Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

We are officially in December! 2020 is finally coming to a close, and what an interesting year it has been.

Just remember that despite all the obvious setbacks that have happened this year, there are undoubtedly great things that have happened for each one of you.

Last week was Thanksgiving for the Americans, but I think December is as good a time of the year as any for all of us to start to think about the year we've had and what we've accomplished. Be grateful for the positives that you've accomplished in 2020.

For myself, just to name a few things:

1. I started this newsletter!
2. Got back into playing Poker (online), a long-lost passion of mine.
3. Tripled the number of subscribers to my secret YouTube channel

These are just a few examples. There are many others, just like there will be many examples for you, if you take the time to think about them.

Take advantage of the last month of the year to reflect on how you spend your energy. Are you becoming wiser, healthier, and wealthier? What can you do differently to improve yourself?

Read on and let's discuss.

Lastly, thank you to those of you that have "bought me a coffee" the last two weeks. You continue to motivate me to make this newsletter as valuable as possible! ☕☕☕

Now... let's get into it!

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

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🧠Wisdom Tip of The Week: Work on high-leverage tasks (+ cool stuff I've found to help)

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how best to spend my time. I know that I am capable of working hard, but I also want to remind myself to figure out how best to work smart.

So often I find that I work on tasks that do not scale, or do not have leverage. What is a task that has leverage?

A leveraged task is one that:

• Only you can do
• The results of doing the work are greater than the time spent doing the work. (ROI - return on investment)

Examples of high leverage activities:

• Listening to audiobooks or podcasts - you expand your knowledge, and that knowledge is yours for the rest of your life

• Writing a book or article - You write it once and it can continue to reach people forever.

• Creating a repeatable system - I am inherently lazy, I think. It is much, much easier for me to do something if it has been made into an easily repeatable system or routine. So it is worth it to me to spend time creating a system that empowers me to continually get work done in the future. A system can also be used to get someone else to do work the way you want them to do it. It's powerful stuff

• Investing your money into assets - When your hard-earned money earns you more money without you having to do anything. That, is making good use of your time. Money, in a sense, is just a store of value. You provide value to your job, customers, etc, and they give you money as a store of that value. You can then use that money however you want. I choose to leverage that cash to earn more money.

Low leverage activities are:

• activities anyone can do
• the time/energy spent is less than or equal to the results

For me, these are examples of low leverage activities:

• Cooking for one - The time/effort it takes to cook a full meal is more than the time spent enjoying the meal. This is mainly because I enjoy eating far more than I enjoy cooking. If it is just me, it is literally cheaper in time and energy to order food.

• Deep cleaning my house - I am not good at deep cleaning. I can keep a place organized, make my bed, vacuum carpets, etc. But there are people that are so much better and faster at deep cleaning than I am, that it is worth it to me to pay them to do it.

• Leaving money in a low interest savings account - seriously. The money will lose value over time and no one has time for that. Well the banks that hold your money have time for that, because they are using your money to earn a lot more interest than you are!

With all this being said, I have found a few helpful tools that might save you some time with your side projects going forward. I've found all of these tools to be extremely useful. I strongly recommend checking them out and seeing if any of them can help you save time.

Cool stuff I’ve encountered this week:

• Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML - Good for reformatting word docs into html that can be used on a website, or article, etc.
• Free Icons and Photos for Everything - The Noun Project. This is a really cool site you can use to get free icons or photos for any project you are working on.
• Learn Anything - a global repository for free learning resources. Find the best places to learn a new language, pick up a new skill, etc. I guarantee you will find articles and resources you never thought of.
• Remove backgrounds from Images - this is super cool. I am not great at photoshop or design, so being able to remove backgrounds from images allows me to add more products to my online store.
• NaturalReader - Text to Speech software that allows you to listen to any text. Great for editing your own articles, or turning any article into a short audiobook.
• Worn on Tv - A site dedicated to tracking down the clothes that are worn on Tv. Pretty wild. I never would have thought this was useful, but I know more than a few people who love this.

🥑 Health Tip of The Week: Healthy routines > Healthy resolutions

I mentioned systems/routines in the wisdom section, but I didn't really discuss the how of it. I'll do a little of that hear to help you get healthier.

We are reaching the end of 2020, which means we are closing in on the beginning of 2021. Many of you will look down at your waistline and want to make a healthy change in your life.

I am telling you now, at the beginning of December, that you do not need to wait to make a healthy change. I am also telling you right now that resolutions are doomed to fail. You have months and months of bad habits your resolution will be fighting at the start of the new year, and unless you overwrite those bad habits with healthier habits, your resolution is doomed.

So start a healthy routine today. Literally start it today. Pick one thing from the list below and do it every day this month.

Healthy routine ideas:

• Go for a 15-minute walk. (Increase the power of this by listening to an audiobook or podcast while you walk)
• Drink a glass of water right when you wake up.
• Do 30 seconds of jumping jacks before your first cup of coffee.
• Stretch your body for 10 minutes every morning.
• Avoid any food two hours before bed.

Pick one of these and do it for the rest of the month. Just one new habit, but do it every day. None of these are too hard for you.

💲 Wealth Tip of The Week: Learn about Crypto!!! Part 3 - Ethereum 2.0 Launches

I know, I know. I am becoming the annoying crypto guy. But seriously people! Things are happening that I warned you about 10 months ago!

The last two weeks I've brought up the price of BTC and ETH. This week I get away from that to announce that the technology of Ethereum is getting a long awaited and major upgrade. Ethereum 2.0 officially launched yesterday. Which means that in the next year, all of Ethereum 1.0 will be transferring over to Ethereum 2.0.

What makes Ethereum 2.0 so much better?

1. It allows Ethereum to scale - meaning everyone in the world could theoretically transact on the network without causing it to get congested. You could send a transaction anywhere in the world, almost instantly, for pennies. Want to send money to your family abroad? Almost instant and free. Need to sign a secure contract? Again, almost instant and free.
2. It allows ETH to be staked - the quick version of this is, you can use your ETH as a bond that earns you 5-15% interest. Imagine a long-term savings account where your dollars became more valuable AND earned you 5-15% more dollars each year?
3. Governments will start issuing their CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) onto the Ethereum Network. Ethereum is the only truly global, neutral, decentralized, third party network in existence that sovereign nations will trust to transact on.

Even CNBC can't help but talk about Ethereum 2.0 - Check out their article for yourself.

It's like moving from dial-up internet to fiber internet. For the young people reading this. It's like moving from a flip phone your parents used, to an iPhone. It's a massive, massive improvement.

So, this week's Wealth tip is one that I have mentioned many times.

Learn about cryptocurrency. Learn about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Then start to invest an amount you are comfortable with each month into both of these coins.

I do not feel any shame repeating myself each week regarding this. If you learn about this stuff now, you will be light years ahead of the rest of the world.

I wrote about high leverage tasks in the sections above. You have several opportunities here to do that. I get nothing by urging you to learn about this stuff other than fulfilling my promise to put as much value as I can into each week of this newsletter.

• Learning about crypto is high leverage
• Buying crypto is high leverage

Where can you learn about Crypto?

Anytime someone asks me where they should get started with Cryptocurrency I usually point them to the Bankless Podcast.

Well now the team at Bankless has released a badass starter guide for how to get started with going bankless. - You can find it here

Where can you buy crypto?

The easiest place is Coinbase, but now you can buy crypto on PayPal I think, although I strongly recommend you use Coinbase or Gemini if you are in the US.

Folks outside the US can use Kraken or Binance.

Quotes of the week:

Every new day is an opportunity to experience life. Take advantage of it. Do something with it. Build something awesome.

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.

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