The solution to too much or too little weight is solved with generally the same strategies. There are three things needed to maintain an ideal weight: diet, exercise and sleep. Do it right and you stand a good chance of living a long time. Do it right and you increase your chances at high levels of health and happiness. Do it right and your level of happiness should go up significantly. Do it right and you will truly be wealthy.
The most overlooked trick to growing wealth is right before your eyes. You can literally get rich doing anything.
It has been a long time since developed nations have tasted serious inflation. Unless you are near 60 or older you will not have experienced the last time inflation was a serious issue in the 1970s into the early 1980s.
Coupled with low inflation is low interest rates. It is hard to miss the pattern of interest rates since 1982. Each increase in interest rates was followed by a new low in interest rates until we bumped against zero and stayed there for much of the past decade.
The stock market loves low interest rates. The constantly declining interest rates gave us a stock market that has relentlessly climbed. In the early 1980s the price/earnings (p/e) ratio for large capitalization stocks was in the single digits and the dividend yield was in the 6% vicinity. Now the p/e multiple is closer to 30 and the dividend yield is below 2%.
Five months ago COVID-19 was just getting started. Fear was rampant. People and businesses made rushed decisions with long-term consequences. In the U.S. fewer than 10,000 people had died from the virus, yet fear was many more would die.
Over concerns clients and readers (that is you my kind friends) would make poor financial decisions, I published an article encouraging caution and recommended people relax, breathe deeply and think before making a decision. By thinking before acting, I felt my people would be in a better position to make decisions that would serve them well.
Then I watched my readers act and react on social media. The spread of COVID-19 should have run a chill down the spines of any normal human being. But social media does not bring out the “normal” in people. Some over-reacted with the attitude everyone should shelter in place forever. But as always happens, the disease became “normal” as we saw it every day. Before long people wanted to get out and act as if nothing was wrong or that the risk had ended. The middle, sensible, ground somehow lost out.
It is sad the intelligent solutions lost out. Again, social media was rife with conspiracy theories, questionable remedies and outright lies. Social distancing, washing hands and masks are three simple things everyone can do to slow the spread of the virus until a vaccine can end its rein of terror.
Logic didn’t work 5 months ago, so now I have to get blunt. This is a financial blog so there is a reason for the focus on a medical issue. Your reaction to COVID-19 is a large part of the way you think. If you conduct stupid, risky behavior with your life, you probably do even worse when it comes to money. The best way for me to convey this message is with the good cop/bad cop routine.
There are two parts to this post. Part 1 is a mild comedy sketch of the facts. In Part 2 we will put it together and pull out meaningful and valuable data you can use. This value will increase your wealth and allow you to live long enough to enjoy it. Remember, Part 1 is dark comedy and not my opinion. I don’t want hate mail before you read the whole story.
The faulty logic used in our dark humor skit is more than a risk to our physical health; it is the same mindset that harms you financially. We actually have people who believe 1,000 or more dead Americans a day isn’t that bad. There are people who think it is okay to carry on as if nothing has changed because only old people suffer the consequences. They forgot their Hemingway: Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (For exact quote use the link.) The clock keeps counting for all of us and since I see no old people saying, “I don’t care if young people do stuff that might kill me,” I assume today’s young people will want respectfully behavior from the future’s youth.
Perhaps the most important financial advice in the Bible comes from 1 Timothy 6:10:
For the love of money is the root of all evil. (KJV)
Money is not bad; greed is. Working to have money is of vital importance and God places money and wealth front and center. I see so many people suffering financially because they believe “money” is the root of all evil, when that is the furthest thing from the truth. It is the “love” of money that is the problem. Avoid that and you are golden.
There is so much more financial advice than that just in the four gospels and Proverbs. Of course, if you are serious about wealth, you might want to read the entire Bible as Living Literature. The stories still resonate and for good reason. They are archetypal stories dripping with significance. Virtually every bestselling novel and movie can be traced back to some story in the Bible. You just didn’t know it.
Money and wealth are important. And yes, God wants you to be rich. Really rich! Not just in financial terms, but in physical, mental and spiritual terms as well.
The word goal has taken on dreaded status. Over the decades I’ve attended several informational and motivational seminars. Whenever the topic of goals comes up, heads duck. It shouldn’t be that way.
I think people dread goals because they feel obligated once they are on paper. There is also some fear of stating your goals because they entail your deepest desires.
The thing is, goals should change. Not every goal deserves consideration. It would be nice to skydive. Sure it would. But after careful consideration other goals might interest you more. More family time might be the goal you wish to pursue instead and the rewards (in your mind) might be better than falling from 10,000 feet.
Brooke needed a car and we spent plenty of time looking for one fit for her needs. She still lives at home so her other bills are practically zero. She helps around our house, too, so mom and dad are open to her staying until she decides where (and with who) she wishes to move forward in her life.
The next day Heather confided in us that she caught Brooke in the bathroom fighting back tears. She might have paid cash, but this is the first time her account value declined because she spent it. It wasn’t a good feeling.
A valuable lesson was learned. Spending is okay to get things that benefit you as long as you realize the price for such luxury. She could have biked to work or hitched a ride. Winters would have been hard, but manageable.
Once I digested that it was only a number I decided to do what I always did. I try lots of things, grow my business and expand my sources of income, much of it passive.
You see, I learned the most important step of all: It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. And I had the best mate in the world along for the ride.
It was that day when I was a 32 year old man that I learned to live life for the first time. Live, for Real.