Using finances as a tool to live a more fulfilling and balanced life as a physician IS possible.
Today’s episode of Finance for Physicians tackles the next level of owning your finances: Passing down good financial education to the next generation – your kids.
The guest that’ll help us guide you through this important and intimidating objective is David Delisle.
David is a born and bred entrepreneur, having made his first real estate investment at the ripe old age of 11(!!) He’s also the author of “The Golden Quest”, an interactive book that helps kids enjoyably learn about finances. (Some have called it “Rich Dad: meets “Calvin and Hobbs”!)
Topics Discussed:
- How to get kids interested in finance in the first place.
- When to start implementing these practices.
- How to make the learning process, for you and your kids, easier.
Tune in to this episode to explore how finances can be used to enrich the future of our children- and how we can get them interested in finance from the very beginning.
Links:
The Golden Quest: Your Journey to a Rich Life
Contact Finance for Physicians
Full Episode Transcript:
Daniel Wrenne Intro: Hey guys. Hope you’re having a great day. The past few shows we’ve been talking about using money as a tool to improve your family life. We’ve talked about things like managing money as a couple. We’ve talked about using frugality to make progress. We’ve talked about balancing the demands of being a physician and a dad, and we’ve talked about how to live more regret free lives.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: The theme which I’m sure you’ve noticed is really about living life first and using money as a tool to help really facilitate this. I think this is such an important topic, especially with the cultural pools that we’re all feeling going the complete opposite direction towards materialism and more money is always better.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: You have to be intentional about this stuff. Like you really have to carve out the space to be able to think about it this way, where what’s most important to you is the focus, and you’re using money as a tool to help make progress towards this.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: So today we’re gonna be digging into this topic a bit further, and in particular talking about how you can start to teach your children about this specific topic and using money as a tool to improve their lives. So it’s an important topic as it is, but especially with our children being our future, this is just a big deal. And as parents, it’s a tricky topic to bring up.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: So, maybe we aren’t confident in our personal finance knowledge yet, or maybe we made mistakes or maybe we just feel like it’s such an uncomfortable topic, we don’t know how to bring it up. I think our guest today is gonna be a great resource to help get you started in talking about this and talking about it in the right way.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: Our guest today is an author, an entrepreneur, and a real estate investor, He’s been investing for a really long time, since he was 11 years old actually, which is, he’s one of the first people I’ve talked to that started investing before I did. I don’t know how you started investing at 11 years old. He had to have had an adult involved.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: But anyway, he has two boys himself, 10 year old Noah and 13 year old Will, and they were part of the motivation behind his writing this book called The Golden Quest, the FUN Way to Learn About Money.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: And so he really has been leaning into this area of helping children to learn about money and in particular how to focus on what’s most important to them first and shape their money around that.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: So our guest today is David Delisle, and so we had a great conversation about why it’s so important to teach our kids about money. And we talk about some examples of how you can get started doing it today. And he shares why his book is such a great resource for helping us to get started now. I definitely enjoyed our conversation and I think you are too.
Daniel Wrenne Intro: So let’s jump in without further ado.
Daniel Wrenne: David, nice to be with you today. Thanks for coming. Yeah.
David Delisle: I’m excited to be here and talk about money.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. this is like two of my favorite topics together we’re gonna be talking about today.
Daniel Wrenne: We’re talking about money, of course, and then parenting and raising your kids. So those are I think, two super important topics. We’re gonna be talking about the two of ’em together and how we can better teach our children about money. David is in a unique spot. I think his parents motivated to help our kids.
Daniel Wrenne: I mean, that’s just innate thing. But David has kind of taken this thing to the next level and has been really leaning in on how he can better teach his children about money. And he has even recently released a book about how to teach your children about money. So maybe before we start to go down that road, David, can you share a little bit about what got you going down this path of like really leaning into how we teach our children about money?
David Delisle: Yeah, that’s a great question for me. So I was that money nerd that was reading books when I was like 11 and getting excited about it. So I remember doing all those things. Back in the day, we didn’t have index funds, so you’d read about different fund advisors and who was running different mutual funds, all the real nerdy stuff.
David Delisle: And then as my boys were getting older, I just started thinking about what type of values do I wanna pass on to them? What do I wanna teach? And a lot of the lessons were around money because my views on money over the years cause they’ve evolved, are fairly unique. And then in doing that, I started just creating this book of ideas that I wanna pass on to ’em. And then it just evolved. Evolved into a graphic novel, which is so fun. Cause that’s what kids are reading these days. They love their comics. And I thought, how can I make this fun? Distill all that information to what are the key messages that are really important that even for an adult, if you get this, money is not gonna be something that you stress over or worry about for the rest of your life.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. My sons are reading the graphic novels. They’re definitely super popular nowadays and it makes sense because they’re very visual and stories. And some of ’em even have like little short stories within stories. So it’s an entertaining way to do things. And I wanna talk about it in a little bit and circle back to this, but you know how you actually were able to do that while also teaching about money, that’s something I’m thinking about. But before we get into that, like you said, there was some unique things about you and money.
Daniel Wrenne: Can we talk about that first? What’s unique about how you view money?
David Delisle: So the big one is, I’ve always seen money as a tool and a means to an end. I never thought of money as how many things I could buy, but what the money can do for me and thought of it in terms of freedom, retirement, even at a young age. I didn’t use those words necessarily, but I saw it as a means to an end in that sense.
David Delisle: And then what I really discovered, especially in writing more and talking to more parents is and we briefly talked about this, this idea of money almost all of our conversations around it are, how do I have more money? Whether it’s from the saving end or the spending end, or the earning end. Everyone’s goal is how to have more.
David Delisle: And not that there’s anything wrong with having more, but I find it distracts us from the first lesson, which we should all be having, is why you want more in the first place? What really lights you up? And in the book I refer to it as the awesome stuff. What’s your awesome stuff? And what I found is if you don’t really have a clear understanding of why you want the money and what really what’s important to you, and the only thing you know about is how to have more.
David Delisle: It doesn’t matter what plateau you hit, you’re always looking at the next plateau. And so you never have enough. So this whole idea of what’s your awesome stuff? The mindset piece around that I find is sort of key to really not have money, be this massive stress in your life and you’re constantly chasing.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. If the end goal is money, money in itself brings zero happiness. Of course you can use it as a tool to improve life, but more money in itself does not change anything really. And in some cases it can make life worse.
Daniel Wrenne: Well, first of all, we’re not necessarily doing a great job in my opinion, of teaching our children about money, but probably even more important is we’re not doing a great job of teasing our children about mindset.
Daniel Wrenne: Or even values. And even purpose and what’s most important. And I think we could do six podcasts on that, by the way. But you’ve kind of bundled this all up. That’s the direction I have gone to with money is that, I think is such a intertwined vehicle.
Daniel Wrenne: If you’re using it right, you’re using it more as like a catalyst to other areas of life. But you have to get that life part first as the priority and really work on defining that. And I think that’s a good foundation. But did you have this mindset or mentality like as a child even?
David Delisle: A little bit as a child. It’s interesting though that it’s definitely evolved. Like even in the writing the book and talking about this more, I’ve noticed more and more how much money fades in the background and things have less value for me because I’m talking about it all the time.
David Delisle: I’m talking about what’s really important and what lights you up and. ~What you, ~What’s your awesome stuff? And so more and more of those things have less value.
David Delisle: So I had it a bit as a kid, but definitely it’s grown. And that’s what I love is this whole thing’s a journey and there’s no judgment in it.
David Delisle: So if your awesome stuff is expensive cars, expensive food or vacations or watches, it doesn’t really matter what it is that lights you up. It’s just really knowing, does it really light you up? Because it’s the chase that I’m trying to stop. So as you’re mentioning like the money in itself, what people don’t realize is there is no end to the chase.
David Delisle: And all we have to do is look at our athletes and our stars and our billionaires. Those people that are still chasing because there is no end to the chase unless they figure out what’s really important to them.
David Delisle: It doesn’t matter how much money there is, if you’re still thinking of money as the goal, you’ll never have enough. Cuz there’s always more you can have.
Daniel Wrenne: Right. It also makes you lean heavily towards, well I guess it depends on your lean, but me personally, If I go all in on money as the priority, I’m gonna just die like a rich old man. That’s how, cuz I’m a saver.
Daniel Wrenne: I grew up as like with the scarcity mentality. I have to be having resources so ~that I can, so ~that~ ~life’s not stressful and whatnot.
Daniel Wrenne: But if you just keep doing that over and over again, you never use any of your money and you die a rich old man. And nobody wants to do that. So I wasn’t as lucky as you to have that mentality early on.
Daniel Wrenne: In fact, the other day I was looking at my goal setting from early in my career, which is super interesting because it was like first goal, net worth, blah, blah, blah, and make income, blah, blah, blah.
Daniel Wrenne: They were all straight up money goals. And then I remember I had one on there that was in a couple years, I need to focus on like spirituality and relationships.
Daniel Wrenne: Which was, it was like the classic backwards.
Daniel Wrenne: Money was the primary goal. But I had to kind of learn through experiences that doesn’t, provide much or any happiness.
Daniel Wrenne: But with children, I think that’s the optimal time to start with this. How do you teach kids that mindset? How do you start early with this?
David Delisle: So this is what’s so amazing and to be honest, this is, I mean, I love the money stuff as I mentioned.
David Delisle: And I creating money and the habits to create money, but it’s this conversation that we’re having right now about the awesome stuff and what really is important to you. That is the reason why I’m doing this at all.
David Delisle: That’s really what I’m passionate about. Because it is so incredibly easy when you start talking about it. So when I talk about the awesome stuff. The awesome stuff, like you talk to a young child, it’s the same as talking to an adult.
David Delisle: If I ask you what your awesome stuff is, or a kid a lot of people just start thinking about what I wanna buy next. And they get excited and think about all these big things. And that is some of it.
David Delisle: But if I push you a little bit more, it’s not that there’s a judgment around it, but those things, like when you’re really thinking about what your awesome stuff is, you can feel it in your entire body.
David Delisle: You can’t stop smiling or talking about it or getting excited about it. So same with a child as parents, they might love Lego or Stuffies or you know their bike, we all know our kids have certain things they love. But also we know as parents, if we’re out on a vacation and we forget something at the hotel.
David Delisle: They’re gonna be devastated depending on what it is. If they lost something on a trip or it got destroyed, those few items that we all know all of our kids have that is the make or break for them. And that’s their awesome stuff. The rest doesn’t really matter. But if there’s a fire, you’re grabbing that thing because they’re gonna freak out if you don’t or if they got lost.
David Delisle: And it’s sort of the same as adults. Just getting aware of what that awesome stuff is. And this is where it gets really fun as a parent because then, if you’re in a grocery store and they’re pleading for a chocolate bar or you’re at a fair or they want an ice cream, rather than telling them yes or no or trying to explain we don’t have the money or getting in an argument with them as parents which we tend to do.
David Delisle: Just ask them, is that your awesome stuff? And having the child stop, reflect and look at that item and just ask themselves, is this the thing that I love? And then after that, it doesn’t really matter if they say yes or no, that’s not important. The fact that they paused and reflected and really thought, do I even care about this thing? That happens even with a five year old.
David Delisle: And then that same conversation continues for the rest of their lives. And so now they’re hyper focused on what really brings in happiness and what they really love rather than what they want in the moment.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. This past weekend, I think about a money experience with my kids. My oldest son, he’s nine, and he wanted to have a job to earn money which I think is fantastic.
Daniel Wrenne: And so I was doing some pressure washing and I’m like, “You’re old enough to do that. Pressure wash to the sidewalk”. And then, 10 bucks is what we decided. So he pressure washed the sidewalk for 10 bucks.
Daniel Wrenne: And then the middle son is like, “I wanna do it too”. And I’m like, “Okay, here’s another one for you, $5”. And so they both did the jobs and did a good job with it. And later on that day, they have their $15 and they’re like, “We want to go to the store” and my oldest is like, “I want to go buy Pokemon cards” cuz he is really into Pokemon cards. And I’m like, “Okay, well let’s see if we have the time” and we ended up having the time we went to the store. And then the middle son is like, “I wanna buy Pokemon cards” because the older son wanted to buy Pokemon cards. And then the youngest son fell in suit with them and wanted to buy Pokemon cards because my oldest son wants to buy Pokemon cards and then all the kids wanna buy Pokemon cards because of it.
Daniel Wrenne: So I think there’s a lot of money dynamics going on there. I probably missed some of ’em but I ended up letting them choose to spend all their money that they earned on Pokemons. Was that a good parenting move?
David Delisle: No, I was listening to that exactly. That’s the whole thing, let the kids do what they want. There’s too much judgment and money already. But if the conversation was around the awesome stuff, they start reflecting cuz that’s where I find my 13 year old for sure. All the outside influence of what everyone’s doing drives what he wants to buy and what he wants to do and where he spends his money.
David Delisle: So if they don’t sit on really what is important to ’em, they’ll do that. Oh, my older brother’s into these Pokemon cards,. Everyone’s into it so I should be into it.
David Delisle: Right. And you realize like one might really be into it.
Daniel Wrenne: I think the oldest, it was his awesome stuff. And then the two younger ones, were just following his awesome stuff.
David Delisle: And that’s the thing. So it’s not that Pokemon cards are bad. For the youngest ones, if this isn’t something that’s their awesome stuff, what else could they be buying instead or spending that on that really makes ’em excited? Because now they spent it. So in the moment went they were excited, they spent it just like their older brother and they’re hanging in there. But then a week later when you realize that these things are scattered around their bedroom, they don’t even care about ’em.
David Delisle: That waste. It’s that reflection of, is this your awesome stuff? And that’s the thing, is that same conversation, it’s Pokemon cards from the five year old. But for the 30 year old or the 40 year old or 50 year old, we can easily come up with a very similar conversation of those things and look through closets and my house.
Daniel Wrenne: How 30 year olds are buying Pokemon cards?
Daniel Wrenne: Well, that’s true. But maybe it’s their awesome stuff.
Daniel Wrenne: I know. Maybe. Or maybe they’re trying to make a living.
David Delisle: But that idea of just, if you look around, just that awareness, you’ll start realizing, how much stuff you have that doesn’t bring you happiness?
David Delisle: And that’s what I found even in having these conversations more and more that’s what you’re asking as 11 year old, to some degree I had that. But it constantly evolving and changing.
David Delisle: And that’s the thing, it will evolve and change. But as you notice more and more of those things that don’t really bring you happiness, you start realizing, what does?
David Delisle: A classic example would be like a parents, most important thing to me is spending time with my children. Whether that’s true or not, but you’ll hear that often. But then you look at the lifestyle and the choices and all the decisions they’re making and everything’s the exact opposite of that because it’s creating less time with their children. Because to fund that lifestyle and the work that’s required, they have zero time with their children.
David Delisle: So again, it’s just this refocus of what really is important to you. And it doesn’t matter if time your children is more important or work is important or the lifestyle, it’s knowing what is most important.
David Delisle: So then you start gearing more towards that and not just working on autopilot and just figuring, I have to do this and I should do this and this is what everyone else is doing. Those shoulds and have to’s are the worst parts. As soon as we start seeing that in our head or to anyone, we’re down the path that we want to try to pull back from.
Daniel Wrenne: As a financial planner, our number one question people will ask, “I just met you, how much should I spend on my house?”. This is a common question. I’m like, “I have no idea. It depends”.
Daniel Wrenne: Any good financial planner will tell you it depends to every answer if they don’t know you. Because that is the honest true answer. Really it depends on what’s most important to you. That’s how my view is of financial planning. Now some people might say it depends if you’re financially independent.
Daniel Wrenne: But I think it depends on what’s most important to you. It sounds like you’re helping to get your children or the intent behind the book is helping to get parents in this routine of bringing up these conversations and in the routine of thinking about happiness first, money is a tool.
David Delisle: Exactly. Building on those habits. The goal is if you had the right mindset and the right habits, money then fades in the background. So rather than being constantly aware of your finances and thinking about your finances and thinking about money and stressing over money, it fades into the background because the habits of investing and saving, systemize those so you’re not thinking about it.
David Delisle: The habits of consuming, systemize those in the sense of you’re just in the habit of always looking at what brings you happiness rather than what you can buy. All of a sudden, you’re living a life that isn’t so focused on, what can I buy next?
David Delisle: I bring this up a lot because really what they’re asking is how much can I afford in a house? That’s really what they’re asking. Not what should I spend or how much of a house? How much can I afford? Because what happens is their lifestyle grows to whatever money they have.
David Delisle: So same with the home.
David Delisle: So if I had more money, my house will be more expensive. And then if I get a raise and get even more money, then my house will expand again. Yeah. And that’s what happens, we grow into whatever we have.
Daniel Wrenne: Same as my kid. He spent all the money he earned on Pokemon.
David Delisle: Exactly. And that’s why these lessons work for a five year old. They translate to adulthood.
David Delisle: If we’re constantly expanding to what we can afford, that’s why we don’t have anything left over and we’re just chasing. It doesn’t matter what you achieve. I mentioned a semi part because there is always more to have or that you’d want. If I had more, I’d buy something bigger. And it’s the same with everything including homes.
David Delisle: So without first really realizing what’s important to you, you just automatically fall into that lifestyle inflation. And what I’m trying to do is avoid some of that lifestyle inflation because if the question wasn’t how much can I afford in my house which is really the back question of what’s underlying that statement.
David Delisle: What could I use this money for instead? Instead of buying that expensive house, would you like to retire 10 years earlier? Would you like to travel more? Would you like to spend more on your parents? And then all of a sudden now we’re having a different conversation.
Daniel Wrenne: Same thing with my son, instead of saying how many pokemon cards can I buy with my 10 bucks or whatever, it’s more like by spending $10 on Pokemons, what did you miss opportunity on? What did you say no to by saying yes to that? What are alternatives you could have spent money on? And is that in line more so with what’s most important to you?
Daniel Wrenne: Same thing as the house is the Pokemon card.
David Delisle: Yeah. And that’s why it’s so fun because as you’re having these conversations with your kids, in a way you’re actually having them with yourself and then you’re starting to reflect on, “Hey, I might not be into Pokemon cards but where am I spending money where it’s not returning value?”. What’s really important to me is traveling with my family. Okay, what am I doing to make that a priority?
Daniel Wrenne: Right. Or time with your kids. Like you said, is my calendar in alignment with my values? The book is called The Golden Quest, the FUN Way to Learn About Money.
Daniel Wrenne: And I mentioned this earlier, the fact that it’s a graphic novel and I feel like that is got to be, I am not a gifted writer, but I feel like the biggest challenge for me seems like it would be making this be an interesting story while also sprinkling these money lessons that maybe not everybody’s like money geeks like us that wants to learn about it.
Daniel Wrenne: How are you able to sprinkle in money lessons into a story and potentially for an audience that has zero interest in money?
David Delisle: Yeah, what you have to do is get really clear on your message. And simplify it because there’s no room to really expand on it. Cause if you think of like your typical comic, you’ve got those little, like balloon text messages that you can only put so much in there. So it’s not written like an all book, it’s written as a story and it’s very conversational. So basically a young boy goes on a quest, and on this quest he meets different mentors that teach in these different lessons.
David Delisle: And so it becomes conversational. So even with this idea about the awesome stuff we’re talking about. The lessons about the awesome stuff and the boy immediately starts laughing and talks about how everything he has is awesome and what’s even talking about. So then there’s a bit of a banter back and forth of like, okay, well let’s think of your room and all this stuff in your room, and what’s the stuff that you love the most?
David Delisle: And then the boy focuses on that and he’s like that’s your awesome stuff. And it’s sort of like this aha moment of the boy realizing like all those things didn’t matter, but this one thing did.
David Delisle: But it’s very conversational without this long discussion of me talking about what do you feel in the body and what is this? And here’s examples. Like you can’t talk about all that stuff in the book. And just really simplify. and I try to as well sprinkle in nugget. So like on a second or third or fourth reading you, every time you read it, you’ll pick up something new. And that’s the thing is it’s, you don’t have to know everything about money or everything in the book.
David Delisle: The first time through. Just if you pick up a little tidbit or a little hint that’ll just help guide in the way you think about it and your perspective or some habits, then it’s a win.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I found if you can keep their interest in a book, that is half the battle. And I think if it’s a book about money, I mean, that’s a huge win because I think, as parents, a lot of us don’t exactly know how to bring up topics that are like, money’s taboo or maybe we’re like, I have not done so well myself and like, I’m not a money expert.
Daniel Wrenne: There’s all these like reasons we come up with that we’re not gonna bring up money with our kids. And so we just be on the back burner, meaning that the kids get pushed by the culture in whatever direction the culture pushes them.
Daniel Wrenne: So this book is a great way to insert in the topic and get the conversations going that we all, I mean, most people agree this is a super important topic. It’s like one of the most important topic.
David Delisle: It’s crazy. I like that you used the word taboo cause that’s exactly it.
David Delisle: Like we’ll talk about sex before we talk about money. And how much we earn and what our savings is and how much we spent on our home.
David Delisle: And that’s what’s so crazy. When we talk about kids and just teach ’em about money, really the first thing I tell parents, which is so easy, is again just having these conversations.
David Delisle: And they don’t have to be big conversations about how to spend or investing or the stock market.
David Delisle: It can be as simple as this is how much this costs. No judgment in it, but you’re going to fill your car up with gas. This is how much the gas costs today. You’re gonna buy groceries. This is how much the groceries cost. And those conversations can obviously change depending on the age of your child. But just that awareness of what things cost and what you’re spending.
David Delisle: That’s huge. There’s no way we can teach the value of money if they don’t know how much things cost.
Daniel Wrenne: Right. We had a lot of money conversations this weekend for some reason, I guess, cuz we were earning it and spending it. But my middle son was like, he was asking how much this truck cost.
Daniel Wrenne: It was a really nice brand new truck. And I’m like, it’s probably $70,000. And he’s like, “What?” And then I’m like, “But guess what? You know how much daddy’s car costs?” And he is like, no, I’m like “$4,000. Which one would you wanna drive?” And he’s like, “I’ll take the $4,000 one”. This son would.
Daniel Wrenne: But I think that’s just a great little tiny nugget of information to have. You could feel that tinge of do I really wanna talk about this topic with my kids?
Daniel Wrenne: I mean, that’s the cultural pool is like, we don’t talk about this stuff.
David Delisle: Yeah. And that’s the thing is It’s because there’s so much judgment around it. And so when I try to have these conversations with my kids, I try to tell ’em like, there’s no right or wrong, or if I’m buying something, it’s not to make you feel guilty for how much is being spent and don’t go telling your friends necessarily like, “Oh, this is how much we spent on this and this is how much this cost.”
David Delisle: It’s just for information for you so you know what things cost. Because as parents were like, they didn’t even appreciate it. I just came back from Disneyland and you’d be like, they didn’t even appreciate it.
David Delisle: We spent this much money.
Daniel Wrenne: Oh, a lot.
David Delisle: But they don’t know how much money you spend. That’s the thing is, if we don’t tell ’em how much things cost, how can they recognize that it was expensive?
David Delisle: If we take ’em to one meal or another like eat all your burger. They don’t know that that burger costs, 30 bucks here and five bucks there. Unless we have those conversations.
David Delisle: And then the beauty of those conversations, like you just mentioned with your son, you might not even realize how simple it was, but in just telling him how much the expensive truck cost that he loved and your car, without any judgment, all of a sudden in his mind now there’s a comparison.
David Delisle: And that comparison now gives him a choice. Cause before that, hands down, he’d like, I want that fancy truck. Why would you not want that?
David Delisle: But now, you’ve given him enough information that now he might still want it, but it’s changed the conversation in his own head of what’s important to him.
David Delisle: He’s like I could buy 70,000 Pokemon cards with a difference.
David Delisle: Right? and that’s exactly it. And that’s what we need to do as adults as well. What could you buy with the difference? Because if you’re just looking at fancy objects, thinking like, “I like that”, “I like that”, “I like that”. We all like those things.
David Delisle: But what do you really love? Cause there’s a cost to everything. And same with the truck. You get that truck. Does that mean do you have enough room in your driveway? Or do you have to get rid of your other vehicle? Or can you get two? Is two trucks better than one? Is three trucks better?
David Delisle: As soon as you start recognizing the cost, and the opportunity cost and what else you can be doing. Like you said, 70,000 Pokemon cards. That changes the conversation. And that’s what we need to do is just no judgment, but change the conversation. Cause if we don’t change it, we’re just going to be led by this consumer culture where there is no end.
David Delisle: And that’s the thing is, If I knew there was an end, if me as a financial advisor could give you enough good advice that you had reached the end and have enough money that you could buy all those things and your life would be complete, I’d be having a different conversation. I’d be pushing for that.
David Delisle: But the reality is there, there isn’t. There is not an end if that’s the path you’re going down.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. There it’s an never ending. It’s like the route race. I’m curious, so we talked about spending and the lifestyle creep and cultural pulls. And I’m curious how you, I know you intertwined the concepts of saving and giving. You can either spend your money, give it away, or save it.
Daniel Wrenne: I know you inter intertwine the saving and giving components. I feel like at least when I’ve had conversations with my kids, sometimes those are harder. They always want to get the Pokemon cards basically. You know what I’m saying? So it’s always not always, but like that is very strong pull.
Daniel Wrenne: So I’m curious how you intertwined these other components of giving and saving, and balancing in living in the now. Yeah.
David Delisle: So that was a tricky concept for me cuz you mentioned you grew up with a scarcity mindset. I did as well. I always felt like, there’s this money, if I give it away or if I don’t have it, then I’m going to struggle or I have less. And so this was a tricky concept.
David Delisle: But there’s a lot of research around giving. All of us know that giving is a good thing to do. And it’s a generous thing to do. But paired with that, there is research and science showing that the more you give, the more that comes back to you.
David Delisle: Some of it’s intangible, but it can be financial as well. So there’s this real reciprocation of giving and becoming richer.
David Delisle: And so I really want to try to figure out a way to show that or play with that for kids. And I love that you mentioned this idea of the giving and like they want the Pokemon cards.
David Delisle: Cause that’s the same conversation that happens in the book. The kids like, if you give your money you’ll have less. That’s just the nature of giving. You give and you’ll have less.
David Delisle: But the whole chapter and the story is around having more by giving. And so, they start showing how, like just the act of giving and all of a sudden they felt richer.
David Delisle: And then as they felt richer, the people, they helped, they became richer. And then those people helped them. And then basically it shows how this simple act of giving in this small town reciprocated and flourished where everyone started becoming richer and it came back. And the person who gave initially, their business grew. And the people coming to them grew and their orders grew and all of sudden they had more money than they knew what to do with.
David Delisle: So they gave more of it away. And it just sort of shows a version of how that simple act of giving can reciprocate and come back. And it’s not always a net zero in giving and all of a sudden nothing comes back.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I agree with the giving. Like you said, the research around it. I think I’ve seen some stuff that says like giving has the best return on investment, like as far as happiness of anything you can do with your money, which is super interesting because it’s like as a financial planner in our day job, we tend to kind of really try to carve out savings.
Daniel Wrenne: We’re always talking about you go to save for retirement, blah, blah, blah. I’m talking about as an industry. You financial advisors and planners are always talking about saving for retirement.
Daniel Wrenne: But if you really are looking at it like, how can I help people improve happiness, then really we should be talking about giving first.
Daniel Wrenne: Same thing for our kids. If we buy into this like research that says giving has the best return on happiness of anything you could possibly do, then we should really be prioritizing that first. And then savings. I personally think those two things are delayed gratification kind of things.
Daniel Wrenne: Like giving doesn’t return immediately or sometimes you just takes a while and it’s just like a delayed gratification thing, is the way I look at it. Same as savings. So you kind of have to just like carve them out and call it a day and buy into the long, long term compounding of delayed gratification.
Daniel Wrenne: That’s how I’ve viewed it, and I’ve tried to teach my kids. I’m like 10% or something. I’m like X percent, get it out and it will serve you well in your future. But maybe there’s a better way to do it. I don’t know.
David Delisle: There’s no right or wrong. I mean, systemizing it always makes it easier. Just being aware that there is power to giving that will come back.
David Delisle: And it’s neat, like a good example I just mentioned. We were just on this trip and we were in Disneyland. And when we walked into the park, I think it was like Mickey a Mini’s birthday or something.
David Delisle: So we got this free pin. And like by especially my 13 year old, like he loves collecting and having stuff. And he’s constantly just gathering things. So he’s got his pin and he’s likes his pin.
David Delisle: But later in the day there’s an older lady just asking someone else about this pin and where they got it and about it and how, cause she didn’t have this pin. And my son just saw that, walked up and just said, “Hey, you can have mine.”
David Delisle: Just gave him her pin or his pin, which the simple act of giving cost him nothing. It wasn’t a financial. But it’s just I love that he just saw that and did that. But I didn’t really mention it to him when it happened later. But this whole idea of coming back the next day, he was just in line for a ride, just sitting there looking around, and he noticed this pin just discarded in the plants. It was the same pin. He grabbed it all a sudden he got his pin back that he’d just given away the previous day.
David Delisle: And it was that fast. It came back. And it’s noticing some of those things. There is a lot of that. Like once you start doing things like that, you will notice your business growing or someone coming to you or something coming in the mail or just there is a real interesting energetic reciprocation to that act of giving.
David Delisle: And again in the book, what I really try to do with money is have zero judgment. So I’ve mentioned that a few times cuz we judge so much with money. These are all just ideas to just a slight just awareness of, “Hey, there might be another way, this might be a thing.”
David Delisle: So I’m not telling kids you have to give, I’m just saying giving can create more wealth. And this is an example of how that can be.
David Delisle: Whether or not they want to do that, it’s up to them. I obviously, I’d love that they start giving more. But this is just showing just again, that conversation we are not having with kids or adults or anybody. Just having a conversation around money and showing that this is a thing. To me, that’s my goal of the book is just awareness of here’s some alternatives, here’s another way of thinking about it.
David Delisle: It doesn’t have to be all you’ve heard from the media.
David Delisle: Right? Yeah. I think that’s why it’s so good. And I like the way you worded money mindfulness. I think that’s just a good way to this concept you talk about in the book.
David Delisle: It’s like helping to improve our kids’, mindset and view of money is, that’s where the needle is moved. We can teach ’em about like interest and rate of return and all those kinds of things. And those are important too, but helping them to realize money is a tool. And to help them live a happier life. And it’s not all about the pursuit of more.
Daniel Wrenne: I mean, I think that’s a super valuable thing because the culture’s gonna be pushing the other way.
David Delisle: Yes. I mean, it’s accelerating in that direction. Like the metaverse itself is accelerating in that direction. Because that’s an area where we take everything that we’re used to in the physical world. We take it digitally and then assign values to it. So your digital shirt, your digital hat, your digital shoes, we know how much those are worth and how rare they. And so everybody’s trying to spend in this digital world where the thing doesn’t even have a physical value.
David Delisle: I mean, more people like these games that kids are playing now, they don’t spend money on the game. They don’t spend money on the characters to make them stronger or better.
David Delisle: They spend money on how the characters look. That’s the business model. We’re moving into a crazy world where we need at least a little bit of pushback against these things that don’t actually have any physical value. And it’s all about perception and that’s the value.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah.
Daniel Wrenne: So the book, once again, it’s called The Golden Quest, the FUN Way to Learn About Money. And I would encourage everyone with children, I think it’s such a good thing. There’s so few books I think that written on exploring money with your kids and, I think anyone that has, children, should give this topic and try this book out and explore it.
Daniel Wrenne: And especially someone like me, like I got boys that already read graphic novels, that’s like a home run. They’re already kind of doing their thing there and they’re going to be like, “Oh no, not another debt.” Cuz I sit ’em down and have a spreadsheet conversation about money and that’s not usually the most productive cuz they start getting bored real quick.
Daniel Wrenne: And unless they’re just total money geeks. Like us as a kid, I probably would’ve liked somebody to sit me down and show me the spreadsheet and Return on Investment, blah, blah, blah.
Daniel Wrenne: But most kids are just trying to have a good time and be around their friends and that kind of thing. I love it that you’re leaning into what’s most important to them and the fact that the way that you wrote this book, even.
Daniel Wrenne: For sure. Yeah. And that’s exactly it. Cause it’s rare to find a money nerd. Most people at any age don’t wanna talk about this stuff.
Daniel Wrenne: So I try to make it as simple as I could. And I mean, it’s great for younger kids, five to twelves really a target demographic. But even, I’d love to see this for high school grads or kids just going off to college. It’s a great way to just remind yourself of these simple habits and then incorporate them into your life and in a fun way.
Daniel Wrenne: So even if you don’t like the spreadsheets, which 99% of the people don’t, this is a good way to just get these concepts in an easy way. So, yeah, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. Yeah.
Daniel Wrenne: Well, I love it. Well, David, as we wrap up, any other resources or suggestions? I guess maybe where can people find you, first of all, and any other suggestions or resources for parents?
David Delisle: Yeah, so you can buy the book on Amazon. It’s called The Golden Quest. My website, you can buy it directly as well. It’s theawesomestuff.com. So I build everything around this concept of what is your awesome stuff and only buying the awesome stuff. So theawesomestuff.com. As well, I’m on TikTok and Instagram under that same handle, theawesomestuff.
David Delisle: And I’m right now in the process of putting together a conference for families next year. End of next year. About this time next year. Where you could come with your kids and your grandparents and learn in this experiential event. Just these basic concepts, and start having these conversations. Because that’s really all it’s about is starting the conversations.
David Delisle: It doesn’t have to be heavy. It doesn’t have to include math. It doesn’t have to include spreadsheets. Just awareness and having these conversations. That’s all we need to start doing.
Daniel Wrenne: That sounds interesting. A conference to talk about money with an intergenerational.
David Delisle: Yeah, I know. I’m super excited about that.
David Delisle: We’re still in the early stages.
Daniel Wrenne: That definitely doesn’t exist.
David Delisle: Yeah, no, it doesn’t exist at all. And I love the idea that we want to create it as a game. So each family gets a set amount of money and then plays this game, but you’re not playing amongst each other. You’re playing as a family amongst other families. So then you’re gonna have that conversation like your three boys, they’re gonna be arguing about like how to spend the money. Then you’re gonna be there. Then maybe your parents will also be there. So just having, seeing all these values sort of collide and just it forces some of these conversations.
David Delisle: Why should we be doing this instead of this? I’m super excited about.
Daniel Wrenne: I love it. Well, David, thanks for joining me today and coming on. I love talking about this topic. We could talk about it for hours and hours, I’m sure in days and days. But I appreciate you chatting with me about it today.
David Delisle: For sure. No, I love being on here and like the same. I love these conversations and this is a passion of mine. This is why I’m here is cuz I’m wanting to get this message out and have people just have these conversations.
Daniel Wrenne: Well, I appreciate your work.
