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Warning: Checking Your Portfolio Often is a Good Way to Lose Money

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8 billion. That’s the number of times per day Americans collectively check their phones. Probably because smart phones have become the hub of our lives in a certain way – virtually anything you need, there’s an app for that. Including your investment performance. But frequently checking your portfolio is a good way to lose money – and it’s getting harder not to look.

Stop Checking Your Portfolio

We pride ourselves on making technology available to you that puts your entire financial life in front of you, in real-time. That makes checking your investment performance as simple as pressing a few buttons. And we intend to keep advancing that technology, to make managing your financial life as easy and convenient as possible.

With that in mind, call me crazy for what I’m about to say – You should stop looking at your investments.

There are plenty of reasons for why you should stop constantly checking your portfolio. At the top of the list is your mental and financial health. While you may think checking your portfolio often is a good habit, in reality this leads to increased stress, impulsive, emotionally-charged behavior, and poor investment performance.

The market is a volatile animal – it’s a toss-up every day whether it will be up or down. And here’s a secret – the market is in a drawdown often.

It can even fluctuate hundreds of points one way, and back the opposite way before the closing bell rings. The average daily swing for over 40 years has been +\- 1.4%. So, the more often you check your portfolio, the greater your chances of seeing it when the market is down.

And when you see negative numbers staring at you, your emotions will stop you in your tracks every time. Thanks to a little thing called myopic loss aversion.

What Behavioral Finance Tells Us

Myopic loss aversion was first introduced by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1984. This sliver of behavioral finance states that people dislike losing money more than they like making it. In other words, we feel the pain of a loss much more deeply than the happiness of earning.

Investors who check their portfolios often will perceive investing to be riskier than investors who don’t. According to Betterment’s data on login frequency, checking your portfolio quarterly instead of daily can reduce the chance of you seeing a moderate loss (of -2% or more) from 25% to 12%.

In a 1997 study by Kahnerman and Tversky, the idea that loss aversion reduces investor returns was confirmed once again by their research. Take this statement straight from their abstract:

“The investors who got the most frequent feedback (and thus the most information) took the least risk and earned the least money.”

In other words, the more time you spend checking and analyzing your portfolio, the more likely you are to let your emotions take control.

The Beer Goggles of Investing

Think of loss aversion as the beer goggles of investing – you’ll be more likely to see a loss the more often you check your portfolio. This can then make you think your investments are riskier than they really are. If you listen to your emotions, you can end up making some bad decisions – changing your risk tolerance, selling or liquidating funds, and so on.

And very rarely do these decisions end up helping you. Research proves that investor behavior is the leading cause of under-performance, and contributes to poor performance over the long-term.

DALBAR’s annual study of investor behavior shows that in 2015:

1. The average equity mutual fund investor underperformed the S&P 500 by a margin of 3.66%. While the broader market made incremental gains of 1.38%, the average equity investor suffered a more-than-incremental loss of -2.28%.

2. The average fixed income mutual fund investor underperformed the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index by a margin of 3.66%. The broader bond market realized a slight return of 0.55% while the average fixed income fund investor lost -3.11%.

3. In 9 out of 12 months, investors guessed right about the market direction the following month. However, the average mutual fund investor was still not able to keep pace with the market, based on the actual volume and timing of fund flows.

You also need to remember that your portfolio is made up of several different asset classes, according to your risk tolerance. Even when the market is “up,” one or more of the asset classes in your portfolio may be down. If you happen to be checking your portfolio at this time, these losses will bother you more than the fact that the market is up will excite you.

Decisions incited by loss aversion don’t align with your most important goals that are outlined in your Investment Policy Statement. And remember, if a decision doesn’t meet these criteria, then you shouldn’t act on it. Period.

Why Does it Matter to You?

It’s your right to be able to check your portfolio essentially on-demand. Part of your job as an investor is making sure that you’re satisfied with your results.

Our job is to help you overcome bad investor behavior, and make smarter financial decisions. To reach your full financial potential, you need to implement strategies that account for the human side of investing, and in turn, help make for a smoother ride. That’s why we created strategies designed to mitigate the impact volatility can have on your bottom line – something that traditional strategies often ignore.

Investing is uncomfortable – it’s one of the most unnatural things you will probably do in your life. You’re putting your wealth on the line, when putting your wealth on the line is something you wouldn’t inherently do. But you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You have to realize that investing is a game won by checking and stressing less. Rather than struggling to fight the market and potentially causing your financial health to suffer from harmful side-effects, take a break from checking your portfolio until your advisor says it’s time for a review.

The 5 Most Revealing Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Financial Advisor

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Hiring a financial advisor can be stressful. You’re trusting someone to help you accomplish one of – if not THE – most important things in your life. That’s why you need the leg up. And the best way to do that is to know what matters, what doesn’t, and the critical questions to ask a financial advisor before hiring them.

Seeing Through the Smoke and Mirrors

The institutions and Wall Street broker-dealers have spent the last century building their grandeur. And they want to hold onto that power, forever. As consumers have gotten smarter, the traditional industry has had to do a lot to cloud your vision from what’s really going on.

For example, a lot of people don’t even know what their investments are truly costing them. And costs matter – a lot. They directly impact your bottom line. When investing, you can incur fees and other costs at almost every turn, from the advisor fee, to the institution’s fee, to the cost of the funds in your portfolio (your expense ratio), taxes, and more. And unless you explicitly go digging, most of these costs will remain hidden from you.

They also try to saturate your brain with a lot of fancy terminology to describe those of us qualified to offer financial advice – broker, CFP, CFA, CMT, advisor, investment manager, financial planner, portfolio manager, and so on. Which combination of the alphabet do you choose? While you should do some basic investing research before hiring a financial advisor, I say ignore the words and letters. Instead, find out what this person actually does and how they conduct business. That’s what matters more.

The next few paragraphs will give you the most important bit of information you should consider when hiring a financial advisor – and that’s knowing the difference between an advisor and a broker.

Advisor vs. Broker: Who Has Your Best Interest at Heart?

It’s critical that you understand what I’m about to say – Most people 1) don’t realize that most advisors aren’t fiduciaries, and 2) don’t realize that they’re not actually working with an “advisor.”

Before the 90s, there used to be a known distinction between advisors and brokers. In fact, there’s still a hard distinction between the two – it’s just not known to most people. It was in the 90s when the traditional industry stopped calling their salespeople brokers, and started calling them advisors. Ever since then, they’ve done a good job keeping the catch-all “advisor” category alive and well.

The biggest distinction is that advisors are fiduciaries. This means they represent you, and are legally obligated to work in your best interest. No one else’s. They typically charge a flat fee of assets you have under their management, and that is how they’re compensated. Basically, they have zero to no conflicts of interest, because their loyalty lies specifically with you.

On the other hand, brokers are not fiduciaries. They work for an investment firm (commonly known as a broker-dealer), and are representatives of that broker-dealer. Not you, the client. Brokers are obligated to sell the products offered by that broker-dealer. When it comes to products, a broker’s standard is “suitability.” This means if an investment is suitable, but not necessarily the best or conflict-free, they can still sell it to you. They’re paid on commissions from the broker-dealer they represent, not by you. The need to sell among brokers is high.

The 5 Most Revealing Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor Before Hiring Them

There are numerous questions, theories, and strategies for picking an investment advisor. But I believe it really comes down to asking a few core questions that get to the root of what matters most – what this person stands for.

Here are what I believe to be the five most revealing questions to ask before hiring a financial advisor. Take these questions with you when you conduct your interviews:

1. Are you an independent advisor or a broker? Your first question should get to the root of whose best interests they represent – yours, or an institution’s. I started Jarred Bunch because I was passionate about making a difference in people’s lives – so much so, that I walked away from a cushy, six-figure job in corporate America to strike out on my own. I remember being so excited about building a company that was going to change the industry. On the day my business cards arrived, I looked on the back and saw in writing, “Scott Jarred is a Registered Representative of so-and-so big Wall Street broker-dealer.” This was the opposite of who I am, the opposite of what Jarred Bunch stands for. I couldn’t make money work for people – I was still working for and being controlled by the man. So, we broke free from the chains, and became an independent Registered Investment Advisory firm (RIA).

2. Who pays you? If they’re truly an advisor, their answer should be something like, “You pay me.” They should clearly lay out how they charge their fees, and disclose all costs associated with doing business. Down the road, if you decide to work with them, you should also ask for complete transparency on portfolio costs. Brokers, on the other hand, are paid commissions by the broker-dealer they represent. In addition to the conflicts of interest this can create, it can also cause them to jack up your advisor fees – they have to make money after the broker-dealer takes their cut off the top.

3. Are you legally obligated to act in my best interest? The answer to this must be yes. All the time, no exceptions. If they’re a true advisor, their answer will be yes. This is their duty as a fiduciary – they are legally bound to act in and offer solutions that represent your best interests. Brokers are legally bound by contracts with their broker-dealer, and must act in the best interests of that broker-dealer. Yet another red flag that they’re not a true fiduciary.

4. What is your firm’s history and current professional standing? In other words, you can ask to see a copy of their Form ADV. This is a registration document that advisors must submit to the SEC and to state securities authorities. Form ADV is divided into two parts. The first part discloses specific information about the Registered Investment Advisory firm that is important to regulators. This includes things like name, number of employees, nature of the business and so on. The second part acts as a disclosure document, and includes information on fees, any conflicts of interest that may be present, any disciplinary actions, if they act as a broker-dealer and more.

5. What do you think you can help me accomplish in the next three years that would make my life significantly better? During the interview, take the opportunity to outline your top priorities, and give the high-level overview of what reaching your full financial potential looks like to you. Note that you should be doing most of the talking when you get to this point. The advisor’s job should be to listen, and hear what value you’re looking for them to add to your life. Then ask them what specific steps they can take to help you get there – so that when you guys meet three years from now, you’ll feel like the time you’ve invested in this relationship has been worthwhile. Not only does it give you a glimpse into how well the advisor aligns with your values, but also gives you a clue as to whether they view the world with an abundance or scarcity mindset.

Why Does It Matter to You?

Two of the most important people in your life are your doctor and your financial advisor. Cliché, I know, but something that I believe.

In fact, think about hiring a financial advisor in terms of what made you pick your doctor. Would you have chosen them if they told you their loyalty lied with anyone but you, the patient? If they said that they have to represent the best interests of an outside group, not you? If they only offered you one treatment option, regardless of whether it was the best thing for you, because that’s what the group who controls them allows?

Heck no. So, why then, would you consider hiring a financial advisor, one of the most important people in your life, who conducts business this way?

That’s why it’s so important that above all, you ensure you’re working with a true advisor – not a broker using the traditional industry’s smoke and mirrors to make you think they’re an advisor. This means that you’ll have a fiduciary on your side – someone who’s bound to the same principle of “First, do no harm,” as your doctor. You’ll have hired someone who goes to work for you every day, and who you can count on to educate, guide and counsel you toward reaching your full financial potential. While it will be their job to listen to what it is you want, it’s their responsibility to protect your financial well-being. If you ask them to do something they believe would threaten your well-being, it’s their job to explain why you shouldn’t. Just like your doctor would do if you asked them to perform an unnecessary or risky procedure.

In the end, your decision for hiring a financial advisor comes down to what you value in a person who is responsible for playing this role in your life. After all, this is your financial life, no one else’s. But just remember, you get one shot at your financial journey. And failure is not option. So, I would caution you to hire wisely. I promise, if you find the right advisor, you’ll never want to leave them, because they’ll help you live the life you want.

5 Reasons Why You’ll Never Find the Motivation to Change Your Life

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The video above is taking the viral world by storm. It features motivational speaker and author Mel Robbins explaining why motivation is garbage. And after watching it, I couldn’t agree with her more.

We commonly resort to thinking people who don’t execute on their ideas simply aren’t motivated. They’re lazy. They lack self-confidence. They just don’t want to do it. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

You already know what you want to do in your personal life and in work. You already know why you want to do it. By all societal standards, this makes you “motivated.” But here’s the secret – knowing what to do, and why you want to do it will never be enough to make you do it. Motivation is garbage.

Nike Neglected to Tell the Whole Story

If the slogan for life was “Just do it,” we’d all be much happier. We’d all have everything we want.

But it’s not that simple. Think about all the things you want – why don’t you just do it? Because even though you know why you want to be an entrepreneur, you don’t feel like taking that risk. Because even though you know why your big idea has merit, you would feel hurt if it got shot down. So, you never open the doors. You never tell your boss. You never “just do it.” And nothing in your life changes.

That’s because when you put your feelings and thoughts in the ring to duke it out, your feelings will win every time. If you don’t “feel” like doing it, if you feel like it’s too risky, if you feel you could be ignored, then you’re not going to do it. Period. Not because you don’t know what to do and why, not because you’re not “motivated,” but because you can’t conquer your own feelings. Because you can’t outsmart your brain. Because you decided, all on your own, not to act.

Motivation is garbage.

5 Reasons Why You’ll Never Be Motivated to Change Your Life

Have you ever asked yourself why you can’t do the little things you know will change your life? To the point where they’re so simple, you almost start to wonder what the heck is wrong with you?

I have. Many times over. I could never figure it out – I couldn’t understand why doing the things that would change my life for the better were so hard to do. Even something as simple as finding 15 minutes a day to read a good book. But after listening to Robbins, what I couldn’t find reason in finally made sense. And I want to share what I’ve learned with you, in the hopes that you’re search will come to an end as well.

Here are the five reasons why you will never be motivated to change your life:

1. You hesitate. A new idea for a business, a product, a new paint color in the living room, whatever it may be, springs into your head, and then it happens – you hesitate. You start thinking about what you’re thinking about. This sends a stress signal to your brain, prompting it to wake up essentially. And herein lies the starting point for the whole problem. Your brain will recognize these hesitations as indicators that something is out of the ordinary, and will start to go into protection mode.

2. Your brain will stop you before you can start. Your brain is designed to protect you from things that are scary, uncomfortable, or difficult. But to change, to do the what you want, you have to do things that are scary, uncomfortable, or difficult. Enter protection mode – your brain will discourage you from doing these things even before you do them, every single time.

3. You’re only motivated to do the things that are easy. Change isn’t easy – it’s scary, uncomfortable, and difficult. Because of how your brain works, it will magnify the risks associated with change. It will discourage you from acting on new ideas, because your brain initially perceives them as problems. And it’s designed to protect you from them. This makes the problem even more complex – you’re never going to feel like doing the things you know you should do. So, you won’t. You’ll stick with what’s easy and familiar.

4. You keep waiting for motivation. Technically, you’re already motivated. You already know what to do and why you need to do it. So, why don’t you act? Because you keep waiting for that moment when you’ll feel ready. That moment when you’ll have just enough courage to do it. You keep waiting for motivation to find you, to spring you into action. Well, I have bad news – it’s never going to come. So, you’ll just keep thinking about it. You’ll never start doing, until you stop waiting for the motivation to do it.

5. You let the micro-moment pass you by. You have mere seconds between the formation of a new idea, and when your brain will kill it. This is the micro-moment in time when your idea has the potential to go from thought to reality. According to Robbins, you have five seconds, specifically, to physically act on a goal, or your brain will kill it. Most people will never be able to control their micro-moment – to act rather than remain passive.

Why Does It Matter to You?

At one point or another, you’ve thought to yourself, “I know what I need to do, I just need to find the motivation to do it.” This is a great way to set yourself up for failure – because motivation is garbage. You’ll never find the “motivation.”

Instead, start thinking “I know what I need to do, I just need to take the first step to actually do it.” You need to take control of the micro-moment. Robbins has been explaining this psychological shift for years, through her concept of the 5 Second Rule. Her TedX Talk on it has been viewed almost 10 million times.

If you want to pay off your credit card debt, cut them up. Right now. Want to reach your full financial potential? Start at square one and write down your monthly savings goal. Ready to lose weight? Set an alarm that prompts you to go to the gym. Have an ideal life you want to live? Cut out the first picture for your vision board. Have a business you want to start? Write down the name of the first person you need to call. Whatever it is you want to do, take one action right now to help you achieve that goal. When you take action, you start to build new habits, and erase current ones.

But until you realize that motivation isn’t enough to make you act, your life will never change. When you keep waiting for that perfect moment in which motivation will find you, your life will never change. If you don’t stop hesitating, if you don’t take control of the micro-moment, your life will never change. Until you stop thinking and talking, and start doing, your life will never change. You’ll wake up 10 years from now and still be in exactly the same spot. How miserable does that sound?

Instead, make the decision to act in a way that changes your life. Changing your decisions changes everything.

3 Reasons Why You Should Value Mind Over Money

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We live in a world full of information on how to find financial success, enough information that everyone should be able to reach their full financial potential. It’s the truth staring all of us in the face, but that only a few can clearly see. That’s because 95% of people are missing the crucial first ingredient in the recipe for success – cultivating the right mindset.

A Tale of Two Minds

There are two general mindsets – scarcity and abundance. Not only is a scarcity mindset the most common one, but it’s also a common denominator among those who never reach their full financial potential. This mindset gives you the illusion that you never have enough. It leads you to believe you can’t afford to practice the good habits that inch you closer to financial success. You settle in thinking that you can’t achieve more than where you are, and accept that your dreams will never become a reality. It’s the curtain that hides that truth staring you in the face.

A scarcity mindset makes you think “I can’t do that.” An abundance mindset makes you think “How can I do that?” This pivotal phrase is the first step in pulling back the curtain. Unlike scarcity, an abundance mindset helps you view every situation you encounter as an opportunity for success. You understand that if you continue those good habits that foster success, you will eventually achieve your goals and then some. This is how you break through the glass ceiling between what is and what could be. It’s how you make your dreams a reality and live the life you want. It’s how you put yourself in a position of control over your destiny, and become the CEO of your financial life.

How to do Something Isn’t Doing it

You can easily find the answers for financial success. I educate my clients every day on how to reach their full financial potential, I give them the answers. But what many people lack is understanding that the answer is only the how to. And the how to is only information, it’s just the steps to follow for financial success. It isn’t applying that information to help you live the life you want.

This simple fact is the reason you will fail again and again, no matter how many books you read, talk shows you listen to or articles you collect. Knowing how to find financial success is only one piece of the puzzle, and not necessarily the most important one. The other, and more important, piece is applying those how tos in a way that inches you closer to success. In other words, how you do the how to is more important than the how to itself.

I’ll say it again – how you do the how to is more important than the how to itself.

3 Reasons Why You Should Value Mind Over Money

This leads us to my central message – reaching your full financial potential is impossible until you learn to value mind over money. Here are three reasons why:

1. Success starts with your mindset. The human psyche is linear – your attitude creates your actions, creates your results, creates your life. Therefore, you may think all you need is an attitude adjustment. But that’s still not enough. What creates your attitude? Your mindset – your mindset creates your philosophy, creates your attitude, creates your actions, creates your results, creates your life. A scarcity mindset means you will live and behave accordingly. An abundance mindset means you will live and behave accordingly.

2. Success means doing what others won’t. Financial success, or success in any area of your life, is simple – do the little things that breed good habits consistently. Even the little things that seem insignificant. What’s difficult is actually doing the things that push you closer to success. They’re easy to do, and just as easy not to do. So, you have to change your priorities, the way you go about your daily life in general. You have to change your mindset, the way you think about the decisions you make. Successful people are willing to do what others are not willing to do.

3. Success means mastering the mundane. Those who succeed understand the difference between success and failure lies in the choices you make every day. Simple, positive actions, repeated over and over, that push you toward success. Or simple errors in judgement, repeated over and over, dragging you down toward failure. And again, doing what it takes to be successful isn’t difficult – there’s nothing difficult about mastering the mundane. Saving an extra $100 a month isn’t going to make you rich overnight. But that positive action, compounded and growing over time, will. You must simply make the conscious effort to view your life through the lens of abundance, and be willing to consistently do the things that others are not.

Why Does it Matter to You?

Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” I would amend this to say, “An investment in your personal growth and development pays the best interest.”

If you were to ask me if I would rather have a million dollars in the bank or a million-dollar mindset, I would opt for the million-dollar mindset all day long. Sure, it would be great to have a million dollars, but it’s even better to be worth a million dollars. If you start your journey toward financial success with a million-dollar mindset, it won’t be long before you’ve reached your full financial potential. But if you don’t have the right mindset, all the money in the world can’t guarantee your ability to succeed. This is because how much money you have and your level of personal development share a symbiotic relationship. They are constantly working to balance each other out. If your net worth doesn’t match your personal development, it will shrink back down to where your development limits it. But, if you’re always challenging yourself to grow, working on your personal development, then your net worth will rise to catch up with it. You can either become as small as the balance in your bank account, or as big as your greatest dream.

As someone who has spent more than a decade educating, guiding, and counseling people to reach their full financial potential, I can tell you that not everyone is inherently wired to succeed. But that doesn’t mean you should be tossed to the side. Your future can still be a successful one, you can still live the life you want to live. You just need to cultivate the right mindset.

4 Reasons Why Market Timing Fails as a Money Maker

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Markets will easily rattle you. A couple hundred-point swing here. A doomsday headline there. But before you go and flee the market or try to strike it big through market timing, you have to stop and consider the consequences.

The Dilemma

Market timing may be one of the most controversial topics around – many say it’s impossible, while the exact same number of people will claim they can do it perfectly every time.

It’s true that markets move in cycles and general predictions can be made about what to expect. But, this is exactly where investors get themselves in trouble. These facts do not mean that you can accurately and consistently get in and out of the market at the exact right moments.

Why, then, do investors continue to engage in this self-destructing behavior? Maybe it’s the same reason that we’re all pulled to the neon lights on the Las Vegas Strip – we all want to prove that we can win big and beat the game. Sometimes you do, and when you do, luck is almost a bigger factor than anything. But most of the time you don’t. When you don’t, it’s easy to keep pouring money into the machines to try and prevail. What usually happens is you fly home with your tail between your legs, in a deeper hole now than when you arrived.

4 Reasons Why Timing the Market Fails as a Money Maker

Here are four reasons why timing the market fails as a money maker:

1. It almost always hurts your performance over the long-term. A recent analysis of investor behavior from SigFig found that during the market correction in October 2014, roughly one in five investors reduced their exposure to equities, mutual funds and ETFs, with 0.6% selling 90% or more. While this may have seemed like a smart move to investors at the time, SigFig found that the more investors sold, the worse their investments performed. Investors who panicked the most had the worst 12-month trailing performance of all groups.

2. It can cost more than you will make. Market timing prompts investors to be active. While active investing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can be costly. And the more active you are, the more you will pay in costs. Every time you make a trade, you will incur fees associated with the cost of making that trade. Investment decisions also have tax consequences. If you try to time the market and make trades without regard for the tax impact, you can find any returns you may make quickly squashed by a tax bill.

3. You have to be right twice. Gambling is easy – you only have to be right once to make it big. Market timing is a different animal. You have to be right twice in order to win, because investing has two sides, buying and selling. To be a master at market timing, you have to be able to sell at the precise moment that the market has reached the top of its climb and can’t go any further. Then, you have to be able to buy at the precise moment the market bottoms out, before it rebounds. Do you have the guts to make that bet?

4. Your focus is on reward, not risk. Investors who time the market are in it to reap big rewards – no matter the risk. You’re chasing the high of making it big, of greed. When you don’t get that reward, you run into big problems. A focus on winning doesn’t prepare you for a loss. You have no exit strategy when things go south, and they often will. In case you’ve forgotten, higher risk doesn’t guarantee higher returns. It just means a higher chance of you losing your money. If you have a high probability of losing money, you better have something to catch you when you fall.

Why Does It Matter to You?

The truth is that investors who adhere to one extreme or the other – impossible or possible – regularly find themselves less successful than investors who try to find a happy medium.

Everyday market volatility can do enough harm to your returns, without you throwing in a little extra turbulence yourself from trying to time the market. In fact, volatility is what makes market timing difficult to do, because markets can rise and fall close together. Reaching your full financial potential depends on engaging in the right types of active investing, on a balancing act between your active and passive strategies. And this doesn’t include market timing. The only form of active investing proven to work is trend following. To take it a step further, indexing almost always outperforms active investing. This is why your main goal as an investor shouldn’t be to strike it rich from one big pop of luck. Rather, lower volatility and consistent returns – even if they’re lower returns – will increase your dollar growth, make for a smoother investment ride, and help you avoid bad investor behavior by keeping you disciplined.

Our investment strategies are built on these very principles. They move with the market, but can avoid the big declines. They limit investor exposure while still capturing upside potential. Remember, it’s not timing the market that drives your success, but time IN the market.

The 4 Rules of Financial Institutions

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Breaking news alert – the financial industry has an agenda for your money! Okay, no offense, but if this is breaking news to you, then you need to read this article more than most.

Yes, the financial industry has an agenda for your money. Everywhere you turn, almost every solution you’re offered has their best interest at heart, not yours. But, shouldn’t your financial actions support your most important goals? Shouldn’t the effort you’re putting in be working to further your best interests? Absolutely.

Whose Agenda Are You Furthering?

If you fail to acknowledge the simple fact that the institutions have designed things mostly to benefit themselves, you may find yourself never living the life you envisioned. Essentially, the game of finance is just that – a game. Successful players take the time to understand the rules and instead of admitting defeat, figure out how to make the rules work to their benefit instead.

Now, the point of this isn’t to paint the traditional financial industry as the enemy. Besides, making them the enemy doesn’t do you or I any good, we still have to deal with them every day. But there are in fact rules that the financial industry adheres to. Rules that you need to be aware of, as they can limit your financial success. You can’t change their agenda or the rules they stipulate for the game. But, you can define the way that we live and work within them, and bend them to your advantage.

The 4 Rules of Financial Institutions

The traditional financial industry has four core rules that they live by:

1. They want your money. This simple rule is what starts it all. You want to save for retirement? Here’s an IRA. Oh, you want your employer to help you save for retirement? Here’s a 401(k). When you’re ready to save for your child’s college education, pick from our selection of 529 plans. And the list goes on. The institutions have designed solutions for your biggest needs simply because of rule number one – they want your money.

2. They want your money systematically. Once you give the institutions your money, they want to make sure that you keep giving it to them, on the same day, every moth, year after year. Think about 401(k) contributions – these often come straight out of your paycheck. People often make IRA contributions on a schedule as well. Many times, we operate in ways that are convenient for us, hence paycheck deductions. Yes, the institutions do a good job of tricking us with convenience.

3. They want to hold onto your money for a long time. All of that money you’re putting into your 401(k) is locked away until you’re 59 ½. And just in case you get antsy before that, you’ll find yourself slapped with taxes and penalties galore should you try to pull it out. Isn’t it funny how you have to pay to get your own money back? For all of those responsible people who want to keep saving into their IRA past this same age, don’t worry – they’ll hold onto it for you until your 70 ½ .

4. When the time comes, they want to give back as little as possible. Money that you take out of your 401(k) goes in pre-tax. That means when you go to take it out, you’ll be paying taxes on it. The same goes for an IRA. This is different than a Roth IRA, where you put in post-tax money. Concerning IRAs, they also don’t want you to let those sit and grow for too long. They’ll keep it until you’re 70 ½ , but then you must start taking distributions from it. This lowers the principle, which lowers the return.

Why Does It Matter to You?

Yes, you can’t change the rules of the financial institutions. But you can change how you live within them. And I’m not trying to trash 401(k)s, IRAs or any of the other things we’ve mentioned here. These aren’t “bad” things to do – in fact, they can be essential tools to help you succeed financially.

What is important for you to take away is that part of winning the game of finance is mastering a balancing act. Financial success depends on a healthy balance of money that is under your control, and money that is out of your control. Based on these rules, all of your money shouldn’t be tied up in long-term savings accounts. Life happens, that’s a fact. When it does, you need to be able to access your money when you need it. For instances where your money is tied up, you need to know what role these strategies are playing and exactly how they fit into your complete financial life.

You don’t lump all of your goals into one end all, be all goal. You have multiple goals, multiple things you’re working toward. Money is the same way. You have to dedicate different buckets of money to different goals. And it’s not just about having a lot of buckets – it’s about having the right ones that are best suited to the purpose that money is serving.

Let me put it this way – one of my cardinal rules for reaching your full financial potential is to never have more money out of your control than in your control. Remember this, and you can go far.

The Best Way to Guide Your Investment Decisions

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Whether you’re just beginning to invest or are a seasoned investor, there’s one question that we all have. It’s a question that I guarantee you’ve asked yourself at one point or another – why do some people succeed at investing while others fail, and how can I be one of the successful people?

When it comes to investing, you can be your own worst enemy. This is because money is emotional, and when volatility strikes, it causes you to react emotionally – even irrationally or dangerously. Emotionally driven investor behavior often hurts you more than it helps you. And there are numerous emotional triggers and traps that will plague you almost daily as an investor.

Before you put that first dollar into your investment account, you have to understand this – you have to know what can deter your success. You also need to determine the best way to invest based on your personal values, wants and most important goals.

So, how can you avoid bad investor behavior? How do you know that you’re making the right investment decision? What is the overarching philosophy that’s guiding your decision making process? Easy, refer to your Investment Policy Statement (IPS).

Crafting Your Investment Policy Statement 

An IPS is one of the best ways to guide your investment decision making process. It’s one of the best ways to make sure that your personal values and most important goals are at the heart of your strategy. It’s one of the best ways to avoid bad investor behavior and maintain a disciplined approach. It’s also a great way to set expectations between yourself and your wealth manager, and to make sure all fees are completely transparent.

Drafting a basic IPS is relatively easy, and should be done in conjunction with your wealth manager. Here are the main components that should comprise your IPS:

Purpose. What is the purpose of your IPS? This should be easy, because we’ve already given you the answer. Your IPS is meant to foster a disciplined approach to investing by guiding your decision making process based on your most important goals and personal values.

Statement of Values. If can’t name your top five most important values, do that now. These are things that money enables you to do, the things that fuel your “why.” They should be defined and clearly laid out in this section of your IPS.  All of your investment decisions/actions should support these values, so this is a good way to remind yourself of what’s motivating you.

Statement of Objectives. These are defined based on your values. For example, if family is your number one value, one objective of your investment account(s) may be to send your children to college. Other elements such as time horizon, risk tolerance and performance expectations should be detailed here as well.

Duties/Responsibilities. It’s important to know what role everyone on your investing team will play. Who is on your team and what role do they play? How involved will you be? Do you want a partnership with your advisor, or do you want them to take everything off your plate? What is the duty of the actual investment manager? These are important things to stipulate. This sets expectations upfront, and enacts accountability for each team member.

Portfolio Selection. What are the actual investments that will comprise your portfolio? This should be based on previous elements, such as your risk tolerance and time horizon. Here is where you put your portfolio on paper, so that you can clearly see each individual investment and what the complete picture looks like.

Performance Monitoring. It’s important to know what dictates the selection of investments in a portfolio, and what determines their hiring and firing. This is an important question to ask and understand. This is where that criteria should be explicitly stated. Again, base decisions on facts, not opinions.

Costs. Any fees associated with your portfolio should be accurately communicated, and your advisor should be nothing less than 100% transparent with you. Period.

Review. Don’t overlook this last part. You need to stipulate how often your IPS should be reviewed. You should review your IPS annually at the least. Some people will need to review theirs quarterly. This ensures that as life changes, your investment strategies change with it.

Why Does it Matter to You?

While this is a simple template to help get you started, your IPS should be unique to you. After all, investing isn’t about a “number.” It’s about maximizing your financial potential with good habits, control, and value (what you value personally and what money enables you to accomplish). This is why you have to protect yourself against those bad decisions that can deter your success. When you have an IPS, the choice is simple – if the investment doesn’t align with what’s stated in your IPS, you shouldn’t invest in it. Period.

12 Tricks for Being More Productive During the Work Day

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It seems like everyone is always wishing for more hours in their day. Think about how often you’ve said something along the lines of, “If only there were 26 hours in the day, then I could get everything done.” Well, we can’t control how many hours are in a day or wish the day longer. Why is it then that some people seem to accomplish more than you do?

We all have the same 24 hours in the day to accomplish our goals. The difference is how you utilize your time. Successful, productive people understand the importance of using every minute of their day efficiently. This is key to getting more done during the day.

12 Tricks to be More Productive During the Work Day

These 12 simple tricks will help you become a more productive you

1. Exercise in the morning. Exercising is one of the things that seems to get pushed to the wayside as you get older. This is why setting aside time to work out in the morning, before the kids are awake or your work day starts, is the perfect solution. Not only is regular exercise good for your health, but it’s also be shown to increase focus, productivity and is linked to a better mood. Try it one morning and see how much better you feel throughout the day.

2. Write down your to-do list daily. Planning out your daily tasks gives your mind a map of what it needs to focus on for the day. Prioritizing your tasks is important as well, so pull out your priority actions for the day from your list of tasks. These are the things that must get done. At the end of the day, you can gauge what you’ve accomplished. Also consider the value that you added to your workplace from accomplishing your tasks. Not only does this make you feel more productive, but helps you feel like you are working with a purpose.

3 Set up a system. Find how you work best and make it a system. Organizing your time during the day is a great way to do this. Layout your day by devoting certain blocks of time to certain things. Something that I’ve found helpful is creating focus days and buffer days. Focus days are for concentrating on your priority tasks, your big goals for the week. Buffer days can still include daily tasks, but can be used for other things aren’t necessarily daily tasks. For example, I meet with my leadership team on buffer days and focus on aspects of running the business, as opposed to meeting with clients.

4. Close your door. Don’t be afraid to schedule blocks of uninterrupted time for yourself. Make others aware of this also. A study by Microsoft researchers found that it can take the brain up to 15 minutes to refocus on the task at hand after your attention has been turned elsewhere. This is why making sure you have time where you can focus solely on the task at hand, without threat of interruption, is key to increasing productivity.

5. Put your phone away. Thanks to technology, we’re now constantly connected to our social groups, whether it be through social media, text or phone call. But these are also large distractions during the work day. That’s not to say that you can’t answer a text or take a phone call, but specify blocks of times where you put your phone away and don’t answer it. Remember that saying “out of sight, out of mind?” If your phone is out of site, you won’t be thinking about what your friend is posting on Facebook or itching to answer incoming text messages.

6. Focus on one thing at a time. You have to accomplish more than one thing in a day to be productive, but trying to focus on more than one thing at a time can actually hurt your productivity, as was found in a study by the American Psychological Association. How many times have you been talking to a co-worker while trying to type an email, and realized that you actually didn’t hear anything they said to you? Now magnify that effect for larger projects. As the study points out, we’re not designed for heavy-duty multitasking.

7. Say no when you have to. Helping your co-workers boosts a healthy workplace morale. However, taking on work from others to help them detracts from the priority tasks that you have to accomplish for the day. It can be hard to do, but saying no is critical for preserving your level of productivity. Also, if you can’t give something extra your best work and full attention, your help could actually be less helpful than you planned.

8. Eat lunch away from your desk. Even though interruptions can affect productivity, it’s also been shown that stepping away from your work for a short amount of time can be helpful for rejuvenating your mind. Rather than always working through your lunch and eating at your desk, use it as an opportunity to step away from your work and clear your mind, even if it’s only for 30 minutes. It’s hard to be constantly firing on all cylinders for eight or more hours at a time.

9. Sleep. Getting enough sleep at night is key to high levels of productivity. A lack of sleep can cause your mind to feel cloudy, and can even affect your general well-being. According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Are you getting enough? Try to find a routine at night, like going into your room at the same time every night or reading before bed.

10. Keep a clean inbox. When you open your email and see 100 messages sitting in your inbox, it can immediately induce anxiety. It can also cause important messages to get lost in the clutter. Delete emails that you don’t need. Make folders and file emails accordingly once you’ve responded to them. A clutter-free inbox is the first step to a clutter-free mind.

11. Make your time valuable. Don’t fill your day with unnecessary meetings. Make sure that any meeting on your schedule is truly necessary, that you’re prepared for it and that the objective of why you’re meeting is clear. While there are times when you have to meet in person with people, decide if what you’re discussing can be done through email or on the phone.

12. Leave work at work. There’s always going to be something that didn’t get done. But making work your life isn’t necessarily the healthiest, or most productive, strategy. Be content knowing that you used your time as efficiently as possible during the day, and accomplished your priority tasks. Then go home and enjoy time with your friends, family or doing things that you enjoy. Don’t check your email, don’t answer calls – unless you absolutely have to – and unplug.

Secrets from the Rockefellers: How They’ve Protected Their Wealth for Generations

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The Rockefeller name has been a prestigious image of wealth, power and business in American history. Other names that would rival it include Walton, Ford, Mars and S.C. Johnson. And they’ve all managed to keep their billion dollar clans intact for generations.

Wealth Eroding Factors: Gift and Estate Taxes

One of the biggest wealth eroding factors can be estate and gift taxes that you will incur at the time of your death. Luckily, as of 2016, the Estate, Gift and Generation Skipping Transfer (GST) tax exemptions are $5.45 million per individual and $10.9 million for married couples. This means you can leave a minimum of $5.45 million and a maximum of $10.9 million (if married) to your heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax.

What’s that? You’re in the clear because this won’t affect you? Well, great. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to protect your wealth now and at the time of your death. Even fortunes worth far less than $5.45 million are still substantial sums of money.

How do you know that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes? How do you ensure that your estate will avoid the costs of probate? How do you protect your wealth from divorce, creditors and the like now and when it’s passed to your beneficiaries? How do you pass your wealth to your beneficiaries without them incurring large income taxes? These are all important factors to consider.

Protecting Your Legacy

Regardless of where you fall on the wealth-o-meter, the wealthy have three important estate planning goals:

1. Maintain satisfactory streams of income.

2. Protect their wealth from creditors forever.

3.Keep their money outside of the wealth transfer system.

Dynasty Trusts

For the ultra-wealthy (i.e. Rockefeller status) a fourth goal may be preserving their wealth for generations, far beyond their death. This is the core function of a Dynasty Trust.

Dynasty Trusts allow you to fund up to the amount of the exemption ($5.45 or $10.9 million) into the trust. These types of trusts allow the assets to be gifted to heirs who are more than one generation younger than the Grantor (creator of the trust), free of tax. This is a key function of Dynasty Trusts, because they protect your wealth against the GST tax. Leaving part of your legacy to those more than one generation younger than you is effectively “skipping” a generation in the government’s eyes. Because of this, there are special regulations that can cause you to get hit the hardest with taxes in these instances if your wealth isn’t properly protected.

Initially, the Rule of Perpetuities limited Dynasty Trusts to a maximum period of 21 years after the death of the last identifiable beneficiary living at the time the trust was created. So, if you set up a Dynasty Trust today and have a 2-year old grandchild, the trust would remain in effect until 21 years after their death. So, even with the rule in effect, this trust could easily remain in-force for 100 years. However, if done properly, Dynasty Trusts can last indefinitely. Many states have done away with the rule, allowing these trusts to essentially go on auto-pilot. The Grantor can also opt to extend the time period with verbiage in the trust that amends the rule. Either way, the value of your trust, and its appreciation, will pass to your descendants over multiple generations free from estate, gift and income taxes.

Revocable Living Trusts

A Revocable Living Trust is very ideal for the rest of us mortals who may not reach or exceed the $5.45 million exemption, but still want to protect our wealth and accomplish those three important goals.

First, “Revocable” means that you retain the right during your lifetime to amend, change, revoke or terminate the trust at your discretion. Second, “Living Trust” means that the trust is created while you’re alive, and goes into effect at the time of your death.

There are many benefits associated with a Revocable Living Trust, the first being its ability to avoid probate. Probate can get costly rather quickly, and are extra costs that exist in addition to any gift or estate taxes. If Uncle Sam can’t get you there, he can get you here. It can also become a drawn out, time consuming process. Rather than putting your loved ones through the time, stress and expense of probate, this trust can keep your estate out of probate. Also, many probate records are open to the public, so a trust ensures maximum privacy for your family. The amount of your estate and your beneficiaries are not public knowledge.

Another key element is that all your assets are coordinated according to one set of instructions – your wishes for how you want your legacy to be distributed. The inheritance also passes to your beneficiaries free from estate, gift and even federal income taxes. Assets that are owned by the trust protect both you and beneficiaries from creditors, spouses, divorce and future death taxes.

Why Does It Matter to You?

To fully appreciate the core benefit of any trust, understand this – estate and gift taxes hit every generational level. If your wealth isn’t properly protected, your legacy may only last a generation or two, simply because of tax erosion and nothing else. Whether through a Dynasty Trust or Revocable Living Trust, you can avoid these losses by keeping your wealth outside of the wealth transfer system. It also maintains substantial income for your heirs, whether it be for education, business opportunities, healthcare or general living purposes. Limiting the control of your beneficiaries means that their inheritance from the trust remains protected from a multitude of threats, including creditors and divorce, because it remains outside of their estate.

Both Dynasty and Revocable Living Trusts are excellent strategies for creating a structure around a family legacy, depending what your most important goals are along with your net worth.

3 Dangers of Ignoring Your True Cost of Living

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Understanding your true cost of living is one of the most commonly overlooked concepts. That’s because traditional planning does little to examine lost opportunity costs, much less offset them. But how can you reach your full financial potential when you don’t attempt to overcome one of the biggest wealth eroding factors you’ll encounter?

Lost Opportunity Cost

First, you have to understand just what I mean when I say “lost opportunity cost.” In relation to finance, it represents the actual amount of money you lose when making a financial decision. A great way to illustrate this is by using David Bach’s Latte Factor®.

Let’s say that every week-day morning you stop and buy a Venti Vanilla Latte from Starbucks on your way to work. This specific beverage will cost you $4.85. We’ll round that to $5 just for simplicity. This means that you are spending roughly $960 a year on coffee. Say you usually buy lunch three days a week as well, and spend about $10 every time. That’s $1,440 a year on lunches. Add this to the $960 you’re spending on coffee and you have a combined total of $2,400 a year.

So, what are coffee and lunches costing you? The answer isn’t $2,400.

What if you had invested that money instead?

Investing $2,400 annually earning 5% growth produces a gross value in 10 years of $30,351. In 30 years, it produces a gross value of $162,671.

THAT’S your true cost of living. THAT’S lost opportunity cost. See why you need to understand it, account for it and offset it?

3 Dangers of Ignoring Your True Cost of Living

There are three dangers that arise from ignoring your true cost of living:

1. Widespread wealth erosion. What we just examined is only one small area of your life. What about new technologies, goods and services that are created almost daily? I can barely keep up with having the latest and greatest in computers, smart phones and iPads. And now my kids are demanding the best when it comes to these gadgets. What about the planned obsolescence of everyday items, like appliances and cars? These products are made to break down so that you will have to buy them again. What about insurance premiums, investment fees, commissions and taxes? Add all of this lost opportunity cost to the previous totals and you can see your true cost of living.

2. The inability to recapture lost dollars. Two of the most common forms of lost opportunity cost are insurance premiums and financial fees/taxes. People have high insurance premiums because they want low deductibles. But if you were saving the ideal rate of 15%-20% of your income, you would have enough liquidity to cover expenses. Then you could raise you deductible and possible lower your premium costs. All fees associated with any investment account should be completely transparent, and justifiable based on the return and size of the account. Taxes can drastically reduce your net return as well; make sure that your investment accounts are tax managed to help control this erosion. Once you discover the areas where you may be spending money inefficiently, you can then recapture those dollars and put your money back to work for you.

3. Not reaching your full financial potential. Almost every decision you make can result in lost opportunity cost. This makes it one of the largest wealth eroding factors you will encounter and one of the biggest threats to your financial success, now and in the future. If you saw someone casually throw a $100 bill in the trash can, wouldn’t you think they may be a little crazy? Well, if you do nothing to mitigate this risk, you might as well join them. Doing nothing to mitigate this risk can result in you forfeiting millions of dollar over your lifetime.

How a Financial Model Can Help

This doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself from your favorite coffee, dining out, taking that dream vacation or purchasing things you want. But it does mean that you need to understand your true cost of living, which can be hard to do in traditional financial planning.

A financial model can pick up where tradition falls short. For example, our digital financial model, JB Wealth Builder, can allow you to see where your money is actually going. It can diagnose problem areas where you may be spending money inefficiently. You can then evaluate your degree of lost opportunity cost, and implement strategies to recapture that money and put it back to work.

This can help you remain in the proper financial position where you are able to enjoy the sweet indulgences of life, but also have a financial backbone capable of helping you reach your full financial potential.

How to Lose Your Money in 5 Different Ways

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It’s easier to lose money than it is to accumulate it. This is because accumulating wealth requires you to make a conscious effort. Losing your wealth doesn’t require much thought at all.

You don’t build wealth without some form of discipline, good habits that you practice religiously and that inch you closer toward your goals. This is the conscious effort. Often, the conscious effort tends to disappear once you’ve achieved success. This is the part where you want to enjoy all the hard work you’ve put into building the life you’ve dreamt of. Your conscious effort can even disappear while you’re still working toward your goals. Reaching new milestones of financial success can enable you to do things you couldn’t do previously; it’s easy to get swept up in your newfound freedom. This is why it can feel like you’re constantly taking one step forward and two steps back.

5 Ways to Lose Your Money

The things that can prevent you from reaching your full financial potential are the same things that can wipe out your wealth once you’ve accumulated it. Here are five ways to lose your money in both instances:

1. Not protecting yourself for your full economic value. People want to pay as little insurance costs as possible for the minimum amount of coverage. Most think that leaving enough behind to cover the mortgage or a few years of their salary is sufficient. But your full economic value is worth much more than this. It’s worth the money you will now and in the future, your net worth now and in the future and your legacy now and in the future. Protecting yourself means protecting against premature death or disability, accounting for excess liability coverage and properly structuring your estate. Failing to do any of these things can leave your wealth exposed to a handful of threats.

2. Failing to offset taxes and inflation. These are two of the biggest wealth eroding factors that are out of your control. First, your money needs to outpace inflation, which is the natural erosion of your money’s purchasing power. For example, if inflation is 3%, then your $10,000 this year will only be worth $9,700 next year. Investing your money is a way to offset inflation. While the goal of most investors is to achieve the most efficient after-tax returns, many of them forget to evaluate the tax implications of their portfolio as a whole. Your return doesn’t mean much if you lose most of it to taxes.

3. Living beyond your means. One of the simplest, cardinal get rich rules is to spend less than you earn. Sure, you may have the huge dream home or the exotic foreign car, but if you can’t truly afford it, this doesn’t make you rich. It makes you house poor and car poor, two of the best ways to lose your money faster than you can earn it. It also probably means that you’re building up a substantial amount of wealth. Here’s another cardinal get rich rule: If you have to finance it, you probably can’t afford it. Debt detracts from your net worth, from your ability to save and achieve your goals.

4. Not saving enough money. If you’re not consistently saving a substantial portion of your income every month, then you’re violating another cardinal get rich rule: Pay yourself first. With American savings rates teetering around 5%, it may seem drastic that I’m telling you to aim for a savings rate of 15% – 20%. But this is what funds your core liquidity, your ability to save for and achieve short-term goals. It also funds your future, and includes saving into different unqualified and qualified investment accounts for retirement, your child’s college tuition, and more.

5. Lacking a defined investment philosophy. One of the best things you can do for yourself before you start investing is to create an Investment Policy Statement. This is a guiding statement of how you will invest according to your values and desires, your most important financial goals. Otherwise, you can find yourself making emotionally charged decisions and engaging in bad investor behavior. This includes stock picking, market timing and forecasting, following investment trends and more. Investors who engage in these behaviors often get burned big time.

Why Does it Matter to You?

If you want to reach your full financial potential, you must understand how each of these five things can deter your success. For instance, protection isn’t just about insurance. It’s about protecting your life’s work from the numerous threats that can destroy it. Inflation alone is enough to erode your wealth. You have to put fear of the market to the wayside, and let your money work for you. Taxes will have a direct effect on the real returns your money produces and can significantly erode them. Include low-turnover and tax-managed investments in your portfolio. We can also offer our clients Separately Managed Accounts, which offer the greatest level of tax control.

Acting rich doesn’t count for much of anything. Most of the truly wealthy people would more than likely tell you that they would rather defy society’s image of being rich than being deceptively poor. Neglecting to pay yourself first means that you may lack the funds to achieve your most important goals or living a reduced lifestyle in retirement. Engaging in bad investor behavior can also guarantee these things. But how can you avoid it? How do you know if you’re making the right investment decision? Easy, refer to your Investment Policy Statement. If an investment doesn’t meet its criteria, then you shouldn’t invest. Period.

Building wealth is no small task, but the work doesn’t end there. If you can’t sustain your wealth, then all your hard work means nothing. Sustaining your wealth is where the real work happens.

10 Picks from the Jarred Bunch Bookshelf

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“If you want to be successful, you have to stay teachable.”

This is one of the most important sayings you might ever hear. It’s simple and true. I’ve long believed that if you’re always the smartest person in the room, there’s a big problem. You’re not challenging yourself to grow into a better person.

Success doesn’t just happen, it’s learned. Who better to learn success from than those who have already achieved it and then some? That’s how you grow into a better version of yourself. I’ve spent the last 13 years learning how to be successful from others. And I have no intention to stop learning, or to stop being successful. Neither should you.

Ask any uber-successful person, and you will probably find that they are voracious readers in their spare time. Reading the experiences, thoughts and work of others is one of the best ways to learn. Former President George W. Bush used to engage colleagues in reading challenges; he read almost 100 books a year during his time in office. Warren Buffet is far from shy when it comes to acknowledging his ever-growing reading list. Taking the time to read is a key ingredient in becoming a more successful person in life and business.

These 10 picks from the Jarred Bunch bookshelf helped us inch closer to success and can do the same for you:

Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. This real-life tale compares the author’s biological father (the poor dad) against the father of his childhood best friend (the rich dad). It will open your eyes to the divide among those who live in scarcity mode, as opposed to those who live with an abundance mindset. Two fundamental concepts will come to you from this book: An abundance mindset and an attitude cultivated in fearless entrepreneurship.

L.E.A.P: Lifetime Economic Acceleration Process, by Robert Castiglione. A big influencer in the financial industry for almost 30 years, Castiglione created a blueprint for how to accelerate wealth building and sustain it for life. The cornerstone of this book lies in his quest to morph traditional financial planning into something better for the new age. You’ll uncover several foundation elements for reaching your full financial potential here.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, by Alice Schroeder. At 10 years old, Buffett was already visiting Wall Street, engaging a senior partner at Goldman Sachs in a conversation that resulted in the partner asking Buffett which stock he liked. Even if you not an entrepreneur, Buffett’s biography has applicable insight. Appropriately titled “The Snowball,” Schroeder depicts how Buffett never quit striving for success; he worked tirelessly to make things for himself bigger and better. It winds between tales of lessons learned, goals crushed and immense respect earned.

Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk is the CEO of VaynerMedia, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author and up-and-coming digital marketing mogul. Crush It will teach you the three golden rules to success: 1) Love your family, 2) Work incredibly hard, 3) Live your passion. Instead of measuring success based on how big your business is or how much money you have, you’ll learn to measure it based on how happy you are, and how satisfied you feel with what you’re doing every day.

Start With Why, by Simon Sinek. As Sinek points out, there is a distinct difference between leaders and those who lead. Leaders have found their “why,” their way of thinking, acting and communicating that enables them to inspire those around them. He explores the effect of motivating people through inspiration rather than manipulating people into action. Try your hand at becoming an inspirational leader by starting with your “why,” not “how” or “what.”

The Random Walk Guide to Investing, by Burton G. Malkiel. Based on the previous literary hit, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel introduces his ten-point plan for success. This concise guide aims to take the mystery out of personal finance, and cuts through the thick jargon to make for an easy to read and follow piece. Confidence and knowledge to make better investment decisions are both by-products you’ll experience thanks to this book.

The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson. If you’re looking to gain the extra edge in life, Olson’s book is a great addition to your library. He centers the book on your own personal philosophy and how you think, exploring the difference between entitled and value-driven attitudes. You’ll find a greater appreciation for the three gifts in life: 1) Love, 2) Money, 3) Wisdom. And you’ll gain a deeper understanding of why wisdom is the hardest gift to earn.

The Elements of Investing, by Charles D. Ellis & Burton G. Malkiel. Despite what the title may indicate, you won’t find much in the way of specific investment advice in this book. That’s one of the reasons why I like it. What you will find are the foundational elements you need to have in place in order to make good investment choices, along with a few general principles on how to invest. The book is simple and concise, but powerful in helping you understand the importance of building a sound foundation before you start investing.

The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy. There are two key lessons you’ll learn from Hardy: You can reap huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions and always take 100% responsibility for everything that happens to you. He also demonstrates the importance of aligning your values with your actions and goals, and why you need to design the life you want first, and the business you want second.

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. If you’re a fast thinker, Kahneman would say that the “automatic” part of your brain is winning the fight for control against its “conscious” counterpart. Kahneman explores this struggle, and teaches the many ways in which this can lead to errors in memory, judgement and decisions. While you may always think fast, this book can help you learn how to successfully balance the art of thinking slow for improved cognitive functioning.

Younger Next Year, by Henry Lodge, M.D. and Chris Crowley. This co-authored book by doctor and patient creates a framework that explains why the things we all know we should do (eat right, exercise, etc.) are mandated by the laws of biology. You should make it point to live a healthy lifestyle as part of a successful lifestyle, according to Lodge and Crowley. The co-authors demonstrate why regular activity – now and especially when you’re older – is a demand of human evolution, not the fitness industry.

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