Consider physical health / fitness.
Most people *want* to be healthy.
Most people *want* to eat right.
…but…
Most *don’t* exercise regularly.
Most *don’t* maintain a strict diet, or skip sodas or snacks.
So what happens?
It’s easier to be lazy.
It’s easy to end up with poor health / obesity
Here’s a animated color chart of obesity rates by state and year from 1985 to 2010:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/food/obesity-map-GIF-jh.gif
(Sad fact: Things HAVE NOT gotten better in the last 14 years.)
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How does health tie into building long term wealth?
Consider Warren Buffett – one of the world’s richest men.
Did you know that 99% of his wealth was made after his 50th birthday?
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-warren-buffett-during-every-120051558.html
So, besides the obvious of having health today so you can work, it’s absolutely critical to maintain your body in PEAK condition, so you can let time work and compound your portfolio for long term wealth.
Follow me on this:
– If you *do the work* to exercise consistently, you can stay healthy longer
– If you stay healthy – on the spread of probabilities – you’ll live longer
– If you live longer, your portfolio will have more time to compound over time.
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“A lack of discipline & hard work will often result in the symptoms of a lack of health and wealth.”
—
Fun hypothetical – let’s assume the following:
– Start with a 43 year old person
– Said person has 10 million dollars net worth (NW)
– Over time, the NW is invested in various assets that a 10.5% annual return
[Question]
What’s the “easiest” or best investment / action steps they can take, to realistically reach 1,000,000,000 (a billion dollars) in their portfolio?
[Answer]
If your % return is somewhat set – then the best investment would be to exercise CONSISTENTLY and stay in peak physical shape, so that your portfolio CAN compound over time and reach the 1 billion target:
If you run the numbers…
https://www.google.com/search?q=10000000*(1.105%5E(90-43))
…it’s actually pretty straight forward.
—
Some interesting notes:
[1] Average life expectancy in the US is 77 years old.
Given the same scenario, with the person passing at 77, they end up only with $298mm:
https://www.google.com/search?q=10000000*(1.105%5E(77-43))
So, literally – it’s easy to see that HEALTH = WEALTH.
(..and I’m not even touching the subject of elder / end of life care, which I’ll do on another random rant).
[2] Achieving 10.5% average return is very realistic if you’re in the market long enough. See the “Geometric Average Historical Return” on Row 123 on this data set from an NYU Stern Professor here:
https://www.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pc/datasets/histretSP.xls
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[Conclusions]
[A] To achieve true financial success – grinding to make money, which is often *mental* work, is just *one* aspect. Continuing the work into the *physical* realm to maintain your health is just as – if not *MORE* – important.
[B] Because most of the population is inherently lazy, it’s actually easier than ever to “get ahead of the pack” by just working diligently *everyday.*
Want to get started? Drop & give me 20!