Episode 46: How to Get Everything You Want In Life

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How To Get Everything You Want In Life

Introduction To Wealth Acceleration Podcast

I am here for another episode of the show. As this is becoming a tradition, I’m bringing my wife to do some episodes during the month of December to prepare us for the new year. Catherine, welcome.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

If you watch this in person, she’s the most bubbly personality you’ll ever meet and joyful. She brings everyone up who meets her.

I’m pretty cute. Did you use that word?

No.

I’m pretty cute.

Catherine came to me, and she said, “Wade, can I please be on your show again? I have this cool story I need to share with the world.” I’m going to let you talk for a minute. What prompted you to want to join me and share this story?

I love what you’re doing. I love what you’re creating. I love your community. Our vision and our goals line up so much, and so many of our gifts that I was like, “Let’s do this together.” You should have me more than once a year. Why is this only annual? Maybe I’ll do every three months or something. Guys, tell him.

Give us some feedback if you’d like to hear from Catherine.

Catherine’s Insights On Mentorship And Youth

I think we’re fun together. I teach a life skills class in our homeschool community. It’s a smaller class. I only have eight students. In my acting and Shakespeare classes, I’ll have 20 to 30. This is a smaller class. It’s intimate. I only have eight youths. We watched one of my heroes, Zig Ziglar. I grew up on Zig Ziglar in the car, driving all over the country. My parents love to travel. As we drove, we would sometimes listen to church audio, but also some Zig. He lives rent-free in my brain, so much of his positive attitude and that great Southern tell-it-like-it-is nature that he has.

We watched a video about Zig Ziglar. It was not just about him, but some of what he has shared with audiences. It was a recording. I shared that with my class. It was only a sixteen-minute video. Then, we debriefed. We use that word a lot. The video we watched had a lot to do with goals, vision casting, and what you want in life. What Wade hears me say all the time is, “What you focus on expands.” I truly believe that.

As I shared this video of Zig Ziglar and then we debriefed what insights my youth or my students received from that, I felt such power. I told them, “You might not know.” We have a great gymnast in there. She might not know that she wants to open her own gymnastics studio someday as a business. We have a baseball player in there. He loves baseball. He has been doing it for a decade. Maybe he’s going to be a professional baseball player someday.

They don’t know, but we did talk about what we do know. We’re religious, so I said, “We know that we want to be good Christians. If your goal is to be a good Christian and a disciple of Christ, then it’s your target. It’s your Hawaii. It’s your destination. You’re not focusing on which airplane you’re taking. You’re not focusing on what time the airplane leaves or what day we’re leaving. We want Hawaii. We want whatever that goal is.” Some of these youth might know, “I want to be this type of coach someday,” like Wade and me. I knew that I would be a teacher. It’s one of my greatest gifts to be a mentor and a teacher.

Vision Casting And Goal Setting

One of my students said something so powerful to me. He was like, “Ms. Catherine, my brother and I want to serve a mission for our church for two years.” If he wants to serve that mission, that’s his Hawaii. That’s his destination. He’s like, “My brother and I have been talking about how many months, how many days, and how many years until that happens. If that is what we want, then we’re going to count down, ‘This is when it’s happening. What kind of person do I need to be? What kind of choices do I need to make or not make in order to get to that goal?”

He has other goals beyond that, but that is big for him and his brother. He can even print a picture and put it on his vision board, on his mirror, or something. I thought it was so powerful. He’s only seventeen years old. He’s young, but he already has this powerful, “I know that I want this someday. This is what I’m going to do.”

Is he going to watch nine hours of Netflix or Disney? Not to discount because sometimes, we do want a good movie night, but is he going to waste time watching episode after episode or reel after reel on these social media platforms? Is he going to spend his time doing that if he knows that his goal is up ahead? I thought it was powerful that here I am as a mentor, and I’m teaching, and Zig Ziglar’s teaching us, but sometimes, they teach me, my students. Sometimes, they will say things that I’m like, “Yes.”

Wade and I went on a walk, as we often do. On our walk, I told Wade about this experience. I was like, “I would love to go on the show and share this with you.” It’s so important to remember how to vision cast. We don’t have to know every little detail. If you can start with that vision casting, like, “I want this. This is my big goal. This is my target,” then it comes. We can slow down and start to look at, “What kind of choices do I make or not make? What kind of person do I want to be in order to hit that destination?”

I love that story because it’s so relatable. I think every human being, young or old, is dealing with that. This young man is seventeen. In our church, this full-time missionary service can begin as early as age eighteen. He’s within a year of being able to do this volunteer missionary service. There are some strict standards that you have to live by when you’re a missionary.

When you say choices that you are making or not making, for some context there, a lot of young people are in their dating lives in their late teens and early twenties. They might be interacting in ways that might be considered inappropriate. When you have a strong Christian background, especially for missionaries, it’s strongly discouraged to get too emotionally involved with the opposite sex and to engage in behaviors that might be considered inappropriate.

One of those choices to make is, “I’m choosing out of having immoral actions with a young woman, so that I can be ready to meet the commitment that’s required of me as a missionary to not do those things.” Once you’ve made a decision on your destination, it makes it easy to back into, “What are the decisions I need to make today?”

For most of you who are older, married, and have kids of your own, these are things that are important. As parents, we need to teach our own kids what principles we need to live by. We need to show by example how to set a destination, plot a course to that destination, and look at our financial resources and how we can say yes to the right things that align with that destination and no to the things that don’t. That’s a difficult thing sometimes because we’re so persuaded constantly by advertising to buy the next thing. It’s insatiable

There are so many distractions.

It’s easy to get distracted from our true purpose. Retirement is not the purpose, to be clear. I’ve worked with well over 1,000 people for the past couple of years, ranging from 20 years old to 85 years old. The destination financially is not retirement. The destination is to live a life that you love along the way.  For example, let’s talk about one of the things we’re planning for 2026.

Retirement must not be your financial destination. It must be about living the life you love along the way.

The Importance Of Choices In Achieving Goals

In talking about Disneyland or some other fun trips that wouldn’t be a bad idea, Wade and I both felt in our heart of hearts that we needed to think bigger, and we want to make this more educational. While I think we could go on a Disneyland trip someday, and learn about the engineering of the different roller coasters and whatnot.

We could also go play, as a lot of families do. We’ve done that.

There’s a place for that.

We have a different purpose for this trip we’re planning for 2026.

We are going to Europe. We haven’t been for seven years. Wade served a church mission for two years in Paris, France. We lived there and studied abroad. We love France. I’m going to get emotional. We have ancestors who are from France. We have ancestors, especially, who are in England. I have Irish blood and Danish blood. I don’t think we have a lot of family from Switzerland, but we are a biking family, so we’re biking in the Swiss Alps.

While we don’t have family there, you live in a community that was founded by Swiss people.

That’s true. Santa Clara in Utah. Utah.

One of our favorite places to visit for anniversaries every year is a place called Midway, Utah, which was founded by people from the Swiss Alps.

They have Swiss days in both Santa Clara and Midway.

When they immigrated from Switzerland, they found these locations that reminded them of their home because of the peaks of the mountains. They settled there. We find things that we love and are passionate about. This is an interesting thing. I don’t know if you guys have done this yet. If you start to look at your historical roots, grandparents, great-grandparents, and where you came from, you start to learn the stories of them surviving the Civil War and surviving through being pioneers, crossing the plains to Oregon. In our faith and culture, it was crossing the plains to find the valley of the Great Salt Lake and for religious freedom. They went through difficult things.

As I’ve studied my ancestors and seen some of the difficulties they’ve gone through, it has given me strength to deal with our own difficulties in the world. Although it’s a very different world, the emotional experience we have with those challenges is still the same. Knowing that they’ve gone through their tough times, we can get through it ourselves. We have a spot in our hearts for our ancestors, and that’s what makes us want to get back to our roots. This particular trip is a pilgrimage, in a way.

It’s a family history trip. We’re going to be studying more of Ireland, England, France, and Switzerland. That’s part of our education these next six months before we go. We’ll have our kids buy in and have them vision cast churches, homes, and castles. Maybe we don’t have ancestors that lived in the castles, but that was a big part of their history, those Irish families and those English families.

We’re like giddy. We’re so excited. It’s not like, “That’ll be so fun. Let’s go to Europe. It’s beautiful.” It is beautiful, and there are a lot of beautiful places here in the United States of America, but we’re trying to vision cast with each other and with our kids, whose grave site we want to visit. I’ll never forget. Tell them about the Gilnockie Tower.

I’ve got some Scottish blood. I have an ancestor with the last name Armstrong. There’s a clan in Scotland called the Armstrong Clan. It’s a very large clan. There’s a lot of history about this clan. Neil Armstrong, who walked on the moon, is a part of this clan. My great-grandmother on my dad’s side was an Armstrong.

As I’m researching this family line, I find that in the Armstrong clan, there’s this guy named John Gilnockie Armstrong. He and his family were fierce defenders of the Scottish-English border. There was a dispute over the Scottish-English border for 200 years, related to somewhere around 100 miles of North to South, whereas the actual border is. They would defend with their lives and their honor the border that they believed was theirs.

There’s this tower called Gilnockie Tower. We did this a couple of years ago. We went and visited this place. As you study your ancestors, you learn some cool things. You’re like, “I want to go see where they lived and why they lived there.” If you can imagine an arm that’s strong and think of somebody flexing their bicep, that’s their family symbol. There’s a motto that says, “Invictus Maneo.” Translated, it is, “I remain unvanquished.”

It’s powerful.

As I view that, listen to that, read that, and study about that, to remain unvanquished is to hold the line for something you believe in, even to the death. You fight for something you care about physically to the death, but to give your life to something meaningful that’s purpose-driven and motivating for you.

We don’t necessarily give our lives up physically, but we live a life that’s in alignment with that. We give our lives to our careers. We give our lives to our marriage partner, our children, our communities, and our churches. Ideally, we do that for something that’s of a high purpose that gives us great joy and happiness in life.

As we consider doing this trip, there’s a financial cost to that. It’s probably going to be anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000, depending on whether we can use things sky miles to cover trips, whether we can stay with any of our acquaintances or friends there, etc. There are things we’re still working out, but we have a destination. We have a clear vision of what we want to accomplish on this trip. There are a lot of logistics that have to be figured out, and there are a lot of decisions that have to be made. There are a lot of things we’re going to have to say no to. There’s a phrase I always teach to my clients. “You can have anything you want.” How does it go?

Planning For Meaningful Family Trips

“You can’t have everything you want.” This is the holidays. We’re looking at Christmas. Santa’s going to bring our kids a gift. Our gift to them as their parents is this trip, which is going to be in May 2026. We’re like, “That’s six months away. What can we cut back on financially?” Our kids shoot hoops all the time in our backyard, but we won’t be doing rec basketball. There was a cross-country run that the kids always do. They’ve been running on their own for free. We’re like, “What kinds of things can we simplify and not do?” Financially, we’re trying to be wise and hold back a little bit.

It’s so fun at Christmas to want to surprise them and make everything magical. Can we have great experiences? We’re going up to the Ogden Christmas Village and going on a little carriage ride to support our friend. He’s living his dream, which is so beautiful to us. He has a regular job, but our friend Dale Greenwell drives this carriage that fits eight of us. Our family can go all around Ogden City. That is one activity that costs money but is worth it. There’s value in that. There are other activities that we’re like, “Let’s go for a drive,” because that takes a little bit of gas money and whatnot. We’re like, “How can we simplify this?”

If we look at this stuff, the quantity of money in individual transactions seems small. It might be $10 here, $50 there, or $200 there, but it adds up to thousands. You’re experiencing this every day. I’ve seen over and over again these micro transactions of $5 for your coffee or $20 for your lunch. If you don’t pay attention to the Amazon purchases on the spot, at the grocery store, at Costco, or whatever your hobbies are, if you calculate it, it’s in the tens of thousands of dollars of things that are honestly wasteful over time. They’re whims and their moments. They give us that sense of retail therapy. We get a dopamine hit, honestly, from making a purchase decision. That’s what I care about. I care about helping you guys live a life that you love.

My book’s coming out. I’ve mentioned that in many other episodes. My book is called True Wealth: Replace Financial Fear and Worry with Confidence and Capability. True wealth is defined in the four key areas of life, which are the physical, mental, spiritual, and social. That’s where true wealth lies. The financial aspect of that helps us accomplish what matters to us in those other four areas. It’s a precious resource. It’s something we need to manage well.

If you do the work, which is to get financially organized, have a system in place that works almost automatically, optimize your life, get things tweaked so you’re not wasteful and as efficient as you can be in your financial flow of money, you maximize, which is about living a life you love. There may be investments you want to make. There may be rental properties you want to own. There may be businesses you want to put in place or expand. There may be trips that you want to take and destinations you want to go to. Once you’ve done the other three, where you’ve organized financially, you’ve got systems in place, and you’ve optimized, that means there’s a bunch of cashflow that’s available to start making life decisions that maximize the value of your life.

When we have a clear vision about a destination we’re going to, we can then pull it back and say, “What do I say yes to that matters most? What do I automatically say no to because I’m saying yes to maybe the things that I recognize are most important and are among my highest values and the priorities that I have in life?”

I did want to share a few of my favorite quotes from my bestie, Zig Ziglar. I love this so much. As we’re talking about vision and how to get anything you want in life, Zig says, “The lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem.” We all have 24-hour days. My brother says that all the time. He’s like, “We’re all busy.” People wear the word busy like a badge of honor, like, “I’m more important if I’m busy.” We’re all busy. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. How do we choose to spend it?

We are all busy 24 hours a day. Be sure to spend your time wisely.

Zig Ziglar’s Wisdom On Success

Are you busy doing the things that matter to you? I’ve said this in the past. We have these silly interactions sometimes that are very superficial. It’s like, “How are you doing?” They’re like, “I’m fine.” People will say, “I’m living the dream.” I’ll ask my acquaintances and friends, “Whose dream are you living?” It catches them off guard in some ways. They’re like, “Wait a second. That’s a good question. Whose dream am I living?” The implication there is, “Am I living my dream?” Is the busyness of your life moving you toward your dream, the life that you truly want to live? It’s not what other people want you to live, but what you want to live. You had a couple of other quotes.

“A goal properly set is halfway achieved.” Zig says that if you have that goal, you’re doing good. You’re on that snowball effect of like, “I’m going to get there.” It is so good. This is another one that’s on success and achievement. “You don’t have to be great at something to start.” Did you guys know that? Spoiler alert. You don’t have to be great at something to start, but you do have to start to be great at something.

When you vision cast, and you know what you want, or you know that destination, then the rest comes into play. Using Wade’s awesome method, having organization is so pertinent. I love what you’re doing, helping individuals, families, and couples with their finances and organizing them. I think that’s your gift. You’re a teacher. You’re a coach. You’re a mentor. You’re great at those details of helping, looking at your clients, and looking at how they can get more organized so they can have a destination themselves. Is there another one?

As you’re looking that up, organization is an accelerator. For example, I got a call from my daughter who’s doing a missionary service. She had lost her driver’s license.

She was stressed out.

She lost it, and she let us know she was able to get in contact with a local driver’s license division in Utah. She’s in Mississippi. She can’t come home to get an in-person visit for her driver’s license, so she called them up and said, “Is there any way we can do this as an exception? I can’t get home.” They said, “We can do that, but we’ll send you some information, and you’ll need to follow those steps.” She somehow misunderstood that, so two weeks later, she’s like, “Where’s my license?”

She’s like, “Has it come in the mail?” She’s been messaging us every day.

She had missed it in her email inbox. I found that for her and got it over to her. She called them up and was like, “Dad, they need to have my Social Security number. I don’t have that with me. Where is that?” I knew exactly where it was because I have an organization system for where those things are. Those important documents in my life, I know where they are, and I can get them quickly. It didn’t take me a day to go find it.

It didn’t take you even 30 minutes. It was like, “I know exactly where it’s at.” Things are organized, so it’s an accelerator.

Your time is freed up. I have a lot of clients who have said, “Wade, because I completed your Total Wealth Organizer, all my financial data was in its proper place. I had to go get a business loan. My loan officer said they had never seen somebody so ready to do their application.” It sped up the time to get their loan completed.

Having the money available for your business means you can accelerate your marketing effort, or the expansion that you’re trying to accomplish, or the hiring of the person you’re trying to get in place, which then accelerates everything else you’re trying to accomplish. It’s powerful. It almost seems silly, but it’s so powerful to have an organization of your financial life so you know exactly where things are. That is a gift. The order I’ve put things in is organize, systemize, optimize, and maximize. Twenty years, 20,000 conversations, and 1,000 clients or more. This is the consistency I’ve seen. This is the proper order of things. When you do it in this order, it always works out. You always have good results.

I’ve seen that. You can’t always give me details of these individuals that you’re helping organize their finances, but you have so much joy because they have more peace in their family. They have more order, and then they have more time together because they’re not stressed out. They’re not as overwhelmed. One more quote from Kim Hess on vision casting. “The confusion, stress, and uncertainty melt away.”

I made the kids some French toast with 100% whole wheat bread. They were so excited for French toast. I watched the butter melt a little bit on that French toast. I love the word melt. I can see that visually. “The confusion, stress, and uncertainty melt away and are replaced with clarity, ease, and an inner peace that guides you through your day-to-day activities.” That’s Kim Hess.

We’ve got to at least end on my favorite Zig quote. “You can get everything in life you want if you will help enough people get what they want.” I love Zig so much. As we are focused on our vision casting, part of that is your purpose. As we are teaching and giving service, we can get paid to do what we love to do because we’re helping enough people get what they want. You can get everything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want. That’s Zig Ziglar. I love him. Amen. It’s so good.

You can get everything you want in life if you will just help enough people get what they want.

Zig has been a big influence in my life, and independent of you.

That was fun. When we met, we were like, “I love Zig. You love Zig.”

There was something about the personal development space that aligned us. I am launching the book on December 12th, 2025. I am so excited. The pre-launch is available. Go jump on the waitlist so you know exactly when it’s available. We’re going to do an Amazon bestseller launch on December 12th. That’s Friday. Share it with your friends.

Conclusion And Call To Action

Get this book because it is a life-changer. It’s everything I have learned about how to be successful with money. You replace the financial fear and worry and instead have confidence and capability in your financial life, so that you can live a life that you love. You live a life of purpose with a destination you care about and enjoy things along the way that truly align with your values and your priorities in life. It’s not somebody else’s, but yours. We love you. We’re so grateful that you’re tuning in to this show. Please share it with other people. Give us some feedback on what you like and what else you’d like to hear from us. If you want to hear more from Catherine, let us know. I want to have you back. We have a good time talking together.

Replace financial fear and worry with confidence and capability so you can live a life of purpose with a destination you care about.

We had so much fun that I was cry-laughing. We had to restart this whole episode. We’ve got a good marriage. We can share our synergy with you.

We’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Episode Resources

• Wade Reed on LinkedIn
• Wealth Acceleration Podcast on Apple Podcasts
• True Wealth: Replace Financial Fear and Worry with Confidence and Capability