فصل 3 بخش 2

CHAPTER 3.2

WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

—HENRY KISSINGER

Congratulations, you’ve come a long way! You’ve taken three huge steps toward Financial Freedom. You’ve made the most important financial decision of your life. You’ve become an investor by committing or expanding the percentage of your income that automatically goes into your Freedom Fund, and you’ve begun to build your money machine that will set you free. You’ve also learned how to protect yourself from the biggest lies designed to separate you from your money. Finally, you have put a price on your dreams: you know how much income it will take to be financially secure and independent. Now we’re going to take what you’ve learned about the power of compounding and put those Money Power Principles to work. We’re going to work together to create a plan for you and your family that is absolutely attainable and within reach, no matter what level of financial dream you’re shooting for: security, vitality, or independence.

There’s one more thing before we start. If you’re like most people, you hate talking about money. But hey, it’s just us, anyway. No one else will see these numbers unless you decide to share them. What’s most important is that you be honest with yourself. No rounding up here. No bending the truth. No looking at your “numbers” with a rosy lens and making your finances look a little better than they are. And by the same token, don’t sandbag yourself either by making the plan so conservative that you feel like it’s impossible to achieve. Just level with yourself and commit to taking a candid picture of where you are now. That’s how to make this plan really work.

YOU CAN PLAY ONLY YOUR OWN HAND

A good friend of mine recently had a reunion with a group of his boyhood pals near my home in Palm Beach. They all gathered to celebrate their 50th birthdays. They had gone to nursery school together and lived down the street from one another throughout high school in a Levitt community of tract homes on Long Island, New York. Their fathers were all professionals, or owned their own businesses, their mothers were all housewives; and their household income levels tracked together closely. What struck me most about these lifelong friendships were the demographics. During their formative years, the lives of these friends were in synch, but once they went away to college, the young men splintered in different directions: One went to work for a leading financial institution on Wall Street.

One became a photographer, opening a frame shop in Manhattan.

One built homes across the mid-Atlantic states.

One started a business as an importer of fine wines and craft beers.

One trained as an engineer and worked on a civil servant’s salary in South Florida.

When they got together, these lifelong friends compared notes. Despite the gap in income levels and bank accounts, they were all happy—not happy in precisely the same ways, of course, but happy. Their needs were met. Many of their hopes and dreams as well.

My friend shared the concepts from an early manuscript of this book with his buddies. After a few beers, the conversation turned to money, and they asked one another the same question you answered in the last chapter: How much money would it take to reach financial security or fund their retirements? The Wall Streeter thought he had to save at least $20 million to maintain his present lifestyle without having to work. The Manhattan photographer thought $10 million would do the trick. The real estate developer thought he could manage on $5 million, especially now that his kids were out of college. The wine merchant had recently remarried. In spite of welcoming a new baby, he was counting on a nest egg of $2 million. And the civil servant, the one who’d been conditioned to live within his means and to look ahead to a steady pension for the rest of his life, thought he could live worry free once his pension kicked in and he started collecting Social Security benefits.

Which one of these friends was closest to achieving his goal? Who had the right number and the right plan in place to help him get there? It’s a trick question, of course. The answer isn’t driven by money. You don’t “win” the race of life by amassing the biggest pile of cash or accumulating the most things. And you don’t win by grabbing a quick lead and coasting to the finish line.

How do you win? You win by living on your own terms—as well and as fully as you can, for as long as you can.

You create a plan that meets your needs, that works for you, and you stick to it. That’s success, plain and simple. If you’re scrambling, constantly competing with others’ views of success or financial independence and trying to achieve an elusive goal, you’re going to fall behind and become frustrated. If you’re chasing someone else’s goal, you also lose. It doesn’t matter how much your neighbor has, what kind of car he or she drives, or the vacation he or she takes. This plan is about you, only you, and no one else.

The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.

—BOB MARLEY

THE ILLUSION OF ADVANTAGE

Ever watch track-and-field events in the Olympics? It’s easy to stare at the track just before the starting gun fires and wonder how the runner positioned all the way out in front in the outer lane of the track doesn’t have a huge advantage. Intellectually, we know that all the runners must run the same distance, but visually our eyes seem to deceive us. That so-called lead is called a stagger, and it’s meant to even the distance on an oval track. In a 400-meter race, there’s a gap of about six meters separating each runner.

But, of course, everyone knows that there’s no advantage, physically, to being all the way out in front on the outside of the track, or all the way in the back on the inside. You have to run the same distance either way. Yet the appearance of advantage can be a powerful psychological edge. Does the guy out in front think he’s got the lead? Does that give him a boost of confidence, or perhaps take away the tiniest fraction of his drive? Does the guy all the way “in back” feel like the underdog—and then run just a little bit faster to compensate?

Let’s go back to our five friends, from the outside-looking-in perspective. It might feel like the civil servant is all the way in the back, lagging behind the field, and it might seem like the Wall Street executive has set himself up for a strong finish, but that’s the illusion, not the reality. No one is ahead.

There’s no first place or last place here. Life is not a competition. Often people use money and the acquisition of things to measure where they stand: who’s got the nicer house, the fancier car, the summer home in the Hamptons. But the truth is, we can’t predict how long we’ll live or the state of our health as we age. The reality is, it doesn’t matter where we start. It’s how we finish that counts. Here it seemed that all of these lifelong friends were headed in the right direction—each on his own terms, in his own time. That’s one of the reasons they felt so happy with their lives. With a little discipline and foresight, they all had a shot at winning the race they’d started together, all the way back in nursery school.

The same can happen for you. It doesn’t matter where you stand in relation to your friends, your family, your colleagues, or clients. All that matters is your personal journey. It’s tempting to look at others as a yardstick and convince yourself that you’re all the way out in front, with the appearance of a lead, or resign yourself to the back of the pack. But that’s not the point. The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint. The only thing to do is focus on the path in front of you. Look ahead. Establish your own pace. Keep moving forward. And then create that plan.

The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.

—ANONYMOUS

YOUR PLAN

Now that you know that your only competition is yourself, it’s time to come up with a plan and create a financial blueprint. The good news is, all you have to do is answer six questions in the It’s Your Money app. Using this wealth calculator, you’ll have a first version of your plan within seconds. If you haven’t already downloaded the app, here’s the link: www.tonyrobbins.com/masterthegame.

The six questions are related to two areas: where you are now and what you are committed to creating going forward. The few numbers you need to answer you can pull from your records, or perhaps off the top of your head. You may have to do a little bit of homework, but most of these numbers should be close at hand—and, if you can’t come up with them right now, it’s okay to use a round-number estimate just to get you started to keep the momentum going.

Using these numbers, the app will build a plan tailored just for you, based on variables you get to determine: like how much you expect your income to grow, how much you’re determined to save, and what rate of return you expect to get on your investments. You can be conservative or aggressive with your estimates—or you can run the numbers both ways and decide on some middle ground. And the beauty here is, once you capture these numbers, the app will do all the work for you. You’ll have a true blueprint for your financial future, a clear plan to follow.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

The wealth calculator in the app you’ve just downloaded is a device I’ve used for more than three decades in my workshops and seminars. It’s simple and flexible, and it’s helped millions of people create financial plans that work for them. It’s built on a series of conservative assumptions, but you’re free to go in and change those assumptions if you’d like. You can make them more conservative or more aggressive. You’re in control, so put in numbers that fit with your lifestyle, your current reality, and your future dreams. If you don’t like the picture that comes back to you, you can play with your numbers and choose a different path to financial freedom. In the rest of this section, we’ll work together to get you specific steps to speed up your plan and insure its success. The first plan you come up with is just that: your first bite of the apple. Then we’re going to take it and improve upon it significantly in the pages ahead . . .

A few things to keep in mind before we start:

One of the biggest factors will be our tax rate, which is radically different for each one of us. This book is read by people all over the world, so rather than make it complex, we’ve made it very simple. Wherever you live, in the pages ahead you’ll learn to utilize the tools in your country that give you the greatest tax efficiency. Wherever possible, you want to use tax-advantaged accounts to accumulate your wealth to generate a greater net rate of return.

This calculator will then show you three potential scenarios, with different annual rates of return for each plan: 4%, 5.5%, and 7%. A conservative plan, a moderate plan, and an aggressive plan. These rates are after-tax rates of return. Some might find these numbers too conservative, or too aggressive; again, you can adjust them to any numbers you like.

How did we get to those numbers? On the high end, if you look at the standard set by the Charles Schwab organization, it will tell you an aggressive return is 10%. Our app’s aggressive return is 7%. Why the three-point difference? Schwab has shown that over the past 40 years, from 1972 to 2012, the market has averaged 10%. But our calculator is assuming approximately 30% in taxes, which brings the number to just under 7%. In the United States, long-term investment tax rates are only 20%, not 30%—so our app is being aggressive on the tax side. Also, remember that if you are investing through a tax-deferred vehicle like a 401(k), IRA, or annuity, you are deferring taxes. So if you had a 10% return (as in the Schwab example), you would continue to compound at 10%—with no tax deducted until withdrawal. We are using our lower returns of 4%, 5.5%, and 7% to provide a buffer for mistakes or future returns failing to hit the aggressive mark you had hoped for.8 On the low end, or conservative side, if you look at Vanguard, it uses a 4% return after taxes. But we’re looking at things a little differently. Most Americans who have money to invest do it through their 401(k), IRA, or 401(k) Roth. What’s the best option? We recommend that you go with a Roth (or your country’s equivalent), unless you truly are certain your taxes are going to be lower in the future. (Lucky you!) Governments all around the world, and especially the United States, have spent money they do not have. How are they going to pay it back? By raising taxes. So while no one knows for certain whether taxes will go up or down, my bet here is they’re going up. In a Roth, your returns are 100% yours, meaning that if you’ve got a 7% return, you keep all 7%—no cut to the tax man ever on the growth of your investments. If you get a 10% return, you keep all 10%.

This is why we built the wealth calculator this way. It gives the flexibility to think about returns in a net (after-tax) approach. You design the plan with what you believe is most appropriate for your planning purposes.

This wealth calculator is designed to quickly give you a sense of how different choices will impact how long it will take you to achieve Financial Security, Vitality, or Independence. After you come up with a basic plan you like, you can also get precision too. As I mentioned earlier, Stronghold (www.StrongholdFinancial.com) has a technology platform to link all of your investment accounts. It will give you immediate feedback on what your actual rate of return has been on your investments in the past. (Most people have no clue!) It will show your best performing years, your worst performing years, and in how many years you have taken a loss. It will also show you how much you are really paying in fees, so you’ll know the true impact on your future savings. Go there, if you like, after you have your basic plan completed on the app.

Of course, with the app, the numbers and your plans are completely secure and remain accessible to you wherever you go, on any device. You can change your returns at any time, change how much you’re willing to save, and see the impact in moments.

One of the most powerful ways to accelerate the pace at which you achieve your financial goals—and the most painless way I know—is to implement the Save More Tomorrow plan, which has helped over 10 million Americans grow their savings in ways they never thought possible. Do you remember how it works from chapter 7.4, “Your Money Machine”? You commit to automatically taking a percentage of any raise you receive in the future and adding that to your Freedom Fund.

So, for example, let’s say you’re saving 10% of your current income toward your Freedom Fund: you’re investing, but you want to find a way to speed up your plan. By committing to the Save More Tomorrow plan, the next time you get a 10% raise, 3% would go toward your Freedom Fund and the other additional 7% would be available for your improved lifestyle today. Do this three times in the next decade, and you could be saving up to 19%—almost double what you are putting away today—and at no loss to you, because it’s all based on additional future income. This will make a huge difference in the speed with which you can achieve your financial dreams.

To take advantage, just click on the Save More Tomorrow option in the app. One final note: I’ve also taken out the value of your home from the equation. Now, hold on, before you scream and yell. Yes, I know, for many of you, it’s the largest investment you have. If you want to add it back in, you can, but I’ve taken it out so you have yet another conservative cushion. Why? Because you’ll always need a home to live in. I don’t want you to run these numbers and generate a plan that relies on the value of your home to generate income. You may sell your home in ten years and realize a significant gain. Or you may stay in your home for the rest of your life, or you might need to downsize and take some money off the table to help pay off an unanticipated expense. No matter what happens, your plan is designed to keep you afloat no matter what your living situation holds.

Why all these buffers built into the system? Because I want these numbers to be real for you—not just real in this moment, but real over time, against any number of real-world events that could set you back. I want to soften the blow in case you veer off course. But I also want you to exceed your own expectations. Most of all, I want you to know with absolute clarity and certainty that the projections we generate together are truly within reach.

Ready to dive in? Open your app!

When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes.

—OPRAH WINFREY

DRUMROLL, PLEASE . . .

Now, I know you are going to want to dive right in, hit Enter, and sit back while the app tells you how the rest of your life will play out. But that’s actually not the point. The true value of this next step is to show you what’s out there: what’s realistic, what’s possible, what’s worth dreaming and fighting for. It lets you try on different outcomes, and play with some of the variables if you want to create a different picture or produce a different result. In the near term, it gives you a true plan you can follow—a blueprint for your financial future.

Think of it as your personal financial trainer. It takes your “real” numbers—your savings, your income—and calculates what they’ll be worth based on a series of anticipated outcomes. Don’t worry about specific investment strategies just yet. We’ll cover these in section 4, but it’s important to get some idea of how your money can grow once it starts to work for you.

Remember, the focus is not on where or how you’ll invest your money. This exercise is an opportunity to forecast—to look into the crystal ball of what’s possible. What would your future look like if you could realize a 6% return on your investments? How about 7% or more? How much money would you have after 10 years? After 20? What if you somehow managed to hit the jackpot and found a way to generate gains of 9% or 10%? Remember, just one of the asset allocation portfolios you will learn in chapter 5.1, “Invincible, Unsinkable, Unconquerable: The All Seasons Strategy,” has produced an average rate of just under 10% over the last 33 years, and lost money only four times (and one of the losses was only 0.03%)! So there are many possibilities once you educate yourself as to how the top investors on earth conduct themselves.

So play around until you find a number that feels right to you—one that you have a healthy dose of confidence in. Just a few minutes of your time, and you’ll know what your savings, with the power of compounding, at different rates of return, will bring you.

It is only the first step that is difficult.

—MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND

Congratulations on running your first plan. Are you excited about the results? Concerned? Frustrated? Or encouraged? Over the years, working with countless people from all over the world, I’ve noticed their results tend to place them in roughly one of three categories: 1. Those who are young and in debt, wondering how they’re ever going to get to financial security. What’s beautiful is that they find out they can!

1. Those who think they are decades away from financial security, and are surprised—or, frankly, shocked—to learn they are only a stone’s throw away: five, seven, ten years max. In fact, some are already there but had no idea.

2. Those who started late and are fearful of never being able to make up for lost ground.

Let me share with you some examples of other people I’ve worked with in similar situations and show you how their plans played out—how they achieved Financial Security, Vitality; even Independence and Freedom.

ALL GROWN UP BUT STILL PAYING OFF STUDENT LOANS . . .

Let’s start with someone young and in debt. Like a lot of millennials today, Marco graduated with a big chunk of debt. As a 33-year-old engineer earning a respectable $75,000 a year, he was still paying off $20,000 in student loans. Like so many Americans, Marco felt like his debt was consuming his life—he thought he’d be paying it off forever (and probably would be, had he paid only the minimum payments). Marco did, however, expect his salary to grow, slowly but steadily with expected raises of about 3% to 5% per year. After working together on a new plan for Marco, we allocated 5% of his income to paying off his student loans. And Marco committed 3% of any and all future raises to his Freedom Fund.

What did this new plan give him? How about a debt-free life in seven years! On top of that, Marco was going to be able to take that 5%, once he was debt free, and redirect it toward his savings to grow and compound his Freedom Fund. With this savings and investing plan, Marco could reach Financial Security in 20 years. That may sound like a long time, but he’ll still be only 53 years old. And just seven years later, at 60, Marco could reach Financial Independence—a full five years before he’d ever dreamed of retiring, with more annual income than he ever imagined! Marco went from worrying about never paying off his student loans to looking at a future of real financial independence. Even better, within five years, by age 65, with all of his growth and the boost of Social Security added, Marco would actually experience his definition of Financial Freedom—a prospect entirely unfathomable to him before running his new plan. Remember, he began this journey with no assets and nothing but debt!

IF IT LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE . . . IT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE TRUE

Then there’s our second category of people: those who take a look at their plan and think something must be wrong. Their calculator is not working! They see that Financial Vitality or Independence is popping up far too quickly. “There’s no way I can get there that fast,” they think. “I can’t achieve Financial Independence in five, seven, or eight years. That’s crazy!” In their minds, they’ve got a good 20 or 30 years of hard work and nose-to-the-grindstone days ahead of them.

Where’s the disconnect? How is that possible?

It’s possible because the number they had in their head—that $10 million or $20 million or $30 million price tag—was totally off base. It had nothing to do with reality. It was simply a pie-in-the-sky number representing what they thought they needed to be financially independent, not what they actually needed.

Katherine, a woman who attended one of my Wealth Mastery seminars, is a great example. She was a savvy businesswoman who needed $100,000 a year to be financially secure—a large number by many people’s standards, but not by her own. To achieve Financial Independence, she’d need $175,000 to maintain her current lifestyle without working. Katherine assumed it was going to take more than 20 years to get there.

Want to know what happened when she ran her numbers with my team? The first thing they uncovered was that her current business was earning more than $300,000 a year in net profits and growing at nearly 20% per year. With my team’s help and a little bit of research, she found that she could sell her business today for six times her current profits, or a total of $1.8 million. What does this mean?

Well, if she sold her business for $1.8 million and then received a 5% return, her annual investment income would be $90,000 per year. She had other investments already that were providing more than $10,000 per year, so with a $100,000 annual income, guess what: Katherine is financially secure right now!

Katherine was blown away—but also confused. She said, “But Tony, I don’t want to sell my business right now!” I told her that I wasn’t encouraging her to, nor did she have to. But she should declare victory and realize that she is financially secure today. Why? Because she has the assets to produce the income she needs right now. Even more exciting, at her business’s current growth rate of 20% per year, she would double her business in the next three and a half years. And even if her current growth rate was cut in half to only 10% per year, in seven years her business would be worth $3.6 million. If she sells at that point ($3.6 million × 5% = $180,000 per year in income without working), in three and a half to seven years, Katherine will be financially independent. Not 20 years! And this was without making any other investments whatsoever!

By the way, one of the things I show business owners in my Business Mastery program is a little-known set of strategies that allows you to sell a portion (or even a significant majority) of your business and yet still run, control, direct, and profit from it. This allows you to get a large cash-flow bump to secure your Financial Freedom today, while still having the enjoyment and fulfillment of growing the business you love.

YOU CAN BE LATE TO THE PARTY AND STILL WIN

Let’s go back to my friend Angela’s story. Angela is anything but average, but from a financial perspective, she represents the average American. Angela is 48 years old. Having lived a free-spirited life, traveling and sailing around the world, she had never saved or invested in her entire life. After finishing section 1, she’s now committed to saving 10%, but she’s still got a major challenge: she’s beginning late in the game. (As she said, “I’m almost fifty!”) She has less time to tap into the power of compounding.

When Angela first calculated the amount of income she’d need for Financial Security, her number came to $34,000 a year. For Financial Independence, she’d need $50,000. At first glance, her numbers excited her. They didn’t have seven zeros, and they were numbers she could get her arms around. However, the timing of those numbers brought her back down to earth. Starting late in life and saving only 10% of her income was a plan that would take Angela 24 years to get to Financial Security—if she was 41 years old, that would be a great win. She would achieve it by 65, but since she was starting later, Angela would be 72 years old when she achieved Financial Security. It was certainly a more compelling future than if she hadn’t run the plan, and she was glad to know she could get there. But she wasn’t terribly excited by the long, slow road ahead.

So what could we do to speed up that goal? How could Angela get to Financial Security faster? One way would be to increase her savings and invest it. She was saving 10% already. Never having saved before, 10% seemed like a huge number, but by committing to the Save More Tomorrow plan, she could painlessly save more when she received raises and accelerate her plan. Another way to speed things up was to take a little more risk and increase her rate of return to 7% or more. Of course, that heightened risk could bring about more losses too. But it turned out there was an even simpler insight we had overlooked.

Lucky for Angela, she still had one more round in her arsenal. She had left out a huge piece of future earnings, one that many people neglect to include in their financial planning: Social Security.

Angela, already 48, was only 14 years away from taking Social Security at a reduced rate and 17 years away from capturing her full benefit. She stood to take home $1,250 per month once she turned 62, or about $15,000 a year. So that $34,000 a year in income she needed for Financial Security suddenly dropped down to $19,000. Now when we reviewed the numbers in the app, she shaved a full decade off her timeline. Instead of getting to Financial Security at 72, she was going to get there at 62! Angela was going to be financially secure in 14 years, and she was thrilled. She now would have enough income never to have to work again to pay for her mortgage, her utilities, her food, her transportation, and her basic health insurance—a real sense of freedom for Angela.

The impossible became possible. And guess what else happened? Once Angela realized financial security was in view, she took that emotion, that excitement, that momentum, and she said, “Hey, let’s kick it up a notch. If I can get to Financial Security by sixty-two, let’s take a look at Financial Independence. I’m going to figure out a way to become financially independent, not in my seventies or eighties but in my sixties!” And her number to reach Financial Independence? It was $50,000—only $16,000 more a year in income than she’d need for Financial Security.

Angela took one more step. After reading chapter 3.6, “Get Better Returns and Speed Your Way to Victory,” she found yet another way to accelerate her plan. Angela was always extremely interested in owning income-producing real estate, and she learned some simple ways to invest in senior housing (or assisted living facilities) that are available through public and private real estate investment trusts. (These are covered in section 4.) We will highlight more details later in the book, but in short, senior housing facilities are a way to own income-producing real estate that is also tied to what I call a “demographic inevitability”: a wave of 76 million baby boomers who are aging and will require the use of these facilities. By investing $438 per month (or $5,265 per year) for the next 20 years, and assuming that she reinvests the income for compound growth, she will have accumulated $228,572. (Note: this assumes a 7% income/dividend payment, which is the current rate on multiple senior housing real estate investment trusts.) The amount she accumulates will generate $16,000 of income (assuming a 7% income payment), and she won’t have to tap into her principal unless she wants to! One last huge benefit? Angela doesn’t have to pay income tax on the entire income payment due to the tax deductions for depreciation.

Marco, Katherine, and Angela are real people just like you and me. Your plan is within reach too, and just like them, you might be able to get there sooner than you think. Don’t let the first plan you’ve run on the app be the end-all. Think of it as your starting point to make your dreams happen. In the next chapters, we’re going to show you five ways to speed it up and get there even faster.

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

Whether you’re excited about the numbers your plan threw back at you or you’re disappointed about the long haul ahead, take heart—disappointment isn’t always bad. It often serves as a great kick in the pants that pushes you to create massive change. Remember, it’s not conditions but decisions that determine our lives. Disappointment can drive us, or it can defeat us. I choose to be driven by it—and I’m hoping you take the same view. Most people don’t even get to this point in their planning, because they don’t want the letdown they’re afraid they’ll experience once they run their numbers. But you’ve taken on the challenge and the promise of this book, so you’re not like most people. You’ve chosen to be one of the few, not the many.

I vividly remember a Fourth of July trip I took more than 20 years ago with my dear friend Peter Guber and a group of top movie executives through Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. We were on Peter’s private yacht, and a couple of these moguls were throwing around how they had earned $20 million and $25 million on a single film that year. My jaw dropped—that number simply astonished me. Here at 30 years old, I thought I was doing pretty well—that is, until I hung out on deck with a bunch of movie tycoons. These guys had an insane lifestyle, and it didn’t take long for me to get seduced by the idea of it all.

This experience jolted me, but it also made me ask a different question: What did I really want to create in my life? And could I possibly ever get there? At that time, I didn’t see any way I could add enough value to other human beings through my core skill of coaching to ever create that level of Financial Freedom.

Of course, I was being totally unfair, comparing myself and my level of accomplishment to these men. I was 30 years old; Peter and his movie-producing friends were all in their early to late 50s. Peter was in the prime of his career; I was just beginning mine. He had 52 Academy Award nominations and a slew of Hollywood hits to his name. Sure, I was making a name for myself and running a successful business—and changing lives—but financial success for Peter and his friends and financial success for me were light-years apart. And so, as I compared myself to those guys on the boat, I did what so many people do unfairly: I beat myself up for not being at the same level of accomplishment.

But the beauty of that moment, that day, was that it put me in a new and strange environment, and something inside me shifted. I was so far outside of my comfort zone. I felt like I didn’t belong—like I didn’t deserve to be there. Have you ever felt like this? It’s amazing what our minds will do to us if we don’t consciously direct them.

And yet contrast is a beautiful thing. When you get around people who are playing the game of life at a higher level, you either get depressed, pissed off, or inspired. That day, I realized I didn’t want a yacht, but I was inspired to sharpen my game. I realized there was so much more I could do, give, and be. The best was yet to come. I also realized how incredibly valuable it was for me to get uncomfortable at that point in my life; to put myself in an environment where I didn’t feel on top or superior.

Of course, Peter had none of these thoughts. He was just bringing dear friends on a Fourth of July trip as a gift of love! But what he had really done was show me a world of unlimited possibilities. That experience helped awaken the truth in me. It became clear that I did have the capability to create anything I could envision. Maybe I didn’t want to have those same grown-up toys, but I sure as hell wanted to have the same types of choices for my family. Today, in my early 50s, those impossible visions have become a simple reflection of the reality I now live. And I still don’t want a yacht!

Let’s be clear. It isn’t about the money. It’s about choice; about freedom. It’s about being able to live life on your terms, not anybody else’s.

Don’t complain.

Don’t say you can’t.

Don’t make up a story.

Instead, make a decision now!

Find your gift and deliver it to as many people as possible.

If you become stronger, smarter, more compassionate, or more skilled, then your goal is a worthwhile one.

One of my earliest mentors, Jim Rohn, always taught me, “What you get will never make you happy; who you become will make you very happy or very sad.” If each day you make just a little progress, you will feel the joy that comes with personal growth. And that leads to perhaps one of the most important lessons I have learned about big goals and achievement.

Most people overestimate what they can do in a year, and they massively underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade or two.

The fact is: you are not a manager of circumstance, you’re the architect of your life’s experience. Just because something isn’t in the foreground or isn’t within striking distance, don’t underestimate the power of the right actions taken relentlessly.

With the power of compounding, what seems impossible becomes possible. Right now, whether you love your financial plan or hate it, or whether you’re excited or afraid, let’s make it stronger together. Let’s accelerate it by looking at the five elements that can speed it up.