The Sheer Cliff of Financial Security
Imagine if you will the lifestyle you could lead if you were making $20,000 every month.
You'd become accustomed to the finer things in life, and have plenty of cash to do what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it.
Now in the rarefied world of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, $20,000 a month isn't all that much money.
So from one perspective, the amount of money you earn is really a relative thing in terms of defining wealth.
But nevertheless, most people would be quite pleased with a regular income of $20,000 per month.
Now what if after you became accustomed to that cash flow and that lifestyle, all of a sudden-in the blink of an eye-it was gone.
Your income plummets from $20,000 a month to zero before you even realize what's happening.
The reality is that this happens every day to people all around you.
They get locked into a lifestyle of relative affluence and when events beyond their control take hold, they lose everything.
An analogy that works in this scenario is a rock climber ascending a sheer cliff of granite.
Although there are individuals in the world who will make climbs to astonishing heights without the benefit of any gear whatsoever, doing so is risky beyond belief.
As soon as you ascend much above 15 or 20 feet, a sudden fall could easily be fatal.
Most prudent climbers use specialized gear that keeps them safe regardless of how high they climb.
Using a tool called a piton, they make their way up the rock face and stop every so often to nail one into cracks in the rock.
This provides an anchor point to which they attach their safety rope.
This way, as they climb the cliff, should they slip and fall they will plummet no further than their next piton.
Financial planning should be looked at in much the same way.
You need to be able to place figurative pitons in your financial picture so that should the worst occur you only fall so far.
There are many sound strategies, tools, and techniques to do this-as long as you know what they are.
If your financial education has not prepared you to establish contingencies in your pursuit of wealth and income, you might consider getting some help.
A sound financial education is one of the best hedges against economic disaster.
Particularly in times like these, it is something you should really consider.
You'd become accustomed to the finer things in life, and have plenty of cash to do what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it.
Now in the rarefied world of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, $20,000 a month isn't all that much money.
So from one perspective, the amount of money you earn is really a relative thing in terms of defining wealth.
But nevertheless, most people would be quite pleased with a regular income of $20,000 per month.
Now what if after you became accustomed to that cash flow and that lifestyle, all of a sudden-in the blink of an eye-it was gone.
Your income plummets from $20,000 a month to zero before you even realize what's happening.
The reality is that this happens every day to people all around you.
They get locked into a lifestyle of relative affluence and when events beyond their control take hold, they lose everything.
An analogy that works in this scenario is a rock climber ascending a sheer cliff of granite.
Although there are individuals in the world who will make climbs to astonishing heights without the benefit of any gear whatsoever, doing so is risky beyond belief.
As soon as you ascend much above 15 or 20 feet, a sudden fall could easily be fatal.
Most prudent climbers use specialized gear that keeps them safe regardless of how high they climb.
Using a tool called a piton, they make their way up the rock face and stop every so often to nail one into cracks in the rock.
This provides an anchor point to which they attach their safety rope.
This way, as they climb the cliff, should they slip and fall they will plummet no further than their next piton.
Financial planning should be looked at in much the same way.
You need to be able to place figurative pitons in your financial picture so that should the worst occur you only fall so far.
There are many sound strategies, tools, and techniques to do this-as long as you know what they are.
If your financial education has not prepared you to establish contingencies in your pursuit of wealth and income, you might consider getting some help.
A sound financial education is one of the best hedges against economic disaster.
Particularly in times like these, it is something you should really consider.