Tag Archives: health

Atomic Habits: What I Learned from James Clear’s Book

February 18, 2019business, Uncategorizedbody, books, development, energy, focus, friends, Fun, habits, health, history, inspiration, job, Life Changes, mind, perseverance, perspective, questions, research, review, school, science, System, workInvestmentPathfinder

We all know habits are important – whether for our personal fitness or our finances. Yet nearly all of us acknowledge the fact that we don’t have the best habits for our personal development.

This book, which I read and reflected on the last two weeks, revealed just how important habits are. I took away many points – some of which I already knew and some of which were completely foreign.

In summary, I learned that habits are crucial for success. They form by a cue and often are formed in large part by our environment. Controlling your environment is a huge part of success. Making your habits Obvious, Attractive, Easy and Satisfying is what the book was really about.

One thing that really stood out to me was the fact that many of the most successful people got to where they are because of environment and habits. Good habits can come from accountability partners, from creating a good environment or simply working to create the obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying habits the author talks about.

I would highly recommend the book for anyone interested in habits or personal development.

3 Finance Habits to Improve Your Bank Account and Your Sanity

February 12, 2019business, Uncategorized, writing1%, 3, attention, blogs, books, education, Fun, habits, health, inspiration, Personal Finance, planning, technology, workInvestmentPathfinder

In James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, he concisely illustrates a very important point. Often we think that we need to design the most optimal habits in our lives. For example we need to have a plan to exercise two ours each morning with the proper amount of cardio, aerobic and strength exercises. While doing this can certainly be a great boost of confidence and personal fitness, Clear points out that most of the time we don’t need complex habits – we need two minute habits.

Creating habits is hard enough. For anyone who has tried to change their daily routine for the better, they know how much of a challenge shifting behavior can be. Yet nearly all of us fail. The reason? Our habits aren’t simple enough.

Clear tells us not only to start with two minute habits but to make the cues and catalysts for those habits almost automatic. After all, “You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.”

An area that I have personally been working on is the area of personal finance. I have thought about this topic a great deal in my personal life and have come to the conclusion that there are three key habits for anyone serious about controlling their money:

1) Pay Attention

Tracking your fitness has been shown to produced fitter people. Watching your personal growth has been shown to produce successful people. And measuring your finances has been shown to make richer people. Many studies illustrate this point. Simply staying on top of your bank balances, credit card balances, credit score and retirement accounts will leave you in a much stronger position. The reason is that we tend to improve things we pay attention to.

2) Plan Ahead

Creating a written plan and sticking to it is actually what separates us from animals. We have the ability to plan ahead and participate in what Ray Dalio calls “higher level thinking”. The plan doesn’t have to be complex. You can sit down with your advisor or do it yourself.

3) Learn

This blog isn’t intended to be the sole source of your financial information. But if you combine regular blog and book reading with input from your financial advisor you can improve your knowledge exponentially over time.

Conclusion:

Do you want to bolster yourself to the top 1% of Americans? Do you want to experience less financial stress and uncertainty? Follow my three-pronged approach to 1) pay attention 2) plan ahead and 3) learn.

What I learned from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers

February 5, 2019business, Success, Uncategorized, writingancestry, blogs, books, finance, focus, Fun, health, history, inspiration, IQ, luck, Malcolm Gladwell, pattern, questions, research, school, workInvestmentPathfinder

Have you ever wondered why nearly all the top hockey players were born in January, February or March? Ever wonder why the smartest people in the world aren’t the most successful? Malcolm Gladwell’s book contains these exact answers and more.

I found his book extremely revealing. I came into the book thinking that success was almost completely determined by intelligence, hard work and intentionality. While these traits are significant parts of making the most with what you have, Gladwell illustrates that much of what determines success is due to completely unpredictable and random factors.

While much of our success is determined by luck – where we were born, who are parents are and their respective network and culture – a lot of these advantages can be recognized and limited. But we can’t just assume luck isn’t impacting these things – it always is.

Recently I’ve been reflecting on my current reads and taking notes to summarize what I’ve been getting out of the books. I did this for Outliers and took away a few key points. Here they are below:

If you see a pattern, don’t assume it’s random, examine the history behind it
Understand your own history and the apparent consequences/indications of what that means for you

I hope these two points are helpful. A key takeaway was to look at the contributing factors and history behind success. This, of course, is consistent with the title of the book!

What is Personal Finance

November 26, 2018Uncategorizedblogs, budget, cash, development, focus, friends, health, history, implications, importance, inspiration, investing, long-term thinking, mind, Personal Finance, research, school, technology, workInvestmentPathfinder

What is personal finance? And Why does it matter?

Those are two very interesting and important questions to ask as one either begins their life as adults, or being asking questions they’ve never approached before. For the past five months or so, this blog has predominantly been centered around personal finance, both the investing side, as well as the money management side.

I realized that before I continue this journey with all of you, I need to take a moment to explain what Personal finance actually is. Personal finance clearly deals with how individuals manage their money.

While the topic briefly touches on the analysis and performance of businesses and organizations for investment purposes, it predominantly centers around the individuals’ approach to managing each dollar in and each dollar out.

Personal finance answers questions like:

What are my financial goals? What use do I have for money? What should my investment approach be? How much do I need to be saving? How large should my house purchase be? Should I buy this trinket or save the money?

Many of these questions are simply answered through quiet reflection or by asking your friends and family for feedback. However, some of these more complex questions like how to invest your money, or how to craft a financial plan can often be better answered by a financial advisor.

Why does personal finance matter?

There are three basic reasons why you should pay attention to your finances:

1. Money has impact

2. Money can be complicated

3. Money is emotional

While we of course don’t have the time to go into the details of Personal Finance in one blog post, I hope this gives you a great picture of what this topic is all about.

3 Forces Standing Between You and Your Financial Goals

October 12, 2018business, Force, inflationaccounting, bill gates, books, energy, family, focus, Fun, goals, health, history, inspiration, long-term thinking, opportunity cost, Personal Finance, research, school, technology, time, Warren Buffet, workInvestmentPathfinder

Time

Often all the things we want to accomplish aren’t feasibly achievable in a set period of time. When this is true, we have to make the often difficult decision of determining which path matches with our values. In other words, we probably can’t achieve every goal we have so we have to prioritize.

This is very true with short term goals like making it to your kid’s basketball game verses watching the football game live. But it can also be true with long term goals. For example I certainly would enjoy the process of being a masterful accountant who has both technical skills and people skills. However I have come to realize that I might never become the world’s greatest accountant if I have other goals more worthwhile (for example like becoming a great financial advisor).

Goals

You might think a strange thing to add to this list is goals. After all, aren’t goals things that empower us and keep us on track? Yes and no. In one sense goals are essential to producing the results we want in life. In another sense, goals by themselves, without effective plans to get there and way to streamline actions towards them, are meaningless.

As Warren Buffet and Bill Gates agreed in an interview: one of the greatest factors to success is focus. Putting all your energy on one task, both with your mind and body, is a powerful thing.

Having too many goals, I have found, can get in the way of this powerful focus. That’s why it’s so important to recognize the things that are worthwhile and the things that can wait.

Inflation

Lastly on this simple list of 3 is inflation. This is more of a technical obstacle than a mental one. However the force can be equally important. If you were to buy a house in a stable neighborhood today, do you think the same house would be worth more in 30 years? Yes, I would hope so. This fact that we can all bet on, the fact that prices will overall rise year after year, is called inflation.

Inflation is powerful because it covers both the consumption side (for example like purchasing gum) and the investment side like stocks or investment real estate. Inflation is such an important force that I will be covering a brief history and action steps around it tomorrow in my blog. Tune in!

3 Factors to Look at When Determining Where to Live

September 29, 2018business, Uncategorizedbooks, career, cars, cities, cost of living, education, family, food, friends, Fun, health, history, homeownership, inspiration, long-term thinking, moving, new, opportunities, Personal Finance, politics, potential, renting, research, school, shopping, stability, visionInvestmentPathfinder

As a financial blog, I have dealt a lot with individual personal finance issues, like what to invest in, how to budget, and what to do in different areas financially. Here I want to step back and cover 3 financial factors that you should think about when considering a city to live in. While these three aren’t the only things to think about, they certainly will cover the broad range of financial determining factors:

Job and Career Potential

Here you’re just trying to get an idea as to how easy or hard it will be to have employment, and sustain employment in your chosen career field. Two of the things to consider are the unemployment rate, which is a good indicator of how many people who want jobs have them, and job growth. With job growth you want to look at the number of new jobs being created, specifically in your career field, over the last decade.

Cost of Living

Housing costs will be broken down into to two big areas: housing and everything else. When looking at housing, there are usually two broad options available. You can either rent or you can buy. You are going to want to compare the costs of rent vs the rest of the country. Pay special attention to the rent increases. For example maybe your area currently has slightly higher rents than the national average, but over the last couple years the rents have been skyrocketing. You want to be mindful of areas in which the costs of living, including rents are rising quickly.

The second housing option to look at is homeownership. What is the average costs of a home in the area. This can vary greatly from one neighborhood to another. For example one neighborhood might costs $300,000 but just across the road might be $250,000 for a similar house. Find the area you’re thinking about and start comparing prices.

After paying for housing there are the rest of the general costs associated with living and breathing. These costs can include food, insurance, transportation, recreation, and especially taxes. Taxes are a huge part of your yearly expenses. There are income taxes (both federal, state and sometimes city), as well as sales tax and property tax. Look at these rates for you area.

Long-Term Stability

The last thing you want to look at after job potential and cost of living is the general stability in the area. The stability of the area is both the economic factors and the political factors.

For example look at one of the leading factors of growth for cities: population growth. Take a look at the recent trend in population. For example are massive amounts of people entering or leaving the area? This might be a sign that things are changing. With the change in demographics and population comes changes in political preferences.

Maybe these changes will lead to political leadership upheaval in the local government. Think about how these changes could potentially impact your life in terms of local taxes, regulations, social programs, and building projects in the future. Are you okay with these potential changes and the uncertainty that comes with them?

Conclusion:

Overall, these three factors can paint a pretty clear picture of the financial concerns about one area over another. After going through them, you should know whether this area is something you would want to consider moving to. Naturally though, there will be others things of concern, like climate, education, health and other issues. While these concerns might not directly impact your finances, most of them should be looked at closely for the effects they could have down the road.

Reading: Things That Will Change Your Life

September 18, 2018business, Success1%, body, books, education, emotion, family, fiction, freedom, friends, Fun, Harry Potter, health, inspiration, investing, long-term thinking, mind, money, paper, perseverance, politics, Reading, school, technology, vision, workInvestmentPathfinder

As simple as it sounds, reading will change your life.

As I have lived on campus I have seen many different views when it comes to reading. Most students prefer to avoid it altogether if possible. A few people enjoying reading fiction, and then there are the true readers.

As part of this “club” of true readers I have seen firsthand how the books we read can change our life. And I don’t mean just any books, I mean nonfiction. Why nonfiction? There are two reasons nonfiction is more beneficial in our life over fiction:

1. Fact-based learning

When it comes to reading in general you are uncovering stories, facts and emotions. With nonfiction specifically, the base of your reading is centered around actual facts, not something made up.

2. Nonfiction books are often more relatable to real life

Whether it’s a nonfictional story, or a self-help book, reading nonfiction has a much greater footing in reality, and therefore more relevancy in our lives, than simply another story out of someone’s head. And often, depending on if it’s a self-improvement book, you’ll receive applicable steps for your life as well.

3 Fun Things To Do With Your Money

September 12, 2018Uncategorizedbooks, family, food, friends, Fun, generosity, health, investing, long-term thinking, Personal Finance, priorities, school, shopping, technology, vision, workInvestmentPathfinder

Give it

If you’re a Christian this can be represented by tithing. However for non-christians generosity can still play a big role. Consider giving to charities, friends, organizations, causes and people in need.

With technology there are now so many ways to connect and give to others. Giving can change the way you see the world around you, make you more compassionate, and just make you feel better about yourself in general.

Enjoy it

Enjoying money can be fun! I remember spending money to go out to eat at a nice restaurant. It felt like such a reward to myself for the work I had done. Enjoying money, specifically money you’ve earned, can feel very, very good.

Stop and thing the ways in which you could enjoy your life and your money today. Prioritize the fun with your long-term goals about investing, giving and leaving a legacy. Often people struggle with spending too much money on things that don’t actually provide enjoyment. That is just stupid.

If you’re buying something or going somewhere to impress someone else you are committing two mistakes: 1) You’re spending money you could be investing or giving (which in and of itself isn’t a crime) and 2) you’re spending money on something that doesn’t really matter to you. Leaving a little money for your future should always be at the back of your mind. Which leads us to the third thing…

Grow it

Not a lot of people in society enjoy investing. The truth is, not many people have really gotten into investing, which hurts them more than they know. When I opened my Roth IRA, I put $5,500 in it. Even in the first half year it grew to almost $6,000, a $500 increase. I was pumped.

Realistically though, investing in a well balanced, thought-through planned investment portfolio isn’t always going to go straight up. Sometimes, even often, the balance is going to go down a little. That’s part of investing.

But as your balance grows steadily over time, you will begin to see why so many people are hooked on investing.

Conclusion:

Prioritizing these three things is both a challenge and a beautiful dilemma. It can feel like a blessing to have resources (money) to mange for your future and for your family’s future. That’s why it’s so important to think about these three things.

7 Things That People Never Spend Enough Money On

September 11, 2018Uncategorizedbooks, cars, food, freedom, friends, Fun, health, investing, others, paper, Personal Finance, priorities, school, seminars, shopping, values, vision, workInvestmentPathfinder

1. Paper

That’s a strange thing to lead the list with. However paper represents a mentality in the U.S., and especially in other countries, that puts people in a scarcity mentality. I’ve been personally at fault of doing this. Often I’ll try to save paper by writing on the other side or cramming everything on to one page.

This is particularly true when I am in school. I’ll take notes by putting everything close together. Any learning and memorization expert will tell you that leaving space on the paper gives your brain room to process and compartmentalize concepts and facts in your brain.

You need to be comfortable using up more paper, even if that means spending a minuscule amount more.

2. Seminars

Honestly this type of personal improvement hasn’t been something I’ve looked into in the past. However in recent months and years I’ve begun to see how others have used these as networking, learning, and inspirational events.

3. Health

I hope most people value health over money. The natural outcome of this value priority is that you should be spending the money you need to to keep your health at its prime. Don’t forget about health.

4. Others

Pouring money into others, whether through time and experiences, or generous gifts of items and money, is both a heart-warmer, and a perspective-changer. As soon as you begin to look outside yourself to help others, life becomes a ton more meaningful.

5. Car Maintenance

Changing the oil, replacing break pads, and doing general maintenance on your vehicles is a responsible thing for adults to do. It feels like you’re throwing money away, but in the long-term it can save you money in emergencies, breaks, and issues.

6. High Quality Items

Often it is wise to skip the name-brand items and go with cheaper things. This is especially true with things that don’t matter as much like cereal brands or food in general. However if you find an item is cheaper than another, this doesn’t mean instantly that it’s a deal. It’s possible that down the road you’ll spend money on replacing that cheaper item.

7. Books

Call me old fashioned, but I find books are particularly useful in learning. I have personally read hundreds (yes hundreds) of nonfiction books in my free time. While spending $1,000 on books (both e-books and physical books) can seem like a big waste of money when the library is just down the street, I see books as an investment.

When you see nonfiction books as resources and insightful gems of knowledge, it becomes natural to look at the cost-benefit of each book as a more than worthwhile investment.

I personally find physical books to be easier on my eyes and simply to read than e-books.

Conclusion:

Seeing every purchase as an investment can be a fun game to get your mind racing on ways to save and spend money wisely.

3 Often Overlooked Disadvantages of Going to College

September 1, 2018business, collegechange, college degree, family, finance, freedom, friends, health, school, technology, values, vision, workInvestmentPathfinder

Around this time of year, many of us are heading off to college, anxious to begin the next academic year. However when comparing colleges or even contemplating college altogether, there are a few key disadvantages that many dropouts understand.

Schedule

When you’re in school there are often many activities, events, and even classes themselves that interfere with your ability to do what you’d like with your time. While this can certainly be an advantages because it keeps you busy, it also has drawbacks like committing you to spend your time doing things you don’t necessarily want to do.

Costs

When you enter college you most likely will have a big bill to pay. Unless you are a high athletic or academic achiever, or have worked really hard to get scholarships, you most likely don’t have too much financial relief in the way of expenses. This can make it particularly hard to stock money away for a home, living expenses, or even retirement planning.

Freedom and Mobility

Not only can the college experience place more restrictions on when you can go, it can also place restrictions on where you can go. During college there are usually rules on when you can be back. This, by definition places a time limit on how long you can be gone, and thus how far you can go.

When entering college you will be giving up these freedoms as well as a few others. Please don’t think I’m against college altogether. But it certainly is a good idea to compare these various factors when thinking about going to a specific college or university.