Let’s have a conversation about perspective. It was about a month and a half ago that my wife and I returned from a trip from overseas, specifically Sicily, Italy. Once we returned home, we had to be self-quarantined for 14 days. Immediately thereafter, everyone hunkered down. It was about working in place, staying in place. So, it’s been about a month and a half. If you have been watching my presentations on YouTube, Facebook, and elsewhere, you have noticed a different background than you are seeing today. Initially I was thinking, “let’s just put all my stuff together, put it on a desk, have it set, and ready to go.” You have seen windows in my background that I then realized added a shadow to my face, and I needed a different perspective to do a better job on these presentations. Over the weekend, all I did was get a card table, set everything up, but instead of facing the wall that you are seeing now, I turned it around to add a different perspective.
What perspective are you learning from the situation that we are in now? Maybe it’s to have more things into the pantry. Maybe it’s having Netflix if you hadn’t signed up for it previously because what do you do with your time? Maybe it’s reading some books that you had meant to get to that you are finally getting to. For many people, they say it is doing jigsaw puzzles. I understand the sales of jigsaw puzzles are up about 300%.
Perspective. What is the perspective on the planning for your future? In the past it’s always been what mutual fund, or stock, or bond I could buy that’s going to beat the market. Maybe you need a different perspective – something we have talked about for years. We have talked about for years because I’ve always stood for the concept of safe money of emergency funds. And why is it that now when people don’t have money, you begin hearing people preach the whole concept of needing to have safe, liquid assets. The time to set up safe, liquid assets is when you have the assets to actually put away. Those individuals that I have worked with over 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years – those people that were putting away $50-100 per month, month after month, year after year, are the individuals over time that now have 10’s of thousands of dollars that are liquid and safe. We need to have retirement plans. We need to have money that we set aside for the future, that perhaps we can’t touch because some people need to have that barrier. What I found is that people who put money away on a regular basis into the proper product can still have safety, can still have liquidity, but can also have the benefits of tax deferral, and also the benefits of building up other airbags and other safety belts.
In my book Investments Don’t Hug – Embracing the Life Insurance Asset, I outline exactly how this is played out for so many of my clients and friends that I have had over the years, of making sure they have something guaranteed in the event they could not see it all the way through. It automatically set up a default plan, making sure their family was going to be ok. Or, in the event of a disability that someone, a company, a large company with deep pockets continued to put money away for them when they couldn’t.
What is the perspective? Are you chasing a rate of return? Or have you implemented a strategy to continue building safety for today; a safety net for today, but liquidity for tomorrow. A safe place to put your safe money, where it’s also liquid and available for emergencies and for those opportunities that may present themselves in the future. Consider beginning today. Consider purchasing my book, whether it’s through Audible, ITunes to listen to it, but I highly recommend that you get something that you can touch, and you can feel, that you can write in, highlight. This is the time to order Investments Don’t Hug – Embracing the Life Insurance Asset. You will be moved by this book. You will be inspired by this book, and my hope is that you will be inspired to begin your life, beginning today to have security built into it.
So, the next time that we have an unexpected event, because we will always have unexpected events, my hope is that you will be in the position because you put away money in such a way to protect yourself, protect your family, and protect your safe money.
Thank you and be well.
