During the peak of the pandemic (early July 2020), I paid $35,990 for a used 2019 Mini Countryman SE All4. The Countryman — which I call a “Maxi Cooper” — isn’t a bad car, but I regretted buying it almost immediately. I’d intended to replace my 2004 Mini Cooper with a newer version of the same model, but allowed myself to be talked into a compact SUV.

For two years, I drove the Maxi Cooper and tolerated it. It wasn’t a bad car by any means, but it was a bad car for me. I’m not an SUV guy. I’m a small-car guy.

Last month, I took the Maxi Cooper for an oil change. While I was waiting, the dealer offered to buy it back from me. I wasn’t expecting that.

As you probably know, the used-car market in the U.S. has been crazy for a couple of years. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, prices on used vehicles are up 55% since July 2020. Prices for new vehicles have also increased during that time, but by only 18%.

Because I write about money, I’m aware that used-car prices are high, but I hadn’t considered that I might sell the car I purchased only two years ago. I’m the sort of person who buys a car and keeps it for a decade or more. But when the Mini dealer told me they’d pay $33,000 for a car I’d bought 26 months earlier, I was intrigued.

I contacted one of my buddies, a former car salesman. “What am I missing here, Jeremy?” I asked. “This seems like a pretty good deal.”

“It’s not just a good deal,” Jeremy said. “It’s a miracle. It’s as if you leased that car for $115 per month. You should take the offer. Now. Before they change their mind.”

Before you read my story, you might want to read this similar story from Liz at Frugalwoods: Why we bought a NEW car. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

“In normal economic times – or rather, in past economic times – used cars were remarkably cheaper than new cars, which made the depreciation on new cars astronomical. In other words, new cars would lose a tremendous amount of their value as soon as they were no longer new.

“Used cars, on the other hand, had a much more gradual depreciation curve, which meant you could buy a used car for a reasonable price and then, if needed, re-sell that used car at a reasonable loss. Currently, thanks to supply chain issues, a shortage of computer chips and inflation, used cars are no longer a deal.”

Unprepared to Purchase

After the Mini dealer offered to buy my vehicle, I immersed myself in car information. As I did, I made myself a promise: For the first (and perhaps only) time in my life, I was going to buy a model I wanted without making compromises.

You see, every car I’ve ever owned has involved some sort of sacrifice. When I was young, the chief compromise was cost. I couldn’t afford more expensive vehicles, so my options were limited. In more recent years, I’ve compromised by buying used. Then by purchasing a compact SUV instead of a sports car. And so on.

This time, I didn’t want to compromise. I wanted to buy exactly the car I wanted. But which car would that be?

Because I hadn’t intended to get rid of my Maxi Cooper, I’d done zero thinking about what kind of car I might buy to replace it. Normally, people figure out what kind of car they want before selling their old one. I was doing things in reverse. I was applying my self-centered shopping strategy to buying a car!

For a time, I considered not replacing the car at all. I still own a 1993 Toyota pickup. It’s ugly, but it works. Plus, Corvallis is a small city with excellent infrastructure for alternative transportation. I walk 20+ miles per week through town and would happily walk more. This summer, I’ve been biking for longer errands too. Going car-free was certainly an option I considered, as was buying another 2004 Mini Cooper. Ultimately, though, I decided to use this opportunity to upgrade to a some sort of new car.

Before we go any farther, it’s important to note a few things about my relationship with automobiles.

• I’m not a car guy. I’m not a motorhead. I don’t obsess over cars and I never have. I do like certain cars, but I’m not normally somebody who buys car magazines or watches car videos.
• I believe that used cars are almost always the smart financial choice.
• I’m in favor of electric cars but think the technology is young, so I’m reluctant to buy in wholly. That said, I made my car search electric-first.
• I like sports cars. I’m not a speed demon, and I don’t need a car to have a high top speed. But I like the styling of sports cars, and I like that they’re “zippy” — they have good acceleration and good handling.
• My #1 source for car info — by far — is Consumer Reports magazine.
• Most of all, I believe in small cars. I always have. I do not undertand the American obsession with large vehicles. It makes zero sense to me. When I rent cars in Europe, I’m always pleased with how many small cars are on the road. They’re almost all small cars.

My ideal car remains a 2004 Mini Cooper — but with modern technology updates to bring it into the world of 2022. Unfortunately, that car doesn’t exist. Modern Minis are larger than they were twenty years ago. Worse, their customer satisfaction scores have eroded. (I also like the Audi A1, but it’s not available in the U.S.)

A Very Short Search

I spent an intense 24 hours researching my options. As I read about cars, I created a list of requirements for my next vehicle. I had a handful of criteria, most of which you can probably guess based on my comments above.

• First, the car had to be small. This limited me to compacts, subcompacts, and sports cars.
• Second, the car had to be fuel efficient. Electric would be nice, but it wasn’t a requirement.
• Third, the car had to be fun. It didn’t have to be fast, but it had to be zippy. It had to handle well.
• Fourth, Consumer Reports had to love it. The car had to get a high reliability rating from the organization, as well as a high road score and a high overall score.
• Fifth, it had to be a car that customers loved. I made the mistake once of purchasing a Ford Focus. Consumer Reports loved the Focus but owners hated it. So did I. It was the most un-fun car I’ve ever owned — like a storage container on wheels.
• Sixth, it had to have a manual transmission. I don’t like driving automatics.

Early in my research, I discovered the Consumer Reports car finder tool. This three-question quiz (which is only available to subscribers) proved helpful.

According to this tool, the five cars best suited to my needs were the Kia Niro Electric, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Mazda Miata, the Tesla Model 3, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

Although I was tempted, I ruled out the Tesla because (a) it’s too expensive and (b) it has mediocre reliability. I eliminated the Kia and Hyundai because they didn’t earn top owner satisfaction marks. And the electric Mustang isn’t actually a sedan; like my Maxi Cooper, it’s an SUV. (I’m not sure why Consumer Reports recommended SUVs to me when I deliberately left them out of my search parameters.) That left one car: the Mazda Miata.

Here’s the thing: I’ve always been drawn to Miatas. I like how they look. They’re consistently highly-rated by both customers and professional reviewers alike. And they check all of the same boxes for me that the Mini Cooper does.

The Miata quickly soared to the top of my very short list. Also on that list were the Mini Cooper (which I still love despite its drawbacks) and the more-practical Subaru Outback (which is the unofficial state car of Oregon).

Here are comparison pages from Consumer Reports and Kelly Blue Book:

Looking at those stats, I think you can see why the Miata quickly became the only car I was seriously considering. The car’s only major downside was a middling road score. Reading the Consumer Reports review, I recognized that the reasons for this low road score — road noise and lack of space — didn’t bother me.

The MX-5’s sparkling combination of nimble fun and thriftiness has made it a favorite at our test track — and the current model holds to the standard.

The Miata is a completely impractical car. It seats two (tightly), it will barely haul a load of groceries, and it’s loud inside. Yet we’re smitten with this plucky ragtop.

There isn’t a better fun-per-dollar performance car on the market that delivers the Miata’s magic. After a long winter’s nap, the MX-5 will revive your senses the first spring day you drop the top and hit the curvy roads.

This Mazda is one of the last intimate driving experiences; you feel like part of the machine that’s melding with the road. The Miata’s steering gives immediate turn-in response, and the car remains playful and predictable even when pressing the limits of the tires.

I stopped looking at other models and began trying to find reasons not to buy a Miata. I couldn’t find any.

• Consumer Reports likes the Miata.
• Edmunds likes the Miata.
• Motor Trend likes the Miata.

The Miata reviews on YouTube all reinforced what the written articles had said. But it was this review from a car-care channel that made me decide at last that the Miata was the car I wanted: “It’ll bring joy to your heart every time you drive it.”

Buying My Miata

Buying a car is a big decision, and I’m not accustomed to jumping into things like this. I take my time. I ruminate. I consider every angle. That’s not what I did this time. On the last Thursday in August, I drove to Salem to visit the nearest Mazda dealer.

I’d called the salesman in advance, so he had a Miata ready to drive. Before we left the parking lot (after driving only fifty feet), I knew that I was going to buy a Miata — if I could get $33,000 for my Maxi Cooper. For the sake of show, I drove five miles around Salem streets while making pleasant conversation with the salesman. I explained that I hadn’t intended to buy a new car, but that the Mini dealer had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Would he be willing to match the offer? “Maybe,” he said.

When we returned to the dealership, I gave the salesman the file of paperwork for my Maxi Cooper — including the written offer the Mini dealer had made me the day before. He took the info to his boss. Ten minutes later, he came back with some good news. “We’ll match their offer,” he said.

“Great,” I said. I pulled out another piece of paper, a printout from the dealership’s website. “This is the car I want. It’s a gray hardtop. But your website says the vehicle is in transit.”

This was the only time during the entire process that the salesman balked. “What can I do to send you home with a car today?” he said. He pulled out a piece of paper and started with the four-square.

“Well, I’m not going home with a car today,” I said. “You don’t have a car that I want. This is the car I want,” I said as I pointed to my printout. The dealership had five Miatas on the lot, but none in the precise configuration I wanted. They were red or automatic transmission or soft-top — or all of the above. I wanted gray, manual transmission, and hard-top. (All Miatas are convertible.)

The salesman nodded. “No problem,” he said. We talked briefly about price but the dealership was unwilling to budge from the $39,245 listed on the website (including a mandatory $1995 markup due to the current car market). I was fine with that. We shook hands and reached a tentative agreement but signed no paperwork. He’d call me when my car came in.

My Miata

As I drove home, I thought about the numbers. To an old guy like me, $40,000 seems like a lot to pay for a car. Even $20,000 seems like a lot to pay for a car. I asked myself if I might not be just as happy in, say, a Chevy Spark? But I knew that wouldn’t be the case. As I said earlier, I’ve compromised on cars my entire life. This once, I wanted to indulge myself.

I realized that the fundamental question I needed to answer was this: Would I rather have (a) the 2019 Maxi Cooper and $7000 -or- (b) a brand-new 2022 Mazda Miata? Thinking about it from this perspective, the answer was easy. I’d choose the Miata every single time!

But maybe I was thinking crazy? Maybe I was being too emotional? (I’m under no delusion that this decision was logical. It was emotional. I’m okay with that. I just didn’t want to make a decision that was so emotional that it crossed over to stupid.)

To double-check, I sought the counsel of two people I trust. First, I asked my buddy Jeff (The Happy Philosopher) what he thought. “Do it!” he said. Then I asked my girlfriend, Kim. I was worried that she’d object. She didn’t object it. “You should absolutely do it,” she said. And so I did it. I bought the Miata.

The Mazda salesman called me on the last day of the August. “Your Miata arrived this morning,” he said. “If you’d like, we can do the deal today.” I stopped what I was doing, drove to Salem, and bought a new car.

My new Miata was so new that it had only five miles on the odometer. “I’ve been doing this for thirty years,” the finance guy told me as I was signing papers. “I think that’s the lowest number I’ve ever seen on an odometer.”

I took the long way home, driving from Salem to Corvallis on winding riverside roads, then through rolling hills and farmland. The top was down. The sun warmed my skin as the wind blew through my hair. Taylor Swift crooned “Welcome to New York” on the stereo. I smiled, inside and out. The Miata indeed brought joy to my heart.

In June, I wrote that growing up poor messed with my mind, still makes me feel guilty for buying Nice Things. The Miata is unquestionably a Nice Thing. I don’t feel guilty about buying the Miata.

When I think of the choice I made, I’m reminded of Ramit Sethi’s admonition that money should be used to build a rich life. This car is a part of my rich life.

Two years ago, I published an article exploring the history of financial independence in which I noted that the earliest reference I can find to the notion of financial independence comes from an 1872 book called Money and How to Make It by H. L. Reade. And it wasn’t until the 1950s that the concept of early retirement (at least in the sense we mean it today) gained traction. But despite my research, I still have questions, such as: What’s the source of the modern FIRE movement?

Who Coined the Term FIRE?

Recently at The Retire Early Home Page — a site so old that it existed (and still exists) at the dawn of the web — John P. Greaney answered the question: Who coined the term FIRE?

If you’ve never visited The Retire Early Home Page, you should. I’m certain that it’s the oldest FIRE site on the web. It’s quite possible it’s the oldest general personal finance site too. Greaney has been publishing quarterly updates since 01 April 1996!

Greaney offers a bit of context and history, writing:

In May 1999 the “Retire Early Home Page” discussion board appeared on The Motley Fool website, and a vibrant conversation on early retirement topics ensued. Before The Motley Fool shut the board down in May 2022 (and converted it to “read-only” status) it had accumulated almost 900,000 posts. […]

One early topic of discussion was the definition of “early retirement” — and the consensus was that some form of financial independence was a prerequisite. Quitting your job with an insufficient nestegg, and risking an early return to paid employment, was more of a “job change” than early retirement.

According to Greaney, on 23 August 2000 a Motley Fool forum member with the handle “fzabaly” was the first to shorten “financially-independent, retired early” to FI/RE in this board post:

One non-monetary decision that has helped me line up FI/RE is attaining a graduate degree (in ComputerScience) while working. Along with the better pay came a higher confidence re: employment that allowed me to become a ‘Moderately Aggressive Investor’ (70% stks/Mfunds) from a Conservative Investor (50% stks/Mfunds).

And, says Greaney, the first person to move this abbreviation from FI/RE to FIRE was a board member going by the handle “wanderer0692”. On 19 January 2001, wanderer0692 made a terrific (and long) post entitled “Things That Are Stronger than Death and Fear”. (The post is worth reading even today, 21 years later.)

“This is the essence of FI/RE,” writes wanderer0692. “Freedom from financial want. It is a tribute, in our case, to luck and a bull market, and to our adherence to what we refer to as the six fundamental principles of FI/RE.”

Those six fundamentals of FI/RE are:

• Have a motivating purpose.
• Take a high-paying job.
• Live below your means.
• Slash your taxes.
• Practice geo-arbitrage.
• Invest in low-cost index funds.

The fundamentals of the FIRE movement haven’t changed much since 2001, have they? These are still the basics that most of people preach and practice today.

“A Fire That Burns in Me”

Anyhow, as a sort of addendum to his excellent post, wanderer0692 makes an observation:

Has anyone else noticed how “FI/RE” looks like the word “fire”? I remember attending church (a long, long time ago) and, during the benediction, the preacher saying, “Take our minds and think through them. Take our eyes and see through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire.” I always liked that turn of phrase.

I’m not much for religion, but I do believe in the sanctity of the human spirit. FI/RE is a fire that burns in me. Maybe it consumes me, but I like to think I am that phoenix, rising from the ashes, to fulfill his special mission of realizing his true potential.

So, from now on, I’m gonna drop the slash. A “FIRE” it is. May it be ever thus.

And so it has been ever thus.

So, there you have it. Until somebody provides evidence otherwise, I’m willing to accept Greaney’s version of early FIRE history. The dude has been writing about this stuff online since 1996, after all. He knows his stuff.

What Does the FIRE Acronym Stand For?

There’s another interesting insight from this FIRE origin story. Today, most people (including me) believe that the FIRE acronym stands for “Financial Independence/Retire Early”. That’s pretty damn clumsy, and we all know it. In actuality, the FIRE acronym originally stood for “Financially Independent, Retired Early”. That makes a lot more sense!

That said, I know it’s a losing battle to try to convince people that we’re mis-labelling what FIRE stands for. Hell, I’ve spent two years trying to get people to stop saying “savings rate” when they mean “saving rate” and I seem to have made zero measurable difference. I suppose I’ll have to resign myself to failure on this one too.

Further Reading

Want to read more about the history of personal finance and financial independence? Well then, you’re a nerd. That’s okay. I’m a nerd too. Here are a few pages that might interest you, weird-o:

• The history of financial independence at Get Rich Slowly
• What early retirement was like in 1957 (according to Life magazine) at Get Rich Slowly
• The Retire Early Home Page (here’s a chronological index)
• “Saving rate” vs. “savings rate” — What’s the difference? at Get Rich Slowly

And please, if you know of any other interesting books or articles about the history of financial independence (and/or personal finance), please let me know. I want to read them.

For those unfamiliar, here’s a quick plot synopsis.

Evelyn and Waymond Wang own a laundromat. Their business is failing, their marriage is fracturing, and so is their relationship with Joy, their daughter. During a meeting with the IRS, Evelyn is visited by a version of her husband from a parallel universe. He says that the multiverse — all of the many parallel universes — is under attack from an evil being named Jobu Tupaki, and Evelyn is the only one who can save it. The rest of the film is about Evelyn overcoming her skepticism and discovering her true power (and Waymond’s).

This trailer pretty much nails the mood and theme of the film. If this preview intrigues you, you’ll probably like it:

Everything Everywhere All at Once is strange. Very strange. It starts mundane and boring, descends into madness, then ultimately ties everything together in some magical ways. Some people hate it. They can’t finish watching it. That’s too bad, because if you abandon the film during the boring part or the strange part, you never get to the magical part. The tedium and the madness are all part of the journey.

I’ve watched the film five times now (and will likely watch it a sixth later today), and I get something new from each viewing. The movie is rich. And detailed. And layered. In fact, it’s designed for repeat viewing (because frequently there’s no way to know something has meaning the first time through).

The reason the film hits me so hard, I think, is that its themes are aligned with things I’ve been ruminating over throughout 2022. While I was caring for my dying cousin during the spring, I reached some sort of nihilistic nadir. Like Jobu Tupaki, the movie’s “villain”, I decided that nothing matters, that life is inherently meaningless.

At heart, though, I’m a Waymond figure — and I always have been. It didn’t take me long to realize that even if life is inherently meaningless (especially if life is inherently meaningless), then it’s up to each of us to make our own meaning. And that kindness matters.

Then there’s the movie’s wild exploration of the multiverse. I’ve been exposed to this concept repeatedly in 2022, most notably in the novel The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which has a plot similar to Everything Everywhere All at Once: a woman is trapped in a limbo state between life and death, where she explores the many alternate lives she might have lived.

It’s as if the universe is trying to beat me over the head with a message: “J.D., you bozo, you are not trapped by your current reality. If you’re dissatisfied with this timeline, it’s up to you to create a timeline you like better.”

Message received, Universe.

Designing Your Life

Last week, I re-read a book that helped me understand how to take this esoteric idea and do something practical about it. That book is Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Ostensibly, Designing Your Life is about finding a career that fits you. In reality, it’s about looking at the multiverse and deciding which of the many available universes you want to live in.

Fundamentally, Designing Your Life is a career book targeted at young adults. The material here is derived from a Stanford University course taught by the two authors.

Bill Burnett is the executive director of the Stanford Design Program (and was a part of Apple’s early laptop design team). Dave Evans is the co-director of the Stanford Life Design Lab and a very early employee of Electronic Arts, the videogame company.

Burnett and Evans aim to get students (and readers) to apply principles from the world of design to the process of planning their future. While sometimes this approach (and the terminology associated with it) feels forced, most of the time it works surprisingly well. In fact, I found this book was full of aha! moments.

What does a well-designed life look like? What does that notion even mean? “A well-designed life is a life that makes sense,” the authors write. “It’s a life in which who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together.” They call this alignment coherence, and I think it’s an excellent concept.

To build a coherent life, the authors encourage readers to practice five disciplines:

• Curiosity. Curiosity, of course, is about being open-minded, about casting a wide net. The authors want you to explore, to be open to opportunity. Doing so will help you “get good at being lucky”.
• Bias to action. It’s not enough to simply read and think about things. Burnett and Evans want you to act — even if your actions are imperfect. They want you to try things. They want you to fail over and over, because failure is the foundation of success.
• Reframing. People get stuck all of the time, and often this “stuckness” is a result of an inability to shift perspective. Designing Your Life urges readers to reframe problems in order to remove barriers and circumvent perceived roadblocks. (Reading this book helped me realize I do a poor job of reframing problems in my life. I allow myself to stay stuck for far too long, in most cases.)
• Patience. Design, the authors say, is a process. Life design is no different. “For every step forward,” they write, “it can sometimes seem you are moving two steps back.” They advocate what they call prototyping — testing new ideas and solutions. “Life design is a journey,” they say. “Let go of the end goal and focus on the process.”
• Radical collaboration. Lastly, the book urges readers to seek help. Great design requires multiple minds tackling a problem. In designing your life, you want to consult with friends and family and mentors. You want to meet people and ask questions. You want to get input from people you trust.

Because this book is based on an actual college course, it’s filled with exercises. These exercises were quite clearly homework assignments for Stanford students, but for old folks like me they’re useful tools to gain clarity.

One exercise, for instance, asks readers to write a 250-word Workview (a short statement about what you believe work is for and what constitutes good work), a 250-word Lifeview (a short statement describing what you believe makes life worth living), then explore how the Workview and Lifeview clash and/or complement one another.

But the exercise I like the most in Designing Your Life makes me think of the multiverse.

The Many Versions of You

“This life you are living is one of many lives you will live,” write Burnett and Evans. “The plain and simple truth is that you will live many different lives in this lifetime. If the life you are currently living feels a bit off, don’t worry; life design gives you endless mulligans.”

To prove their point, they ask readers to visualize three versions of the future, to create three five-year Odyssey Plans.

An Odyssey Plan is like a roadmap to an alternate universe. It’s a vision of what your life might might like five years from now. And the authors want you to draft three of these so that you can see clearly that there really is a multitude of alternate realities from which to choose.

• Your first plan, they say, should be based on what you currently do.
• Your second plan should be the thing you’d do if the path you’re currently on suddenly vanished.
• And the third plan should be the thing you’d do if money and/or image were no object.

I love this idea. And, in fact, I think of it as a missing link in my own work.

When I’m asked to speak, I generally talk about money and meaning. I lead audiences through exercises designed to help them find purpose in life. My end goal is to help people draft a personal mission statement.

But I’ve always felt that my presentation lacks a certain something. Now I know what that something is: Odyssey Plans (or my own version of this idea). An Odyssey Plan helps to put a personal mission statement into action.

Let me give you a real-life example of what Burnett and Evans are after. (This isn’t exactly their exercise, but it’s the same idea.) Let’s look at three possible futures for me.

Future #1: Get Rich Slowly.
The authors say that your first Odyssey Plan should be built around your existing life. In my case, that means Get Rich Slowly. This works well because that’s my preferred plan, anyhow. I have a clear vision of what I want this site to be, and although my aims have been thwarted repeatedly over the past year, I have made progress toward the goal I have in mind.

In this preferred future, five years from now this site will have a clean, elegant design (which I’m currently building here) that puts the reader first. No ads. No tracking. No social media. No bullshit. The site will still feature this blog, of course, but the content will also be organized into sections that resemble “online textbooks” about specific areas of personal finance.

Meanwhile, I’d also like to build out the GRS YouTube channel to feature video versions of the most important articles. And somehow in all of this, I’d be grateful if I could earn an income. (Yes, I realize that’ll be difficult to do without ads.)

My preferred plan is to do what I’m doing now — but more of it…and more intensely.

Future #2: Preserving the Past
Your second Odyssey Plan should be something you’d do if your current work suddenly vanished. In many cases, that means you’d end up doing something similar to what you already do. For me, this is and isn’t true. If Get Rich Slowly suddenly vanished, I’d still write — but not about money.

The two months I spent with my cousin Duane at the end of his life made me interested in finding a way to contribute my talents to hospice somehow. But what can a writer do to help the dying? When I phrase it like that, I suspect you might already see the answer.

For my second five-year plan, I’d explore how to help people tell their life stories. The idea excites me, actually. I think I could do a good job at it because it’d combine a lot of my interests and talents.

The way I see it, I’d sit with people and record their stories. I’d learn to ask questions that elicit memories and meaning from their past, then take these responses and somehow compile them into keepsakes for families. This is something I always wish I’d done with my father. It’s something I tried to do with my cousin Duane. And it’s something that I’ve actually been doing over the past decade with Kim’s family. I have a whole collection of stories from her father and his siblings. (I’m not joking when I say their lives would have made a fantastic Michener novel!)

So, my second possible future is helping people tell their life stories.

Future #3: A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man
Your third Odyssey plan should be a pipe dream. It’s what you’d do if money (and/or the judgment of others) were no object.

In my case, I’ve had a plan percolating in the back of my head for a year now. My Plan C would be something completely different than I’ve ever done before. I’d go to art school.

You see, I’d like to draw a webcomic about personal finance. I’ve been a comic nerd my entire life. I’ve been writing about money for 15+ years now. This seems like a fun way to combine these two passions. And, in fact, I have a concept already. It’s about a young woman named Penny Short who moves to small village inhabited by colorful characters, all of whom are anthropomorphized animals. Each of these animals is a caricature of one of my colleagues (or their ideas).

There’s Pete, the Canadian Beaver, for instance, who is super frugal and bikes around town and hates rampant consumerism. There’s Sam, the samurai duck, who slices through life’s money mysteries. There’s Marla, the bear. And Tom, the turtle. And there’s a whole bunch of folks who live in the Frugalwoods.

That’s my third five-year plan. I’d go to art school, then create a webcomic about personal finance.

The Multiverse and Me

I hope that small example gives you a glimpse of just how powerful this exercise can be. Exploring three possible versions of your future is mind-opening. And this is just one of many similar exercises in this book.

Designing Your Life is terrific. I recommend it highly. It’s one of those rare books that I’ve added to the mental library of titles I suggest to those who need help. (Other examples of books in this mental library include Your Money or Your Life, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and The Simple Path to Wealth.)

This book is so good, in fact, that I plan to make time to work through all of the exercises. And I’m not the only one. Kim is going to do them with me, as is my buddy Craig.

Even if I didn’t plan to do the exercises, though, I feel like I would have profited from reading Designing Your Life. The book is packed with actionable advice and thought-provoking questions.

For me, though, the biggest takeaway has been that the multiverse isn’t just the stuff of science fiction. That concept can be applied to my own life today. By taking the time to think about how to align my life with my values, then drafting multiple five-year plans that fit with these coherent values, I — and anyone else — can build a well-lived, joyful life.

My biggest pet peeve with this book is the lack of an index. I never understand how books like this make it to print without a way to look things up. Designing Your Life is dense with “sticky” ideas, and I found myself wanting to reference past sections repeatedly. But it was nearly impossible to find the info I wanted because there’s no index. Instead, I had to flip through page by page until I found what I wanted. Such a terrible design decision for a book guided by design principles.

There are books on Amazon instructing us on how to win at the “game of life”. Hell, Milton Bradley’s “The Game of Life” from 1860 — still sold today — was the first popular board game in the United States.

In the Real World, the game of life’s rules and criteria for success are vague and never explicitly stated. But we all know what they are. To win, you need:

• money (or, more accurately, conspicuous consumption)
• physical attractiveness
• kids who go to great schools and are athletically successful
• and so on

“The game of life” has become more than a metaphor. Many people — obsessed with their status, career, or where their kids go to school — have internalized this idea and literally view their life not as something to enjoy, but as a competition to be won.

This is a tragedy. Life is not a game.

A game is an activity where you compete against others. In games, players pursue goals with no intrinsic value. It doesn’t really matter who puts a ball through a hoop (or over an arbitrary line) more frequently, right? Games are governed by external rules that the players have no role in creating but which they nevertheless must follow. In most games, there’s only one winning player or team. Most participants are “losers”.

Before I go on, let me say I love sports—both playing and watching. Games are a lot of fun, and they’re great hobbies.

Games are, however, a terrible template for life.

The Good Life

For one, that which is important in life can’t be competed over. While each of us has our own specific vision of the good life, we can all agree a good life tends to have certain characteristics: living by a set of ethics, maintaining meaningful relationships, time to pursue hobbies, and fulfilling work.

Interestingly, these are all abstract, subjective goals that don’t fit into a competitive framework. It’s impossible to measure and compare whether Tom Smith or Jane Doe have more meaningful relationships. How can you say who is more fulfilled at work? How do you quantify how well you (or I) adhere to a code of ethics?

On the other hand, it’s easy to compare the tangible, objective criteria of “success”: who has a nicer car, a bigger house, a more prestigious job, and kids at better schools.

If you view life as a competition, you naturally prioritize those things that can be measured, those things that can be competed for. This means that you focus on objective — but ultimately petty — concerns. The competition subordinates what is meaningful in life to trivial prizes that can be competed over.

Choose Relationships over Competition

What’s more, competition corrodes relationships.

While relationships are complex, at their core all healthy fulfilling relationships require genuine mutual affection. Simply put, you should be rooting for the people in your life to succeed, happy if they get a promotion or their kid gets into Harvard. This is next to impossible if you view your life as a competition and the people in it as competitors.

When you view life as a game, you want others to fail — or at least to be slightly less successful than you are. Viewing life as a competition converts friends and family from people you care about to these uneasy, ambiguous relationships where you’re partially rooting for these people…but simultaneously also trying to beat them at the game of life.

Needless to say, this isn’t conducive to genuine closeness.

Play by Your Own Rules

Following other people’s criteria for success negates what you value.

You’re a unique individual, with your own strengths and weaknesses, your own goals and preferences. The good life is about trying to live according to your values and make the trade-offs that maximize your happiness. This simply isn’t possible when you abide by what the game values: money, consumption, academic prestige, youth athletic excellence.

The moment you enter the game, you’ve surrendered your autonomy and are prioritizing what others deem important. You’re chasing life goals that you had no role in formulating but which now you’re pursuing for the sake of “winning.” Any “victory” in a game where you’re living life on other’s terms will ultimately prove to be Pyrrhic.

Prepare to Lose

You can (and likely will) lose the game of life, which like all games is zero-sum.

Maybe you’re one of the .01% who is incredibly smart, affluent, charming, and physically attractive, who finds a wonderful spouse, and has a bunch of cute kids who end up in the Ivy Leagues. If that’s the case, I’m happy for you.

For the other 99.99% of us, the bad news is that we’re going to deal with frustrations and setbacks and many things we simply don’t excel at and never will. The good news is that we can still have a great life if we simply deal with those things as they come, comfortable with who we are, surrounded by people we care about and who love us unconditionally.

However, it’s difficult to have a good life when every time we fail we feel shame and embarrassment as we compare ourselves, unfavorably, to people we deem more successful. If you’re playing a “game,” the stakes of life’s inevitable failures and disappointments are so high that it makes life a terrifying ordeal, haunted by a specter of public defeat at the game.

This is no way to live.

Final Thoughts

Comparing yourself to others has no good outcome. Either you look around and consider yourself inferior to your peers (which makes you insecure and unhappy), or you deem yourself superior (which makes you arrogant and egotistical). Neither is conducive to happiness or to being a good person.

Games are fun and competition is fulfilling — provided they involve trivial things. By all means, go all out to win when you golf, run a 5k, or play fantasy football. But when those things are over, look around at your family, friends, career, and value system and realize that those things are way, way too important to be trivialized by turning them into a game.

Today, the Get Rich Slowly summer of books concludes with an excerpt from Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away from Julien and Kiersten Saunders. Julien and Kiersten are the power couple behind the rich & Regular blog and YouTube channel.

The following excerpt from Cashing Out (published by Portfolio/Penguin) is used with permission. Copyright © 2022 by Rich & Regular LLC. This passage has been edited to be more readable on the web.

Dr. Sue Johnson is a clinical psychologist who specializes in emotionally focused therapy. She says that when couples fight (regardless of the topic), they’re doing a dance. One partner makes a move, and the other one responds accordingly. She insists the dance is always the problem — not you, not me, not us — and not the topic.

By focusing on the dance, we can shift our focus and look at our interaction patterns whenever there’s an issue. The rhythm of one person responding to the other person’s moves is what ultimately. defines the dance, and our ability to instinctively know when to reach and and grab the other’s hand for a spin requires what Dr. Johnson calls emotional attunement.

If the conflict is the dance itself, think of your emotions as the music. Being emotionally attuned means you can both hear the same song, or at the very least can acknowledge that yours isn’t the only song playing. In other words, it’s not enough to just go through the moves together if one of you is grooving to Barry White and the other is swinging to Barry Manilow.

When you’ve been in a pattern of avoiding conversations with your partner about money, it’s as if you’ve both been attending a silent disco. Everyone’s dancing, but you can’t hear any music. If you want to get attuned, it’s important to understand what unresolved money arguments sound like, emotionally speaking.

Name-Calling: Conversations About Spending

Over the years, we’ve met and spoken with hundreds of couples about money, and the most common argument we’ve heard is about spending. Latoya wants to know why her partner has more shoes than an NBA locker room, while Ricky wants to know why his front door has more boxes than an Amazon warehouse.

In most cases, it’s clear that one person dragged the other to us because they needed them to understand something. They’ll say, “Y’all can explain it better than I can,” or, “Every time I try, it just goes in one ear and out the other.” It always reminds us of frustrated pet owners who bring Roscoe to a dog whisperer because nothing they’ve tried has worked: Roscoe just keeps peeing on the couch.

Almost without fail, as they’re detailing the scene of the conflict, someone says something along the lines of “one of us is a saver and the other is a spender”. The premise is rooted in the assumption that the saver is the good guy, the responsible one, the one who makes the best or better decisions about money. On the other hand, the spender is the bad guy, the irresponsible one who always gets it wrong and needs to be fixed.

• For starters, we’re not relationship police doling out punishment to people who overspend at the mall.
• Second, we disagree with any framing that locks people into fixed financial identities. Those labels are just that — labels. And no single label can fully encapsulate anyone’s identity because in reality everyone spends.

The idea of “savers” and “spenders” is simple, convenient, and easy to remember, but it’s not a reflection of the world we live in. Saving and spending are fluid concepts. The only difference between savers and spenders is the time horizon.

Spenders are spending for today. Savers are setting aside money to spend in the future.

For example, if we save $20,000 in one year to buy a car with cash, and then we spend that $20,000 the following year to get it, are we savers or spenders? It depends on which year you ask us, right?

Getting attuned with your partner starts with freeing your relationship from the contraint of labels, and it’s the first step to inviting curiosity back into your conversations. Whenever you’re having a conversation about spending, you need to go into it acknowledging that there are no villains. Your ability to have a non-judgmental conversation about money requires swapping the paradigm from “good or bad” to “now or later”.

J.D.’s note: Please go back and re-read that last sentence. It is so, so important.

Whenever anybody spends money, they’re chasing a feeling, and the goal of the conversation is to find out what that feeling is. Whether it’s wanting to feel security, spontaneity, or pleasure, once you acknowledge that both you and your partner want the same thing — to feel something — the nature of the conversation becomes less about the spender/saver persona you’ve assigned each other and more about looking at the decision objectively and finding new, creative ways to reach the goal.

Couples usually describe their goal as getting on the same page, but it’s important to go much deeper than that. The ultimate goal with your partner should be to achieve a state of harmony, where each person is allowed to express themselves fully in a way that contributes to your collective dance.

Nagging: Conversations About Saving

Not only does nagging strain a relationship, but it’s also guaranteed to put someone on the defensive because of its persistence.

Saving money is an ongoing part of managing your finances. Over time, constant panicky warnings that someone should be saving more erode the ability to look at any situation objectively. This level of surveillance makes sense in totalitarian governments, but in relationships it’s conversational quicksand. The more you do it, the deeper you sink.

Soon, the reminders about money blend with the daily chorus of other unsolicited prompts to wipe the counters or to take out the trash. It all begins to sound like a broken record. If you don’t get the tone right, at some point the person being nagged will start to think that your real beef is with them, and not about the money at all.

Attunement in this area boils down to classic reframing. As we mentioned, saving is just “planning to spend later”, and guess what’s more fun than talking about what we’re not buying in the present? Obsessing over buying it in the future!

Our tried-and-true advice for conversations about saving is to talk about your future plans. Meaningful conversations about future plans act like a release valve, giving a potentially high-pressure situation a chance to stabilize.

Instead of saying, “Babe, what’s with all the Starbucks cups? We need to be saving, not slurping!”, start your request with an “I” statement. That indicates you’re participating in the conversation as a partner, not a parent. For instance: “I’m so excited to upgrade our TV. I think I’m going to cut back on Chipotle to see what kind of dent that makes in our saving goal. Would you consider doing the same for Starbucks? I’ll bet we could have the cash by November and catch a great deal instead of waiting.”

Anticipation is a helluva drug, and there are positive psychological benefits when you look forward to something. Optimism is more reliable than willpower when it comes to doing things you don’t want to do.

For instance, when we had to cut back on eating out in order to save for a vacation, we’d cook foods at home that were reflective of the local cuisine and play their local music to help set the scene. Sometimes we’d even YouTube the destination and watch other people’s experiences and anticipate what we were looking forward to the most. Not only were these small rewards a welcome distraction from another night in, but they also helped us become more disciplined.

Blaming: Conversations About Debt

It’s pretty common for one partner to owe more than the other, and that disparity can lead to feelings of resentment and insecurity. Constant reminders about how much debt somebody brings to a relationship, as well as the approach they use to tackle it, can be a source of tension.

The person with the debt may feel a deep sense of shame from believing their debt means they’re wrong or bad. On the flip side, the person without debt can feel obligated to help pay for it, which can create resentment. Trying to dance to a song that’s composed of shame and obligation is like trying to waltz to “Cotton-Eyed Joe”.

For Kiersten, the shame surrounding her debt triggered defensiveness. She’d mastered her ability to use religious platitudes whenever she didn’t know the answer to something. She was also accustomed to avoiding conflict in other areas of her life and had learned to live among her problems instead of trying to solve them. From that emotional vantage point, our initial conversation about her debt felt like a personal attack. (And to her credit, it was.)

For us, attunement in this particular area required letting go. Kiersten needed to let go of any romantic notions of being rescued, and Julien needed to let go of his judgment. We both needed to let go of popular debt-payoff plans that treated debt as a moral failing, and learned how to strike a balance where frugality and flexibility could coexist.

Once we teamed up, combined our finances, and started to pay off our debt together, we became critical of the social and cultural norms that created it to begin with. We learned to dance together.

Our approach worked well for us, but there are legitimate reasons to tackle your debts separately, like eligibility restrictions on forgiveness plans or just personal preference. In those cases, you can agree that each person is responsible for their debt and that you won’t ever co-sign for loans together unless you both benefit from it equally.

Either was is fine as long as you remember that regardless the path you choose, emotional attunement still makes it a highly coordinated effort where both people contribute to its success or its failure.

“Tell Me More”

In any money conversation you’re having, use the phrase “tell me more” as a way to indicate when you don’t understand your partner or need more context. It’s a signal that more context is needed and follow-up questions will allow a better understanding of the other person’s perspective.

Judgement and harsh language are the equivalent of placing your finger on record player in the middle of your dance. That sharp and sudden scratch completely wrecks the flow and halts the conversation. But saying “tell me more” is a gentler nudge, inviting the other person to continue expressing themselves and feel encouraged to take a conversational risk.

There’s an important caveat to using “tell me more” in charged situations. It’s impossible to feel curious and inquisitive when you also feel threatened and intimidated.

After our first argument, it took a while for one of us (ahem, Julien) to regain the other’s trust related to sharing financial details. For a long time, one of us (ahem, Kiersten) would cry every time we talked about money because she was overwhelmed and replaying “if I’d known, I never would have dated you” in her head.

In those moments, Julien wasn’t blasting Kiersten with the phrase like a fire extinguisher. In fact, using “tell me more” in times like these can do more harm than good, undermining its future use. In hotbed moments, good old-fashioned patience works best. Instead of forcing flammable conversations, you’re better off preserving the dance floor for future use.

The following is from Taking Stock by Jordan Grumet with permission from Ulysses Press. Copyright © 2022 by Jordan Grumet. This passage has been edited to be more readable on the web.

I used to have a patient who was an undertaker. We had many conversations about philosophy and practicality, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that one must gain profound insights from being engaged in such a unique business. As I was often fond of saying: When the undertaker speaks, you should really listen.

Those of us who have made death and dying our business may seem unlikely investment advisers, but because both the undertaker and myself have spent extensive time in close proximity to mortality, we’ve been given unique insight into what’s really worth investing in. What investing tips could someone in my line of business have gleaned from dealing with death and dying? Believe it or not, a few quickly come to mind.

These tips weren’t learned by accompanying the wealthy through this difficult journey — although the wealthy have much to teach. These tips weren’t siphoned off of the personal books of those who had little interest left in hiding their secret ingredients to success. These are simple, straightforward bits of knowledge gained from walking down this lonely path with those reluctant to be making the journey.

And believe it or not, most of what I learned about investing has nothing to do with money.

Invest in Yourself

Personal investment comes in many forms. Chief among these is self-forgiveness.

Remorse is common in humans of all stripes — living and dying — and its effects can be devastating. The specifics may vary: an action taken or not taken, a relationship salvaged or destroyed, or an object bought or sold. The human capacity to blame oneself is unlimited. We spend endless amounts of time feeling bad about things we wish we had done better.

While self-blame serves the purpose of introspection and improving future outcomes, it often leaves a path of destruction it its wake. It’s hard to look forward when you are constantly looking back. The key appears to be changing what we can change and forgiving ourselves for the rest.

Losing his job was the least of Gerald’s regrets. Decades before being diagnosed with cirrhosis (chronic liver disease), his exit from corporate America set off a series of events that ended in alcoholism. His marriage fell apart, and he quickly became estranged from his ex-wife and his daughter, Sandy. While sobriety and eventual employment were recoverable, the damage he had done to his body was not. Neither was the estrangement with Sandy.

A large part of the life review process was spent with the social worker exploring his feelings surrounding the loss of his daughter. Gerald eventually was able to find a modicum of peace and forgive himself. He also realized that if this self-forgiveness had been granted earlier, he might have been able to quit alcohol long before his liver became so damaged.

• What have you been unwilling to forgive yourself for?
• What damage is this unwillingness inflicting?

Another common way we invest in ourselves is by slowing down. Often, we have big audacious goals and want to reach them immediately. Yet — as in the story of the turtle and the hare — slow incremental gain is what helps us win the race. If we can make progress toward a major goal by just one percent per month, we’ll have phenomenal annual returns over the long run. This principle applies to a skill, a relationship, or just about anything we strive toward. We mustn’t allow our limiting beliefs to hold us back.

We also need to invest in experiences. Experience compounds over time, just as our monetary assets do. As we learn and grow, we hone skills that make us better employees as well as people. Ask anyone who has risen through the ranks to become CEO of a company. Just like Ben Franklin’s compounding investments, growth in the workplace is anything but linear; it grows exponentially.

And if we are going to talk about investing in ourselves, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention education.

Invest in Education

While there’s no question that I’ve benefited from an expensive four-year college education, there are so many different ways to educate yourself nowadays — read, discuss, take online courses, debate until your face is blue and you walk out of the room disgusted. The world is full of teachers, great and small.

Knowledge is the emergency fund in which you shield your happiness. When all other resources are exhausted, your knowledge will help you secure a job, build a shelter, or make the right decisions at the most critical moments. Don’t skimp on self-improvement, and don’t be afraid to pay for it. The money you spend on education will compound in the form of knowledge and skills.

Say yes — even when you don’t want to. Open yourself to other people’s requests, and jump into an activity that feels foreign or uncomfortable.

The only way to gain knowledge or discover new passions is to be willing to explore. Not only will you be exposed to exciting opportunities, but you’ll also build stronger relationships with those to whom you say yes. Always have your bags packed.

Don’t be afraid to learn new things. I’m continuously surprised by how resistant the average person is to learn about basic finance. Most experts suggest that a few hours of reading each month will make you totally financially competent. Yet the preconceived notion that the subject is too difficult scares many away; don’t let it.

I have watched countless patients die with a book on their nightstand or an unfinished argument circling their brain. This is not sad or trivial. Even those who are dying wake up every morning with a plan for how they will spend each day. Make sure you allow room for acquiring new knowledge. Inquisitive people tend to die as they live: happy and full of questions.

Invest in Other People

The one measure of a person (rich or poor, happy or sad) is in the people whom the person leaves behind. I can think of no greater indicator of success. I know instantly when I walk into the room of a dying patient whether they have invested in other people. They are surrounded by pictures, letters, cards, and friends.

In fact, I usually know who the successful investors are before I even reach the hospital room. There are people walking in and out; noise and laughter peal through the otherwise somber hallways. Smiles and tears celebrate the bittersweet confluence of life and death.

If you invest in people, the compound interest will multiply into a lifetime of love and happiness. Long after you’re gone, your essence will survive in the smile on the lips of those who shared in your asset allocation.

It took me years to understand this tip. I stumbled about as a doctor looking to find my people in the midst of a community that didn’t fit me. It was only after I discovered writing and podcasting in the personal finance realm that I was able to connect with people who understand me.

These connections have made all the difference; they have given me the courage to redefine my identity and purpose.

Invest in Children

Invest not only your money, but your time and love. Invest in children. Help build the blocks of their adulthood and happiness. Sprinkle them with your knowledge, humility, and kindness. Lead them with your virtuous example. In you, they will find the role model of success and freedom. Teach them about finances so they can understand what money can and can’t do for them in attainment of their life goals. Leave them with a good example of what living looks like.

Investing in your children will produce a lifetime of dividends. They will be the shoulder to lean on and the undertaker of your vast life dreams. Your time on this earth is short, but your progeny will carry on your spark. Like a ripple in a vast ocean, your effect will be carried with them through the generations. You will live on in the hearts and minds of those who come after you.

Every time a colleague accidentally calls me by my father’s name, while rounding at the hospital, is proof of how we live on in our children. His legacy shaped my career and passions even decades after he has passed. He is remembered.

I will never be able to repay my parents for what they have willingly surrendered to me. Instead, I will pay it forward to my own children. I will invest in them in much the same way as my parents have invested in me, and, thus, our goodness will continue on through the generations.

Invest in Physical and Mental Health

Your body and mind are interconnected. They form the framework you build upon. There’s no financial well-being without mental and physical well-being. As this book demonstrates, managing your money and future take forethought and conscientious decision-making. You can’t do this properly if you yourself are unwell.

Invest in mental health by taking the time and energy to recover. Learn how to slow your mind and relax with activities such as meditation, exercise, and listening to classical music. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from family, friends, or mental health professionals. Psychological counseling is not only common but also incredibly helpful. Getting a professional’s outside perspective can make a huge difference in quieting those internal voices that disrupt your peace and calm.

Physical health also plays an important role. Not only may it prolong the time to the end of life, but the emotional benefits are also enduring. We generally feel stronger both physically and emotionally when we are taking positive steps to take care of ourselves. This does not mean that we all have to become marathon runners. As I said before, perfect can be the enemy of good enough.

Try to get at least thirty minutes of physical activity a day. Start with something easy like walking. Find an activity that fulfills your physical needs without being loathsome or burdensome. If you hate doing it, the habit won’t last.

While I don’t feel strongly about alcohol or drugs, anything above recreational use often limits our health as well as our ability to see our goals clearly. If you are wondering whether it’s a problem, then it probably is. Most of the highs these substances give us are artificial and short-lived.

Invest in the Market

Even a collection of investing tips from a hospice doctor would be remiss without the basics. Taking Stock is a personal finance book, after all. So, don’t forget to invest in the stock market:

• Earn more than you spend.
• Save as much as you can each year (20 to 50 percent).
• Buy broad-based low-cost mutual funds.
• Max out retirement savings first, and then open a taxable brokerage account.
• Hire a financial adviser only to advise — not to invest for you.

My hope is that this book gives you the intellectual, tactical, and practical knowledge to get the money right so that you can invest more heavily in the other things I’ve discussed. I don’t want to minimize the importance of understanding the financial basics, but I do want to remind you that they are necessary but not sufficient.

Final Thoughts

These are my investing tips from a hospice doctor. As you can see, only the last section deals with money. The reason, of course, is that finances are the easy part. How you invest the rest of your time and energy is likely to determine your perspective in those waning days when you deal with a doctor like me. Don’t waste your life and regret.

Start investing now! Before it’s too late. The stronger the foundation you create, the better you’ll be able to deal with the unexpected. Because if you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s the point of investing in the first place.

Your investing plan has to start immediately — before you are dying and the end is so clearly in sight. Building a life of meaning, purpose, and connections takes time and compounding. Investing in yourself takes energy, and investing in education requires work. Building relationships with your children and community will be a mental and physical strain. Taking care of your mind and body will be taxing. Learning about personal finance and building financial security will consume hours that you might rather have spent on something else.

And it’s all so very, very worth it. Be as prepared for life as you would be for death.

Invest in yourself wisely.

Exercise: Non-Monetary Investment Inventory

Clear your schedule for an hour for two to three separate days over the next week. During that time, make sure all electronics are turned to silent, you’re well-rested and fed, and you have found a quiet, comfortable place to concentrate.

Take a sheet of paper, and separate it lengthwise into three separate columns. Number each from 1 to 10.

1. For your first list, write down all the education you have received up to this time. You can start with high school, university, or college. Add in any graduate programs, online courses, on-site work trainings, or self-study projects. Be generous here — no need to have received a formal degree or certificate. It’s okay, especially for this section, if you don’t have ten full entries.
2. For your second list, write down all your skills. These can range from professional expertise to innate talents to self-taught abilities. Don’t forget all that you’ve learned through social media. Are you a content creator? What about hobbies? Again, give yourself credit. What do people always tell you that you are good at?
3. Finally, in the last column write down key relationships. This includes family, friends, work associates, and even acquaintances. List the ten people who have a big influence on your life. This is your community.

Now peruse your three lists together; this is the sum total of your non-monetary investments. What you have created is an inventory of your non-financial wealth. Often, we get so caught up in our net worth calculation that we forget about our non-monetary assets.

If you take your inventory of non-financial wealth and add it to your net worth calculation, you now have a true listing of all your resources. Are these enough to allow you to utilize most of your time pursuing your true purpose, identity, and connections? If so — welcome to financial independence!