How to Understand the Stock Market and Write Your Eulogy

Welcome to the Growth Guide, a weekly newsletter where I share actionable ideas to help you Live Better, Achieve More and Be Financially Free.

Live Better

The Stock Market is the simplest path to grow your wealth.

Stocks can be scary for beginners because they don’t teach this in school.

Why Does the Stock Market Go Up breaks down basic investing concepts so anyone can understand and take action, including:

  • What is a stock

  • What is a stock market

  • What’s a public company

  • Why do stocks have value

  • Do you need a financial advisor

  • How to avoid investing mistakes

  • What is a stock’s value based on

  • Why do stock prices go up and down

Click below to listen to the episode:

Achieve More

On the Podcast, my guest, Vanessa Loder, said something that’s stuck with me for months now.

She talked about Building Your Resume versus Building Your Eulogy.

While I’ve been thinking about it, I read this Kevin Kelly quote:

Before you’re old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen.

Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements.

The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

Kevin’s going to join me Friday to talk about his book, Excellent Advice for Living and I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Let’s take a step back, though.

Let’s focus on what Vanessa and Kevin are getting at.

Even that idea.

To pause.

To take a step back.

It’s so foreign to too many of us.

We’re always moving forward. Focused on the default path:

  • Job

  • Title

  • Salary

  • Career

  • Net worth

  • A new sports car

  • A bigger and better house

We’re so focused on the resume build we don’t notice life is passing us by.

We don’t see what we’re missing right before us.

Whether it’s our partner falling out of love with us, day by day or our children losing the sparkle in their eye when they see us because we’ve been too absent and aren’t their superhero anymore.

It could even be the 20 lbs we put on one pound per year for 20 years, barely noticing it add up until it’s too late.

I’ve done all of these.

Believe me, I used to be That Guy:

I was:

  • Depressed

  • Purposeless

  • A bad father

  • A poor husband

  • An out-of-shape couch potato

But, I was getting promoted.

I was making more and more money.

My net worth was reaching levels I’d never imagined.

My wife and I were going to build our dream house in the city.

Everything was going right until everything was going horribly wrong.

In the course of two years, two things happened:

  1. My son stopped saying I Love You and looking me in the eye

  2. I burned out so badly I needed to seek medical help

The burnout and medical help hurt.

But, nothing’s ever hurt more than the look in my son’s eyes when I asked him if the reason he wouldn’t say I Love You or look at me was because I worked too much.

He looked at me with tears before looking away and nodding his head up and down slowly a few times.

I was building a DREAM Resume and it didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered to me, my family, was falling apart.

It was time to make a change.

This is where building your Eulogy comes in.

When you’re building your Eulogy, you’re focused differently:

  • Legacy

  • Purpose

  • Experiences

  • Relationship

  • Personal growth

  • Values and beliefs

  • Building memories

  • Contributions and impact

It becomes less about what you have and more about how you live. 

Since that moment, I haven’t been perfect in a complete change of who I am and how I behave.

We’re all a work in progress.

But, my priorities are not the same.

My priority stack is completely different and is focused on these four priorities:

  1. Mental health

  2. Physical health

  3. My wife and boys

  4. Extended family and friends

I’m on a path to step away from the career grind.

A path to be a solopreneur from home, present with my wife and kids.

Nothing will ever take priority over my health, family and relationships again.

After all, the days may go by slow, but the years, they go by faster and faster, my friends.

Be Financially Free

Over the long term, stocks go up and to the right for these seven reasons:

  • Inflation

  • Innovation

  • Productivity

  • Acquisitions

  • Stock buybacks

  • Population growth

  • International expansion

With these forces in place, stocks should keep going up.

A Thought

It’s so easy to lose track again.

We forget the struggle until we’re in a new struggle that looks like the old one.

A Question

When you die, if you could attend your funeral:

  • Who would you want to be there

  • How would you want them to feel

  • what would you want them to say about you

Etc.

For the Thought and Question, drop me a note - I want to hear from you.

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