Office Admin

Five Ways to Build Your Healthy Financial Mindset

February 8, 2018 by Office Admin

Your bank account, investing strategy, and credit score aren’t the most important parts of your financial life. Your net worth or rate of return aren’t even the most pivotal. The most important part of your financial life is your mindset.

Without the right way of thinking and feeling about your financial well-being, those other metrics of success amount to nothing. A healthy mindset leads to healthy behaviors and a productive relationship with your money. Without this foundational approach to managing your financial life, all the positive planning and execution on the world won’t improve your overall life. Having the right money mindset means:

1. Developing an Abundance Mindset

Much of the world operates in a mindset of scarcity. The debt crises, global conflict, and fear-based media all operate from a scarcity mindset. They believe that opportunity is limited and that your good fortune is under threat. A mindset of abundance accepts these risks, but knows that there are more opportunities waiting if you plan and act effectively. Adopting an abundance mindset means being thankful for the good things in life and knowing there is more good waiting for those who plan and act correctly to reach their goals.

A good way to grow your abundance mindset is to challenge encroaching, negative thoughts that may arise when you are stressed by re-framing them as positive opportunities rather than threats.

2. Anticipating Your Nature

Part of a healthy financial mindset involves knowing yourself and being honest about who you are. We are all impulsive, emotional, messy human beings. Developing overly tight budgets that don’t allow for your occasional impulse can torpedo all of your efforts towards financial self-improvement. Feeling deprived can make you lash out and resent your own efforts in impulsive ways that lead to overcharges and other negative outcomes.

Know what your impulsive vices are and plan to reduce those in healthy ways while still giving yourself the occasional reward. Whether that means an impulsive purchase of an ebook on sale or treating yourself to a movie theater trip once a month, you have to allow yourself to enjoy life while working towards financial wellness.

3. Rolling with the Punches

The trajectory of success is never a straight line and neither is your financial trend line. Changing behaviors, investing, and trying to better your financial status all come with associated risks. Can you handle negative returns on higher risk investments? Can you run your finances like a business and accept that your funds will be working for you in several different places? Accepting the constant presence of change and uncertainty and remaining self-assured that your strategy WILL work for you is essential for your mindset.

Automated investment and savings strategies can help make this easier for you by keeping it out of sight and out of mind. Market downturns and hiccups happen, but the trick is trusting in your strong strategy to weather the market volatility that can harm your investments.

4. Staying Motivated

Staying the course and maintaining your focus on the positive outcomes you’re working toward is easy early on in your financial journey. Can you maintain that focus in year? Five years? Figuring out what steps you have to take to keep yourself motivated and working toward financial prosperity is key for your journey. It’s a moving target and requires radical honesty with yourself, but maintaining that motivation is essential. Some people use vision boards or other simple reminders of what they’re working towards.

Some people track behavior streaks on a calendar or in a mobile app. What works best for you won’t hold true for everyone else; you just have to figure out how to keep yourself motivated in a natural and effective way.

5. Expressing Gratitude

Being thankful for what you currently have and for the future you are building will help immensely. Too many people spend their lives pessimistic and jaded, resenting their current status without taking real action to improve their standing. It goes beyond appreciating what you have. True gratitude means celebrating others’ good fortunes and contributing to a better world through your self improvement. Your most valuable asset is you, and you should be thankful for the commitment you are making to yourself and your life as you begin this journey towards a better financial life.

Taking these steps will help put you on the right path towards cultivating a healthy financial mindset. Want to learn more about effective money management principles and see how we improve our client’s lives? Contact us to discuss how we can help you on your financial journey.

Market Update: Avoid the Noise and “Tilt”

February 6, 2018 by Office Admin

I’m sure you saw all the headlines yesterday about the market.

The media is obsessed with hysteria and trying to get viewers, readers, and followers. The question you need to constantly ask yourself is:

“Is this noise or is this evidence?”

In the last 2 days the SP500 has dropped -2.1% followed by a -4.1% drop yesterday. Two back to back days like this is pretty rare. Since the 1960’s, double dipping has happened less than 1% of the market’s total lifetime. The last 2 twice-occurring drops were August 2015 and in November 2011. These were rare, but still memorable.

To put this into perspective, the SP500 is now at prices we last saw in mid-December 2017- all of 8 weeks ago. The SP500 is still up 17% over the past year. The market is now -6.2% below its close on Jan 31, 2018. This recent drop is not a big drop in magnitude, it just happened fast enough to make an emotional impact.

After a year of unprecedented market growth (12 straight months of market gains) with the DOW never before reaching 25,000 and the S&P 500 reaching over 2,700, we are now seeing volatility creep back into the system. Yes, the DOW did have its largest one-day point drop in history. However, it was only a 4.26% drop in one day – not the biggest percentage drop in history.

Evidence, Noise, and Tilt

This is the EVIDENCE.

Pay no attention to the NOISE generated by the media and pundits whose jobs are to get more viewers, reactions, “likes,” and “followers.” You know better, pay attention to the evidence and the confidence of how you are invested using diversification and trend following strategies.

Poker uses the term “TILT” when your position at the table is either down a majority of chips or you’re stacked. Tilt breeds emotion and good decisions are rarely made using emotion instead of evidence. Investing is much the same way. When the market starts to tilt one way or the other we get emotional about our money.

Negative tilt, even a little bit like we’ve seen the past couple days, can cause panic and irrational thinking. Positive tilt, like we’ve seen over the past year can create overconfidence (see bitcoin) and cause more risky decisions.

At Jarred Bunch, we’ve always used evidence and rules-based strategies that avoid “tilt.” Our educational philosophy has always been to seek the evidence and avoid media-fueled noise.

Want more evidence?

The reality is that the market is in a drawdown more than not, in fact 70% of the time (historically) is spent in a drawdown. Ben Carlson recently wrote about Robert Frey’s video “180 Years of Market Drawdowns” and showed some context to this with the following chart:

Carlson further went on to analyze monthly drawdowns to see the size of the loss:

He states, “Over the last 90 years or so the market has been in a bear market almost one-quarter of the time. Half the time you’re down 5% or worse. It’s difficult to appreciate this fact when looking at a long-term log scale stock chart that seems to only go up and to the right. This is why stocks are constantly playing mind games with us. They generally go up but not every day, week, month or year.”

What’s the Payoff?

The payoff by sticking with your investment plan is that, over time, the market trends upward. The 10-year S&P 500 is up 142%, for an annualized return of 9.26%. It’s the gyrations in-between that become noise and detract us from our goals.

Looking at rolling returns we get a great picture of how the stock market performs over good and bad times. Over short periods the market can deliver exceptionally high or exceptionally low returns. Over time this fluctuation smooths out with a worst 20-year period delivering a return of 6.4% per year and the best returned 18% per year. See the chart below provided by Dana Anspach’s research.

What we do know about the market is it will continue to fluctuate and experience losses on a regular basis. How we as investors use this evidence to stick with our investment strategies is the key decider to our long-term success.

Following The Stock Market Is Bad For Your Returns

December 21, 2017 by Office Admin

Cybersecurity Tips from the IRS

December 6, 2017 by Office Admin

The holidays are also the prime season for criminals shopping for credit card numbers, financial account information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive data. Cybercriminals seek to turn stolen data into quick cash, either by draining financial accounts, charging credit cards, creating new credit accounts or using stolen identities to file a fraudulent tax return for a refund.

In addition to its specific recommendations for online security, the IRS says people can take a couple of additional steps several times a year to make sure they have not become an identity theft victim.

One is to receive a yearly free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus, and check it for any unfamiliar credit changes.

Another is to create a “My Social Security” account online with the Social Security Administration on which users can see how much income is attributed to their SSN. This can help determine whether someone else is using the SSN for employment purposes.

Following are the IRS’s seven steps to help with online safety and protect tax returns and refunds in 2018.

Shop at Familiar Online Retailers

The IRS notes that sites using the “s” designation in “https” at the start of the URL are generally secure. Users should look for the “lock” icon in the browser’s URL bar. This is not 100% accurate as some criminals can obtain a security certificate, so the “s” may not always vouch for the site’s legitimacy.

Avoid Unprotected Wi-Fi

Unprotected public Wi-Fi hotspots may allow thieves to view transactions. Do not to engage in online financial transactions if you are using unprotected public Wi-Fi. Also be aware of purchases at unfamiliar sites or clicking on links from pop-up ads.

Learn to Recognize and Avoid Phishing Emails

These emails pose as a trusted source, such as financial institutions or the IRS, and may suggest that a password is expiring or an account update is needed. The criminal’s goal is to entice users to open a link or attachment. If you aren’t expecting an email from a specific company, then it probably is not real. You can always call the company in question to verify.

The link may take users to a fake website that will steal usernames and passwords
An attachment may download malware that tracks keystrokes

Keep Computers, Phones and Tablets Clean

Using security software to protect against malware that may steal data and viruses that could damage files is a must. The software should be set to update automatically so that it always has the latest security defenses. As well, firewalls and browser defenses should always be active. “Free” security scans or pop-up advertisements for security software are to be avoided.

Use Strong, Long and Unique Passwords

According to the IRS, experts suggest a minimum of 12-character passwords, but says “longer is better.” It says longer phrases are better than a specific word, and recommends the use of a combination of letters, numbers and special characters. Each account should have its own password. A password manager can help keep track of multiples ones.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends that users create simple — but still long — passwords that are easy to remember.

Use Multi-Factor Authentication

Some financial institutions, email providers and social media sites allow users to set accounts for multi-factor authentication. This means users may need a security code, which is usually sent as a text to a mobile phone, in addition to usernames and passwords. Some financial institutions will also bolster protection by sending email or text alerts when a withdrawal or change to the account takes place.

Encrypt and Password-Protect Sensitive Data

Anyone keeping financial records, tax returns or any personally identifiable information on a computer should encrypt and protect these data with a strong password, see above. You should also back up important data to an external source, such as an external hard drive. When it is time to dispose of a computer, a mobile phone or a tablet, it’s important to wipe the hard drive of all information before trashing.

Its very important to protect yourself, especially this time of year. Doing so will make sure your holiday season is more enjoyable.

401(k) Lawsuits Becoming More Prevalent

November 21, 2017 by Office Admin

Nordstrom has been accused of allegedly selecting and retaining high-cost investment options in its $2.8 billion 401(k) plan when lower cost options were available. The suit states that Nordstrom allowed unreasonable, excessive fees to be charged to its plan participants, failed to use lower cost alternatives, and made inadequate disclosures regarding the specific dollar amount it charged them for administrative expenses.

The lawsuit against Novitex alleges the plan allowed unreasonable high fees to be charged for plan services, including advisory services. The lawsuit states that UBS, who is providing the advisory services, is “excessively compensated.” In addition, Novitex permitted unreasonable fees to be charged for record keeping and investment management.

Investment News reports that litigation targeting excessive retirement plan fees has grown over the past few years. Most often targeted are fees paid to service providers (such as TPA’s for record keeping and mutual fund companies).

“It is rare, for now, but something I think you will see with increased frequency,” Marcia Wagner, principal at The Wagner Law Group, said.

The Novitex lawsuit also furthers a developing trend of excessive-fee lawsuits targeting smaller retirement plans rather than just the multibillion-dollar ones.

“Smaller plan fiduciaries increasingly are in the crosshairs of ERISA class actions, as illustrated most recently by Novitex,” said Duane Thompson, senior policy analyst at Fi360.

If you are a sponsor of a 401(k), then you need to be up to date on how your plan stacks up due to the new Department of Labor rules and increased scrutiny of these plans.

At Jarred Bunch, we review a lot of small to mid sized company 401(k) plans. It is not unusual to see high fees and limited/outdated investment choices. In addition, there is rarely an education program available to employees, and, in many cases, the company (sponsor) is the investment fiduciary.

Our goal is to help relieve this burden for our clients by offering the following:

We serve as the investment fiduciary on the plans we implement.
We offer financial education for companies and their employees.
We benchmark your plan, investment options, and costs to make sure your plan is where it should be.

If you haven’t looked at your 401(k) plan in the past couple years, then you need to contact us right away. We offer a free analysis so you can see exactly where you plan stands.

Let us address these issues with our Future 401k Plan, visit www.401khack.org to learn more or sign up. You can also call or email one of our 401(k) experts today. An analysis takes very little time and could save you a lot of money and headache.

Nobel-Prize Winning Formula: 4 Ways To Boost Savings

October 26, 2017 by Office Admin

I love it when a Nobel Prize winner gives humanity a gift everyone can use and enjoy. That was the case when Prof. Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday (October 9, 2017).

Prof. Thaler’s work over the past 30 years has changed the way we view financial decisions. As a behavioral economist, he’s studied the way we actually think and act instead of hewing to some wrong-headed theories.

According to Thaler’s view, we’re consistently misled by embedded mental biases. We’re hardwired to be overconfident, act on emotion and conflate recent events with the big picture.

Fortunately, thanks to the research of Thaler and other behavioral economists, we can make much better financial decisions. Here are four suggestions:

— Put Your Savings on Auto-Pilot.

By defaulting employees into a 401(k) with regular, automatic contributions, Thaler’s “Save More Tomorrow” program dramatically increased retirement savings.

It turns out when you don’t have to make a decision — or have to say no to something — people will take the easiest route to set money aside.

Yet you can put any form of savings on auto-pilot. Simply set up automatic withdrawals from payroll or checking accounts into savings or retirement accounts.

— Blast Past Your Biases.

Behavioral economists have repeatedly shown that we’re naturally biased to think we know more than anyone else, are needlessly confident, can look back in time and claim we can predict the future.

All of these biases cause us to consistently lose money.

If you need to invest in the stock market — all of us need to in order to beat inflation — regularly invest monthly amounts in global stock index funds. You can do this through any mutual fund, IRA or retirement plan.

— Forget the Headlines.

We all get spooked by daily market downturns and bad news. It scares us, so we think we have to do something immediately. We don’t. Never act on fear when it comes to financial decisions.

If you need to invest — who doesn’t? — focus on how much you need to save. Don’t look at returns or stock averages from day to day. It’s just noise. Buy all the time and hold.

— Don’t Get Cocky.

So you picked a stock or mutual fund that made money. Do you think you have more skill, insight and trading ability than the best money managers— and their lightning-fast computer programs? You don’t. It was the roll of the dice.

Diversify your portfolio by investing in large, medium and small-company stocks from around the world.

That’s always been the smartest thing to do. And you don’t need a Nobel Prize to profit from that knowledge.

How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds

October 11, 2017 by Office Admin

It seems our entire lives are contained in that tiny instrument. In fact, according to data Apple collects, the typical owner uses their phone 80 times per day. Our phones are our constant companions.

Nicholas Carr recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal how our brains become dependent on phone technology and may weaken our intellect.

He writes, in a 2015 Gallup survey that more than half of iPhone users said they couldn’t imagine life without the device, and for good reason. With so many useful functions it’s really a computer that fits in our palm.

But while our phones offer convenience and entertainment, they also breed anxiety. “Their extraordinary usefulness gives them an unprecedented hold on our attention and vast influence over our thinking and behavior,” writes Carr. What happens to our mind when a single tool has such dominion over us?

Scientists are exploring this question. Not only does phone usage shape our thoughts as we swipe our screens, but the effects linger even when we are not using our devices. As the brain becomes dependent on the technology, the intellect weakens.

Carr sites multiple studies showing that when our phone beeps, buzzes, or rings (do they ring anymore?) our attention to the job at hand wanders, we become distracted and work becomes sloppier whether we check the phone or not. In one study, it showed that when the phone beckons but we can’t answer it, our blood pressure rises, the pulse quickens, and problem-solving skills decline.

Dr. Adrian Ward, a cognitive psychologist and marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted research showing that as the phone’s proximity increased, brainpower decreased. The more heavily students relied on their phones in everyday life, the greater cognitive decline they suffered. Studies upon studies are showing similar results. The evidence that our phones can get inside our heads so forcefully is unsettling.

The qualities we find most appealing about our smartphones – constant internet connectivity, multitude of apps, responsiveness, portability – are the very ones that provide such influence over our minds.

A seminal study in 2011 led by Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow concluded that smartphone users suffer from the “Google effect.” “Because search engines are continually available to us, we may often be in a state of not feeling we need to encode the information internally. When we need it, we will look it up.” Even Albert Einstein many years ago stated “Never memorize something that you can look up.”

An even more sinister twist is that study subjects were not very good at distinguishing the knowledge we keep in our heads from the information we find on our phones or computers. Dr. Ward explained in a 2013 Scientific American article that when people call up information through their devices, they often suffer from delusions of intelligence. They feel as though “their own mental capacities” had generated the information, not the devices. That insight sheds great light on our society’s current gullibility crisis, in which people are all too quick to credit lies and half-truths spread through social media by various bad actors. “If your phone has sapped your powers of discernment, you’ll believe anything it tells you,” writes Carr.

A good read on some of the psychology behind our cognitive behavior is Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris. I found this book very interesting and insightful.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do for now is to be mindful of ourselves, and perhaps put some distance between ourselves and our phones.

3 Ways Successful People Think Differently About Life

September 20, 2017 by Office Admin

Have you ever found yourself thinking:

I wish I could be as lucky as other people, and not have to struggle so much in life.

I wish my life was as easy as other people’s, and that I didn’t have so many problems.

I wish I had the opportunities other people have, then I could be much better off.

Reading them here now, would you say that you agree or disagree with them?

We’ve all been there – in those moments where we’re not happy with the spot we’re at in life. It’s easy to let these thoughts creep into your mind and overrun it. But, if you agreed with any of the statements above, or find yourself thinking similar thoughts regularly, then you are not thinking like a successful person.

You’re not thinking with an abundance mindset. Instead, you’re thinking with – and living trapped in – a scarcity mindset.

To see how a successful person would think about life, let’s break down each of the above statements from their point of view.

1. Scarcity Mindset: I wish I could be as lucky as other people, and not have to struggle so much in life.

Abundance Mindset: My mindset creates my attitude, creates my behavior, creates my life.

Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with an extremely rare, slow-progressing form of ALS at the age of 21. He’s been bound to a wheelchair for most of his life. Since 1985, he’s had to speak through his computer system, and requires around-the-clock care. But, he didn’t let these setbacks stop him from becoming a world renowned theoretical physicist, and one of the brightest scientific minds of this century.

Helen Keller was born blind and deaf. She went on to become a teacher, author, and the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. Clearly, she wasn’t going to let her struggles hold her back.

Hawking and Keller overcame their struggles, because like all successful people, they understand that everything starts with your mindset. Your mindset creates your attitude, creates your behavior, creates your results, creates your life. It’s that simple. That’s why you have to change your mindset, to start thinking about your daily choices as either inching you closer to success or failure. Then, you can master how successful people think.

2. Scarcity Mindset: I wish my life was as easy as other people’s, and that I didn’t have so many problems.

Abundance Mindset: View obstacles as opportunities for success, and a chance to better yourself.

When I was younger, I used to look at successful people and think that they just got lucky. They never had to struggle through all the hardships and obstacles that I did. Life and success just magically came easy to them.

Successful people understand that some of your best learned life lessons come from your struggles. Instead of wishing for things to be easier, learn how to view every obstacle you encounter as an opportunity for success. Learn how to view your struggles as opportunities to learn something, and become better.

It’s important to remember that whatever you’re focused on in life is what will grow. So, rather than focusing only on your problems, you have to focus on the solutions. The only way to do that is to face your problems head on. Successful people are willing to do this – they don’t spend their time letting problems defeat them. They don’t spend their time waiting for luck to come find them.

3. Scarcity Mindset: I wish I had the opportunities other people have, then I could be much better off.

Abundance Mindset: You can create your own environment rather than being a product of your environment.

We’re taught to believe that we are destined to be a product of our environment. What we’re not taught to believe – and what took a long time to learn through my own journey – is that you can create your own environment.

The truth is, there are only two ways to change your life, 1) You take action and create a new environment that fosters your most important goals, or 2) You spend your time waiting for something new to come to you without working at it.

Nothing in your life will change until you take action. Every journey starts with taking a step – not thinking about taking a step. Successful people don’t wait for new circumstances to come find them. They don’t let themselves become a product of their environment. Instead, successful people make their environment a product of them.

Why Does it Matter to You?

The way you think about life, and what you do as a result, matters. If you have an abundance mindset, you will live and behave accordingly. If you have a scarcity mindset, you will live and behave accordingly.

You’ll either live the life you want, or you’ll settle for less.

Successful people think differently about life. They do things that seem to make no difference at the time, but yield big results after they compound over time. They write their problems down on paper, and treat them like equations they must solve. They keep trying, until they succeed.

If there are no problems, struggles, or obstacles in your life, you’re not growing. And if you’re not growing, you’re dying. You can’t give in to defeat. You can’t spend your time wishing things were easier, that you were luckier. Instead, spend your time determined to make yourself better. Refuse to let a scarcity mindset defeat you, so that you can live the life you want.

How to Find Out if You Were Affected by the Equifax Hack

September 13, 2017 by Office Admin

Even if you’ve never used Equifax, the credit reporting agency could still have a significant amount of your personal information.

Last Thursday, Equifax said they had suffered a data breach, and as many as 143 million people could be affected. That’s almost half the country. The cybercriminals stole names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and some driver’s license numbers. Basically, everything needed for the perfect identity theft cocktail.

In addition, credit card numbers for about 209,000 people were exposed, as was “personal identifying information” on roughly 182,000 customers involved in credit report disputes.

Equifax will not be contacting everyone who was affected by the breach, but will send direct mail notices to those whose credit card numbers or dispute records were accessed.

So, how would Equifax (one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies) have your information if you’ve never used their services? They get information from credit card companies, banks, retailers, and lenders, without you even knowing it.

The company is encouraging you to check if you were affected by the hack, and to sign up for credit monitoring and identity theft protection. They’re providing free service for one year through TrustedID Premier. You can access this service whether or not you’ve been affected by the breach.

To do this, go to www.equifaxsecurity2017.com and click on the Check Potential Impact tab. You will then be given a date when you can return to the site and sign up for the free service.

If you believe you’ve been affected by the Equifax hack, one option would be to place fraud alerts on your credit reports. This would force a lender to contact you to verify your identity before issuing credit in your name. You can place an alert on your report for free by contacting one of the credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion), which is then required to notify the other two. A fraud alert lasts for 90 days, and can be renewed.

A more iron-clad option would be placing a freeze on your credit. This would prevent a lender from being able to pull your credit report, and therefore wouldn’t be able to extend the credit. A credit freeze doesn’t affect any current credit you may have open. It just prevents new credit from being established in your name. Of course, you can temporarily unfreeze your credit, should you need to access it.

While a credit freeze may seem extreme, it’s something worth considering in this instance.

If you’re going to freeze your credit, you should do so at all three agencies. That way, no matter what agency the lending institution uses, your credit cannot be pulled.

Here are the contact numbers for each company, and links to their dedicated freeze landing pages. All of the numbers listed here are for automated freeze services, so that you can easily freeze your credit over the phone in just a few minutes:

Equifax: 1-800-685-1111

Experian: 1-888-397-3742

TransUnion: 1-888-909-8872

The Federal Trade Commission’s website also offers information about how to protect yourself against fraud.

If you have further questions regarding the data breach, Equifax has set up a designated call center at 1-866-447-7559.

We are encouraging all of our clients to take this data breach seriously, and to take the steps necessary to protect yourself against any threat of identity theft.

This article first appeared on CNN Money. To read the full article, click here.

The Best Advice I Would Give My Younger Self

September 6, 2017 by Office Admin

Last month, I turned 40. It’s not an old age, but it’s an age where you pause for a moment, and start to reflect more deeply on your life – what’s left of it, where you came from, and where you’re going next.

I’ve never been happier with who I am, and where I am, than right now. I love what I do, I love my family, and I have great friends. I am truly living the life I want to live.

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about all the things I wish I could’ve told my younger self, including how life really works, and what’s true versus what society teaches us. It would’ve erased a lot of the misconceptions and assumptions I had growing up. My road to happiness probably would’ve been a lot smoother.

If I could go back in time and sit down with that kid, I imagine it would go something like this…..

Hey buddy, I know it’s hard right now. Mom’s struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table, and you never know how long you’re going to live in one place, or when the landlord is going to come knocking.

Knowing any other life seems virtually impossible for you. When the teachers ask, “Who wants to go to college?”, you don’t even bother raising your hand. What chance do you have of making it to college, right?

But, it’s all going to be okay. It will get better. Soon, you’ll realize two stark realities – being broke is horrible, and having zero control over your environment is crippling. It’s these realizations that are going to light a fire in you.

You see, you’ve been taught to believe that you’re a product of your environment. But, you don’t have to live this way when you get older. You don’t have to be defined by your current circumstances. Right now, when you look at successful people, you think they’re just lucky – they were a product of the “right” environment. You think they have access to resources and opportunities that you’ll never have, simply because of the difference in your circumstances.

One day, the desire to prove yourself will force you to make a promise that you’ll end up somewhere better. You won’t know how you’ll do it. But you’ll clean carpets, get a paper route, excel in football, and start to position yourself for a better future.

And guess what? You WILL make it to college. Even crazier, you’ll get your Master’s Degree, and land a corporate job at one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

You’ll come to this moment in your life, the moment where you’ve successfully changed your entire reality. You’ll have control. You won’t be broke. But, you still won’t be happy – and you won’t know why at first.

While you’ve spent your whole life working to better yourself, you’ve been running after all the wrong things. You’ve been chasing dollars, trying to crack the corporate bureaucracy, and wasting away trapped in a scarcity mindset. If you keep down this path, nothing will ever be enough for you. You’ll continue to view your life, and money, in the wrong way.

It’s this pivotal moment in your life when you’ll have to make a choice – settle, or create your ideal environment, change your mindset, and live the life you want.

Buddy, the world isn’t separated into lucky and unlucky. The difference is that successful people don’t let themselves become a product of their environment. Instead, they make their environment a product of them. They think with an abundance mindset, and in turn, create environments that further their most important goals.

My biggest hope would be to save you from spending the first part of your life trapped in a scarcity mindset. Too much time was wasted thinking “I can’t do that,” believing others’ success is at the cost of someone’s failure, and thinking some will have plenty while others will always lack.

You have to change the way you think about money, success, and life in general – now. You have to start thinking with an abundance mindset. That’s when you start asking “How can I do that?”, and viewing every obstacle as an opportunity for success. You’ll understand that money is simply a tool to help you live the life you want.

If there’s only one thing you learn from me today, let it be that an abundant mindset fuels an abundant life. Success isn’t about how much power and money you have. It’s about how you can use money to create opportunities that help you grow, live intentionally with your money, and that put your resources to work for YOU. It’s about living the life you want, at every stage of life.

10 Tips That Will Help You Get (and Stay) Financially Fit

August 30, 2017 by Office Admin

While swimsuit season may be ending, financial fitness stays trending year-round. According to a recent study, “save more and spend less” was the top New Year’s resolution for 2017. In fact, financial resolutions have cracked the top five year over year, and hold steady behind losing weight.

So, why aren’t we all walking around with smaller waist lines and larger wallets?

Well, because maintaining financial health requires a lifestyle change – just like maintaining your physical health. The changes you make to get yourself on the right path need to become positive lifetime habits that are part of your daily routine.

10 Tips That Will Help You Get (and Stay) Financially Fit

Here are 10 tips to help you get started living the life you want:

1. Know your “why” behind money. Your specific reasons for working, investing, spending, and saving. If you don’t have that figured out, you don’t have anything to fight for. You can’t live intentionally with your money, because there’s nothing guiding your behavior.

2. Set goals and assess them regularly. Three years from now, what has to have happened for you to feel successful, both personally and professionally? From your answers, pull out your top five goals – and write them down! Categorize them into short, medium and long-term goals. You can also use the SMART method to help you define your goals further:

Specific – Don’t set broad goals.
Measurable – Track your progress.
Assignable – Take personal accountability.
Realistic – Only do what you know you can do.
Timeline – Give yourself a deadline.

3. Know your expenses. Between lifestyle creep and fixed expenses, most people don’t fully grasp how much they’re spending. Every year, you should sit down and reevaluate your expenses versus your income – no matter how much money you make. That way, you can gauge your spending habits, and see where your money is being allocated. This can help keep your net worth out of the red.

4. Know your current financial position. To be able to get where you want to go, you have to understand where you are today. You then have to be able to optimize your current financial position as your information changes. Without being able to see your entire financial life in one place, and evaluating how everything is working together, you may not end up living the life you want.

5. Avoid drastic changes. Crash diets aren’t solutions for long-term success. Rather, slow and steady wins the race. Identify all the changes you’ll need to make to reach your goals, and work through them gradually. This way, your focus is on creating lifetime good habits – not clicking the instant button.

LIFE HACK: Saving 1% more of your income each year is a small change that can produce big results down the road.

6. Tune out the noise. There is more financial noise than ever in our media today. That’s why you need to adhere to a disciplined, rules-based approach to your financial life, based on your most important values. Like Warren Buffett said, “Market forecasters will fill your ear, but never your wallet.”

7. Make sure your financial strategies align with your most important values. The only constant in life is change. As your life changes, your strategies should then be updated based on what matters to you most at this moment in time.

8. Know the difference between risk and volatility. Risk simply means the probability that your investment will lose money. It has no direct effect on your returns. Volatility is the amount of fluctuation a portfolio can experience. The higher the volatility, the more erratic your compound returns can be. Volatility is one of the biggest wealth eroding factors you’ll encounter. That’s why you have to mitigate it.

9. Practice cost and tax management. Investing costs and taxes matter – they can erode your returns just as much as volatility. Your strategy should work to lower the cost of expense ratios and be tax efficient. Remember that a good advisor can be worth a reasonable fee. Just be sure they’re providing you with value-based solutions, not selling you products.

10. Create an Investment Policy Statement. Even the best investors can get nervous when the market moves. But when the market moves, you need something that reminds you why you’re invested a certain way – that reminds you of your most important values, and stops you from making poor decisions. That’s when you pull out your IPS. If an investment decision doesn’t meet this criterion, you shouldn’t invest in it.

Why Does It Matter to You?

Being able to live the life you want is the ultimate goal. But, let’s take that one step further – being able to life the life you want, at every stage of life, is the ultimate goal. That’s why maintaining your financial health is so critical. Not only will it ensure that you remain optimally positioned for success today, but it can increase your chances of success in the future.

Investment Noise: Know It and Forget It

August 23, 2017 by Office Admin

There’s a simple strategy for being a successful investor – tune out the investment noise. The noise that we’re bombarded with daily, from the talking heads on television and radio, to the printed press. The noise that is perfectly exemplified in the video clip above.

I’ll never forget watching that whole thing play out. Jon Stewart wasn’t the only one to come down hard on Jim Cramer – he got flack for his Bear Stearns praises right before their collapse from all sides. But again, he was just creating noise, creating hype in an already tense time, not unlike many of his media counterparts.

The Noise is Never-ending

This isn’t meant to pick on Cramer. He’s just the lucky example that I remembered when sitting down to write this article. The truth is, investment noise is endless.

Look at what took place in the last few weeks – the Dow saw its biggest drop since mid-May over the growing tension with North Korea. International markets in Asia and Europe followed suit. After these reports surfaced in the media, the VIX, a volatility index widely used to gauge market fear, soared by 44% – its highest level since Trump was elected. That’s how big of an effect investment noise can have on our sense of well-being.

It seems there’s more noise than ever right now. Noise about foreign affairs. Noise about politics. Noise about noise. There is no shortage of pundits attempting to explain how all of this swirling mayhem will impact the market and your investments.

All this noise is irrelevant to long-term investors. Since we use lifetime strategies, the noise of the day makes no impact on our investment decisions. However, even the best investors can easily get spooked by investment noise overload.

That’s because what we read and listen to ultimately affects our actions. According to a study from Pew Research, we listen for bad news almost three times more than we listen for good news. This negativity bias makes it appear that bad news overwhelms good news, even if that’s not the case in reality.

In reality, a 1% drop in the stock market is normal – even to be expected. But when it happens, the stories in the media are all negative, full of gloom and doom. The positive rebounds that follow rarely get as much attention.

Investment Noise: Know It and Know How to Forget It

For you to find true investing success, you have to know investment noise when you hear it, and be able to forget it just as fast.

Shawn Achor, Harvard educator and New York Times bestselling author, has become one of the leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. His 2013 book, Before Happiness, has a key focus on noise-canceling strategies. Achor used this strategy to explore the link between tuning out irrelevant information (noise), and how this increased the likelihood of you reaching your goal.

So, if reaching your full financial potential is at the top of your list, tuning out investment noise is going to play a critical role in reaching that goal.

Achor even defines what noise is, and classifies it into these four categories:

1. Unusable. Information is likely to be noise if your behavior will not be altered by it. For instance, look at our human tendency to obsess over current events and the short-term effect it may have on your portfolio. If the event in question has no effect on your long-term strategy, then you need to ignore the noise.

2. Untimely. I can’t stress this enough – by the time you hear about it, it’s too late. You’ve missed your window of opportunity to capitalize on the market movement. Frequently engaging in stock picking or market timing will almost always cause you more harm than good. If the story could change tomorrow, it’s noise.

3. Hypothetical. This is the most popular type of investment noise. Everything you hear in the media is based on what someone thinks will happen. Listening to expert predictions and market gurus is noise 99% of the time. That’s because it’s all hypothetical until it actually happens.

4. Distracting. An easy way to tell if something is noise is if it distracts you from your long-term goals. Changing your investment allocation based on which hot stock the talking heads are endorsing today is not a long-term strategy for success. Heck, it’s not a strategy at all – it’s simply a distraction.

Why Does it Matter to You?

Successful investors don’t let noise dictate their actions. Instead, successful investing begins with a real plan. We believe that plan should be rules-based, and built on your values. This helps remove emotion and subjectivity, and provides a policy by which you can make better investment decisions. Not only that, but our strategies are designed to mitigate market volatility, which makes for a smoother investment ride. This is key in reducing your vulnerability to investment noise.

Stay the course, recognize and tune out the noise, and you will have better investing results for it.