Last week, I spoke about the concept of buying more time. I want to continue on the same vein and money is the next key thing that generally comes up in our heads.
Can we 'buy' money? Well, we can certainly save money, sure. The dictionary definition of buy points an obvious flaw in my question.
to acquire the possession of, or the right to, by paying or promising to pay an equivalent, especially in money
but the alternate definition points us in the right direction, and so I shall persist with buy instead of save.
to acquire by exchange
So, how do we acquire, by an exchange of whatever, more money? Saving money i.e. less expenditure is an outcome, obviously. But I want to see if this weird statement of buying money can be expounded upon.
In a way, isn't this what every investment is? You buy low and expect to sell high. Or advertising? You spend money to make more money.
So, can we buy more money by spending it wisely on health and fitness? Absolutely. Obviously. Let's get to some specifics.
What does a focus on better health and fitness lead to
- You are more productive in your day. Things that take you an hour to do will probably take 30 minutes. Because you are mentally sharper as well as physically more energetic and vibrant. This does not mean you take the 30 minutes you saved and do more work, but you obviously can. But that's the slippery slope that most of us are stuck on - work overload. What I mean by you being more productive is that you won't be sleepwalking through your task, no more 6/10 kinda stuff. You will produce higher quality work - the kind that you know you always can. You will hit your potential. So, previously, we might have done average work that took us 60 minutes but now you are doing above-average (and exceptional) work in lesser time.
- This time you can invest in bettering yourself. By going above and beyond what you need to do for that particular task. Or buying a book that will help you get better, as an example.
- By being mentally sharper, you are more resilient. You can handle hardships and bounce back faster. Glitches do not impact you or stop you on your tracks. You know that just chipping away at the problem will lead to things. This resiliency will mean lesser failures, or better lessons learned from failures. Previously, it might have been looked at as a roadblock or a waste of time and energy. Not anymore.
- Your increased confidence levels will show. Your improved productivity - not in quantity of work done but the quality of it will show. You will see that promotions at work and improved job roles come by. Rather than waiting for your turn, you will forge your own path. Your career trajectory is under your control! We've heard from many of our students about promotions at work and pay raises after making the commitment to health and fitness, and that's not a coincidence.
- You directly save money via a bunch of methods - lesser doctor visits is an obvious outcome. Imagine, if you had to go see your doctor just once a year for your regular check-up and never about anything else?
- By leading a long, healthy life with no lifestyle diseases that are a bane of our lifetime and society - like diabetes, hypertension etc - you save enormous money on treatment, on the time lost due to the actual amounts of time spent with the doctors and scans and all that, as well as the crazy amount of mental stress that you do not have to go through.
- The mental stressors make everything worse. You spend more time being awake because you are anxious. You find yourself eating junk foods because of stress, and not because you enjoy them. This compounds the poor health, and it leads to you spending even more money to try and resolve them.
- You do not have to spend time worrying about every slick fad or scam that comes by. You are already in control of your life. You've taken the right decisions about who to trust, what to do, and are measuring the right things. No more FOMO. No more wasted time or money in buying/paying for silly nonsense.
- You can instead choose to invest the money in wiser choices - like a good coach, like a good nutrition programme. on better groceries.
do i have the time/money?
In our busy lives, there are 2 constant questions I see revolving around taking up fitness as an endeavour. And nutrition for that matter, and thus it expands as a focus on our health.
Do I have the time?
Is it worth the money?
What I am trying to get to is that we cannot afford NOT to invest our time and our money on our health and fitness. The best method is to find a real expert - just like you find an expert for other things that you don't want to think about. But it is totally possible to save money (and not pay for an expert) and do the figuring out yourself. After all, that's how I started. Even with an expert (let's not worry about pseudo-experts and influencers and all that rot), it requires you and them to be on the same wavelength. So, nothing's a given.
compound interest and immediate returns as well
Even if we look at things as a simple return-on-investment, of time and money, the long-term return on your health and fitness is mind-boggling. We listen to how smart Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger are all the time. Well, a key part of their investment strategy is not about selling an acquisition once it is going to make a profit for them i.e. if they bought it for 100, the goal is to not sell it for >100. But they sit on their investments for years and years. We need to learn that similar mindset - we are looking at an amazing compound interest on our time and money many years in the future. And if we aren't rushing, we will see that there are immediate ROIs, in our day-to-day life as well as the compounded effect many years from now.
But the point is if you have the intent and the mindset, and my post is trying to convince you to have that - then, it is simply a matter of time before you solve this and reap the rewards.
If you don't have the mindset or intent, that's when we leap from fad to fad and miss the point.
Live long, and drop dead!