T.I.M.E.: Your Most Valuable Asset As An Investor

The most valuable asset you have is time. Everything you do in business, and in life, is based on the amount of time you have available. The more time you have, the more possibilities you will have available to you. Having time alone will not make you successful, however. How you maximize this time makes all the difference. There are certain things that successful people do with their time that gives them an advantage. They know there are only so many hours in a day, and it is important to use them wisely. Here is a quick acronym to think about when you are considering how to plan your business day.

T.I.M.E.:

(T)ake Action: The old expression, “don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today,” still rings true. As an investor, you are in control of your destiny. You can directly determine how successful your business is. The one thing that separates successful investors from everyone else is their willingness to do things that others aren’t. In most cases, this means making a phone call, setting up a meeting or doing some other easily achievable task. Part of taking action means setting up a routine to do so. The more organized and structured you are, the easier it is to accomplish your daily to-do lists. Before you go to bed every night, make a list of things you want to accomplish the next day. It doesn’t matter whether they are long or short term goals. Write down anything that comes to mind. That way, when you wake up you can hit the ground running. By the time you get up, make your cup of coffee and start your day you can lose precious hours. Anyone can take action, but not everyone does so.

(I)nitiate Meetings: Deals will not just fall into your lap. They say that luck favors those that are most prepared. To improve your odds of being lucky, you need to make things happen for yourself. This means that you need to take the next step and initiate meetings with the people in your network. Instead of saying that you had wished you had done this sooner, you will have no regrets. Setting up meetings and building your network allows you to become more efficient. If you have a good team around you, it is easier to delegate tasks instead of wasting time doing everything yourself. There are many investors who feel that they have to micromanage everything in their business. It is only when they learn to let go and trust the people around them that they take off. There is no easier time to stay in contact or meet new people. These meetings can not only help your business grow, but also save you hours in the process. The time you save meeting contacts can be directed into finding deals and generating revenue. Don’t wait for a meeting to come to you.

(M)ost Important: It can be easy to fool yourself into thinking that you are working hard. You can waste several hours making lists or doing busy work that really isn’t important. If you want to get the most out of your day, you need to work on the most important tasks first. This doesn’t mean you can’t find time for marketing or other projects down the road, but not at the expense of a pressing task. This task may be daunting, but instead of wasting hours figuring it out, attack it as soon as you wake up. You should make the items that are most important to you a priority. If you don’t, you will put them off to the afternoon. Before you know it, they have been moved to the next day. Most things in business are time sensitive. Even if you have bad news to deliver, it is better to give it as soon as you get it rather than making someone wait. If there are issues on a current deal, don’t wait until you have the perfect script of what to say. By putting things off, they will stay on your mind all day.

(E)xpect Results: Instead of waking up and making a list of things you would like to accomplish, start your day with expectations. By stating that you are going to accomplish these five tasks, you attack them in a completely different manner. Every minute of your day is spent on a mission to succeed instead of hoping that you do. Doing tasks just to cross them off your list is not the goal. Everything you do must be done with vigor and the confidence in knowing that you doing it for a purpose. If you expect actions and results you will end up getting the most out of your day. Seeing positive results often leads to increased motivation to work harder than before. Hard work leads to an efficient and productive day. Expect results instead of just hoping for them.

You only have so much time in business and in life. Don’t waste it on tasks that are unproductive or unnecessary. If you can make the most out of your T.I.M.E., you will have a more fulfilling life and a much better business.$

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12 Great Things About Retirement

1. I’M FREE OF THE DRUG OF AMBITION

Suddenly you don’t care whether or not you get promoted, and the jockeying for a better title or an office with a window seems so petty. A weight is lifted from your shoulders when you quit the rat race.

Despite financial concerns, retirement is often a lot of fun.

2. I CAN CATCH UP ON MOVIES I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE.

Maybe you were too busy with your career and kids to follow some of the great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen and Robert Altman. Now you can go on Netflix or Amazon or just borrow CDs from the library and enjoy some of the great stories of our time.

3. I KEEP UP ON CURRENT TV PROGRAMS

Whether you’re watching cable or Netflix, you can join the conversation about “House of Cards”, “Orange Is the New Black”, “Better Call Saul”, “Grace and Frankie” and the other smart TV shows.

4. I CAN PARTICIPATE IN BOOK CLUBS

Some groups alternate between classics like “Anna Karenina” and modern stories like “Gone Girl”. Others keep up with the bestseller lists from “The Girl on the Train” to “The Boys in the Boat”. And still others are theme oriented, whether it’s mindfulness and spiritual issues or history and politics. Regardless, a book club is both socially engaging and intellectually stimulating.

5. I CAN STILL WORK PART-TIME

Just because you’re retired doesn’t mean you can’t pick up a job here and there. A lot of people carry over assignments from their old company, while others parley their personal interests into a moneymaking gig.

6. I BABYSIT MY GRANDCHILDREN

Many retirees feel both useful and appreciated when they make it possible for their children to pursue a career, and they relish the opportunity to create deep and lasting memories with their grandchildren, memories that will last long after grandma and grandpa are gone.

7. THERE’S TIME TO GIVE BACK

Many retirees find it enormously rewarding to volunteer their skills to worthy charitable organizations, whether it’s the Lions Club or the Kiwanis Club, their condo association, the local food pantry or a community college.

8. TRAVEL, TRAVEL, TRAVEL

Almost everyone’s bucket list includes a trip to some special place, from the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China to the Grand Canyon or the Empire State Building.

9. I HAVE THE TIME TO DO NOTHING

Finally, there’s time to enjoy the pleasure of sitting on the front porch or the back deck and soak up the atmosphere, reflecting on your life and enjoying the cool breezes wafting across your face.

10. I’M LIVING MY DREAM

Some people have a half-written novel in their study, or a half-finished piece of woodworking in the basement. Retirement gives you the time to write the rest of your story and even publish it online, complete the projects in your workshop or make jewelry or crochet sweaters and sell them on Etsy.

11. THERE’S NO PRESSURE, NO STRESS AND NO PROBLEMS

It’s the freedom that many retirees appreciate so much: Freedom from the pressure to get ahead at work, get your kid into college and keep up with the neighbors.

12. I DO WHAT I WANT TO DO, INSTEAD OF WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WANT ME TO DO

In retirement there are no more expectations. You no longer have to please your parents or bear responsibility for your kids. You can move to the city or the country. You can do something or do nothing. No matter how well-financed you may or may not be, you can live the lifestyle of the truly wealthy: You can do what you want and answer to nobody.

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Protect Your Retirement Income With An Annuity

How to Escape the Biggest Destroyer of Wealth

Before I explain how to avoid the single biggest destroyer of wealth, there is one very simple—but very important—concept you need to understand.

It’s the law of uninterrupted compounding.

Compounding is a simple investment strategy in which you put your money in an investment that pays interest. At the end of the year, you take the interest you earned and reinvest it with your original stake.

Now your interest earns a return, as well.The next year, you’ll get a bigger interest payment. Then, you’ll reinvest that payment, and so on…

A snowball is the best analogy for compounding. As you roll the ball through the snow, the surface area gets bigger. The more surface area on the snowball, the more snow it picks up.

The snowball gains mass slowly at first… but pretty soon, you can’t move it because it’s so huge.

Compounding is slow and boring at first. But gradually, the interest you earn grows, and your reinvestments increase.

And the longer you allow your money to compound uninterrupted, the more it grows.

The key to compounding is to let it work over many years.

The chart below shows the value of an account growing at 10% per year over 60 years. We call this the “hockey stick” chart, because the money grows slowly for several decades, then really picks up speed after about 40 years.

The Hockey Stick

If you don’t interrupt it, compounding produces a fortune.

At 10% interest, it takes 40 years for $10,000 to grow into $411,000 (see the red arrow).

That’s pretty good. But do you see what happens next? The growth of the account explodes.

By year 50, it’s grown to just over $1 million.

By year 60, it’s grown to more than $3 million.

In short, the power of compounding is most effective when you let it work over many decades.

Interrupting the Compounding Process

The compounding process works only if you don’t interrupt it… i.e., if you don’t pull money out of the account along the way.

The chart below shows what happens if you make an early withdrawal and pull $150,000 out of your account in year 40.

As you can see, first, the balance in your account drops. That’s the red line you see dipping below the black line.

Second, there’s less money in the account to produce interest. You’ve interrupted the compounding.

Look what it does to your wealth…

In year 50, you’ve got $713,000, instead of $1 million. And by year 60, you’re left with $2 million instead of $3 million.

Your account balance is $1 million less in year 60.

Interrupted Compounding

One small withdrawal causes your wealth to plummet.

30-, 40-, and 50-year periods are long. They’re hard for most people to fathom. But we use these time frames to illustrate one important point:

Interrupting the compounding process—by liquidating part or all of your funds—is the single biggest destroyer of wealth.

These interruptions are not always easy to spot.

For example, a 20% decline in the stock market interrupts the compounding process in your 401(k) account. That’s because your account balance dropped by 20%. And you have less money producing interest.

Or, you could cash out part of your 401(k) or IRA to buy a new car or house or to give a gift. That interrupts compounding as well.

Or, consider your child’s college fund. You start putting money into it when your child is born. It compounds and grows tax-free in a Coverdell account or 529 plan.

But when your child reaches college age, you liquidate the account to pay for tuition expenses. You’ve interrupted the compounding process after only 18 years.

The Holy Grail of Finance

You know leaving your money alone and letting it compound produces great wealth. But there’s one downside to this: You can’t touch or access your money for a long time. You’ll interrupt the compounding.

The holy grail of finance is a vehicle or account that relentlessly compounds your money. But at the same time, it lets you access your money without interrupting the compounding process.

Does such an account exist?

Dividend-paying whole life insurance—what we call “Income for Life”—offers us these exact benefits.

We put money in one of these policies, and it compounds for the rest of our lives.

We capture the power of uninterrupted compounding, and we get rich.

Pretty simple, right?

But what if we want to pay for a vacation? Or a car? Or college tuition? Wouldn’t that interrupt compounding?

If this money were in a bank account, a brokerage account, or a 401(k)… yes, it would. In order to pay for a big expense, you’d need to liquidate your savings account. Or sell your stocks. Or get rid of your mutual funds.

Doing this would free up your money for use. But, of course, the money is no longer working for you. You’ve interrupted the compounding process.

Actually, it’s worse than that: Not only have you stopped the power of compounding, you’ve decreased the value of your savings, stocks, or mutual funds. This double whammy results in a critical blow to your long-term returns.

I want to illustrate this visually for you. Below is a rough graphical representation of what most people do as they save—and then pay—for big-ticket expenses.

First, you save up, earning interest along the way. Those are the green lines.

Then, you liquidate your account to buy something… maybe a car. You save up. You liquidate. You always end up at zero.

Saving Up for Big Purchases

By paying cash for your big-ticket items, you interrupt the compounding process.

But with Income for Life, you can still pay for these things AND compound your money, uninterrupted.

How is this possible?

You save up money in your Income for Life policy. Then, at any given time, the insurance company lends you the money you need (up to the amount you’ve saved in your policy). And you pay it back to the insurance company at your own pace.

Remember, you can get these loans in under a week… without running your credit or filling out a 30-page application.

The insurance company is willing to do this because it has nothing to lose.

If you decide not to pay back the loan, the insurance company could simply deduct whatever you owe from your payout when you die.

In short, because of the policy’s loan feature and the guaranteed lending provision that comes with your Income for Life policy, if you need money, you can borrow it from the insurance company.

And because you use the company’s money, nothing interrupts the compounding of the money in your policy.

Remember our uninterrupted compounding chart from earlier? Here it is again.

The Hockey Stick

The path our money is taking in an Income for Life policy:

Let’s look at what happens when you use your Income for Life policy to buy something.

Remember, when you borrow from your Income for Life policy to make a purchase, you don’t liquidate your savings, your brokerage account, your IRA, or your college plan as you did with our earlier example. You take a policy loan from the insurance company and repay it over time.

Because you took out a loan and used the insurance company’s money, your money continued to compound and grow… uninterrupted.

Now, five years later, you’ve repaid your policy loan. But the cash-value balance in your policy is much higher because you let it compound uninterrupted.

By using a series of loans to pay for life’s big expenses, you will never interrupt the compounding process.

The illustration below shows how this process looks.

The black line is a close-up of the “hockey stick” compounding curve. The green dots represent points in time at which you might take policy loans. The green lines represent your shrinking loan balance each year as you pay back your loans.

The Path to Uninterrupted Compounding

Use policy loans to pay for your big-ticket items.

By borrowing money from the insurance company, you can continue compounding within your policy… even as you spend.

Recap

I’ve shown you how devastating the action of interrupting the compounding process is.

And I’ve shown you how the average person destroys his or her wealth by doing this many times throughout his or her life.

Bottom line: Income for Life is the only solution I know of that allows you to harness the power of uninterrupted compounding… while still letting you spend your money when you need it.