The secret to becoming successful in life and business starts with how healthy you are. And that means that you’re eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and exercising daily.
Health is wealth. Why food, sleep, and exercise can impact your success?
You Are What You Eat
When it comes to your productivity, you are what you eat!
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Ron Friedman states, “Food has a direct impact on our cognitive performance, which is why a poor decision at lunch can derail an entire afternoon.”
“Just about everything we eat is converted by our body into glucose, which provides the energy our brains need to stay alert,” Fredman continues. “When we’re running low on glucose, we have a tough time staying focused and our attention drifts. This explains why it’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach.”
Certain foods like pasta, bread, cereal and soda, “release their glucose quickly, leading to a burst of energy followed by a slump.” High fat meals, however, “(think cheeseburgers and BLTs) provide more sustained energy, but require our digestive system to work harder, reducing oxygen levels in the brain and making us groggy.”
Replace that junk food with options like kale, blueberries, fish, walnuts, and green tea if you want to give your cognitive functions a boost.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Adequate, quality rest each night is essential for good health. Sleep provides the foundation for all our daily habits and decisions. A lack of quality sleep can negatively impact our mood as well as our ability to focus on daily tasks and activities.
The Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School reiterates how essential a good night’s sleep is. “Lack of sleep exacts a toll on perception and judgment. In the workplace, its effects can be seen in reduced efficiency and productivity, errors, and accidents. Sometimes the effects can even be deadly, as in the case of drowsy driving fatalities.”
While sleep is important, it doesn’t have to be eight hours. In fact, only 27% of highly successful people sleep between 7-8 hours. Another 27% get 6-7 hours, while 32% only sleep for 5-6 hours. Most of these individuals sleep from the hours of 11pm to 5am as well.
To get a good night’s sleep, create a schedule and stick to it. You should also avoid drinking alcohol and regular coffee, keep you room dark and cool (between 60 and 67 degrees is ideal), have a comfortable mattress, and have a relaxing ritual before you go to bed, such as reading or meditating.
Exercise – Get Your Sweat On
One highly effective habit of successful individuals is daily exercise. Besides keeping off unwanted pounds, exercising daily can help with;
Decreasing stress,
Boosting your immune system,
Keeping you productive, and
Helping you sleep better at night.
Even if you can’t go to the gym for an hour everyday, you can always start taking baby steps. For example, you could start using a standing desk, taking the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator.
These small actions add-up and ensure that you stay at your best physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Food, sleep, and exercise can impact your success. Thus, it’s important that you make your health a priority.
“Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” Warren Buffett
“Don’t judge a company’s stock by its share price.” Many people incorrectly assume that a stock with a low dollar price is cheap, while another one with a four-digit dollar price is expensive. In fact, a stock’s price says little about that stock’s value. Moreover, it says nothing at all about whether that the market price of a company is headed higher or lower.
The most important distinction between the ‘market price you pay’ and the ‘intrinsic value you get’ is the fact that price is arbitrary and value is fundamental.
Price is the amount paid for the product or service.
Cost is the aggregate monetary value of the inputs used in the production of the goods or services.
Value of a product or service is the utility or worth of the product or service for an individual.
To effectively deploy this strategy, it’s essential to find a company that you understand, that has solid fundamentals — then be patient and wait until the company’s stock price falls below its intrinsic value before you purchase the company.
Regarding ‘understanding’ a company, it’s important for investors to know how a company makes its money–revenue, profits and free cash flow.
At some point, a stock’s market price over the long term adjusts to its intrinsic value. This fact is how successful investors such as Warren Buffet have used to make billions over the long term.
“Finding differences between price and value is by far the most effective investment strategy”, writes Phil Townes, founder of Rule One Investing . “Not recognizing differences between price and value is also what causes many investors to lose their shirts, as companies are just as often overpriced as they are underpriced.”
How do you find companies that are on sale for less than their true value is to evaluate companies using a set of standards that look beyond the company’s current price tag. Phil Town call these standards the four Ms:
Meaning,
Moat,
Management and
Margin of Safety
The first step is to make sure you understand the company and the company you invest in has meaning to you as an investor. If it does, you’ll understand it better, be more likely to research it and be more passionate about investing in it.
The second step is to choose a company that has a moat. This means that there is something inherent about the company that makes it difficult for competitors to step in and carve away part of their market share.
The third step is to look at the company’s management. Companies live and die by the people managing them, and if you are going to invest in a company, you need to make sure their management is talented and trustworthy.
Finally, calculate the company’s intrinsic value and determine a margin of safety. Margin of safety is the price at which you can buy shares of a company, being more likely that you won’t lose money and have increased confident that you will make a good return on your invested capital.
When the market price of a company is lower than the company’s intrinsic value number, the company is deemed underpriced and represents a great investment opportunity.
“Leveraging differences between price and value is as simple as that”, said Town. “Find a company that you believe in, that has solid fundamentals — then wait until their price falls below their value. If you do this, you can buy companies on sale, sell them for their true value and make a lot of money in the process.”
The goal is to identify stocks that are undervalued—that is, their market prices do not reflect their true intrinsic value.
The overriding goal is to help individuals learn how to successfully invest in assets, to build long term wealth and achieve lifetime financial freedom.
“Anytime you engage in regular activity, you’re becoming this version of yourself that is more hopeful, more motivated, more energized, and better able to connect with others.” ~Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.
Knowing only great benefits and happiness will result from movement, why are Americans so resistant to making movement a priority in their day?
While our brains and bodies reward us for moving and exertion, we also are built with an instinct to avoid overexertion, conserve energy, to rest, to avoid discomfort, and avoid failure and embarrassment, says Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.
To retrain our bodies to encourage movement, we must first start with self-compassion and the practice of gratitude. We must remove the negative connotations from movement and recognize how the practice of movement can be really rewarding on its own.
“Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore.” Kelly McGonigal
Research shows, according to Dr. McGonigal, there are three motivations that keep people moving:
Enjoyment – doing something you actually enjoy
The activity provides social community or sense of identity (i.e. “I’m a runner”), … positive social connection, and
It’s a personal challenge and meaningful to you as you’re making progress toward a goal.
If you can find an activity that gives you all three – you’re hooked for life! Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore and burden.
Movement can be a source of joy and is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery–and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
Basically, bliss can be found in any sustained physical activity, whether that’s hiking, swimming, cycling, dancing, or yoga. However, the runner’s high emerges only after a significant effort. It seems to be the brain’s way of rewarding you for working hard.
McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe.
Along the way, Dr. McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.
Movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. By harnessing the power of movement, you can create happiness, meaning, and connection in your life.
The latest theory about the runner’s high claims that: Our ability to experience exercise-induced euphoria is linked to our earliest ancestors’ lives as hunters, scavengers, and foragers.
As biologist Dennis Bramble and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman write, “Today, endurance running is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus.”
The neurochemical state that makes running gratifying may have originally served as a reward to keep early humans hunting and gathering. What we call the runner’s high may even have encouraged our ancestors to cooperate and share the spoils of a hunt.
In our evolutionary past, humans may have survived in part because physical activity was pleasurable. It takes about six weeks of consistent moderate movement to see structural and neurochemical changes in your brain. And, increase intensity amplifies the benefits. The harder stuff seems to payoff. Exercise gets easier and more pleasurable sooner.
The key to unlocking the runner’s high is not the physical action of running itself, but can be achieved on continuous moderate intensity exercise. And in fact scientists have documented a similar increase in endocannabinoids from cycling, walking on a treadmill at an incline, and outdoor hiking.
If you want the high, you just have to put in the time and effort.
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., is a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.
The #1 killer of Americans—Cardiovascular / Heart Disease.
Cardiovascular disease remains the #1 health threat and the leading cause of death in the U.S. Over 874,000 Americans died of cardiovascular disease in 2019, according to the American Heart Association’s “Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics – 2022 Update.”
Moreover, cardiovascular disease (CVD) kills more people each year than COVID-19 at its worst and CVD is the preventable. Every year, cardiovascular disease kills twice as many people, at a younger average age, as COVID-19 has at its worst, and since 2020, there’s been a surge in fatalities from heart disease and stroke in the U.S.
Fortunately, we don’t need heroic medical innovation to turn back this pandemic. We already have the public health tools needed to prevent most early cardiovascular deaths. The question is whether we can muster the social and political will to use them.
First, some basics. In the first two years of the pandemic, COVID-19 killed nearly 900,000 people in the U.S. In those same years, heart attacks and strokes killed more than 1.6 million. Globally, COVID-19 killed more than 10 million people in the first two years of the pandemic; in the same two years, cardiovascular disease killed more than 35 million. The three leading drivers of heart attacks and strokes—accounting for around two-thirds of the global total—are tobacco use, hypertension and air pollution, and all three are preventable.
There are many things you can do to take control of your health and reduce your risk of heart problems without medication. One of the most important ways to protect your heart—and brain, as research shows—is to protect yourself against the dangers of hypertension.
Blood pressure is the force of that blood pushing against your artery walls. It is normal for your blood pressure to rise and fall throughout the day. But if it stays high for too long, the constant force on your arteries can create microscopic tears. These tears can turn into scar tissue, providing the perfect lodging place for fat, cholesterol, and other particles—collectively called plaque.
Buildup of plaque narrows the arteries, which requires your heart to work extra hard to push blood through, causing spikes in blood pressure. When untreated, high blood pressure (or hypertension) is a ticking time bomb.
Most people experience no symptoms, often having high blood pressure without knowing. Left undetected or uncontrolled, hypertension can lead to heart disease, heart attack, stroke, kidney damage/failure, vision loss, peripheral artery disease, and sexual dysfunction.
The Brain and Blood Pressure Connection
Research is starting to show just how far-reaching the effects of hypertension can be, affecting not just the blood vessels in the brain, but also how the brain functions. A recently published study in Hypertension, the journal of the American Heart Association, found that high blood pressure appears to accelerate cognitive decline.
On the other hand, those with controlled hypertension did not experience these rapid declines in memory or cognitive function, which highlights the need to control blood pressure, regardless of age. As scientists in this study concluded, “In addition to hypertension, prehypertension and pressure control might be critical for the preservation of cognitive function.”
Other research confirms the importance of keeping heart health risk factors under control, especially for the prevention of dementia. In one study of 1,449 people, those who had better control over modifiable heart disease risk factors had lower risk of dementia later in life.
It’s time to pay special attention to understanding, preventing and treating heart disease. Here are just a few examples of how you can reduce your risk:
Doing at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week
Eating healthy (the AHA’s Heart-Check mark can guide you)
Not smoking or vaping
Maintaining a healthy weight
Controlling blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure
Getting regular checkups
Finding ways to relax and ease your mind, such as meditation
Caring for yourself and taking care of your heart is good for your brain. That’s because many of the risk factors for heart disease, including high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, are also related to brain diseases such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
“Cardiovascular disease kills more people each year than COVID-19 at its worst. We know how to prevent it. We just need the political will.” Tom Frieden
Although COVID-19 is the most aggressively reported pandemic of our lifetime, it is neither the deadliest nor the most preventable.
That distinction goes to cardiovascular disease (CVD), a pandemic so common it is invisible, so routinely lethal it seems normal, and so ingrained in the fabric of modern society it seems natural.
Every year, cardiovascular disease kills twice as many people, at a younger average age, as COVID-19 has at its worst, and since 2020, there’s been a surge in fatalities from heart disease and stroke in the U.S. And, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of lower life expectancy among African Americans.
Some basics facts…in the first two years of the pandemic, COVID-19 killed nearly 900,000 people in the U.S., says Tom Frieden, M.D., chief executive, Resolve to Save Lives.
In those same years, heart attacks and strokes killed more than 1.6 million. Globally, COVID-19 killed more than 10 million people in the first two years of the pandemic; in the same two years, cardiovascular disease killed more than 35 million globally.
The leading drivers of cardiovascular disease related heart attacks and strokes are:
Tobacco use,
Hypertension,
Artificial trans fats consumption, and
Air pollution,
and all are preventable.
Related medical costs and productivity losses approach $450 billion annually, and inflation-adjusted direct medical costs are projected to triple over the next two decades if present trends continue.
Cardiovascular disease can be prevented
Tobacco
Tackling these killers—tobacco use, hypertension, artificial trans fat, and air pollution—doesn’t require making radical changes in society. Americans still very much lived in the same country after we reduced the number of fatal car crashes by outlawing drunken driving, promoted child development by eliminating lead in paint and gasoline, and prevented food poisoning through regulations making food safer. But it does mean regulating companies that sell tobacco and unhealthy foods and cause air pollution so that they are forced to share some of the costs of the enormous harms they cause.
The first priority is to end the epidemic of tobacco use. Once people start, especially those who start young, the addictiveness of nicotine in tobacco makes it extraordinarily difficult to stop. Although smoking rates are now at the lowest level ever measured in the U.S., more than 35 million adults still smoke tobacco, each day 1,600 kids try their first cigarette, and tobacco kills nearly 500,000 Americans every year.
The way to reduce smoking is to rally our collective will to do something about the problem. Increasing taxes on tobacco can save millions of lives by using high prices to suppress demand. Rigorous studies have proved that tobacco has a negative price elasticity: For every 10% increase in price, consumption declines by about 4% and by about 8% for children and lower-income groups. About half of that decrease is from people quitting and the other half from people cutting down on the number of cigarettes they smoke.
Sodium and Hypertension
The most important single step to prevent high blood pressure is to reduce your sodium consumption
Kaiser Permanente’s research has shown that it is possible to achieve 90% blood pressure control. Closely related, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends consuming no more than 2 g of sodium per day (5 g/d salt). Unfortunately, the average salt intake globally is between 9 and 12 g/d.10. High sodium intake is the leading cause of hypertension and is responsible for 2.3 million deaths per year.
Reducing sodium intake reduces blood pressure which in turn lowers cardiovascular disease risk.
Artificial trans fats
Artificial trans fat is a harmful compound that increases the risk of heart attack and death. It can be eliminated and replaced with healthier alternatives without altering taste or increasing cost.
Artificial trans fat is estimated to cause 540,000 deaths every year, globally. Elimination of artificial trans fat has substantial health benefits. Eliminating the use of artificial trans fat in foods in Denmark reduced deaths from cardiovascular disease. In New York State, people living in counties with artificial trans fat restrictions were 6% less likely to be admitted to the hospital after suffering a heart attack or stroke.
Air pollution
Cardiovascular disease stubbornly remains the leading cause of preventable death in America and globally. Political will to combat this silent pandemic and public education are the two best remedies.
Micro rewards increase gym visits by 16%. Combine a few successful strategies, such as:
Set a reasonable workout schedule
Add reminders on your phone
Plan small rewards for keeping to your schedule and also for going back to the gym if you miss a plan workout.
One in Sixty Rule — It means that for every 1 degree an aircraft veers off its intended course, it misses its target destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles it flies. Further you go, further away from your goal or destination you get. It is true in life too.
“Successful people, such as professional athletes and other top performers, have used visualization techniques to visualize their desired outcomes for ages.”
Visualization is one of the most powerful tools you can use to accomplish any goal you set for yourself. Visualization can be applied to help you improve your performance and be successful in all aspects of your life.
Visualization works because when you visualize, your mind and body don’t really know the difference between what you visualize and reality. When you visualize your goal, you create the thoughts, focus and energy that will help to pull that goal towards you.
When you visualize, your body and mind react as if they were true. Many people believe that when you believe something to be true, you attract it to you. When you visualize your success as reality you can also visualize your path to get there.https://t.co/K2kP4WSlu5
The Power of Visualization.When you visualize, your body and mind react as if they were true. Many people believe that when you believe something to be true, you attract it to you – you make it true.
However, believing something to be true doesn’t necessarily make it happen. For many people taking action is challenging due to lack of confidence or a lack of belief in their goal. Visualization, because it taps directly into these emotions, can strengthen your belief in yourself, in your abilities and in your goals.
Additionally, visualization helps paint the scene so you can better plan and prepare for success. When you visualize your success as reality you can also visualize your path to get there.
Before taking the stage to speak to a large audience, Matt Mayberry, Maximum Performance Strategist and a former NFL linebacker, always picture himself giving the “perfect” speech. He would begin weeks in advance by picturing the audience and the positive reaction from the crowd.
Top performers, among many others, have mastered the technique of positive visualization and openly credit it as a success tactic. Practice makes improvement. Practicing visualization isn’t just a fun exercise – the better you become at visualization the faster you will achieve the success you desire.
When you think of a big goal or dream that you want to achieve, it’s natural to think of all of the obstacles that will come your way.
All top performers, regardless of profession, know well the importance of and consistently practice of picturing themselves succeeding in their minds before they actually do in reality. It is extremely effective when harnessed and used correctly.
“The key to effective visualization is to create the most detailed, clear, and vivid a picture to focus on.”
Research shows that the more you focus on the things you desire, the better chance you have at getting them. For example, struggling comedian and actor, Jim Carrey used to picture himself being the greatest actor in the world. When Carey was still a “wannabe” during one of his appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, he spoke about his early days trying to make it in the entertainment business. He was broke and had no future. But he took a blank check and wrote out $10 million dollars to himself for acting services rendered and dated it five year in the future.
Subsequently, he carried that check in his wallet at all times and looked at it every morning, visualizing receiving $10 million. Five years after he wrote the check to himself, he found out that he was going to earn $10 million from the movie “Dumb and Dumber.”
Consider two other examples:
Boxing champion and legend Muhammad Ali was always stressing the importance of seeing himself victorious long before the actual fight.
Michael Jordan always took the last shot in his mind before he ever took one in real life.
As the examples demonstrate, you to can visualize and create an image of what you most desire. You create a detailed mental scene of what it looks like as you achieve your goal. Visualize it happening now, and the scene that is playing out.
There is a big difference in imaging your goals and making them feel so real your mind believes it has already happened. The more you surround yourself with imagery or words related to your goal, the more real it will become to you.
To make any habit stick, you need to continue to do that habit. The same goes for visualization, the more you practice the quicker you will be in the frame of mind that helps pave the way to success.
Visualization is extremely powerful in helping you achieve success and realize your goals. However, you will still need to put in the hard work and dedication. Don’t forget to repeat, repeat, repeat!
Picture yourself victorious – If you can’t see it, then it’s not going to happen. In order to achieve your biggest goals and dreams, you have to picture yourself victorious. You have to look beyond your current circumstances and past failures. While visualizing, it’s necessary to visualize as many details as you can. Re-create any feelings that are in alignment with your dreams. Make it part of your daily routine. You will be amazed at the improvement in your life and astounded when your dream is realized.
Create a vision board. – A vision board gives you the opportunity to actually see your goals. This vision board can be a poster board, a piece of paper, the back of a cardboard box, or anything. On the vision board, put pictures that illustrate what you desire in your life. On your vision board, you can also post quotes that embodied what you want and read them every single day.
Utilize the power of a trigger card – Your biggest goal and dream can be placed on a note card to serve as your trigger card. From your 3×5 index cards, read daily the goal you desire most. Get in the habit of doing this every day. Each morning and each night, read those index cards, close your eyes, and imagine yourself accomplishing and following through on that major goal of yours.
Get in the habit of putting together a positive vision into your everyday life. Visualize yourself succeeding, achieving every goal, accomplishing every task. The key is to make your positive vision stronger than anything that can set you back. The more vivid you can get, the better it will work for you. Start thinking of your personal goals in life. Spend about 10 to 15 minutes picturing yourself achieving each one.
Get as detailed as possible. Picture what you will do once your goal is reached. How amazing does it feel? How will this change the course of your life? Remember, the little details increase the likelihood of the big picture.
It’s important to understand that visualization alone isn’t enough. But, it is an integral part of the process of you becoming the best version of yourself. That’s the power of visualizing your dreams. That’s the power of dreaming. That’s the power of relentlessly believing and working toward your vision every single day.
If you can’t visualize yourself being extremely successful, dominating your profession, and running a phenomenal business, then chances are you never will.
Gratitude is good for your mind and body. A healthy mind = a healthy body.
Research shows that gratitude and kindness not only lifts your spirits and warms your hearts, but, it can also aid in fighting off, healing and sometimes even curing illnesses.
Acts of kindness and feelings of gratitude flood your brains with a chemical called dopamine.
When you are truly grateful for something (or someone) your brains reward you by giving you a natural high. Because this feeling (or natural high) is so good, you are motivated to feel it again and become more inclined to give thanks, to show appreciation and to do good for others.
Research on gratitude benefits shows that these neurological effects open the doors to many health and emotional well-being benefits.
— American College of Lifestyle Medicine (@ACLifeMed) December 7, 2019
Additionally, in the hypothalamus, which is the part of your brain that regulates a number of your bodily functions including your appetites, sleep, temperature, metabolism and growth, a 2009 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study showed that your hypothalamus is activated when you feel gratitude, or display acts of kindness.
This research on gratitude means that your existential bodily functions operate better with grace. That is a powerful thought.
“The key to a happy life . . . is a healthy brain.” Wendy Suzuki
Exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain, says neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuki, professor of Neural Science and Psychology at New York University.
Dr. Suzuki discovered through research and self examination that there is a biological connection between exercise, mindfulness, and action. With exercise, she believes that your body feels more alive and your brain actually performs better. And, Dr. Suzuki states that “you can make yourself smarter. Exercising is one of the most transformative things you can do to improve cognitive abilities, such as learning, thinking, memory, focus and reasoning — all of which can help you become smarter and live longer.”
Dr. Wendy Suzuki, explains the best way to exercise in order to improve brain function pic.twitter.com/MG6pPLU7UM
The way exercise boosts your brain health includes:
It decreases feelings of anxiety – Studies have shown that every time your move your body, a number of beneficial neurotransmitters, including dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and acetylcholine, gets released into your brain. These substances can decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. And, It only takes between 10 and 30 minutes of daily physical activity to instantly lift your mood.
It improves your focus and concentration – A single workout can help improve your ability to shift and focus attention. This is an immediate benefit that can last for at least two hours after 30 minutes of exercise. Activities that increase your heart rate, such as brisk walking, running, swimming, cycling, playing tennis or jumping rope are recommended.
It promotes the growth of new brain cells – One of the most significant benefits of exercise, scientists have found, is that it promotes neurogenesis, or the birth of new brain cells. This is essential to improving cognitive function. Exercise also can improve the health and function of the synapses between neurons in this region, allowing brain cells to better communicate.
It protects your brain from aging and neurodegenerative diseases – Imagine your brain as a muscle: the more workout you put into it, the stronger and bigger it gets. Longitudinal studies in humans suggest that regular exercise can increase the size of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, both of which are susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. So while exercising won’t completely prevent or cure normal cognitive decline in aging, doing it consistently can help reduce or delay the onset of it.
So, get up and start your brain transformation journey.
Dr. Suzuki encourages people to get active and go to the gym since the science clearly demonstrates how working out boosts your mood and memory — and protects your brain against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
To get the brain-changing benefits of exercise, you should do at least three to four 30-minute workout sessions a week, explains Dr. Suzuki. You’ll also get the most benefits out of aerobic exercise, which increases the heart rate and pumps more oxygen into the brain.
Essentially, exercise can improve your brain functions today and protect your brain from neurodegenerative diseases as you age.
Financial literacy, quite simply, is a prerequisite for financial freedom. Financial Times
Fixing economic, income and wealth inequality across the nation and globe remains a Herculean task. But, by emphasizing basic financial literacy education — to boost budgeting skills, debt knowhow and investment knowledge— need not be. And basic financial understanding can make a vast difference — not just to economically disadvantage communities, but to anyone in virtually any circumstance.
The correlation between high levels of economic and financial inequality and low levels of financial literacy and understanding is one of the starkest. The problems are worsened by low levels of knowledge about how debt interest is calculated, how it compounds and how to mitigate risk or budget effectively.
From the 2014 S&P Global FinLit Survey, only a third of the world’s population were deemed financially literate, according to analysis by the World Bank.
Financial literacy education, done right, can be a source of emancipation for the economically disadvantaged seeking a way out of deprivation.
Targeted at the young, in particular, it can lay down vital foundations for future prosperity and teaching them about risk and investment opportunity. One of the big reasons to target young people is that later in life they become much harder to reach.
Too many children think money grows on trees. They don’t realise that they have to budget all this money as they get older, they’ve got to pay these bills. FinLit should be one of the things that’s taught to prepare the young for the real world.
“Narrowing the financial literacy gap is crucial for narrowing the wealth gap. But financial literacy clearly needs a boost across the social strata too”, says Aimée Allam, executive director of FT FLIC.
The best investment you can make is in yourself and in your financial education. It’s the obvious starting point to building wealth and achieving financial freedom. And, here are seven reasons:
Provides dividends for life that nobody can ever take from you.
Increases your earning potential.
Increases your return on investment.
Improves the quality of your life and finances.
Secures your retirement.
Defends your portfolio from unnecessary losses.
Provides peace of mind around money.
To ensure you become financially free, take the income you think you’ll need in retirement and multiply it by 20. That’s what you need to put away in order to live off the interest without touching your principle.
Determine how much risk tolerance you have as you look to compound the money you’ve set aside for retirement. the billionaire’s secret, whereby they get Risk/Growth-like returns with assets that would fall in the Security asset class. The wealthy risk very little and expect substantial returns.
A major factor regarding effectively managing your money and achieving financial freedom is maintaining a positive and confident mindset. Maintaining a positive growth mindset takes effort and knowledge. Here are some ways to start thinking about financial matters and building wealth:
Focus On What You Want – And Take It! So many people are too timid to admit they want something and go for it. When there is something that you want to accomplish don’t think “I could never actually do that”, think “I could do that and I WILL do that”. Play to win, not to avoid defeat.
This doesn’t mean to have to become a selfish jerk. What it means is becoming more assertive and honest with yourself. You don’t have to grab off other people. There is a big pot of unclaimed gold in the middle of the table — why shouldn’t you be the one to claim it? You deserve it!
Confront closely-held beliefs. Spend some time dissecting and understanding the previously-held beliefs you have about money. You learn a lot about money from your family at a young age—either that money is good or money is evil, for example.
Some people may grow up believing that money is a scarce resource, while others understand money as a tool. There are many numbers of qualities that get assigned to money that are not objectively true.
If you have major fear or shame regarding money, you may want to consider working through these emotions with a financial therapist. Your feelings are valid—but that doesn’t mean you have to live with them.
Integrate affirmations into your daily routine. You may find affirmations to be a grounding part of your day. For example, affirmations such as “I am worthy of wealth,” “I am capable of managing my money,” and “There is money out there to be made by me” could act as helpful reminders that you are in charge of your money and not the other way around.
To develop a positive mindset and to become a person who is “good with money”, it is essential to understand that achieving financial freedom and accumulating wealth is a journey. So, consider taking it step by step. Start by building familiarity with your financial situation, and look for small ways to improve it and make it better every day.
Don’t Spend Your Money – Invest It. The reason you need to save your money is to grow it by investing it for the long term. Millionaires tend to be frugal people, and that’s because they know the true value of money is in investing. Being your own boss goes hand-in-hand with building wealth. You’ll want to quit your regular job at some point.
Bottomline is to stop working for your money and invest, which puts your money to work for you.
Rather than buying yourself a new iPad, that $500 could be used to invest in the stock market. Find the right shares (more on that later), and that money could easily double within a year.
When you visualize, your body and mind react as if they were true. Many people believe that when you believe something to be true, you attract it to you – you make it true.
