Wisdom on Wealth

If your Christmas season isn’t quite so merry as you’d hoped this year, can I offer a few perspectives?

Borrowing from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol - in order to move you beyond your past failures and present difficulties into a bright future, you’re going to have to learn… from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

At least once a month someone says to me, they know someone who “needs my help.”

Well, every time I hear this story, I get some version of a brother, sister or friend who struggles with finances, suffering woes of their own making. Their problems can be traced back to over-spending, under-saving, speculation or some version of failing to face reality.

Last week I said time management is a myth.

And that’s because time is a totally inflexible commodity. We all have access to an equal amount every day.

Time management is a myth.

I once talked to a man who said, “My business is going well – better than I ever really thought it would. My problem is that it’s just eating up more and more of my time…and my life. I’m missing my kids’ ball games and I know I’ll never be able to get that time back and I don’t want to miss this time in their lives.”

“What time management tips do you have for getting more things done in less time?”

Have you ever had a friend approach you about investing in a start-up business that he's involved in...and he's really excited about? You've heard the speech..."I'm not at liberty to divulge any details, but the idea is brilliant and it can't miss!" 

Well, first of all, how do you know it can't miss? Because of all the strong feelings of the friend that just told you so?

Undefined dangers loom large in the mind.

Thus, they consume all our resources, emotional and financial, because they’ve got no clear boundaries. How do I ever set enough aside for an undefined danger? How can I ever know that I’ve saved enough?

Financial hoarding is the opposite of the more common problem of over-spending and under-saving.

Consider this perspective: all of the money that you ever have is either going to be spent or lost or left to someone else, who will then have those same three opportunities.

You’ve got dreams that you want to achieve, but if you’re honest, they kind of scare you too. Where do you find the confidence to pursue your dreams?

Well, here’s the thing about confidence - confidence is most often a result rather than a resource that you can obtain. 

I am highly confident in my ability to drive a car because I’ve done it so many times. I don’t need to give myself a rah-rah speech before the morning commute. I just get in the car and go, unconsciously confident that I can drive myself to work.

In today’s market, are there asset classes that are being overlooked?

Well, the answer is Yes. A very big yes. And that asset class is cash.

Cash is the currency in your wallet, the funds in your bank checking account and savings account and even money in money market accounts. It’s the medium of exchange with which we buy things.

So it’s nearly impossible to separate the idea of cash from cash flow – as the phrase suggests, that’s the flow of cash into and out of a financial system.

How do you get out of a rut at work?

Earl Nightingale was a 20th century writer and radio personality. Dubbed the “Dean of Personal Development,” he often repeated his motto, “Your rewards in life are always in exact proportion to your contribution.”

Now, that’s one of those statements that’s easy to believe but it’s harder to put into practice.

Most of us wish that our work was interesting and rewarding (both emotionally and financially, of course) and we wish that we made a real contribution. But those aren’t choices on a drop-down menu of a job search website.

When someone asks me how I think we’ll do the longer this pandemic wears on, most often I think, “You need to meet Frank and Jerry.”