Do you feel empowered to build upon your investment portfolio to better life for yourself and your family, or does the mere mention of financial planning make your stomach churn? If the latter is true, stop for a moment to ask yourself, "How does the way I view personal finance relate to my purpose in life?"
Improving your personal finances isn't just about saving money and investing. It's about taking a stand and determining what's worth investing your time and money into.
Here Are 5 Key Tips to Align Your Finances and Your Purpose in Life
On our, Your Money, Your Purpose podcast, episode 28 we were fortunate to speak with Financial Coach Josh Crawford, who is the Vice President of Coaching at Matson Money. For those of you who don’t know about Matson Money, they are a financial coaching, training and development company committed to empowering families around their money. Matson Money is transforming the investing experience through Nobel Prize winning academic investing principles, groundbreaking investor education, and tools that empower families to step into a more confident and comfortable financial future.
Josh shared with us a goldmine of financial planning and investing tips:
1. Empower Yourself to Learn How Investing Works
According to Crawford, people spend their entire life working for money. They invest it so they can live a life they’ve always dreamt of. And yet, they don’t actually know the science behind how their money is invested. Crawford maintains that the industry doesn’t want people to know about this. People blindly meet with financial advisors hoping they’ll do a good job. He advises people to begin by taking some time out of their day to learn the science behind investing.
"Take this analogy," said Crawford. "You have a Porsche, and a Porsche mechanic has a Porsche. You are in a race together around the racetrack. Who do you think is going to win that race? You [someone who drives well and knows a lot about the car] or the mechanic [someone who drives for a living and knows the science behind how the car works]?"
Obviously, the mechanic wins. Crawford says. And here’s why: “Because the mechanic understands how the car works.”
The trick is to educate yourself on investing so you can discern between evidence-based investment opportunities and risky red flags. Crawford goes on to say that once people understand the science of investing and how it works, “it’s like a light bulb goes off. They’re just at peace, which is really rare in the area of money and investing.” He says that the American Dream Experience workshop is designed specifically to educate and empower people to understand the science of how investing actually works. But what’s most important about knowing this is that once you understand, you have a choice between how you currently invest versus investing based on empirically tested Nobel Prize winning academic principles.
2. Know the Difference Between Two Distinctly Different Worlds of Investing
Crawford says many investors are actually speculating and gambling with their money when they invest, and they are not aware of it. He compares it with going to the casino. When people think about going to the casino in the context of, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been at the casino with my life savings” it knocks them back.
"If I said, 'pick a stock', you'd probably pick either Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, Google," said Crawford. "What people discover is that they didn't even pick those stocks. The stocks actually picked them!"
The reality is that nobody knows which way the prices are going to go, and if we predict, this is speculating and gambling with our money.
3. Understand That No Company is Too Big to Fail
Anything could happen at any moment.
According to Crawford, even though a company may have a solid track record of performing well in the past, there's never been a scientific study that proves a company like those above can be too big to fail. "As a matter of fact, they say the opposite. In every piece of investment literature, it says past performance has zero correlation with future results."
When you see where you are currently with your investments, and understand the science of academic investing, an entirely different world of investing choices opens up. You realize making smart investment decisions means using a different lens to see what's really going on in your portfolio. Crawford says that once people discover this investing science at the American Dream Experience workshop, they can’t help but share the peace of mind and experience that comes with freedom of choice.
4. Align Your Financial Planning and Investment Portfolio With Your Purpose!
Crawford says that the conversation around purpose in your life is one of the most impactful conversations anyone can have. To create some context around purpose, his personal and business coach, Treya Klassen spent some time with hospice patients. What she saw, he says is, “At the end of a life, at the end of our lives, 95% of the people wished they would’ve done it differently… almost everybody on their deathbed is looking back at a life full of regret on how they spent their time, and what they were actually up to. And what they wished they would’ve been up to is purpose. Almost always they should have spent more time with their family, almost always they should have been more of a contribution to their community, almost always they should have done more for their children.” Crawford says that at the end of their life many people are trying to make up for this.
Aside from survival, when you stop and think about why you even want to build a portfolio, it is for something far greater than money. Once you can see more clearly what's going on in your life, you're now able to powerfully choose to align your money with who you are as a person, and what that means in the context of your family and your community.
5. Stop Chasing Money
According to Crawford, our society is set up much like a treadmill going nowhere, but we can’t see it. It's like the rat race for more money...more money...and more money! We’re constantly chasing more, but somehow, it's never enough.
If you can let go of the fear of failing at investing, not making enough money, not knowing how the markets will shift, etc., it frees you to stop chasing money for money’s sake and focus on your purpose for money and your life.
When you discover your purpose, life looks different. It will shift the way the world curves for you.
When Crawford began his Matson Money journey, there was a purpose-finding exercise he took part in that changed his life. Three days later, he was scrolling through Facebook and came across an opportunity to donate to The Smile Train, a non-profit organization working with children born with cleft palates.
"With 500 dollars, I was able to provide resources for a child to have surgery," he said. "That literally transforms a person's experience of being alive. I've never bought anything for myself that has been as fulfilling as that was for me."
Crawford discovered his purpose: “To transform humanity's experience of being alive”.
When you stop chasing money and your portfolio is in alignment with your purpose, Crawford believes that is the most fulfilling use of your money you'll ever have in your life. The American Dream Experience was created in service to this. In the life-changing two day workshop around money and investing, it starts with exploring “Why invest? What’s the point of all this?” According to Crawford, “It moves people to tears when they see what they really want to be up to in life.”
How Will You Live a Life of Freedom and Fulfillment?
When you give without expecting anything in return, a whole world abundant with opportunity arises. At Hammond Iles, we’re dedicated to helping you and your family explore your purpose in life while making smart choices around money and investing.
We know you want to build a meaningful life for yourself and your family, and we have all the investing education, financial coaching, planning, and investment tools you'll ever need to work toward making that happen.
If you’re committed to creating a life of freedom and fulfillment for yourself and your family, you’ll benefit from The American Dream Experience. It’s a breakthrough in financial education that is sales pitch free, so you walk out with the tools to cultivate your financial future whether you invest with us or not. It will leave you empowered around money and your purpose.
Your family’s financial future is too important to miss out on this life altering online event. If you’re ready to reclaim your American Dream, contact us to register today.