Make These Investments Today To Future-Proof Your Finances | Lewis Howes EP 248

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:51You've heard it a lot when people talk about the stock market in playing the long game versus the short game. As entrepreneurs, you've got to be willing to take risks. When it comes to building long-term wealth, we need to approach money differently. And I had the opportunity to speak with a financial advisor and best-selling author, Ramit Sethi. Something he said really surprised me. He told me that he only signs in and checks his portfolio about once per month. He does this to avoid making short-term reactive decisions based on where the market's at. Ah, the market's up, the market's down, and reacting.

1:23And this goes back to avoiding buying something just because it's hot right now and focusing instead on more secure, stable, long-term investments. And since Ramit's accounts are all automated, he doesn't even have to think about where his money is going. He can sit back and let the long game work in his favor without lifting a finger. And I know it can be fun to make daily trades and try to beat the system, and I get it. It can be fun. But the reality is some of the world's largest firms spend hundreds of millions of dollars on market research. So that's who you're up against. It's not a fair fight.

1:56I get it. So the best way to increase your chances of investments panning out is to diversify your portfolio instead of putting all your eggs in one basket. Now, this doesn't mean you can't have some fun with Bitcoin and crypto and other less stable investments. You can. But Ramit and I were even talking about how we tried out angel investing for many years and neither of us have ever earned our money back from it. It was a lot of fun and we approached it as a gamble, not an investment or money we'd see in the future. And that's an important distinction to remember here. You don't want to spend money that you can't afford to lose.

2:29We've all heard the importance of owning your home or your condo or your apartment that you live in. It's a stable asset that usually increases in value over time. So it's a good idea to eventually own it. But the principle doesn't necessarily mean it has to apply to real estate. It can also apply to business investments as well. There are some people that say, you know, you shouldn't own your home right away. You should take that big chunk of money and invest it in yourself first. And once you really have another level of savings and income, then you can own your home. You want to understand where you're at when it comes to real estate, owning your home.

3:05The analogy is you want to own your home by investing in yourself. So whatever industry or career you're in, you should aim for some type of ownership. And this is your own skill set. This is a part of a company. This is building your own company on the side. And this goes back to the passive income point and making your money multiply. And if you're in a position at work to get a stake or some shares or some equity at the company at some point, then great. It could be an effective way to do this. Or if you wanted to build something on your own on the side, that's a way to do this as well. And if you own a business, this can mean investing money back into the company to help grow faster and further.

3:40Even if you aren't in one of those positions right now, we all have the opportunity to become partial owners of a company through the stock market. This is where a lot of people build their wealth. You may not be able to buy into the company you work at. You may not start your own company, but you can invest some of your money into the stock market. There are only two escalators to building long-term wealth, real estate and the stock market. So if you haven't already, start to empower yourself by getting involved in either one of those. And it doesn't have to be much. And you can start with this little money here and then build up to your portfolio and increase your investments over time.

4:18And this will allow you to accumulate wealth over the long term. That's what this is about. The best way to ensure you have a future income is to make yourself recession proof by continuing to learn new skills and building a strong personal brand. And there are a lot of ways to do this. And it doesn't mean you have to try to get a million followers on Instagram or become famous on TikTok. It could be as simple as creating a website to showcase your designs if you're a graphic designer. and networking with other designers in your local area at meetups or conferences and events. And if you're a business coach, it could mean posting videos on YouTube, showcasing your expertise.

4:55And I know a lot of you will hear that and you'll think, well, Lewis, I've done that, but I haven't gotten a lot of views or shares or comments. And I understand. I won't lie to you and say numbers don't matter at all, but they're not the most important part. Even if you don't get views or shares or likes, publishing content that's aligned with your personal brand and shows your passion about it, and it could set you up for future success. It shows you care about the work you do, and it allows others to be able to see that as well. Nobody paid attention to the content I put out for a long time, but consistently showing up for over a decade has led to me living my dreams and being on the path to accomplishing all my goals and really setting me up for financial freedom.

5:38The days of old-fashioned resumes are over. Nowadays, everything we publish online is a resume, So that YouTube channel we started as a part of your resume, our LinkedIn profile as our resume, our website, our Instagram, TikTok, all these things are part of our resume. So be productive and proactive and start building your personal brand based on it. Don't rob the world of your talents. That's what would be selfish. Be proud of the work you do and showcase the gifts you were given. Another way to ensure a future income is launching a side hustle. Using your nights and weekends to build up another source of revenue for you can help provide a financial cushion if you lose your job or if the economy goes through another recession like the pandemic.

6:21And it can also provide you with more money to put into your savings, your stocks, your bonds, real estate, or wherever you're investing right now. So how do you start making more money doing the same things you're already doing now? Well, if you have a business or a side hustle that you're currently running, I always tell people that there are a handful of ways to do this. You can increase your rates or prices right now. If you're a consultant who has 10 clients, then increasing your price can allow you to earn more while potentially working less. This gets easier as you gain more experience and recognition in the industry you work in.

6:57A strong personal brand also helps a lot with this and makes it easier to charge more when people know who you are. You can increase the number of leads or prospects your business has. So the more leads you have, the more potential for sales you'll have as well. And there are a million ways to go about getting more leads, but it all starts with marketing and advertising. Begin thinking about which social media platforms you can start running ads on to target your specific audience. What sort of content can you create and package into a webinar, an e-book, or an online course? You can improve your business's processes and workflow.

7:34And this is done through automating and optimizing the more repetitive processes first and continuing on from there. Luckily, there are so many incredible tools on the market today to help streamline virtually any process you have. It just comes down to research and investing in the right ones for your specific situation. And remember that time is money that you can never give back if you spend it poorly. You can increase the number of products you sell. So more products, of course, leads to potential more sales for your business. As long as those new products solve a real pain point for your customers, this can be a great way to increase your income.

8:13Lastly, you can improve the quality of people on your team. Now, having an experienced, dedicated team is one of the best investments you could ever make for your business. It'll buy you back your time and allow you to focus on what you're good at instead of stretching yourself too thin, trying to do everything at once and help pave the way for exponential growth. Another huge opportunity to increase your ability to earn more money is to never stop learning. Year after year, I invest in coaches to help me improve in the areas of my life that I find most important. And I take learning seriously because if I'm not always learning and improving my skill sets, then I feel like I'm regressing.

8:54And that's why you'll see me on every episode of the School of Greatness with a pen and a notebook ready to take notes as the people we have on share their advice, their strategies, and their life lessons.

9:13Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

10:03Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.