IRS-istibly Happy
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #207
IRS-istibly Happy
Welcome back to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit! On today’s show, the hosts explore key insights from 1099 forms and share powerful habits to boost your happiness. Listen in now using a link below!
- Gabriel’s ‘Quick Hit’:
- Discover the key takeaways from the Fed’s rate hold, recession predictions, and GDP analysis.
- What You Can Learn from 1099 Forms:
- Uncover how 1099s, though often seen as routine, can reveal crucial insights into your portfolio and tax efficiency.
- Happy Habits:
- Uncover the 10 habits of those who lead a truly happy and fulfilled life.
Request Your Free Consultation Today
847.499.3330
Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, welcome everybody. Welcome to Spring. It is at least on-
Announcer: Wait a second. Isn’t there snow outside?
Gabriel Lewit: There is. Today’s March 20th when we’re recording this, and it is indeed the first day of spring and I woke up to a giant blanket of snow.
Steve Lewit: And your car looks full of snow.
Gabriel Lewit: My car is covered in snow. My lawn is covered in snow, and that’s the first day of spring.
Steve Lewit: It’s actually very beautiful. It’s kind of like a fluffy layer of snow. It is the first day of spring.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m very angry at the groundhogs.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: They were wrong. And I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Steve Lewit: And you’re here.
Gabriel Lewit: And I’m here.
Steve Lewit: We’re so happy you’re here.
Gabriel Lewit: I trudged through the slush. I brushed off the car. I braved the cold and I made it.
Steve Lewit: You did.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: Now folks, I want to tell you something. What’s really fun is what we talk about before the show goes on because we always seem to get into a little bit of a debate about something. Today’s debate was about protein bars.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah, you’re eating one right now and I think it looks gross. And I tried one and I thought they tasted gross. And I just said, I don’t know who eats these things.
Steve Lewit: So folks, I’ve been looking around for the best protein bar because I eat protein bars all the time and I’ve gone through seven different protein bars and they’re all full of protein.
Gabriel Lewit: And low on flavor.
Steve Lewit: And well, no, they have flavor, but some of them are chewy and some of them. So, if anyone out there knows the best protein bar, low sugar with healthy food, would you please let me know?
Gabriel Lewit: I’m kind of convinced that everyone just convinces themselves that the protein bar tastes good or at least good enough for them to eat it, even though they don’t really like, is anyone really like, gosh, I just can’t wait to have that protein bar.
Steve Lewit: I love my protein bars.
Gabriel Lewit: Really?
Steve Lewit: I can’t wait to have my protein bar.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh yeah? Why do you keep trying the different flavors then?
Steve Lewit: Well, because I was on one. I was on Kind ones, but then I realized they had too much sugar in them, so I’ve been looking for one with high protein, low sugar, and I found them, but it’s really, but-
Gabriel Lewit: For some reason-
Steve Lewit: They’re really hard, hard to eat.
Gabriel Lewit: Our listeners, for some reason, these boxes keep showing up in the office kitchen counter with protein bars, and I’m like, I asked Lauren, our office man, where are these coming from? Oh, Steve keeps trying these and he doesn’t like them. So he is giving them to everybody else.
Steve Lewit: Well, no, no, that’s not true. What I do is I put them out there and I have three other people that are into protein bars and We have a protein bar meeting that you know nothing about.
Gabriel Lewit: Ah, got it. Okay.
Steve Lewit: And we discussed the benefits. We’re trying to pick one as a group, which is the best protein bar.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I’m here working.
Steve Lewit: Well, we have more important things to do.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, we hope you’re doing well today and we’ve got a good show, of course lined up for you here with a variety of news items and quick tidbits here, as well as of course, some topics here we’re going to get into today in a little bit greater detail. Just a very quick tidbit here, we’re not going to talk too much about this. The Fed decided to hold rates steady yesterday.
Steve Lewit: Not surprising.
Gabriel Lewit: Not surprising. He did mention, Powell being the he, that he said that the tariffs Trump is discussing and or partially implementing or implementing or threatening, whatever you want to call it, does have the chance to raise inflation. So he came out and talked about that, which I think is important to understand a little bit here is that there is a risk there. But again, we still don’t know exactly what Trump’s final plans are with tariffs and or what that will ultimately mean for us as consumers.
Steve Lewit: And that’s no surprise either, because if there are tariffs and they tariff stay, there will be inflation.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yep. Trucks and cars would get more expensive if they have a 25% Tariff on.
Steve Lewit: We can make a song like trucks and cars, eggs, and milk, everything.
Gabriel Lewit: If you want to work on that and you want to workshop that over there and come back to us when it’s finished, we’ll let you sing away on the show.
Steve Lewit: I’ll have a meeting with Gabby over there, my director, and see what she said. Everything is going to go up, trucks, cars, TVs, eggs, and milk and so on and so on.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you certainly could make a little ditty out of that if you wanted to.
Steve Lewit: I’ll pass at the moment.
Gabriel Lewit: You already started.
Steve Lewit: Well, yeah, but I passed on pretty quickly.
Gabriel Lewit: According to a CNBC survey here, probability of a recession rose to 36% from 23% in January, which is a survey that polls fund managers, strategists, and analysts. And the average GDP forecast declined to 1.7% down from 2.4%. So those two little factors there are what’s increasing what they’re calling the recession risk, which I know you wanted to talk about just briefly here, Mr. Lou.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So folks, there might be a recession and there might not be a recession, we really don’t know, but the indicators have gone up that the economy could slow down. And typically when an economy slows down, so does the stock market. However, there have been recessions where the stock market has gone up. So those two don’t necessarily correlate, but the message I want to send is that look, if we have a recession, we’ve had many before, it takes a certain period of time, we go through it, eventually the market recovers and it’s nothing to panic about and the sky is not falling. There’s a lot of confusion right now because it is not clear what direction the president is going to take. And it’s that confusion that’s really putting a lot of fear into people not knowing what the deal is.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I think people, just like markets, like clarity and direction.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: One way or the other. And we’re a little bit waiting on that at the moment.
Steve Lewit: Well, it’s going to play out and we don’t know how it’s going to play out. One side says the tariffs are going to strengthen the economy and there’s a price we have to pay in between, which is a recession, maybe higher prices, but in the long term we’re going to be better off. And then there are economists like me who don’t see that story at all and don’t understand where that data is coming from. So everything else, everybody sees the world differently and we’ll see how it plays out.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I know this was something you mentioned particularly that you wanted to talk about today. Anything else you’d like to add about recession, recession planning, how it impacts you? Anything else that you think would be valuable for our listeners?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, there’s a tendency in recession to really react with your money to move it around or do something with it. Now if you have a plan like we have, folks, all of our clients have plans, Gabriel, and those plans are what you call weatherproof plans.
Gabriel Lewit: All weatherproof.
Steve Lewit: All weatherproof plans. Okay. What’s the difference between weatherproof and all weatherproof?
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know, but no one ever uses the phrase weatherproof. They use all weather, right? All weather, all season tires, weatherproof. I don’t know. I think it’s all weather.
Steve Lewit: If it’s weatherproof, it’s got to be all weatherproof.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t feel like I’ve heard just weatherproof. I feel like I always hear all weather, or maybe it’s all weatherproof. I’m not sure.
Steve Lewit: Well folks, to that point, we have all weatherproof plans and we’ve built into-
Gabriel Lewit: All weather. Maybe it’s just all weather.
Steve Lewit: Whether you use all weather or whether or not you use that. So I think you get the point is that if you have a plan and the plan is built correctly, it has these kinds of events built into the plan. If you don’t have a plan, then you got to ask yourself, why don’t I have a plan? And that makes life a little bit more difficult because then it becomes less predictable for So that’s my tidbit for the day.
Gabriel Lewit: All right.
Steve Lewit: That’s my protein bit for the day.
Gabriel Lewit: Thank you, Mr. Lewit.
Steve Lewit: You’re welcome.
Gabriel Lewit: Great work.
Steve Lewit: Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, well we’re going to shift gears a little bit here. Spend a couple of minutes on taking a look at your tax return. So some of you may have not yet completed your tax return. That’s okay. You can bank this information for when you’re completely done for the year, but many of you may have already completed your tax return and you’re staring at that document in front of you. And we thought we’d provide some ideas with what you should be looking at when you’re staring at it.
Steve Lewit: Other than how much you have to pay.
Gabriel Lewit: Or get back as a refund.
Steve Lewit: As a refund, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: And in particular, the forms that you receive that help you generate your taxes, which are called 1099 forms or W-2s. These things also play a role in assessing your tax returns. And ultimately there’s a big difference between, as I know you’re aware, Dad, between tax preparation and tax planning. And before I jump into the specifics, do you want to just give a quick overview of the differences between tax preparation and tax planning?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, that’s a great question because I hear that and you hear it. I want to get my taxes down. Well, do you want to get your taxes down in the year, which is tax preparation or do you want to get your tax down over your lifetime, which is tax planning? And those are two very separate compartments. Folks that do tax preparation typically don’t do tax planning because they’re not trained to do that. And folks that do tax planning-
Gabriel Lewit: You mean professional preparers, CPAs?
Steve Lewit: CPAs, professional preparers, they want to get your taxes down in the year to the lowest amount hopefully to get you.
Gabriel Lewit: And if I can clarify, they’re primarily focusing on what happened last year that has already occurred.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Based on the past. That’s a great point. So a tax planner will look to the future and say, “Oh, what’s going to happen with your Medicare costs if you do this Roth conversion? What’s going to happen with taxes in the future because of the national debt? What’s going to happen with the Illinois estate tax?” And looking at all of these and saying, “How do we minimize these taxes, get them as close to zero as we possibly can?” Which is totally different than a tax preparer.
Gabriel Lewit: And I think all those things that you’re mentioning are very true. I was even thinking from a simpler perspective, just looking at your tax return from last year to help you better prepare for this year’s taxes in 2025, that of course you’re not going to have to pay or file until 2026.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Yes. There is some preparation you can do to make your taxes better from what you’ve learned this year for next year, that is kind of tax planning, but it’s really very minimal what you can do. You can’t do an awful lot like you can do long-term.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we’re going to cover some of those. I think there are things here that you can do in that space. That’s what we’re going to focus on here today, folks, is not so much the really the more advanced things, Roth conversions, tax-free planning for the future, estate tax planning, but more so the simple things you can do when you’re taking a look at your tax return from last year. And yes, these might seem simple, but believe it or not, many people just take their tax return and file it away or save it in a folder on their computer and never look at this thing.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, people do that short term and long term, Gabriel, it’s like giving money away. So these little tidbits are really helpful. Puts money in your pocket.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So what are the tidbits? Let’s talk about these here. Okay, so first and foremost, you can take a look at your tax return and you can look at a field that tells you what are your dividends, qualified dividends or total dividends. And they are taxed a little differently depending on if they’re qualified or non-qualified dividends. But the first question I would always like to ask if I was looking at your tax return at this box would be, do you have a lot of taxable dividends in the first place?
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: If you do, what does that do to your taxes?
Steve Lewit: It would, let me see, it would make them go up.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s going to be taxable income, whether they’re qualified or non-qualified. They’re all going to increase your taxes. And the question we like to ask as we look at that is, have you considered an option that doesn’t generate qualified dividends or non-qualified dividends? Okay, so a different approach for generating your portfolio.
Now, if you’re living off those dividends using a dividend approach, maybe there’s nothing you can do about those, but in some cases there are investments that will spit off less dividends even if you’re just growing your money, grow it just as effectively and what does it do along the way if you swap those out? It will generate less in taxes year over year.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I had a client in yesterday, Gabriel, that has a rather large dividend portfolio, and I said, “What prompted you to do this portfolio?” Because they don’t need income. “Well, I like getting the dividends. It’s like that feels so good to get the dividends all the time.”
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, well, it feels good, but it isn’t tax efficient.
Steve Lewit: It’s costing you a lot of money to get those dividends.
Gabriel Lewit: And what’s interesting is when you can compare what’s called a dividend total return approach and a dividend approach. In a portfolio total return approach is when you take the underlying appreciation of the price of a fund or a stock plus reinvesting, its dividends would give you the total return of that stock or fund as opposed to just the price return, assuming you were taking those dividends and spending them.
And what’s interesting is when you do compare those in many softwares, it doesn’t necessarily calculate the tax impact of taking those dividends, getting taxed on them. Now you’re not necessarily, when you reinvest those dividends, you’re going to get taxed on them, but no taxes are being withheld. So somewhere at the end of the year, you’ve got to reconcile that and pay that tax bill. That tends to be missing when you do a comparison of total return versus non-total return approaches. But what we find is that investment in general can do better without necessarily high dividends, but also far more tax-efficient.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So typically companies that pay dividends are not good performers on the underlying stock. And companies-
Gabriel Lewit: Or not as strong.
Steve Lewit: They’re not as strong. I said that incorrectly, not as strong. And companies like growth companies or tech companies pay no dividends because all their money is getting reinvested back into the company, so there are no dividends to pay.
Gabriel Lewit: So that’s just one thing to keep an eye out for. Okay, what are your dividends? Have you assessed where they’re coming from? Also, you could change if you are stuck with your dividends, you could switch around which ones are generating what kind of dividends, qualified or non-qualified, and what type of account you’re holding those holdings in. So if you can have the more tax-efficient qualified dividends coming from your taxable account, that would be better than the non-qualified dividends in that same taxable account.
Steve Lewit: I believe, I think I have this right, is that a qualified dividend is a dividend coming from a US company. I forgot. I’m trying to remember the actual definition. I should know that. We should know that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, to be fair, we don’t use a ton of high-dividend approaches, but yeah, dividends for most US companies as well as qualified foreign corporations count as qualified, but there can be some nuances to that that we could get specific and further into. Yeah, so lots of different… Well, there are thousands of different stocks and positions, tens of thousands, and obviously many of those can create dividends.
Steve Lewit: You see, now I have to go back and do some research. Now I’m going to spend an hour researching qualified dividends because I didn’t know enough about it today.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go. Well, it gives you something to do.
Steve Lewit: While I’m eating my protein bar.
Gabriel Lewit: While you’re snacking on your protein bar.
Steve Lewit: I have a great morning ahead of me. Then I’ll go out in the snow and go sleigh riding.
Gabriel Lewit: Go create some snow angels out there. Okay, similar. Are you generating a lot of capital gains? If you take a look at a 1099 statement or on your tax returns, you may see that you’ve generated a lot of gains. Sometimes people are surprised because they say, “Whoa, Gabe, Steve or my tax preparer, I didn’t actually sell anything. How did I generate capital gains?”
Steve Lewit: “Where did those come from?”
Gabriel Lewit: And there are different types of funds that you may own that can pass through capital gains to you even if you’re not selling your holdings.
Steve Lewit: I’m sorry, did I interrupt you?
Gabriel Lewit: You did, but that’s okay. What were you going to say?
Steve Lewit: I was going to say, when you buy a mutual fund, if that mutual fund is doing a lot of trading inside the fund and they create capital gains, they pass those capital gains onto you at the end of the year. So you could not sell anything and all of a sudden get a 1099, you got 25 grand in capital gains. They say, “Where did that come from?” It came from there are certain mutual funds that are more tax-efficient than others. So it came from a mutual fund that’s doing a lot of trading, generated a lot of capital gains, and they’re passing, they have to distribute to you each year.
Gabriel Lewit: And this is why a lot of people are switching to ETFs, as they are far more tax-efficient and they can skip that part where they pass those through to you whether or not you have sold your holdings. So that’s one of the downsides of mutual funds.
Another thing is how much taxable interest income have you received? If you own a lot of cash and you’re earning good interest, you may find that you’re paying a pretty substantial amount of taxes on that interest income each year. But I also say the other thing, sometimes people have very little taxable interest and they have a lot of cash sitting around. What would that tell you?
Steve Lewit: Their cash is not making any money.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. So sometimes taxes aren’t all bad. Right? If you made $50,000 of interest income and you have to pay, I’m just going to say $10,000 in taxes, how much did you net?
Steve Lewit: Telling me? 50-
Gabriel Lewit: I know you can do this. It’s early in the morning, but I know you can do this.
Steve Lewit: Minus 10. Let me take a bite of protein.
Gabriel Lewit: No, let’s just answer.
Steve Lewit: 40.
Gabriel Lewit: 40. Okay, so you’ve got 40,000 that you pocketed. Well, if you have all that money sitting in a 0.001% checking account and you earn $0 of interest, did you pay less in tax?
Steve Lewit: I’m so happy I didn’t pay any taxes this year.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you also-
Steve Lewit: And I’m $40,000 poorer.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, you are. Right. So we want to make sure we understand that, but we can also look at that same box from multiple spots. So anytime I see that line item there, I say, “Do you happen to have cash and is it not earning interest or do you just not have any cash period earning interest?”
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And if that interest is pushing you into another tax bracket or affecting your IRMAA, you can gain interest in tax deferred products so that you’re not getting charged every year. You buy a CD, a five-year CD, you’re paying taxes on that CD interest every year. You never see that money. You’re just paying taxes on it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. Yeah, exactly. Another thing that we like to look for is, and there’s many, but we’re just going to cover a handful of these here today, is did you get a refund or did you owe money? And if you owed money, the question is what caused that to happen? So sometimes people owe money and they just, I don’t know, they have a quick chat and say, “Okay, cool. Well what caused that?” Oh, well you had your capital gains here. Oh, okay. But they’re not asking the next question, which is again, why did you generate those capital gains or could you have avoided it?
Steve Lewit: Or what can I do about it?
Gabriel Lewit: So not just answering just the question, yeah, what caused it, but what can I do about it to help bring down and minimize taxes? And if you do these things strategically year in and year out, you’re going to put yourself on a much greater path for success and to paying lower overall taxes.
Steve Lewit: Well, Gabriel, it’s hard to understand how this adds up over a lifetime. Excuse me. It’s like saving for retirement. You get a job and you do your 401(k) and it doesn’t look like much, but over the lifetime it accumulates quite a lot of money. Taxes over a person’s lifetime for 20, 25 years adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Gabriel Lewit: It does.
Steve Lewit: And we just give it away because… How do I say this without being harsh, people just don’t pay enough attention to their taxes. It’s complicated. Their CPA doesn’t do planning for the most part, and their advisor usually is really focused on investments.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Last thing I want to say on this is why does a typical tax preparer not go to the depths of doing a full-fledged tax return review and proactive tax analysis for people?
Steve Lewit: Well, a tax preparer’s job, I don’t know if this is the answer you’re looking for, but a tax preparer’s job is to get your taxes the lowest in the year that they possibly can.
Gabriel Lewit: A typical tax preparer. We have tax preparers that will at least relay information back to their advisor all under one roof. But yeah, let’s say you go to H&R Block.
Steve Lewit: Well, even our tax preparers, their job is you bring in your stuff and they’re going to try and get your taxes lowest in the year. Our tax preparers will take it another step and review that with the advisor to see what things can be done about it. But a lot of CPAs don’t recommend Roth conversions. Do you know why?
Gabriel Lewit: I do know why. Because it makes them look bad.
Steve Lewit: It makes them look bad. People go to their friends and say, “How, did you do on your taxes? I paid a fortune. You must have a lousy tax preparer. No, I did a Roth conversion.” But they don’t say that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So just things to keep in mind there, right? There’s a lot that can be done here if we can help you with this. If you are a wealth management client of ours, this is a step that we take after your taxes are completed. With you throughout the year, any questions you have about why your taxes are higher, how to protect them from being that high next year, all these different things are things that we can help you with. Just give us a call, (847) 499-3330 or go to sglfinancial.com.
Steve Lewit: Excellente.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well to round things out for today, we’re going to end on a positive note. Okay?
Steve Lewit: La, la, la.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that was a high positive note.
Steve Lewit: La, la, la.
Gabriel Lewit: That was a higher positive note.
Steve Lewit: I won’t get any. I’m not that positive this morning. I can’t get any higher.
Gabriel Lewit: I’ll do la, la, la.
Steve Lewit: There we go. Now we got the full spectrum here.
Gabriel Lewit: La, la. So you can tell he has a better voice than me. Okay. So 10 little things that the happiest people do every day. Okay. They are truly content with life.
Steve Lewit: This is a great-
Gabriel Lewit: Says expert. That’s the title.
Steve Lewit: This is a great article.
Gabriel Lewit: It doesn’t say who, it just says. Says expert.
Steve Lewit: That is true. Says expert.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s the unknown expert.
Steve Lewit: Expert in happiness.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Says the happiness expert.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. The article doesn’t say who the expert is, but says expert. So I like it, but I thought it was a great talking point here for us today to riff off of here. And I do agree with many of these things. Okay?
Steve Lewit: Hold on a second. Did you just say riff off of?
Gabriel Lewit: Riff off of.
Steve Lewit: That’s a musical term.
Gabriel Lewit: It is.
Steve Lewit: Riff off. I’ve never heard you say that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I am a man of mystery.
Steve Lewit: Well, would you please explain to our listening clientele who may not be as musically oriented as you what a riff off means?
Gabriel Lewit: I think Producer Gabby, have you heard of riff off of? I think so. I think most people know what this is. It’s like when the one guy’s doing a thing and then the other guy has his solo, right? And he starts-
Steve Lewit: On the guitar?
Gabriel Lewit: On the guitar and he starts riffing off. Right? Kind of going off script?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Riff is kind of like you go your own way.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so we’re going to riff off of this list.
Steve Lewit: I like it.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go.
Steve Lewit: I didn’t think it was your jam.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I was trying to play off your high note question. Go with our musical theme. Okay, anyways.
Steve Lewit: Like I said, I didn’t think it was your jam. You let that go by.
Gabriel Lewit: I am not musically inclined, so I just know the-
Steve Lewit: Well, here’s your chance to riff away.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so the expert here saying that they have had 15 years, it doesn’t have their name. It’s probably somewhere we just… Anyways, I’ve spent 15 years studying happiness is what they say. And I’ve had the opportunity to speak with thousands of people across all walks of life, spanning all income levels from executives in corner offices to frontline workers. And I’ve learned that no matter what their background or circumstances are, the happiest people have figured out how to actively train their brains to seek joy and contentment. Okay. And this is from happiness expert Jessica Weiss. Okay. Yeah. That’s who. Okay. Jessica Weiss. We’ll put a little plug in there. For happiness expert, how do you become a happiness expert?
Steve Lewit: You got to be very happy.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I assume she is right?
Steve Lewit: She got to be a bunch of joy all the time.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. That must be a hard job. Wake up to that.
Steve Lewit: It would drive me crazy.
Gabriel Lewit: I got to be happy.
Steve Lewit: Be around someone that has to be happy all the time.
Gabriel Lewit: Kids are probably like, Mom.
Steve Lewit: Mom, please stop.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, I digress.
Steve Lewit: Oh, you just fell and broke your knee. How much fun? Oh, that’s-
Gabriel Lewit: Just put on a smile.
Steve Lewit: How much fun is that?
Gabriel Lewit: Okay well, here are the habits that she mentions. Okay. Jessica mentions the following habits are from people who are truly content with life. Let’s see how you score, folks. I didn’t score. I scored okay, we’ll talk about that later. Number one, prioritizing friendships. The happiest people treat their close relationships as a non-negotiable rather than a nice-to-have. And when they schedule friend time, they try to focus on doing activities together instead of just a quick catch-up.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, that’s great. I really lack in that one.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s sad.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I was so happy and I just got depressed.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, we’re trying to stay happy here, Steve.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I’m so happy that I recognize that I’m lacking in that one.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I need to do more of that because I kind of call friends and say hi, and then that’s the end of it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You got to do stuff with them.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I like that. I’m going to make that a priority.
Gabriel Lewit: And it’s a non-negotiable.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Not just a nice to have. You want do the next one?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Resting strategically, mentally exhausted. Go for a jog. Brain fried-
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. You got to do better. You sound like you’re reading off of the thing.
Steve Lewit: I’m reading off of the thing.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you are reading off, but you got to give it some oomph. Give it some.
Steve Lewit: I didn’t oomph it enough?
Gabriel Lewit: You got to oomph that.
Steve Lewit: Mentally exhausted. Go for a jog. Brain fried from analytical work, do something creative with your hands. The most common people-
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe I should read.
Steve Lewit: Why don’t you read it?
Gabriel Lewit: Oh gosh, yes. If you’re resting strategically, if you’re mentally exhausted, go for a jog. If you’re brain fried from analytical work, do something creative with your hands.
Steve Lewit: I sounded the same way.
Gabriel Lewit: The most content people know how to intentionally match what depleted them to their mode of recovery.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s my reading voice. The most content people know how to intentionally match what depleted them, their mode of recovery. You got to get used to, more sophisticated voices sound different.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Let’s move on. Okay. Engaging in creative work-
Steve Lewit: Well, we didn’t say anything about rest time.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we have a time limit.
Steve Lewit: Okay, go ahead. You read the next one.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Engaging in creative work, people who spend time on creative activities such as cooking, writing, gardening, or painting report significantly higher levels of happiness. And when you create something new, even if it’s hilariously bad, your brain lights up in ways that scrolling on your phone never triggers.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Now I do not cook, write, garden, or paint. So I guess I got to think of something else.
Steve Lewit: Well, you play soccer.
Gabriel Lewit: Is that correct? I don’t think that’s considered creative work.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Well I think it’s creative. Well, you create all day here in the business, you’re always creating something.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s true. That’s true.
Steve Lewit: I think you spend probably 50% of your time creating things and it’s very fulfilling for you.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Next up is?
Steve Lewit: Cultivating community. The next time you feel stressed or overwhelmed, reach out instead of pulling in. Help someone else find a cause that fills you with a sense of purpose. Your brain might protest at first, but you’re happiness will soar.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So find something nearby you.
Steve Lewit: Was that better?
Gabriel Lewit: That was good.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: You hear that a lot. Find something in your local community that you can participate in and feel like you’re really doing some good for those around you, especially those nearby to you in your community can give you a nice sense of purpose.
Okay, next up. Not being afraid to geek out. The happiest people don’t play it cool. They actively seek out the things, people, and activities that light them up. You know the enthusiasm you feel when you talk about an activity you love? That’s the secret ingredient to daily happiness. Right. So if you’re a video game nerd, let your video game nerd-ness out. I like some video games from time to time. I just don’t have the time to play any of them.
Steve Lewit: I actually played a video game for a half hour the other morning. It’s the first time probably in 20 years.
Gabriel Lewit: I can’t picture you doing that.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, the Civilization. I was building a road and people were coming to kill. They were coming to kill me and tear my house down.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go. See?
Steve Lewit: It was like a whole thing in half an hour.
Gabriel Lewit: You got to geek out. Right.
Steve Lewit: It was fun.
Gabriel Lewit: Setting firm boundaries. Research says we need two to five hours of free time every day.
Steve Lewit: Oh really?
Gabriel Lewit: For peak happiness. I’m definitely missing on that because I get about one hour a day of free time.
Steve Lewit: Well, that explains everything.
Gabriel Lewit: That does right there. It explains it. Now, I do love my kid time. I go home and I have couple hours of kid time, but it’s not free time.
Steve Lewit: I want to tell you folks, Gabriel is the greatest dad. He’s just such a super dad. You’re a far better dad than I was to you.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, stop.
Steve Lewit: No, you are. You’re just amazing with your kids.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, thank you. Well, it says here, yes, happy people protect their me time and they know that those work emails can wait till later. I’m definitely not. As I said, I failed on a few of these. That was one of them.
Steve Lewit: And I might join you on that one.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, okay. Managing their energy, so happy people recognize their personal peaks and valleys. We have somebody here that gets up at 3:30 in the morning. They work for our company and she goes to the gym and works out.
Steve Lewit: That’s insane.
Gabriel Lewit: At 3:30 in the morning.
Steve Lewit: That’s insane.
Gabriel Lewit: And for her, that manages her peak energy, time, schedule, whatever. Maybe eight years ago she forgot about Daylight Savings Time and then just kept falling back an hour and then all of a sudden landed there.
Steve Lewit: Maybe that’s why she takes the afternoons off to catch up on sleep.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh yeah. Something like that. Oh, I think you’re good at this one. Mr. Lewit. Embracing micro-connections. Research shows that random conversations with people you don’t know consistently improves your mood. So that chat with your barista, because I know you go to your coffee shop, might just be the happiness booster you never knew you were missing.
Steve Lewit: It’s the greatest thing in the world to see. I was at my coffee shop and I saw this woman sitting on the computer. Are we running out of time?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, we got one minute left.
Steve Lewit: Well, just real quick. And she looked like a writer and I said to her, “Are you a writer?” And she says, “Yeah, I am. “We had a half-hour conversation on writing.
Gabriel Lewit: And you just micro-connected and boosted your happiness.
Steve Lewit: I micro-connected. It was so rewarding.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you got to do that. Okay. Savoring the good truly content people don’t rush. They slow down to fully absorb positive moments. The beauty of the sunset, the taste of good food, the feeling of accomplishment.
Steve Lewit: I love the taste of good food.
Gabriel Lewit: And by lingering in these experiences, they train their brains to experience joy more deeply. That’s very deep.
Steve Lewit: I like this one. Pursuing meaningful progress. You read it.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Content people are always celebrating the small wins along their journey. They understand that the sense of forward momentum itself generates more joy than reaching the final destination ever will.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s like in a football game when you have the momentum on your side, it’s the same thing with joy. You start getting used to joy instead of relishing in the problem or you’ve got this problem. Not that they’re not important, but if you’ve relish in them or you get sucked into them, then the joy goes away.
Gabriel Lewit: Now folks, I’m going to give you an offer here. If you would like a laminated cheat sheet of the 10 little things that happiness people do provided by SGL Financial from Jessica Weiss, because I didn’t come up with them.
Steve Lewit: Why don’t we send it to everybody?
Gabriel Lewit: We will prepare one for you.
Steve Lewit: These are great.
Gabriel Lewit: They are great.
Steve Lewit: We should send it to all of our clients.
Gabriel Lewit: And we will send you, just request one, info@sglfinancial.com and we will send you this laminated cheat sheet so you can post it up on your wall, refer to it, and find more happiness and joy in life, which is really, obviously we focus on money, but isn’t that what this is all about?
Steve Lewit: Maybe we can put it in the newsletter.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe. Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Everybody should have that list.
Gabriel Lewit: But if you want to a laminated version, you got to request it from us. Okay?
Steve Lewit: Well, we can laminate them all and send them.
Gabriel Lewit: We could.
Steve Lewit: This is beautiful, I love this list. I’m so happy.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, good. I’m glad you’re happy.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: All right folks. Well, we are excited to have spent some time here with you today. If you have any questions of any kind, email us info@sglfinancial.com or give us a call, (847) 499-3330 or go to our website sglfinancial.com and click contact us.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: And happy spring. Enjoy the snow.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Have a wonderful day.
Steve Lewit: When is April 1st?
Gabriel Lewit: Soon.
Steve Lewit: Soon?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. We’ll talk.
Steve Lewit: I thought today this was a joke.
Gabriel Lewit: No, this is March 20th. Yeah, April 1st is here soon. And it’s not April Fool’s yet, but we’ll be there in no time.
Steve Lewit: Stay well, everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Talk to you soon. Bye now. Bye.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
Prerecorded Voice: Investment Advisory Services are offered through SGL Financial LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.
