Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

2021 has been wild so far.

Cryptocurrency has skyrocketed.

The United States has a new president.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos take turns being the richest man in the world.

And I have been thinking a lot about the concept of retirement.

No, my cryptocurrency portfolio is not at a point where I can comfortably retire, but it might get there someday.

So it has me thinking about retirement, and what that looks like to me. After pondering this question this week I have come to the conclusion that most people shouldn't wait for retirement at all.

People should work towards their ideal lifestyle because there is likely a path that can get anyone to their ideal lifestyle in a few years rather than the few decades it takes to achieve true retirement.

There is no guarantee that you will survive to retirement, so achieving your ideal lifestyle now feels like the best options.

I discuss this idea throughout all three sections of the newsletter this week.

Hope you enjoy!

You can find all past issues (including this one) here.

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🧠 Wisdom Thought of The Week: Your Ideal Lifestyle

First things first. I am not a "lifestyle entrepreneur."

I am a guy that likes to learn how to improve myself a little every day, and I happen to be a guy that enjoys writing about it.

This newsletter is often a letter to myself to remind me what I should be doing with my days.

Everything I write about here is exactly what I am thinking about or working on myself.

My ideal lifestyle is going to be very different from yours, so I will try to outline a framework I am taking to get there.

These are the four questions everyone should answer to start mapping out "ideal lifestyle."

1. What do I want to do every day when I wake up? What does a perfect normal day look like? (I say normal to keep myself from saying I want my perfect day to be in a new city/country every week)
2. Who are the people, places, and things I want in my life?
3. What kind of shape is my mind and body in while living this ideal lifestyle?
4. How important is money to me?

1) What do I want to do every day when I wake up? What does a perfect normal day look like?

This is what my personal perfect "normal" day looks like. Again I am being specific about the day needing to be an average day in this ideal lifestyle because I am aiming to make it repeatable. This will be my north star.

"I wake up without an alarm, fully-rested without obligations to an employer. I start my day with my morning routine which involves meditation and exercise I enjoy.

I shower, eat breakfast, and hang out with my family for a bit. Then I head into my office and spend the rest of the morning writing. I could be writing non-fiction or fiction - just whatever makes me happy to write about that day. I do this until lunchtime.

Lunch is spent with family again.

After lunch I head back into my office to spend the afternoon mastering a skill. Right now this skill would be Poker, but over time the skill will change. The skill I am working on can earn me money but doesn't have to. The idea is to perform deep work in an attempt to achieve mastery.

A few skills I'd like to master:

• Poker
• Storytelling/Book Writing
• Strength Training
• Twitch Streaming
• Gardening/Permaculture

In the evening I will spend time with friends and family, having achieved what I needed to achieve already that day.

This, right now, is my personal ideal day. It is flexible, doesn't require a specific location, and has room to grow and change.

2) Who are the people, places, and things I want in my life?

I answered this to a degree in question one, but I will reiterate here.

People - my family and friends

Places - not super important. Most of the time my home

Things - Books, a way to write, and the tools I need to master whatever skill I am working on

3) What kind of shape are my mind and body in while living this ideal lifestyle?

This is an important question that I feel is often overlooked when I see others writing about the topic of lifestyle.

I'll cover it more in the next section, but the sooner you are in great shape, the more life you will get to live in great shape.

So, ideally, I am in the best shape of my life while living my ideal lifestyle.

4) How important is money to me?

It doesn't take a genius to realize that beyond financial independence, the accumulation of wealth is not a massive priority for me.

Once I reach a stage where my income streams can cover all my expenses and allow a gap of opportunity for continued investment (for my family's future) I am good to go.

I'll discuss this in the wealth section in more detail, but money is a part of what makes this ideal lifestyle seem like a challenge and is one of the reasons it takes a few years to get there.

Basically - Money is really important until it's not. Smart personal finance decisions compounded over a few years to set me up for this ideal lifestyle is where money is most important. After that, it's primarily about maintenance and risk management.

🥑 How Can You Become The Healthiest Version of You?

In the vein of achieving your ideal lifestyle in a few years, this should include becoming the healthiest version of you ever.

As I said above, the sooner you become healthy and fit, the longer you get to live your life healthy and fit. I personally don't care much about how I "look," but I really care a lot about how I feel, and how capable my body is to do the things I enjoy doing.

To achieve this level of health in a few years is doable for anyone. To do it all on your own is possible, but it will require you to master your limited willpower and create habits and routines that push you towards your health goals.

I've harped on habits and routines so much in this newsletter that I am going to give it a break and talk more about the pros and cons of hiring someone to help you. This has been on my mind a lot lately.

Ways you can use money to get yourself in shape faster:

1) Hire a personal trainer that doesn't suck - Personal trainers are expensive, who cares? The point here is to hire someone that will hold your hand and put you to work in ways you would not do yourself. This person should hold you accountable and care about your results.

Once you achieve your results and create habits around maintaining them, then you might be able to stop using a personal trainer.

2) Pay to get bloodwork done, and find out what foods your body loves

I am pretty sure I am allergic to fruit. When I eat fruit, my throat gets itchy and I tend to start sneezing. Seriously. Why does fruit do this to me? I have no idea. So I am going to go see a specialist to figure it out.

I'm also getting my bloodwork done to make sure I have a solid baseline and find areas I can work with a nutritionist to get on track.

3) Try out various food delivery services

One of the biggest excuses I have made in my life is not being able to cook for myself because I don't know what ingredients to buy at the store to be able to cook meals for myself all week.

That isn't really an excuse anymore, since there are a ton of services out there now that hold your hand and make this easier.

Now, I say try out a lot of them to see which works for you, because I have started this process and a few of the more popular services like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, or Freshly did not work for me.

I am currently trying a company called HungryRoot to see how that goes. If I end up loving it I will let you all know in a future newsletter.

The idea here is to use money to save you time, energy, and effort so that you can actually start to really get healthier.

This is a lesson I have struggled to learn. The healthier you are, the more energy, willpower, and creativity you will have to accomplish your goals. Your money means far less if you aren't healthy enough to live your best life.

So use it to get to where you want to be healthwise.

💲 Ideal Lifestyle Money Plan

There isn't a magic wand that can just make a life where money doesn't matter. The world we live in runs on money, and likely always will in some form.

Fortunately, the basic rules of personal finance have existed since ancient times, and the base principles have not changed.

1. Reduce your spending
2. Increase your income
3. Pay-off/avoid debt
4. Invest

That's it. The less you spend the more money you will have to invest or pay off debt. The less debt you accrue the more money you will have to invest. The more money you make, the more money you will have to invest.

You need to increase your gap of opportunity and start using that gap to work towards some basic financial goals.

For my ideal life, the following are true:

• I have an emergency fund ready at all times
• Separate from the emergency fund I have six months of expenses stored away
• I have investments that earn dividends of some kind that reinvest
• 10-20% minimum of my income every month goes to investments
• Every week I buy some Ethereum and stake it or put it into BlockFi so that it can earn more ETH over time.
• Allocate funds each month towards improving my health
• Avoid spending any money on things I do not care about (new clothes, fancy car, random decorations, etc)
• Look for new income streams that align with my hobbies, skills, or passions. (Writing, youtube, twitch streaming, poker, crypto, etc)

Quote of the week:

You don't need to wait until "retirement age" to enjoy the life you want.

Use the framework outlined in the newsletter this week to start pushing yourself towards the people, places, and things you want in your life.

Life improvement is a battle that must be fought new each day. What can you do today to take a step towards excellence?

Have a great week!

This concludes our issue this week, I hope it gave you some perspective or injected a little motivation into your life!

If it helped, let me know! I read every newsletter response I receive, and I absolutely love hearing from all of you. This newsletter is for you, so I need your help to make it as great as possible.

If you'd like to show me some love for writing all this free stuff, you can always buy me a coffee.

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

• Check out the Wise Owl Store
• All Wise Healthy Wealthy Articles on Medium
• Start your own Sendfox Newsletter
• Free products to help you level up

Crypto Resources:

The Bankless Podcast: This is a link to the bankless podcast on Spotify. Start from the very beginning and learn why I am so positive about the power of Crypto and Ethereum in particular. You can find the podcast easily on the internet, but I am linking to episode 1 on Spotify for your convenience.

Buy your first ETH or BTC:

• On Coinbase - this is the easiest starting place for the newest beginners
• On Gemini - Another great option founded by the Winklevoss brothers. They are based out of New York.
• On Kraken - Kraken has a bit of a harder user interface, but they already have ETH staking enabled with the push of a single button.

BlockFi - Earn interest on your crypto. Currently, you can earn 6% interest on BTC, 5.25% interest on ETH, and a whopping 8.6% on stable coins like USDC.

Use the referral code b09f24fd to support the newsletter.

I've earned thousands of dollars (in crypto) using blockfi the last few years.