Guest post by Phil Denniston from InflationEducation.net:
Eight ways to live your best life and never look back.
Sure, there are signs of trouble on the horizon. The risks of WWIII, widespread famine, hyperinflation, power failures, totalitarianism, and nuclear annihilation are higher than ever (thank you, government) but we can’t save the world, so aside from basic prep, don’t worry about any of it.
It’s 2023, time to break something over your knee, to hell the dimwits, crooks, and lapdogs in government mucking everything up like always. To hell with Klaus Schwab and the WEF.
For now, we’ll focus on what we can control – career, business, family, health, investments, relationships, and homestead – and let the cockroaches play their game of thrones.
Here are my best ideas for 2023, along with what I’ve been doing for each.
- Write down what you want, tape it to the mirror, tell others, then go get it.
Challenge yourself! For me, it’s (a) sell 10,000 better bedtime stories (so wildly optimistic it has my brain churning in overdrive, invigorated with the challenge), (b) get back to 175 pounds (I’m 193 now, so reasonable, but significant, closest I’ve been since college was 180), and (c) get to $20M in sales (from $17M) in the other business I run (my W2 day job, unrelated to this, and not my company).
I will report progress on these milestones at yearend. Embarrassing as that could be, by putting it out there, it will help hold me accountable to give it my best shot.
- Be a kick-ass Dad or Mom.
I have a confession: I don’t want my kids to grow up. I wish I could freeze us in time forever. But I can’t, so I better stop complaining and make the most of it. This week, we’re on the slopes. It’s sad how expensive this sport has become, but you don’t need to spend money to be a kick-ass dad or mom. The kids have as much fun on a hike, camping, or building birdhouses in the garage.
When in doubt, just work on more projects together. To all the coach’s and homeschoolers, I admire you most. I wish I had the time (and guts)!
- Seize the day.
Whatever that means for you. What have you always wanted to do, but pushed into an uncertain future? Something a little crazy perhaps (but not something you can’t afford)? It’s likely more about ‘doing’ something than ‘buying’ something, despite my example below.
I finally said screw it and bought an old muscle car, a ’66 Corvette-
It was delivered (from County Corvette) last month. I put in the minimum bid at auction, not expecting to ‘win’. With the cost of capital up and markets queasy, no one else showed up.
I may have been early (with better deals likely on the horizon), but I am enjoying every minute. Why wait until we are old and gray?
- If you haven’t already, open brokerage accounts for you and your kids.
With market volatility as interest rates rise, it’s a good time to dollar-cost-average into great businesses (recurring monthly deposits automatically invested into Dividend Aristocrats, for example).
Here’s a simple, foolproof, 10-step plan in our free Ultimate Parent’s Guide to Money, Saving, & Investing. Due to the power of compounding, putting this off is a huge mistake!
For sophisticated traders with capital, I am also selling put options on my favorite blue chip and energy stocks as they move down. If ‘put’ the stock (made to buy it at valuations I like and was paid to agree to), I sell covered calls at higher prices as it rebounds toward resistance. It’s a great income-producing strategy to build cash and accumulate good businesses at great prices.
- Get out of your comfort zone (where all the growth happens).
If you’re an introvert (like me), this might be as simple as starting random conversations with people at the gym or grocery store. Try to make them laugh with funny observations, or just compliment them on something about their style, clothes, shopping cart, or persona.
Maybe it’s something bigger, like open mic night, or coaching little league? Go for it!
For me, my friends want to charter a 50-foot catamaran in the British Virgin Islands in February, and rather than hire a skipper, I said f— it, I’ll be the Captain. I’d rather tackle the challenge and have the experience to do it again (perhaps with the kids’ next time?) then anything else. I have sailed (much smaller boats, years ago on both coasts), but this going to take much research and responsibility.
Sign me up, it’s 2023. Time to snap into a Slim Jim!
- Stock a deep pantry, my friends.
Store plenty of water and nonperishable foods, plus sock away some gold, silver, and Bitcoin (self-custody all of it). The warning signs are there, but even if we escape crisis, your great grandparents would be proud. It’s common sense, and you’ll sleep better when you do. Stocking and rotating nonperishables from Costco works fine.
To all the homesteaders who can grow your own food and source your own water, even better. We admire and envy you!
- If you haven’t yet, get our children’s books already.
We know what we’re talking about (studying finance and monetary history is an obsession, and therefore a superpower). Kids love ’em, and so do parents (mostly homeschool or free-thinking, resilient types). No one else — certainly not the school system — is going to teach your kids anything about money, debt, the principles of liberty, Austrian Economics or Natural Law.
If you try the Alliance Bundle and don’t like it, we’ll refund 100% of your money, and you can keep one anyway. If you can’t afford them, let us know which book you’d like, and what our writing means to you, and we’ll send it free of charge. It’s that important these stories find your family.
- Finally, smile and enjoy the ride!
We get one ‘go’ on this little blue ball hurdling around the sun, just one of 100 billion stars in the galaxy, of 200 billion galaxies in the universe. How lucky we are for the opportunity?
Citing Tessa Lena from her wonderful Substack, Tessa Fights Robots–
I wish you wonderful discoveries and immense joy in 2023. Not just a little bit of joy, a lot of it. The real, unfrightened kind. We all deserve joy, healing, and more joy. And being surrounded by people who see the best in us, and have our back, and make us feel happy to be alive regardless of what kind of tyrant thievery circus is unfolding outside. I want us to be so alive, so completely unimpressed by the dystopian clowns and their march for world domination, that fear itself becomes afraid of us, and love comes running to us from everywhere, healing every nook and cranny and every wound and every time when we were wronged, ignored, lied to, or abused. I call for joy and spiritual clarity so total and complete that the light from every direction comes and clears away all the crap, exposes all the thieves, without any harm to us, and restores the beautiful balance in our lives.
Amen, Tessa! To recap, here’s what to do next-
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- Write down what you want, and go get it
- Be a kick-ass Dad or Mom
- Seize the day
- Open brokerage accounts for you and your kids
- Get out of your comfort zone
- Stock a deep pantry
- Get our children’s books
- Smile and enjoy the ride
To hell with the busybodies and bureaucrats who have never produced anything as they cook up boogiemen, vaporize capital through inflation and taxation, and destroy free markets to implement control. May they get what they deserve. For the rest of us, let freedom ring. Cheers to 2023!
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Want to raise empowered kids who know how the money system works, and how to use it? Kids who understand sound vs. fiat, debt, the business cycle, gold, Bitcoin, markets, and groupthink?
Our line of Better Bedtime Stories can help. Try the Alliance Bundle and receive 40% off today and forever. You’ll love them, or we’ll refund 100% of your money, and you can keep one anyway.
Want more like this? Try that blah you’re feeling, it’s called languishing.
Guest post by Phil Denniston from InflationEducation.net.
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