Compounding

Foundations of Health

acompoundinglife

Health = Wealth

This may be a cliché, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The a rich person who isn’t healthy would trade their wealth for health any day because they can’t enjoy their wealth if they are debilitated from being unhealthy.

Many believe as you age, your inevitably health declines, but this is not true. You have the power to maintain your health long past your youth, but the habits must start in your youth to increase your chances of success.

In your 20’s it is easy to neglect your health as your body is naturally able to maintain a high metabolism, recover from injury, and maintain muscle mass. This is not the case forever, so you must focus on establishing the habits the will provide the foundation of health throughout your life.

A foundational principle of Compounding, is to start early. The earlier you prioritize your health, the greater the benefit as you age. So the sooner you implement these four foundations and maintain consistency in applying them, the longer you will benefit from them.

The Four Foundations of Health

Eating Healthy

You are what you eat

  • This doesn’t mean eating salads for the rest of your life. It means eating in a wholistic way that is enjoyable, diverse, and consistent
  • It is often thought that eating healthy means restricting yourself, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Calories intake is important but if you are eating the right foods, counting calories can become less of a focus
  • Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats are the three macronutrients that are the basis of every meal. Eating these in the right ratios can improve your weight, health and overall well-being
  • Focus on eating as many fresh and non-processed foods as possible in every meal. By doing this you are eating more like how humans have eaten for 1,000s of years

Exercise Often

If you don’t use it, you lose it

  • Your body was designed to move and move heavy things. As society continues to accelerate towards a sedentary lifestyle, those who prioritize physical fitness via weight training and high intensity cardio will separate themselves from the pack
  • Muscles that are put under stress become stronger and stronger muscles create lasting health
  • Aiming for 3 to 4 days of exercise should be your goal. Lift and run with intensity and consistency to get maximum results that efficiently build a strong body

Drinking Water

Your body is made up of over 70% water

  • Given your body is mostly water, it’s safe to assume daily water intake is critical to your health and your body operating optimally
  • Drinking water essential for maintaining a healthy weight, energy levels and flushing toxins out of your body
  • Drinking water has a secondary benefit of keeping you feeling full, so you are less likely to overeat. If you feel hungry, try drinking a glass of water first
  • Aim for drinking at least six to eight 8 oz. of water daily

Sound Sleep

You body’s natural way to recover

  • It is obvious, yet underestimated, on the how large an impact that good sleep has on your health
  • Sleep contributes to weight management, cognitive clarity & focus, physical performance, and reduction of inflammation & improved immune response
  • Everyone knows 7 to 8 hours is ideal, but how are you ensuring you get this? Reduce exposure to screens prior to bed, maintain consistency when you go to bed and wake up even on weekends, develop a relaxing routine before bedtime, and reduce caffeine and alcohol intake as they impair your bodies ability to get good sleep

Four Foundations of Health Combined

All four of these foundations are related and impacted by each other. If one is out of balance or neglected, you won’t be operating optimally. Getting all four aligned and in-sync with one another will fuel the compound effect improving your health to a greater degree over time!

If you are struggling with one or multiple of these four foundations, take small steps that you can do consistently to get on the right track.

  • If it is eating healthy, try cooking 1 to 2 dinners that can become staples in your weekly routine
  • If it is exercising often, have a goal of working out 2 times a week for a month straight
  • If it is drinking water, have a tall glass next to you with a goal of drinking 3 to 4 glasses a day and check it off in a notebook every time you do
  • If it is sleep, try not looking at your phone right before you go to bed or listen to relaxing music, or take time to meditate

By focusing on these four building blocks and maintaining a focus on them early in life, you will set up the pinwheel that causes the benefits of each of these foundations to feed each other which will allow for your health to continue to compound over time and not decline.

A Journey to A Compounding Life

acompoundinglife

You’re probably asking yourself, what does A Compounding Life mean?

Simply put it’s harnessing the power of compound interest to your life via a relentless focus on the three pillars of Mindset, Wealth, and Health.

Some guy maybe you’ve heard of him, Albert Einstein, once said…

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it…he who doesn’t, pays it.”

And

“The most powerful force in the world is compound interest.”

 The concept of compound interest is rather simple, but it is usually thought of strictly in a financial sense. I believe the mechanism and benefits of compounding occur in other areas of life.

Applying this concept to not just to your Wealth but also to your Mindset and Health is when you harness the most power force in the world to your life and achieve your full potential 

Together these three create a perpetual growth machine and accelerating feedback loop that propels your life upward and onward.

My Journey

My journey to applying the concept of compounding in all areas of my life did not happen all at once. I’d like to say there was one “Ah Ha” moment when a light bulb turned on and everything changed.

That is not quite how it happened because life is not linear. But every great story has a beginning, some series of events that sets forth in motion the protagonist on their quest to achieve greatness.

I was a typical 20-something moving through life the way I had been told:

  • Go to college
  • Get a good job after
  • Work hard to climb the corporate ladder  
  • Move to the suburbs and buy a big house
  • Repeat for 40 years and retire with maybe 10-20 good years left max

Sound familiar? If you have been or are on a similar path, laid out for you by others, you probably have that internal feeling, that disconnect that you aren’t reaching your full potential.

That constant voice in the back of your head that says “There’s got to more than this”. By implementing the principles of A Compounding Life is how you defeat that voice. You are building a life worth living, and only you can build it.

Wealth

Wealth can mean many things, and I think real wealth, is more than just $ in a bank account. But the wealth that I focus on is financial. Money is the tool to allow you to acquire assets that provide income, cash flow, and appreciation.

I learned early at an internship during college with a Wealth Management Firm about the importance of paying yourself first by saving >10% of your income. Because I started doing this at 22, the power of compounding has begun to take hold and in 2019 alone, my Net Worth increased by 73.7%, of which my investments increased by 50.7%.

Another critical juncture in my wealth journey was getting let go of my first job. Our business unit didn’t have the growth it had expected and as a non-selling resource, I was let go.

This was devastating at first because I placed my self-worth on my job, but I learned a valuable lesson. The 9-5 job that you pour your blood, sweat and tears into, and trust me I had some tears after 5 months of 80 – 90 hour work weeks during busy season for three consecutive years, will drop you at a moment’s notice.

You are an expendable resource and once your cost exceed the value you bring, you’re out the door.

The lesson was a hard one, but valuable because it taught me that you need to build multiple income streams. I am not saying a 9-5 is a bad thing, I have one now, but what I am saying is you’re very vulnerable if this is your only source of income.

So what did I do? I sought an opportunity to transition into a growing industry that pays well, while continuing to increase my savings rate by living below my means. Also, I purchased an investment property and placed some capital into a start-up that was within my network. Now, I have a six-figure income, a savings rate above 30%, have multiple streams of income, and equity in a profitable business.

But this is just the start, I am currently working on adding to my real estate portfolio and additional streams that scale, have zero marginal cost to reproduce, and are geography independent.

Health

I was always an active kid, played hockey and lacrosse in high school, but once out of college the demands of my first job, caused me to sacrifice my health and throughout my 20’s my commitment to my health was sporadic at best.

I’d fluctuate but at my worst I got up to 215 lbs, and at 6 feet tall I was overweight, lacked energy, and strength.

 So what changed?

One day I literally told myself: “You are going to commit to getting in-shape and make it a priority”.

Then I took action and worked out. I did it again the next day, and the day after that. I consistently worked out 3-5 days a week and slowly but surely saw progress in how my clothes fit and how I looked in the mirror.

My progress compounded, working out got easier and at some point, I eagerly looked forward to it. Seeing my body transform from overweight to ripped made me realize that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

There is another component to my health journey that dramatically increased my success, cooking.

I always liked to cook and was decent at it. By being able to cook for myself I could control what I put in my body to fuel it.

You can’t out work a bad diet; this is absolute fact.

A hidden benefit of cooking your own food is it’s cost effective. About 30-50% less than what you would pay to order/eat out. All that extra money gets saved and allocated to my investment accounts!

And if that didn’t convince you how amazing cooking is, it is a desirable skill to any potential mate.

Mindset

Your thoughts dictate your actions. Everyone is in a constant war with their mind, the internal   and external negativity that tells you “you’re not good enough” or “not worthy” or “you’ll never amount to anything”.  

This war is never fully won, but you can win the battle each day. Your mindset is a CHOICE, period. Either you choose a growth mindset based on curiosity, mental toughness, positivity, and improvement.

Or you choose a fixed mindset based on indifference, avoiding challenges, negativity, and low standards.

Your mindset becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. People who think they can improve and grow, often do.

My mindset was the last piece of the puzzle, I’d love to claim it was the first, but it really came together after my fitness took off, studied influential and successful people, and took consistent action. 

Putting the three pillars of Mindset, Wealth, and Health together

Whichever comes first in your own journey, ensure to add to the others quickly. Just because you’re focused on one doesn’t mean to can’t improve in the other two areas. In fact, because they are interrelated, you will grow faster by attending to all three.

All three need to be implemented together, simultaneously, for you to realize the full benefit of compounding.

Think of your life as a tree. A tree with a single root won’t grow large and is vulnerable, but a tree with many roots will grow and is resilient.

By no means am I done or achieved anything, there is no end to A Compounding Life. But I have reached the point where I understand how all three pillars unite to feed of each other to create something great.

Life is not a zero-sum game and I believe that my success doesn’t restrict yours and vise versa.

I want as many people as possible to realize the power of creating A Compounding life. I hope you do after reading this.

A Compounding Life Mission Statement

acompoundinglife

Mission Statement:

Building a life that compounds through focusing on the three pillars of Mindset, Wealth, and Health.

By applying the concept of compound interest to your mindset, wealth, and health, you can build a perpetual improvement and growth machine that propels your life forward and upward.

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it” – Albert Einstein

So, do you want to benefit from compound interest or do you want to pay for it over your life?

That choice is yours to make each day. I have made my choice.

This site is a dedication to improving myself daily, even by just 1% each day, which will return drastic results over time.

As I progress through this journey, I will share my lessons, skills, insights, and motivation to add value to your life so that you can create A COMPOUNDING LIFE!

This is the simple formula that fuels A Compounding Life

1% better every day: 1.01^365 = 37.4

1% worse every day: 0.99^365 = 0.03

The concept is easy enough to grasp, but commitment, consistency, and execution are where most people fail and thus never reach the full potential of their life.

Why do people fall short of reaching their full potential? I believe it is due to not focusing on the three primary pillars of A Compounding Life, which are Mindset, Wealth, and Health.

Why are Mindset, Wealth, and Health the three primary pillars of A Compounding Life?

These three concepts are interconnected and create a perpetual feedback loop that builds the foundation for the principal of compounding to occur.

  • Mindset
    • The catalyst of it all as our mindset and what we feed it dictates our results

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right” – Henry Ford

  • Wealth  
    • Wealth can be defined many ways, and everyone from philosophers to businessmen have done so, but we are focused on monetary wealth – how to build and make it work for you
    • Monetary wealth buys you freedom and time, which is the most precious of all finite resources

“Money gives you the freedom to do with your time what you want to do with it” – Richard Branson

  • Health
    • Without your health you have nothing to build upon and everything else you have worked for will eventually deteriorate

“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not keep our mind strong and clear” – Buddha

With an unrelenting focus on Mindset, Wealth, and Health you are able to achieve and create a life that compounds and returns to you the most powerful force in the world!