#3 | "Your money or your life!" Doing well and feeling fine, financially. Good and bad money goals with author and wealth manager Dr. Nikolaus Braun

Today I am speaking with Dr. Nikolaus Braun, personal financial adviser, author, and founder of 49, an advisory firm helping clients define their life goals and supporting investment strategies.  

His new book is called Geld oder Leben - Your money or your life! - and it’s just out now in April 2023, in German. We sit down to discuss key ideas and moving stories from his new book.  

In my thirties, I hadn’t really thought about money as capital, only as cash flow. Could my income fund my lifestyle? As I got raises, I only increased my spend, as investing the increment seemed too small-scale to matter. I know it sounds silly now, but I had a reactionary attitude to saving: the products offered by my retail bank felt dull, if worthy. Thinking about 30 years from today also felt a little joyless. Instead, I secretly prided myself on living well, in the moment. A sophisticated version of “Yolo”. 

What I was missing at the time, is a more helpful way to talk and think about money. As I was searching, I realized we don’t really have a well-established set of words and mental models to have this conversation. 

For example, a common mental model for many people comes in the form of the old joke that you’re rich, “when you make more than your brother-in-law” or “sister-in-law”. That is a bit cynical maybe, but there is also some deeper meaning here: if we don’t really understand why we want money - leaving the basics of survival aside for a moment - we are left playing status games, comparing ourselves, upgrading our consumption, and so on. 

So this episode is about doing well financially, and feeling fine about money. 

What does this mean? Well, money - or better: wealth - can convert into time; time with the people who matter, making memories that pay dividends long after their inception. Wealth can convert into freedom; for example, freedom from the incessant need for validation at work. And with freedom and time - used wisely, of course - we can find other sources of self-identity than status games. 

As you can see, this stuff goes deep and much farther than, "how much money should I invest in what asset classes, hoping for what kind of returns?"

Please see https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolaus-braun-177501151/ for more on Dr. Nikolaus Braun.