How Much Land Does a Man Need?

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

February 2022  Matt Financial Imaginer

How much land does a man need? This is the question Leo Tolstoy asked himself after realizing that chasing more and more in life would never lead to happiness. In his classic book of the same name, he delves into a tale of a farmer who is rushing through life aiming to accumulate increasingly more land.

The story starts with how a farmer’s wife had a visit from her sister from the big city.

While they were sitting at the table, his wife started to talk – and compare their lives:

“I would not change my way of life for yours, we may live roughly, but at least we are free from anxiety. You live in better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you are very likely to lose all you have. It often happens that people who are wealthy one day are begging their bread the next. Our way is safer. Though a peasant’s life is not a fat one, it is a long one. We shall never grow rich, but we shall always have enough to eat.”

The elder sister from the big city replied:

“Enough? Yes, if you like to share with the pigs and the calves! What do you know of elegance and manners? However much your good man may slave, you will die as you are living – on a dung heap – and your children the same!”

The farmer’s wife shockingly defended herself:

“So what, of course, our work is rough and dirty. But, on the other hand, it is sure; and we need not bow to anyone. But you, in your towns, are surrounded by temptations; today all may be right, but tomorrow the evil one may tempt your husband with cards, wine or women, and all will go to ruin. Don’t such things happen often enough?”

All the time, the farmer was listening and chopped in:

“Busy as we are from childhood tilling mother earth, we peasants have no time to let any nonsense settle in our heads. Our only trouble is that we haven’t enough land. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!”

This is just the beginning of this great and valuable story and already all the ingredients for the big question of why “how much is enough in life” is such an essential question are on the table.

Let’s dig in.

1. The Grass Isn’t Always Greener on the Other Side

When we’re not content with what we have, we tend to look at others and compare ourselves with them. “Why does he/she have more than me?” We see the grass as being greener on the other side, but is it?

Chances are that others simply show you their life’s highlight reel but if you take a closer look, you’ll realize that the grass isn’t that green.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”    Theodore Roosevelt

When we compare ourselves with others, how can we ever be happy? When will enough ever be enough? At some point, you just have to stop looking around and focus on your own life!

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.financial-imagineer.com/how-much-land-does-a-man-need/

Monopoly – A Great Game to Teach Kids Finance, Money and Life Skills

Monopoly – A Great Game to Teach Kids Finance, Money and Life Skills

November 2021  Financial Imaginer Matt

One of the best ways to teach kids about finance, money and life skills is by playing Monopoly. There are so many money and life lessons in this game: It teaches kids how to strategize, plan ahead, do math, negotiate with others, deal with winning or losing circumstances and control their emotions!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part: It’s fun!  Playing monopoly with your children will help them understand a few highly important concepts that are essential for their financial literacy – and their lives.

“Becoming wealthy is like playing Monopoly, the person who manages to accumulate the most assets, wins the game!”

If you think Monopoly is a game of luck, think again. It’s only luck if you don’t play smart! As with life itself, this game is about both, luck and strategy! While a player can choose to bet on his or her luck alone, adding some strategy to complement your luck is the best way to gain dominance in the game.

Never ever believe teaching money to your kids has to be boring! I understand that while most educational materials on these topics are considered “boring” for adults: Monopoly is a game and it’s meant to be played and enjoyed with fun!

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Ready to get lucky?

What does Monopoly teach You about Money?

What do you think you learned playing monopoly?

I would argue the first lesson, and one of the most important lessons of personal finance at all, is that life is like playing Monopoly, with one important difference: When playing the game, everyone knows you have to invest in order to become wealthy and win the game. However, in real life most people are simply moving around the board and wait to be passing “Go” – it’s also called living paycheck to paycheck. The lesson is: In real life like in the game, if you fail to start investing, you will most likely lose the game. Only as investor will you have the chance to win!

Learn this key lesson and apply it for your own life now!

Second – investing or buying properties means unlocking more potential future income sources, but do neither keep too much nor too little cash on hand, while you got to get started investing, cash can help you take advantage of opportunities when they arise.

In one thing Monopoly is vastly different from normal life: There’s no hiding how much money everyone has at any given moment; everybody will always know what others possess (yep, nothing like real life).

Total transparency!

That brings us to the third lesson for adults: You behave differently when dealing with others when you know they are wealthy or poor, powerful or not! In general, people do act differently around those who are (or appear) wealthier than them. This can be translated to a great lesson about the advantages of stealth wealth, dressing with a suit or behaving in any specific way in real life!

“Monopoly, destroying friendships since 1903.”

Think about it.

Monopoly is a game of emotions, financial literacy and life skills. And those are the three things that should be taught to our children from a very young age!

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.financial-imagineer.com/monopoly/

Inflation Hedge Your Life 5 Easy Ways to Live Richer

Inflation Hedge Your Life 5 Easy Ways to Live Richer

July 24 2022  Financial Imaginer

Inflation is at an all-time high. The rising prices of goods and services are making it increasingly difficult for people to live comfortably. However, there are ways that you can inflation hedge your life and potentially live even richer without having to make significant changes. In this blog post, we will discuss some creative ways that you can protect yourself from the effects of inflation.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to inflation hedging your life.

Some of them are surprisingly simple and easy to implement.

Let’s get started!

1. Rethink Your Habits and Lifestyle

When it comes to inflation, you have to be mindful of every penny that you spend. What are you spending it on? Is it for a solution, for solving a problem, for a brand? One way to do this is to rethink your current habits and lifestyle. Are there any expenses that you can reduce or eliminate? Can you find cheaper substitutes for the things you need without reducing your quality of life?

Chances are most readers can do a lot on this first point!

A lot of people suffer from what is called lifestyle inflation. This occurs when your spending rises along with your income. You may not even realize it, but as you get raises and promotions, your lifestyle slowly starts to creep up. Suddenly, you’re spending more on coffee, going out to eat more often, and buying nicer clothes. All of these expenses can add up, and before you know it, your lifestyle inflation becomes inflationary itself!

The more you give in to lifestyle inflation.  The more you’re robbing your future self.

Of course, this is not to say that you should never enjoy the fruits of your labor. But it is important to be mindful of your spending and make sure that your lifestyle doesn’t become too inflated.

If you are looking for ways to reduce your spending, here are a few ideas:

– Find free or cheap entertainment options in your city or town.

– Replace sparkling bottled water with a Sodastream machine.

– Start cutting your own hair instead of paying for haircuts.

– Make coffee at home instead of buying it every day.

– Bring lunch from home instead of eating out.

– Shop at thrift stores or consignment shops.

– Grow your own veggies in a garden.

– Bake your own bread.

In a nutshell, the golden rule here is: Never upgrade your lifestyle too fast!

If you’ve gone beyond that point, think again, reconsider, and reevaluate.

There are many other ways that you can cut down on your spending.

The key is to be creative and to find what works best for you!

2. Separate Your Wants from your Needs

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.financial-imagineer.com/inflation-hedge-your-life/

The Secrets of Stealth Wealth

The Secrets of Stealth Wealth

17. October 2022  Financial Imaginer

How many people do you know who have stealth wealth? Chances are, not many. That’s because stealth wealth is something that people living it don’t talk about. It’s a secret that they keep to themselves. But why? Why go to all the trouble of keeping your wealth a secret? In this article, I shall try to answer that question and more.

We will explore the concept of stealth wealth and discuss why it is something that everyone should be interested in. We will also provide tips on how to live a life of stealth wealth and how to recognize if others are doing the same. Lastly, we will explain what it takes for you to start living a stealthy wealthy life and why doing so can be so beneficial.

Stealth Wealth is essentially all about having more control over your life and your finances and being able to do what you want when you want.

Contrary to popular belief, stealth wealth is not just for millionaires. Anyone can live a stealth wealth lifestyle if they know how. In this article, we will discuss the secrets of stealth wealth and how you can start living a richer life today!

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.  – Plato

The Secrets of Stealth Wealth: How to Live a Bigger, Better Life on Your Own Terms

What is Stealth Wealth?

In short, stealth wealth is living beneath your means.

It’s about keeping your wealth hidden from others, even from family, friends and co-workers. It allows you to live the lifestyle you chose without having the outward appearance of being wealthy.

It’s about being content with what you have and not worrying about what other people think of you.

It’s about living a simple lifestyle and not constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses.

It’s about enjoying life without having to impress others with material possessions.

I’m most certain you’ve ever been curious about the financial status of people you know.

Now imagine if you’re filthy rich but don’t want anyone to know. That’s why some people lead seemingly ordinary lives while driving average cars and seem to be middle-class, while secretly being wealthy.

This is called stealth wealth, and it might just be the wisest decision anyone can make with money and wealth.

Contrary to your average “Nouveau-riche-Lambo-now Crypto Gazillionaire”, stealth wealth is about being wealthy without people knowing about it. Let’s be clear: this isn’t about hiding money away from the authorities; it’s about being aware of your surroundings’ possible responses to money and riches.

Stealth wealth is a mindset, a way of life, focusing less on bling-bling, status symbols, luxury cars, big houses, and all that stuff.

The actual average millionaire parking lot!

Stealth wealth is the opposite of conspicuous consumption, it’s about finding true wealth and quality of life which financial freedom helps to unlock. It’s all about having the ability to do what you want, when and where you want with whomever you like to.

It’s all about having to focus less on money and having more time, freedom, and peace.

Once you understand this, your world will change for the better.

Most people tend to forget financial success is not just about amassing a lot of money, having expensive homes, and other luxury items. What truly counts in life is to learn how to use that wealth, that money in a way that benefits you and your loved ones. What truly counts is the freedom and quality of life you manage to derive from your “wealth”.

Hold on, now you might say, what’s the point of building wealth and having all this money if you got to hide it?

Well, being rich and living rich are two different kind of shoes.

There’s no black-or-white solution here, there are “50 shades of personal finance”!

Experiment with this concept and find out which approach you prefer!

Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés.  ---  “In order to live happily, live hidden.”  (French saying)

The Benefits of Stealth Wealth

 So, why should I care about this?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.financial-imagineer.com/stealth-wealth/

How to Detach from Your Financial Wins and Losses

How to Detach from Your Financial Wins and Losses

We never truly know whether an event is good or bad, whether it’s winning the lotto or a recession

Jacob Schroeder   Oct 14

Bear market, high interest rates and a looming recession. What a terrible time to invest, buy a home or start a business. Or, maybe it’s a great time to invest (cheaper stocks), buy a home (fewer competing buyers) or start a business (less market competition). Everything is terrible. Or, maybe everything is great.

Most financial decisions we make are in response to events – losing a job, winning the lotto, having a baby. Instinctually, we make a judgment about those events and then act; we celebrate the good and grieve the bad. But, what if we can’t really tell the good from the bad until much later – or even never?

With the firehose of bleak financial news intensifying our emotions lately, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about detachment.

Whenever I feel strongly about an event in my life, I try to retreat into the wisdom of my own ignorance. Because life has a way of proving our initial judgments wrong. I remind myself that I don’t truly know if an event is good or bad. Over time, those labels can change. What is once misfortune can be God’s gift, and vice versa.

For instance, my family moved just when I started high school. I thought it was one of the worst moments of my life. Not only was I the “new kid”, but also an extreme introvert. It wasn’t until my senior year that I made friends. Fast forward 20 years and those friendships count as some of my strongest relationships in life, a wonderful fortune that wouldn’t have happened if this seemingly major misfortune hadn’t occurred first.

Apple fired Steve Jobs, which motivated him to make the personal and professional changes that would lead to his greatest innovations and this profound realization:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

In 1915, copper miner Stephen Jenkin received one thing we all wish for when we travel: a free upgrade. His ocean liner ticket back to the U.S. was switched at the last minute to a new and more luxurious ship, which he told his family he was really looking forward to sailing on. The last time his family heard from him was via postcard sent during a brief stop before crossing the Atlantic. He wrote: “The Titanic is a lovely ship.”

I’d bet almost everyone has experienced some kind of “blessing in disguise” or the opposite, which we could call a “curse in disguise.” These moments only exist because our brains are wired to create quick assessments of events. Friend or foe. Good or bad. While that works in the wilderness, it’s less effective when trying to plan for the future.

There is no such thing as wins and losses

Outside of a charging grizzly bear or a man in a hockey mask brandishing a machete, we can’t definitively tell if something happening to us is a fortune or misfortune (though it’s possible these events could also lead to good fortune – a lucrative book deal, perhaps, if you’re not brutally murdered). At least, not until later (if ever) when we see the ultimate consequences of that event.

But our instinct is to categorize events as good or bad and then act on those flawed assumptions. Which can lead to costly mistakes. A classic financial example is an ongoing investment study that shows the average stock investor greatly underperforms the stock market.

The reason is chasing performance. A stock goes down, which we think is bad, so we sell it to buy the stock that is going up, which we think is good. Except this often results in poor returns. Like a game of whack-a-mole you’re trying to hit winning stocks when it’s already too late.

 The alternative?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://rootofall.substack.com/p/how-to-detach-from-your-financial

How to Be More Resilient, According to an Elite Performance Coach

How to Be More Resilient, According to an Elite Performance Coach

By Clay Skipper  July 5, 2022

We're past the days of “no pain, no gain.” Steve Magness, elite running coach and performance guru, on what toughness looks like now.

As a kid, Steve Magness used to run until he puked. “That was my thing,” he says. This model of toughness—pushing through pain—worked well for him. So well, in fact, that he clocked a blazing 4:01 mile in high school. But several years later, when trying to break the four-minute barrier while running at the University of Houston, his strategy backfired.

Trying to work through an uncomfortable sensation in his neck, Magness collapsed. He’d given himself a condition that caused his vocal cords to malfunction by reflexively closing (and making it hard to breathe) at the first sign of stress. He could no longer just will his way through pain.

“I had to relax, to keep my breathing, neck, and mind steady and under control, all at the exact moment when discomfort and doubts were at their highest,” he writes in his new book, Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness. “In many ways, this book started the moment I collapsed. A search for what it means to be tough, for understanding how to control an inner world that often goes haywire.”

That was almost 15 years ago, and in the time since, Magness has become not just a successful running coach but an expert on human performance, working with everyone from NASA to Nike, and co-authoring the 2017 book Peak Performance with Brad Stulberg. What makes his new book unique—and especially useful—is that it threads the needle between the outdated outlook of “no pain, no gain” and the more contemporary model of self-care, which can easily tip into lazy self-indulgence.

He’s exploring a different, more productive way to navigate our pain that neither advocates ramming straight through it nor tries to escape it entirely. That might be the discomfort of trying to run your fastest mile, or will yourself through another hour of work, or simply use your phone less.

Whatever pain you’re trying to endure, here Magness lays out the lessons he’s learned on persevering in a more productive manner.

GQ: What was your childhood model of toughness?

Magness: My model came entirely from sports. I tried and played practically every sport possible: baseball, football, basketball, even street hockey somehow down in the middle of the South. When you go through that, especially in Texas in the ’80s and ’90s, you get a particular style of toughness placed on you. Put your head down and do everything you can to get on the other side of the pain.

I remember coaches telling me not to show emotion. You didn’t give the competitor any hints that anything could ever be wrong. No matter the chaos inside, you didn’t give away that you had doubts or insecurities. But eventually there are competitions where you dig deep, you reach down to find that extra oomph, and it’s just not there. It backfires.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gq.com/story/steve-magness-do-hard-things-interview

How Our Perceptions of Time and Money Change as We Age

How Our Perceptions of Time and Money Change as We Age

BY RETIRE BEFORE DAD

Our perceptions of the value of time and money shift as we age.   In early adulthood, time is abundant, while money is scarcer. We want more money and are willing to sacrifice our time to get it.

By middle age, a thriving career helps us earn more, but job and family obligations consume our time. Life is expensive, and working middle-aged people never seem to have enough time or money.

Approaching retirement, we’re more willing to spend money to save time. Why mow the lawn when you could be playing golf or Bridge? And what good is all that wealth if we have no time to enjoy it?

Time was valuable all along.

But as we age and grow wealth, we learn to appreciate time more because we have less of it to live.

The sooner we learn, the sooner we can shift our focus to what’s most important.

Important of time vs. importance of money chart.

The crossover point — when we fully embrace time as the superior resource and prioritize accordingly — is realized at different stages of life for different people.

It may be gradual or sudden.

The approach to retirement is a typical time when priorities shift.

Does retirement change our perception of the value of money?

The standard path of attaining an expensive education and then working full-time for the next four decades to retire at 65 is still predominant.

But that’s Baby Boomer gold-watch thinking.

We have more options.

Time vs. money purpose?

Maybe when we find our true purpose in life, we modify priorities to elevate the importance of time, relationships, and our impact on the world over income and wealth.

For those with a clearly defined purpose, time spent not fulfilling that purpose is wasted time.

There can be prosperity in purpose. Finding work you love that serves others and makes you wealthy might be the holy grail.

Diagnosis as the cross over point.

A serious health diagnosis, accident, or death of a loved one might change your feelings about time and money too.

Imagine a doctor telling you there are only a few months left to live.

Life’s priorities would shift immediately.

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.retirebeforedad.com/time-and-money/

Yikes. The Federal Reserve Lost $4.1 Billion Last Month

Yikes. The Federal Reserve Lost $4.1 Billion Last Month

Notes From the Field By Simon Black   November 1, 2022

In the early spring of the year 1492, Lorenzo de’ Medici had just arrived to his family’s opulent villa in the hills nearby Florence when he began to experience severe stomach pains.  His pain quickly grew worse, and the finest physicians were summoned to heal him; Lorenzo was reportedly given a number of potions and treatments. But nothing worked.

Within a matter of days, the 43-year old Lorenzo had passed away. And all of Florence panicked at what might happen next.  They called him Lorenzo the Magnificent for a reason. Under his leadership, the Republic of Florence had cemented its position as one of the biggest powers of Europe.

The Florentine economy was exceptionally strong. So strong, in fact, that Florence’s 3.5 gram gold florin had become the dominant reserve currency in Europe. And Florence’s highly advanced banking system made it Europe’s leading financial center.

Taxes were low. Crime was low. Peace was maintained. Trade flourished. Science and technology advanced. And art experienced an unprecedented boom.

During Lorenzo’s rule, Florence was graced by many of history’s most celebrated artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo.

When Lorenzo died, Florence went downhill very quickly. His son Piero de’ Medici succeeded him as the Lord of Florence. But Piero (known as Piero the Unfortunate) did not have his father’s skill.

Piero’s mismanagement resulted in a severe economic downturn, plus diplomatic humiliation at the hands of one of Florence’s geopolitical rivals, the French.

Piero even managed to abandon some of Florence’s most important military fortresses to his sworn enemy, French king Charles VIII.

Naturally people were horrified by his incompetence. And after just two years, the people of Florence forced Piero into exile. Yet the decline of Florence was only getting started.

The next ruler was an ultranationalist, puritanical fanatic named Savonarola who claimed a divine mandate to make Florence (according to 16th century poet Girolamo Benivieni) “more glorious, more powerful, and richer than ever.”

It didn’t work; within a few years, Savonarola was executed. He was replaced by a French puppet, who was then ousted when the Medici family invaded Florence (with the help of the Spanish) and once again seized control.

It was around this time that a new book about political theory began circulating in Florence; it was written by a fairly obscure bureaucrat turned diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli. And his book was called The Prince or Il Principe.

In his writings, Machiavelli attempts to justify the actions of pernicious, despotic rulers, claiming that cruelty, deceit, violence, and immorality were all acceptable traits of a ruler trying to maintain power.

Quite ironically, Machiavelli himself was a victim of his own logic; he was exiled, then imprisoned, then brutally tortured by the ruling Medici who suspected Machiavelli of conspiracy and sedition.

Most people would probably agree that a violent dictatorship isn’t a great political system. And yet the book eventually became incredibly popular among European nobility.

Henry VIII of England, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, and many more leading monarchs of the era were heavily influenced by Machiavelli’s terrible ideas.

This has happened many times throughout history — a writer comes along and publishes a work that becomes highly influential in political circles.

Hundreds of years after Machiavelli, the works of Voltaire, Rosseau, Adam Smith, de Toqueville, etc. had a profound impact on prevailing political and economic trends. And in the 20th century, the works of John Maynard Keynes were central in establishing the modern system of economics and central banking.

Some of these ideas (Rousseau) were great. Many of them (Keynes) were terrible. But they’ve all had a lasting impact on the world.

Today we have a mountain of idiotic works that have become required reading among the political elite, from Klaus Schwab’s The Great Reset, to whatever self-aggrandizing nonsense Anthony Fauci will publish in a few months.

But perhaps none has been more destructive than The Deficit Myth, i.e. the holy book of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

This is the completely idiotic idea that governments can go into debt and print as much money as they want, forever and ever until the end of time, without any consequences whatsoever.

MMT has made its rounds all over the world, and it’s astonishing how many policymakers have bought into it.

MMT is the sort of thing that makes politicians say things like “We can pay for it with deficit spending” (AOC). Or that their multi-trillion dollar spending bill will “cost nothing” (Pelosi). Or that inflation is purely the result of “corporate greed” (Biden).

According to MMT, “Congress doesn’t need to ‘find the money’ to spend it. It needs to find the votes! Once it has the votes, it can authorize the spending. The rest is just accounting.”

That’s it! It’s just accounting! Trillions upon trillions of dollars conjured out of thin air is just accounting… with no consequences whatsoever. It’s genius!

Except we all know there are consequences. Inflation has been an obvious one. But there are so many more.

One of them has come up quite recently and it’s worth mentioning; in its efforts to fight inflation, the Federal Reserve has been steadily increasing interest rates over the past eight months. In fact they’re expected to hike rates by an another 0.75% tomorrow.

But the Fed has a huge problem now.

According to its latest balance sheet, the Fed owns $8.3 TRILLION worth of bonds. That’s a pretty big portfolio.

Remember, though, that bond prices fall as interest rates go up. So as the Fed has been aggressively raising rates lately, they’ve managed to create enormous losses of their own bond portfolio.

In fact the Fed lost $3.2 billion just last week alone. And in the month of October, they lost $4.1 billion.

$4.1 billion constitutes roughly 10% of the Fed’s entire capital base, so it’s a LOT of money for them to lose, especially in a single month. And these losses are mostly the result of their interest rate hikes that have caused their bond portfolio to lose value.

At this pace the Fed will be completely insolvent by next spring, at which point they’ll require a bailout from the federal government. I’m sure America’s adversaries will be terrified by such a display of financial strength.

Of course, MMT suggests that the Fed will first have to print the money for its own government bailout. Truly bizarre.

What’s notable here, though, is that the Fed typically earns a very healthy profit each year… and those profits ultimately flow into the Treasury Department and become a funding source for the US government.

But now the Fed doesn’t have profits. It has losses. So the government is about to lose a source of revenue…

Coincidentally, another source of government revenue used to be interest payments received on student debt. But with the stroke of a pen, the President recently canceled student debt, eliminating another important source of government revenue.

Yet simultaneously while policymakers deliberately torpedo government funding sources, they continue to engage in completely reckless deficit spending (insisting it will “cost nothing”) and taking on larger amounts of debt at higher rates of interest.

This is literally the opposite of what any sensible person would do.

To your freedom,

Simon Black, Founder Sovereign Research & Advisory

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/yikes-the-federal-reserve-lost-4-1-billion-last-month-143954/

Handle Hard Well

Handle Hard Well

Oct 27, 2022 by Ted Lamade@collabfund

Guest post by Ted Lamade, Managing Director at The Carnegie Institution for Science

Ihave been writing these articles for close to a decade now. In doing so I have covered many topics, but none have resonated more than this issue of adversity. As a result, my antenna is up. This is why I happened to notice something this past Sunday afternoon while watching the Buffalo Bills play the Kansas City Chiefs, specifically the two starting quarterbacks — Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.

Allen and Mahomes may be the two best quarterbacks in the NFL today. Allen is currently the frontrunner to be this year’s MVP, while Patrick Mahomes was the League MVP in 2018 and Super Bowl MVP in 2020. Yet, neither was expected to even make it to the NFL. In fact, Mahomes wasn’t even ranked in the top 50 recruits in his home state of Texas and Allen failed to receive a single scholarship offer coming out of high school.

Intrigued, I started doing some more digging.

Like Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, the four-time and two-time reigning NFL MVP, also didn’t receive a scholarship offer coming out of high school. He was then passed over by 21 other teams and had to back up Brett Favre for three seasons before starting his first NFL game.

How about the 2019 MVP, the year between Rodgers and Mahomes? Lamar Jackson was a three star recruit (out of five) who wasn’t even among the top 400 recruits his senior year in high school. He was also strongly encouraged by the “experts” to play a position other than quarterback.

The the last MVP outside of this group? Tom Brady, who has become the greatest quarterback of all time after being passed over by every NFL franchise multiple times in the 2000 NFL draft until the Patriots finally drafted him in the 6th round.

The list doesn’t end there. Of the top ten quarterbacks heading into this season, only one was rated a five-star recruit coming out of high school. Of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL today, you can count the number of five-star recruits on just one hand.

The fact is, this group of predominantly three-star quarterbacks was considered by many to be too short, slow, inaccurate, or raw to become regular starters. Yet, they are currently occupying the most demanding job in all of sports, while countless five-star “sure things” have flamed out along the way.

The question is why?

Duke women’s head basketball coach, Karen Lawson, said it better than I ever could in a recent speech to her team about how important it is to “handle hard well.”

“Most people think things are going to get easier. Life is going to get easier. Basketball is going to get easier. School is going to get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard stuff better. And if you think life when you leave college is going to all of a sudden get easier because you graduated and you got a Duke degree, it’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So make yourself a person that ‘handles hard well’.”

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://collabfund.com/blog/handle-hard-well/

Who Said There Needed To Be an Alternative?

Who Said There Needed To Be an Alternative?

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  October 24, 2022

In the early 6th century BC, roughly 2,600 years ago during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China, a young scholar named Li Er was hired to work as a government scribe in the imperial capital of Chengzhou. Though Li had no formal schooling, he quickly became renowned for his keen intellect. And in time he began to attract a large number of disciples and students who wanted to learn from him. According to one legend, even a young Confucius came to seek his wisdom.

The more time Li spent in government, though, the more disillusioned he became with the entire institution. He witnessed corruption, financial waste, and abuse of power first hand, and he could see that his kingdom was in decline.

So after several decades of devoting himself to government bureaucracy, Li finally decided that he’d had enough, and he set out for a quiet retirement in the countryside, far away from the moral decay and madness of the imperial city.

Li was quite a famous teacher and philosopher at that point. And on his way outside of the main city gate, a guard named Yinxi recognized him, and was saddened to learn that Li was leaving the city forever.

The guard asked Li to please write down his wisdom, so that the whole world could learn of his philosophy.

Li agreed, and kept his promise; the text he wrote is called Tao Te Ching, and Li himself became known to history as Laozi (commonly written as Lao-Tzu), or ‘Old Master’.

Tao Te Ching is a really important work in that it was one of the first ancient texts in human history to argue in favor of limited government and personal freedom.

Li (or whoever wrote Tao Te Ching) obviously didn’t care for government; he writes, for example, that “regulations increase the poverty of the people”, and “the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are.”

It reminds me of the sign that Ron Paul used to keep on his desk while he was a Congressman: “Don’t steal. The government doesn’t like competition.”

It’s quite ironic that, to this day, Laozi is still revered as an intellectual giant in China. And yet if he were alive today, he would most likely have been arrested long ago and living out his days in a concentration camp.

Chinese President Xi Jinping clearly has no regard for the Tao’s ideas.

This past weekend Xi formally secured his third term as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, cementing his autocratic power for at least the next 5 years.

Let’s not mince words: Xi is dangerous. He has taken China backwards in so many ways, including and especially with respect to personal freedom.

His desire to control the day-to-day activities of people’s lives is so extreme, for example, that he even imposed strict limitations on how much time young people were allowed to play video games.

Personally I’m not opposed to kids having limits on screen time. But last time I checked, Xi Jinping isn’t everyone’s dad.

Yet that barely scratches the surface of Xi’s fetish for absolute power. COVID is another great example; Xi’s love of COVID lockdowns is rivaled only by Anthony Fauci. And the resulting economic destruction his policies have caused makes Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi look like a couple of amateurs.

But Xi doesn’t seem to care. He acts as if the sole purpose of the Chinese economy is to support the party, not the other way around.

Xi routinely harasses private businesses and forces them to submit to the state. He has ousted corporate leaders, stolen their assets, and put many in prison.

China’s tech sector has suffered an economic and intellectual drain as a result. And under his leadership, foreign investors are even less trusting of China than they were before.

Under Xi’s predecessor, Hu Juntao, Chinese wages and GDP doubled. China became a major world power. China and Taiwan held historic talks, and trade increased significantly between the two countries.

Xi doesn’t seem to have interest in peace and prosperity. And perhaps to underscore the supremacy of his new direction for China, Xi had his predecessor physically removed from the room during this weekend’s Party Congress in Beijing.

Xi is often compared to Hitler across Internet chat rooms, usually due to the internment and murder of China’s Uyghur minority.

To be frank, however, the parallels between Xi and Hitler go far beyond the Uyghur genocide.

After Hitler rose to power, he also cared very little about the German economy. He wanted it to be healthy, of course. But he viewed the economy as an extension of the state.

Hitler’s top priority was in developing a strong military. And he believed that, as long as the military was strong, that the German economy would be strong as well simply because foreign nations would not oppose him.

This seems to be Xi’s approach. He’s investing heavily in China’s military and weapons technology, and he demands that private industry subordinate itself to these ends.

This all leads me back to a key theme: the US dollar.

I’ve long argued that the US dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency is coming to an end. This is inevitable; no currency and no superpower has held the top spot forever.

Yet this view is very difficult for people to digest. It’s hard to accept that there’s a shelf life for America’s global dominance. And often people assume that the US will continue to reign supreme simply because “there is no alternative”.

And that’s true.

No one trusts China. Very few people (outside of China) want the renminbi as the world’s reserve currency.

And to be fair, China has a mountain of its own problems. Its demographic challenges (due to decades of the One Child Policy) are unfixable in my opinion.

Plus China also has serious defects in its financial system, debt levels, and more. Not to mention its currency is plagued by capital controls.

This doesn’t seem like an obvious alternative to take over the global financial system.

But who ever said there needed to be an alternative?

The US dollar was formalized as the dominant reserve currency at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. Dozens of representatives from multiple sovereign nations literally gathered in a room and agreed that the dollar would be king.

No one is going to be doing that any time soon with China or its currency, the renminbi.

But that doesn’t mean the dollar is going to keep its status forever.

Losing its reserve status doesn’t require a replica of the US dollar in a different country. No one is going to flip a switch and suddenly cause all global trade to go through the Chinese financial system.

Losing reserve status means gradually losing market share.

It means, for example, that European aircraft manufacturer Airbus will start selling its jets in euros, instead of dollars (especially to European airlines).

It means some sovereign nations whose currencies are currently pegged to the US dollar abandon their pegs and allow their currencies to float freely.

It means foreign institutions gradually cut their holdings of US government debt.

And yes, it also means that some Chinese companies will conduct cross-border trade in their own currency. In fact this is already happening. And it’s accelerating.

It’s true few people trust Xi. Nobody trusted Hitler either. And yet Nazi Germany did booming trade with the rest of the world, and much of it was denominated in his reichsmark. In fact there was an entire trade bloc in Europe with the reichsmark as its unofficial reserve currency.

None of these trends will cause the US dollar to disappear, and certainly not overnight. But they do constitute a gradual chipping-away of the dollar’s dominance.

And that has major long-term implications for the US economy.

To your freedom and prosperity,

Simon Black, Founder Sovereign Research & Advisory

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/who-said-there-needed-to-be-an-alternative-143846/

Five Lives

Five Lives

Tom Welsh - Humble Dollar

WE GO THROUGH phases in our financial life, just as we do in our biological life. There seem to be a least five financial phases that adults pass through, each with their own priorities, risks, opportunities and tradeoffs.

Here’s how I would think about those five phases:

1. Party Time (ages 25 to 30)

Yes, you’re starting a career, and you want to get ahead and make money. But in all likelihood, your focus is your social life—and so it should be.  Still, amid all the fun, throw in some sober financial management. Avoid digging a hole for yourself with high-cost consumer debt, notably credit card debt and car loans. Participate in your employer 401(k) plan at least up to the minimum required to get the full amount of any matching employer contribution. Finally, in your taxable account, try to save for the down payment on your first house using moderate-risk investments, such as investment grade bonds.

2. Early Career (ages 30 to 45)

Often, this is a time of rapid career advancement, plus you may be starting a family, with all the costs that that entails. Along with these comes the temptation of what I call classflation—borrowing to acquire large homes, expensive cars and other status symbols, so you appear a social class above what you can truly afford. A prudent goal in this phase is to have no debt other than a home mortgage, and then pay off that mortgage as soon as feasible. I’d advise doing so even if it means you invest less in stocks.

Understand that two huge industries disagree with this advice: the lending and investment industries. One wants you to borrow, so it can collect interest. The other wants you to carry that debt, while putting new savings into investments, so it can collect fees. Get ready for the mantra, “You’ll make more money in stocks.”

Why pay off your mortgage so fast?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2020/08/five-lives/