It’s a worthwhile goal to be great at something – top one percent great. Being a jack of all trades, master of none is an excuse many of us use because we aren’t willing to try harder. We know this, so we settle for good enough. Good enough is good enough if you’re content. But if there’s something bothering you deep inside, then maybe it’s because you know you can do better.

Fritz’s post called Seven Days To A Great Retirement was an insightful read that warmed my heart. It’s actually part two of a three part series that talks about how they decided to simplify life and live more intentionally once they became empty nesters . Given Fritz’s retirement plan is closer to the traditional retirement path, I thought it would be good to share his thoughts on how everyone can live their best retirement lives possible. 

From A Good Retirement To A Great One

My wife and I realized we were Settling For Good.

We weren’t doing it intentionally, but we recognized the signs. We decided to take action. Now, we’re moving toward Great. It’s been a heckuva a few years as we’ve pulled up the anchor (twice!), but we’ve learned some really good lessons from our two downsizing moves in 18 months. We’ve had some bumps along the way, but the bruises are healing and we’re moving on. Toward Great.

View our story as an analogy and focus on the broader issues raised. Think about how you can apply the lessons we’re learning in your own life.

Go For Great!

From a personal finance writer’s point of view, I found a pot of gold with the 2016 Economic Policy Institute’s report looking at the state of American retirement. In this report, I’ve come to realize how screwed the average American is when it comes to enjoying a comfortable retirement.

It’s perplexing to me why Americans don’t have more in retirement savings given we’ve seen a massive boom in the stock market, bond market, and real estate market for the past…. forever.

If I was a working adult back in 1980, I’d like to think I’d be worth at least $10,000,000 today. Not only would I be worth $10,000,000, so would all my friends. How hard can becoming a deca-millionaire be when the S&P 500 is up over 20X since 1980? Look at all the real estate you could have bought for dirt cheap 40 years ago as well. But let’s get real. Life happens. Everything is easier said than done. If only I had a time machine.

The main reason why I think more Americans aren’t doing financially better is due to a lack of education. Why aren’t personal finance fundamentals indoctrinated in kids by the 12th grade, I don’t know. I certainly plan to teach my child about the power of compound returns, saving, investing, asset allocation, and the importance of optionality.

Let’s take a look at some select charts from the Economic Policy Institute report. The Economic Policy Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that carries out economic research and analyzes the economic impact of policies and proposals. I still have my doubts about the efficacy of the data since there are some truly worrisome numbers being reported.

Everything in personal finance seems to go around in circles.

In the past, I argued that it’s better to focus on net worth growth over income growth. To their detriment, many people didn’t focus on what they kept, only what they earned. With nothing to show for after a couple decades of work, misery ensues!

Given job income is the main source of income for the majority of people, by definition you’ll never truly be free if you mainly focus on income. Only when you build a large enough net worth can you truly be beholden to no one.

But over the past several years, I’ve noticed that focusing too much on net worth and not enough on income growth has created a scarcity mindset. Before I explain what I mean, here are eight reasons why focusing on net worth is important.

After five years of early retirement, I realized I made a serious mistake that cost me $500,000+. Let me tell you what happened so you don’t do the same.

When I left Corporate America at the age of 34, I thought I was done earning more money for good. Below is the income budget I put together in 2012 to support us for the rest of our lives. Expenses are not listed because we’ve never spent more than we’ve made.

Our base case retirement income scenario was to make $78,000 gross or $54,600 net a year in passive income and live a simple life back in Hawaii for the rest of our lives. If things went really well in the stock and real estate markets, we calculated an optimistic annual passive income scenario of $117,600 gross and $94,080 net.

Related: Which Is A Better Investment: Real Estate Or Stocks?

At the time, we were probably spending about $100,000 a year to live in high cost San Francisco. By moving to a paid off house in Honolulu, we’d have no problem living within our means with a child on a much lower income.

But if we did have a problem living on less or wanted to live it up more, we had fallback options through Active Income and Bonus Income. These were also divided into Base Case and Blue Sky with $15,000/month and $50,000+/month gross totals, respectively. It’s always fun to dream about what could be.

If you’re wondering about the line items in the Bonus Income column, those are all the things I already had, but didn’t count on to make anything extra. For example, my Rich Hot Spouse was there to provide the love she has always provided. Anything more and I classified it as utopia. Aww.

Today, more than five years later, we still live in San Francisco and I’ve done all the things listed in the Active Income chart. Although my income grew in retirement, I did NOT change my investment risk profile. This was a major mistake because a major bull market ensued.