Looking back on my own life, and the decades of research and professional experiences I've had, I have distilled a few very simple things that can stack the odds in your favor. (If you know someone who has recently graduated from college, I hope you will share this with them.)
If Abraham Maslow taught a class in personal finance, he would have described earning and saving as the foundation of any personal financial success program. Earning allows us our physiological needs – food, shelter, clothing – and saving is the bedrock of security. Earning and saving would be the bottom two levels of his famous pyramid.
There is a handful of additional investment knowledge that will help you earn better returns and keep more of your returns. These are portfolio optimizers. When correctly put into action, they can increase the probability of achieving your goals – and sooner.
When someone chooses to hire an advisor, they are delegating some or all of the responsibility for their financial future. But, they know that only their families will experience the outcomes of the work. Only the client will know success or failure. Only the client will be accountable. This is a huge decision.
![[VIDEO] Share Life Podcast | Taking Responsibility in The Sea of Uncertainty — With Jonathan DeYoe Thumbnail](https://static.twentyoverten.com/5e9f480983e780693cad849b/nHBfqKcQq8/share-life-square.jfif)
Jason Scott Montoya of the Share Life: Stories & Systems To Live Better & Work Smarter Podcast interviews Jonathan DeYoe of Mindful Money
All successful long-term investors are continuously acting on a plan that is founded on their deeply personal values and goals. They are appropriately allocated, they are broadly diversified, and they rebalance regularly. They are patient and remain mindful of their limitations. No one knows what is coming next.
About 40,000 people visit Mt. Everest’s southern base camp every year. Only 800 make the summit. Our brief step-by-step guide to personal finance that started in early January has brought us comfortably to the financial equivalent of base camp.
Most investors get this wrong - they mistakenly believe that market risk is the issue they have to overcome. And, in the attempt to manage for market risk, they worry about the wrong things. Recession is one of those things that, while potentially painful in the short run, resolves itself to become a minor issue in the long run.
Even if you love working, financial independence – the ability to live comfortably on your own terms (working or not) – is probably your ultimate financial goal. This used to be called “retirement”...
Your financial road, like the rest of your life, is multi-dimensional. The path must traverse the many switchbacks of a steep and relentless climb. In financial terms, the difficulty of the climb is all about debt.
Financial security is not a commodity; it can’t be found in a product. It isn’t available for sale in any way. Financial security is a journey. It is a path of trade-offs, acceptance, self-reflection, and hope. Getting there will require some effort and no small amount of luck.
After 17 months of struggling unsuccessfully with emotional overwhelm, I finally have a set of simple tools that have made a huge difference for me personally in accepting, allowing, just being with difficult emotions. If you're curious about this or want to try meditation, let me know. I’d love to help you get started.
To borrow from Churchill, “The balanced (stock/bond) portfolio is the worst form of investing known to man, except for all the other forms.” Those people who are suggesting – based on its immediate past 1-year performance – that the 60/40 portfolio is dead are probably trying to sell something that isn’t a balanced stock/bond portfolio.
For me, worrying isn’t just a sense of anxiety. It is a push to learn more. After I did some research and learned a little bit about how earthquakes work, I wasn’t worried about them anymore (or, at least, I worried less). Earthquakes and the fear of earthquakes are a pretty good stand-in for “market volatility.”
Mindful Money - broadly sharing basic financial education and presenting the simple actions that enable and inspire wealth-building - is my "Second Mountain." This is the purpose of this reading list. These are the core books that have helped me establish my own set of financial beliefs and behaviors that can work for anyone who is climbing their own mountains.
The World Really Is Getting Better | Does Mindfulness Get in the of Making Amends? | 11 Ways to Encourage Mindfulness for Kids | Passive vs. Active Investing: Why Passive Wins | New Study Shows 20 Years of Failure for Active Managers | Mindful Investing: Better Investing Outcomes; Less Suffering
The great companies of the US and the World are on sale. That sale may (or may not) get better. If it does get better, it won’t get that much better. There will be some point in the not-too-distant future where we look back at today – the September retest of the June low – and say, “I wish I would have invested then.”
You’ve heard me say it over and over… and over and over… and over and over again. Creating a retirement income that rises to match your rising cost of living and lasts the rest of your life, while at the same time creating a legacy that potentially lasts across generations, is possible – even for those who begin with very modest incomes. It requires three things: savings, equity ownership, and time.
We know – vividly – what has already happened. We can never know what will come next. The humble recognition of this truth should be the foundation of any long-term investment philosophy. The question is, “Given that we cannot know what comes next, how should we invest?”
I have been in financial services for over 2 decades, and there are 5 things I see (over and over) that take people away from their financial success. They are: Spend > Earn; Retire too early; Panic sell; Excited buy; No planning. We have designed two offerings to solve for these 5 mistakes.