Health, Wealth and Wisdom #4

Recently a friend of mine who was one of the wealthiest men I knew, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Three months later, he was gone. Despite his wealth and extreme success, his health was compromised and nothing could save him. 

Without your health, you have nothing. When your health is compromised, nothing else matters. Take care of it today while you have the choice so you are not a victim of it tomorrow. 

Health: STOP Eating This Immediately 

It's no secret that Testosterone is a vital component to your overall health. Testosterone is a sex hormone that plays many important roles in the body. In men, it's thought to regulate sex drive (libido), bone mass, fat distribution, muscle mass and strength, and the production of red blood cells and sperm.

In recent years, Testosterone deficiency in men has become more and more recognized. It's hard to drive down the road in most any city now without seeing a clinic that specializes in HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). They're literally everywhere. 

However, not everyone is ready to jump right in and start sticking a needle in their butt cheek once a day. Additionally, HRT is not free. The average working male in America cannot even afford it. 

So when people ask me what they can do when it comes to Testosterone I, not being a licensed physician, simply tell them what foods they can avoid that are killing their Testosterone levels. Here's my Top 5 list of foods that are decreasing your Testosterone levels. I'm not going to go into detail on each one in this blog (I've done that already in previous blogs). But the list is self explanatory and the scientific evidence is out there. Wait, are we still following the science or is that no longer a thing? Anyway...

1. Alcohol - Specifically, beer
2. Dairy
3. Soy
4. Bread
5. Sugars

Wealth: Good Debt vs. Bad Debt

Yes, not all debt is bad. If you're like me, you more than likely grew up thinking that debt was a dirty, four letter word. It only meant something bad. There was nothing good about being in debt. Right? Wrong.

One of the things that changed my life entirely and lead me to earning my first million was accepting that not all debt was bad. In fact, the wealthiest people in the world have leveraged debt to make millions and even billions of dollars in personal wealth. However, this was incredibly hard for me to grasp. It wasn't until I learned just how they did it, did I understand the power of leverage and "good debt."

Step 1, of course, is learning the difference between good and bad debt. Step 2 is  eradicating bad debt. Step 3 is saving. Step 4 is investing. Step 5 is acquiring good debt. I've shared this 5 step program to financial inedepence with so many friends and co-workers over the years. Cops, nurses, sales people. The beauty of it is that it works for everyone. The rules and the process are the same whether you're making $40k per year or $400k per year. The rules are the same whether you have $10k in debt or $100k in debt. The process works independent of the person. That's how you know you have a solid process.

Wisdom: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK

This book will 100% change the way you look at the world. Personally, I felt I was already pretty good at not giving a f*ck about most things. However, when you read this book, you'll discover things that you've been allowing to affect your moods and your life in general that really shouldn't be.

The title of this book (written by Mark Manson) is meant to be shocking. The cover of the book is bright orange; another move to make the book stand out and be more, well, shocking. But the message of the book is what's important here.

As with all book recommendations I make, I will warn you that this book is not for everyone. Many I know have read this book and called me after to complain about it. But then I ask them a few questions about select parts of the book and they inevitably tell me, "well, yeah, that part was good. But the rest of it wasn't." And here's my response to that... 

It's 2022. We have all the information in the world at our fingertips. No, literally, you're most likely holding it in your hand as you read this; your cell phone. That said, we are currently living in a time where many people feel they "know it all" because they have a phone with Google, Instagram and TikTok. So when it comes to reading (which most people don't do), they want the same effect. They want every page of the book they read to be filled with entertaining information...like the aforementioned social media apps. But that's just not reality.

I read books and look for the golden nuggets. The handful of gems that I can take away from the book to make me a better person and help me live a better life. Some books only offer 1 or 2 gems. And that's fine. Why? Because had I not read the book, it's possible I may have never learned them. 

If your expectation when reading books is for the ENTIRE book to change your life (every single word on every single page...or even every chapter) you're doing it wrong. Your expectations are unrealistic and will most likely never be met.

Here's the reality: You don't know it all. I don't know it all. None of knows it all. Books help us learn and grow more than any other tool on the planet. Once you recognize and accept these facts, you'll approach reading books differently. No matter what, I've always been able to learn at least one thing from every book I've ever read.

P.S. The wealthiest men on the planet all have one thing in common: They are all avid readers. Some reading as much as a book a day. Think that is merely a coincidence? So if you're broke and not sure what to do, start with reading. And if you just read that and said, "but I hate reading"... well, get comfortable being broke. The only thing I hated more than reading was being broke. So I started reading. And now, I'm no longer broke. Today, I love reading. Choice is yours.