The Untethered Life: Wealth Redefined by Seth Streeter, TEDxSantaBarbara | Mission Wealth

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when i was in fourth grade i went to the circus for the very first time i loved laughing with the clowns and being thrilled by the daring high wire act after the show i walked behind the tent to see if i could catch a glimpse of the animals and there they were the magnificent elephants at first i was in awe but as i looked closer i was perplexed here were these six ton mighty creatures tethered by a small rope from their foot to a tiny stake in the ground i wondered why didn’t they just lift their foot and break free from the circus life clearly it would be easy but there they stood prisoners by their own defeat i later learned that working elephants have been conditioned since birth to believe that these tethers are insurmountable they attach permanent stakes to permanent chains and when they’re young they try to break free but eventually they surrender to the belief that they’re impossible to escape from and then they carry this belief throughout their adult lives we humans have tethers too we also carry beliefs that hold us back from living our ideal lives i didn’t realize this at the time but in

looking back i had a tether of my own that i’d been carrying from a very young age when i was a teenager i loved to sleep in but this was rarely the case let me give you a typical morning it’s 6 29 a.m and it’s cold outside because it’s winter in colorado but i’m lying in bed and i’m cozy and warm and i hear my parents come in from the early morning jog i know it’s almost time to get up and get ready for school but i want to stay and just sleep a few extra moments all of a sudden my door opens and my dad comes in he says seth get up people die in bed this was my normal alarm clock and let me tell you this alarm clock worked because you see i believed that laziness was bad and even to an extreme that laziness could equal death so i didn’t want to be lazy so i bolted out of bed ready to take on my day now unfortunately i wasn’t smart enough back then to realize that people also died working and this would have given me a completely different mindset but no i powered forward a life of being busy and productive believing that i was a taskmaster about always getting things done and i believe that success came through

a no pain no gain mentality and this worked for me in high school i got great grades i was in student government i played sports i was in uh i had jobs throughout high school and then i got into a great college and i continued the pattern double major honors student government intramurals fraternity i worked throughout college and i got a great job and i started one week after graduating because i needed to get ahead you see my definition of my self-worth was based on productivity and i believe that success was all about external things that could be measured like grades income earned awards won and i was great at it in a traditional sense all that focus on achievement allowed me to prosper i got married i advanced in my career i got a graduate degree i did an ironman triathlon i started my own company i got married i mean traditionally i was doing great but let me tell you that none of those external accomplishments brought me the peace that i was longing for inside and this led to problems eventually my marriage fell apart and my finances took a huge hit and i had multiple health issues arise

all of that external accomplishment didn’t bring me anything that i thought i had wanted all that wealth i’d worked so hard for just slipped away and then i realized that my my whole mindset had been backwards because this struggle ultimately became my blessing because my tether began to slowly unravel i woke up to the mindset that nothing external was really about wealth it was all about the opposite nothing that i could achieve out there would ever bring me what i was longing for in here and then it hit me that it’s all about your perspective of wealth that matters and when you redefine your perspective of wealth you redefine your life i’ve been a wealth manager for 24 years and i’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of family and seeing families and seeing how their money perspectives so profoundly impact their lives there is so much psychology with money from extremes of fear and greed to extremes of love and generosity money amplifies it all now as my personal lens shifted my professional lens shifted too and it was soon after this point that i received a call from a corporate

attorney named bob he told me he needed help with a five-year path to retirement so i remember driving to their home that next week going up the long driveway and seeing all the signs of success plush cars huge just stayed home and bob met me at the door and immediately he ushered me into their dining room where on their dining room table they had all sorts of papers tax returns investment statements mortgage statements and bob says what do i have to do to be done in five years bob let’s go ahead and sit down and we’ll figure it out so i start pouring through the numbers and again he says tell me how i can grind through to be done as soon as possible bob was clearly stressed out in his career clearly traveling all the time as a corporate attorney and i said bob what is it you love to do because clearly you don’t love your job what does this have to do with me retiring bob my job is not just to help you stop doing what you don’t love but it’s to help you do more of what you do love so what do you love to do bob just gave me a blank stare thankfully his wife sue was in the meeting she said bob honey

what you love is history you’re always watching the history channel you’re constantly reading biographies your history buff what does this have to do with our retirement plan so i planted a seed i said bob what if instead of you grinding through another five years as a corporate attorney which you don’t love you instead found a career in history oh yeah like that’s going to pay off our mortgage so i slowly then started to introduce some financial planning concepts where this pipe dream little by little became a little bit more realistic bob and sue realized that they would be willing to sell their big estate home once their boys were off to college they realized they didn’t need their country club because they hardly went there and bob admitted that he would be happy to work much later in life if he did work that he actually loved see do you want to know what happened two years later bob retired from his law firm and became a high school history teacher and he loved his work he came home so much happier that his relationship with his wife and his children greatly improved and sue who had a passion for travel and

never got to do it because bob was always gone now had to have wonderful got to enjoy wonderful family trips during the summers with her family so if you’re grinding through a career you don’t love just for the money you can rebuild and re-prioritize to have a life of with greater purpose sometimes we all need help a little nudge to focus on what really matters and wealth is knowing your priorities and living them and when you assess your priorities money is rarely at the top of the list i have seen over the years that happiness comes from non-material sources wealth is ultimately about meaning not how big your retirement account is and meaning comes from your relationships and the impact you have on others i experienced this firsthand last summer when my 13-year-old daughter and i went on a service trip to guatemala where we volunteered at an orphanage i remember our last day so vividly we woke up in our host family home and we walked past the countless stray dogs to get to the bus station where we hopped on a crowded chicken bus that motored its way up the windy mountain road with

big billows of smoke going behind we arrived at the blue gates of the orphanage about 45 minutes later and i remember we walked about 15 steps past the gates and then the kids saw us and they came rushing in our direction like every morning and the first hand to reach me as always was that of debbie debbie was an adorable four-year-old girl and i remember that morning she wore a sparkly dress with a matching sparkly hair tie that held back her long black hair into a ponytail and she had big sparkly eyes brown eyes that was almost as sparkly as a dress and like with every morning our routine was debbie would grab my hand and she would lead me around the property to smell the flowers first she would smell the flower and then she would yank me down and i would give an animated response and that brought giggles to devi which just absolutely melted my heart the day went by so quickly i remember we had a a tea party with worn out plastic teacups and we sing songs with the other kids and we played games and before we knew it it was time for me to leave we had to catch our last bus back into town

i was so sad about leaving debbie i wanted to give her something a token of my affection so i remember going to my backpack and looking inside my backpack to try to find something and all i found was a penny and so i went up to debbie and i said debbie i want you to know how special this time has been with you and you are such an incredible girl i will always remember you and keep you in my heart please take this penny as to represent the amount of caring that i have for you debbie and she took the penny and she gave me a hug of a lifetime and then with tears in my eyes i had to go say goodbye to the other children and the other teachers and it wasn’t until about an hour and a half later that my daughter and i were kind of debriefing about that farewell day and she told me that when she saw debbie to say goodbye to her she was standing with her hand clenched closed and she said debbie why is your hand clenched she said tengo and regardle i have a gift from your father and she opened her hand and revealed the penny and thankfully she took a photo of this precious moment for many americans a penny is

worthless it’s something we just toss away yet for me and debbie this penny was so valuable because it represented the meaning behind our connection and when there is meaning there is value so where do you find meaning and what do you value the choices you make every day around money and how you spend your time should be a direct reflection of your values yet millions of people are spending their time running from meeting to meeting battling endless emails dealing with heavy commutes all in an attempt to get ahead

debbie taught me two really powerful lessons that i’ve seen over the years with clients wealth is about appreciating what you have and by definition you’re wealthy as long as you want less than you have unfortunately this is not the case in our society the media teaches us to always want more and this is how wealth is typically portrayed probably why wall street and wealth are often considered evil influences in our society well contrary to this belief that wealth is all about material possessions i see the financial sector as one of the most powerful catalysts for positive transformation how we earn spend invest and give our money can be done with intention and caring humans across the globe are realizing that their money choices affect many others and they’re learning they can connect their finances to their values and as a result our money relationships are evolving career used to be about just getting the biggest paycheck today it’s about purpose alignment where people will actually work for less money if they believe in the purpose and the culture of the organization investments used to be just about bottom

line return but today it’s about return plus impact while people are investing with their values and there’s over 21 trillion today invested with a social mandate estate plans used to just be about distributions and taxes today family legacy plans and value discussions are being included shopping used to be about bottom line lowest price today consumers care how their products are sourced and what the purpose is behind the company that they’re buying from and success as i said used to be about material possessions but today millennials are leading the charge in looking at lifestyle metrics as factors of success and financial advice used to be just about numbers cash flow taxes investments but today we’re measuring many dimensions beyond the financial some examples impact is the level of impact you’re making in the community or the planet your emotional capital has to do with your levels of stress your general attitude the quality of your sleep your social capital is the caliber of your intimate relationships and your connections in the community your fun is your daily joy and how often

you have a huge belly laugh your physical capital is how your body looks feels and functions your spiritual wealth is your connection to a grounding framework beyond yourself your intellectual capital is the degree to which your mind is always growing and stimulated versus bored and your career wealth is when your talents values and passions are aligned in your employment we are what we measure and thankfully my industry is now starting to measure what really matters we are at an exciting turning point with money it’s becoming a positive catalyst for our planet and society it’s becoming more about meaning and values how we earn spend invest and give our money does matter wealth is being redefined by the quality of your life and by what you feel in your heart versus just numbers on a balance sheet are you investing your time and energy into what matters most to you or are you chasing someone else’s version of success maybe it’s time for you to pivot and pursue your own unique dreams leveraging all of your holistic capital for greater impact it’s time for you to say goodbye to deferred living

it’s time for you to untie your tether that’s holding you back it is time for you to become truly wealthy i know you can do this thank you [Applause]