Interviews: Financial Advice for My 20-Year-Old Self

Money in My 20s: The No.1 Financial Advice for My 20-Year-Old Self

  

Mark So (@monsterpips), Co-Founder of Businessmaker Academy (Businessmaker-Academy.com)

So advices us the way to attaining wealth is by… NOT prioritizing it.
Tell me if you can relate, you work 20 hours a day running after more money, dead tired every day and you haven’t moved any closer to your goal since 2002. Do you want to know why?

Because you are prioritizing the wrong thing.

There are 4 important life aspects for everyone, these are Money, Health, Relationships, and Time. But unlike what most people think, prioritizing making money first isn’t always the best way to start your wealth journey. In fact this is probably what is holding you back right now.

The key to financial freedom is proper “sequencing” of your life aspects

So if I was talking to my 20 year old self, with the benefit of looking back at my life and seeing the mistakes I made along the way. I would say that the optimal sequence would be to prioritize relationships then health, then money, then time.

Here’s why:

Relationships – Everybody has something of value, I learned (and continue to learn) this from my wife. Prioritize keeping communication channels open and continue connecting and networking with people. Prioritize building relationships as they will be crucial in your pursuit of wealth.

Health – A fit body and mind equates to faster and better decisions when it comes to building wealth. The activities and tasks you can accomplish in a day increase exponentially if you are healthy and falls drastically when you are not in tip top shape. It is common to sacrifice your health when you start getting more involved in your career, business or investments, you start exercising less and sitting down more, your life becomes sedentary and before you know it you start moving and thinking as fast as molasses. If I had one regret, that I could fix, it would be to not sacrifice my health for the pursuit of wealth.

Money – When you do the first 2 aspects properly, money will inevitably find you as it comes from great health and relationships.

Time – Finally, True wealth gives you more time, and ultimate freedom. But it is an inevitable trade off between pursuing wealth and having to sacrifice a lot of it in the beginning.
When you start out in life, you have lots of time on your hands, when you get a little older and responsibilities pile up, you will have less and less of it. And as I said, most people sacrifice this valuable commodity (together with health) in the pursuit of more money in the beginning. But as you get wealthier, the more time you should keep for yourself and your family. If you find yourself always short on time, especially for yourself and your family then its time to prioritize this aspect now.