being in control and knowing that you're in control if something else happens.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Do you agree? Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And as you say, it doesn't have to just be at retirement, it can it must be throughout your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Very good.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

And like if you think about a farmer, so let's use an analogy here, for example. A farmer can't control the weather, they can't control if there's gonna be a drought or if there's gonna be a flood, but they can prepare for those situations and they'll feel happier if a flood came, knowing that okay, I'm I'm prepared. I know what to do with that. Life is gonna throw these different things around, and we can't control everything, but you can control knowing what predictable things might happen and then feeling okay, and I think that's the biggest message or lesson in terms of freedom. Freedom doesn't mean never working and not doing something necessarily, because if you love working, that's not freedom.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, so time and money. Thanks, Brian. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Awesome, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast, would like to subscribe, please visit our website www.growthfp.co.za. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.