Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation

It's March 25th, 2020 and I am honored to be a part of your quarantine reading life.

I endeavor to make this email as interesting and engaging as possible, to try to ease whatever burdens you're facing from being forced to stay in one place for the foreseeable future. This issue is longer than normal, but it is by far the best one I've written.

This week we look to the opportunities of being forced to quarantine.

Yeah, it sucks, but with every obstacle there is an opportunity to grow.

For example, while the world has become a place of much more existential angst, my life has become much simpler.

There is no pressure to go out and do things.

FOMO (fear of missing out) does not exist right now.

It is just each of us in our own little bubbles, trying to do the best we can.

So in the spirit of staying at home in front of our computer screens, I have a new section for this newsletter.

COVID-19 Meme of the Week:

If you've come across some good COVID memes send them to me on instagram - @wisehealthywealthy

This weeks issue will have the following:

• The quote of the week
• What I am currently (re)reading
• Tips to make you wise, healthy, and wealthy in times like this
• Any new or relevant Wise Healthy Wealthy articles I think you might enjoy Taking a break from this section this week due to the issue being really long already
• Book Giveaway early announcement
• Some ideas for the future of Wise Owl Wednesdays

_____________________________________

Was this email forwarded to you? 

Click here to subscribe

_____________________________________

Quote of the week:

I have hundreds of these quotes with my Wise Owl named Whowly featured in them.

So when I was perusing through them all earlier this week this one made me laugh out loud.

Why? Isaac Asimov was born in 1920 and died in the early 1990s.

If the COVID-19 pandemic is any indication, science is still gathering knowledge faster than society can gather wisdom.

Just because society as a whole is slow to figure shit out doesn't mean that you have to be that way.

This is a newsletter about becoming wiser first, then healthier, and finally wealthier.

The idea is that only once you are informed and take care of yourself should you focus on building wealth for yourself and your family.

Wisdom = Intelligence * (Knowledge + Experience)

There is a lot to learn from this pandemic, and we all have our shared experiences to apply to what we can learn.

You can't change society without first changing yourself. It's time for all of us to level up.

Current Reads - Atomic Habits by James Clear

Our world has been turned upside down by a tiny little life form, and the virus got me thinking about how something so small could, over time, make such a huge impact.

Then I remembered a book that came out a few years ago about how we can turn that phenomenon to our benefit. Thus I found myself re-reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Why this book is awesome

The premise is simple. Small changes over time create drastic results.

Small habits, over time, create even more drastic results.

See this chart (which is in the book)

If you can stay consistent, and try to get at least 1% better every day for one full year, the results are ridiculous.

Tiny habits that require little to no effort can lead to massive results. We are stuck in our homes for the foreseeable future, as a tiny virus spreads its influence across the globe.

What are you going to do with that time? Are you going to let bad habits drag you into anxiety and boredom? Or are you going to read this damn book and get your shit together.

We are on a journey to become wise, healthy, and wealthy.

The world may seem like it is an impossible place to become wise or healthy, much less wealthy.

But that is bullshit - there is more opportunity now than there has been in a while.

Use this book as motivation to take a little action everyday.

Links to get this book:

• Kindle
• Hardback
• Audio - narrated by the author

** The links above are affiliate links. If you purchase the books with the links above, I receive a super tiny commission, which helps support this newsletter. Thank you! **

Tips or Tools of the week: Wisdom, Health or Wealth

Each week I share either three tips or three tools that will help you become wiser, healthier, and wealthier.

Wisdom tip of the week: Learn from masters of the past

This is not the first quarantine in the history of the world. It has happened many times over the centuries.

Many amazing works were completed during a quarantine.

William Shakespeare

Much of Shakespeare's life in England from 1564 through 1600 was shaped by the plague. In England if a plague hit the city and the death toll reached 30 people, the public playhouses were forced to close. This happened in 1606, and Shakespear went on to write King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra!

Isaac Newton

A lot of Isaac's are showing up in this newsletter. How odd.

Anyway, Isaac Newton is the father of calculus and physics. He was able to determine the movement of comets, planets, and the stars, in the 1700s!!!!!

Calculus did not exist before him. He literally taught himself a subject of mathematics that did not exist.

He did this during a quarantine of England in 1665. Newton was in his early 20's and his classes at Cambridge University were canceled. Newton "sheltered in place" at his family estate and used that time.

It was at this estate that theory of gravity first entered his mind. Many of us were taught in school that Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell and hit his head. It would have occurred during this period of quarantine.

Learn from these examples:

Quarantine sucks, but the lack of noise and pressure to go out and do stuff is an opportunity to think, focus, and improve yourself.

Thanks to James Clear's graph, I showed you what the long term difference looks like between two people making slightly different decisions. The gap becomes HUGE.

Health tip of the week: Vitamin D might prevent acute respiratory tract infections

I am going to keep this section shorter and sweeter.

Vitamin D is no longer considered a vitamin (or vital mineral) in the scientific community. It is considered a human steroid hormone that our bodies naturally produce.

Most of us do not get enough "Vitamin" D during normal times, and I guarantee we are not getting enough during quarantine times.

There is some clinical studies that have shown that supplementing this steroid hormone can cut the risk of respiratory infection by up to 50% in people that were vitamin D deficient and cut the risk by 10% in people with normal vitamin D levels.

Dr Rhonda Patrick's post brought this to my attention a week ago - you can find that IG post here

Here is a link to the study she is referencing - Link to study here

Wealth tip of the week: The last 50 years vs the next 50 years

50-years-ago was a very different place.

Richard Nixon was the president and every US dollar was backed by gold.

The internet was still decades away from existing, and major tech companies such as Apple and Microsoft were still several years away from being founded.

The "modern investment theory" of today relies heavily on index funds, which were first created by Jack Bogle in 1975. For the last 50-years index funds have been the best performing asset class. By far.

But what was the best performing asset class of the last 10-years?

Was it Index Funds? Nope.

Real Estate? Nope.

Tesla? Nooooope.

Gold? Hell no.

It was Bitcoin. Founded in 2009 in response to the Fed printing trillions of dollars to bail out the banks.

The idea was simple - use the power of the internet to create a decentralized system of private, secure transactions, with hard coded scarcity, that no government could shut down.

The cost of Bitcoin ten years ago was $0.003.

The cost of Bitcoin right this second is $6581.38

Every year the economic elite of the world meet in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the economic trends, global economic policy, and other things that unfathomably rich people talk about.

One of the primary talking points was a four letter acronym - CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency.

The Central Banks and Governments of the world are seriously considering creating their own, centrally controlled versions of Cryptocurrency. They are doing this for a multitude of reasons, one of which being to combat the public decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It may sound like I am pushing Cryptocurrency hard right now, but I mainly want to get you thinking.

The next 50 years cannot be predicted by the last 50, so the time is slowly running out for you to be listening to your grandparents investing advice.

It is no secret that I am a strong believer in the future of cryptocurrency, and I am almost certainly going to be creating a beginner's course on crypto to help the readers of this newsletter get a potential head start on what the next 50 years of money will be.

I created a short survey to collect some basic feedback and gauge interest in such a course. If you are interested please take the survey.

Wise Owl Book Giveaway

I've decided to do a book giveaway!

I will be giving away all of the books I have brought up during this newsletter.

I will personally buy 8-winners the book of their choice from the list below.

The giveaway link will be sent out separately later this week to the Wise Owl Wednesday subscribers.

Books I've recommended thus far:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Keep Going by Austin Kleon
• Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink
• Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
• Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
• Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
• The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
• Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey

A Few Newsletter Ideas I am Pondering

I am always thinking about ways to make this newsletter more valuable to all of you. I want it to be, at the very least, the one email you look forward to opening each week.

• A giveaway of all the books I have recommended here on Wise Owl Wednesday at the end of March
• A section on Cryptocurrency called the "Crypto Corner"
• A video or Audio component of Wise Owl Wednesdays for those of you who want to listen to what the newsletter says or here my riff on various sections.
• A more personal look into my journey and what I am experimenting with right now including an open look into my habits, struggles, finances, etc.

What do you think about these ideas? Respond to this email and let me know.

Share The Love, and Help Me Help You!

What did you think about the newsletter?

If you know anyone that could benefit from reading this, please forward it to them.

Also, if you have ideas or thoughts in the following areas, please let me know!

• Books I should review
• Topics you would love to read about
• YouTube videos you'd love to watch

Let me know by replying to this email!

I read all of my emails.

You can also read past issues here!