read time: 5 minutes

🧠Goat Quote

🪙Two Cents

This month, let’s go back to a fundamental concept in personal finance: assets and liabilities. Simply put, an asset is anything that puts money in your pocket. Examples of assets are:

1. Rental Properties

2. Stocks (includes ESPP, 401K, IRA, Brokerage Accounts, etc.)

3. Business

4. Hard Cash (includes: Checking and Savings accounts)

5. Jewelry, Art, Precious Metals - expertise required

Meanwhile, liabilities are anything that takes money out of your pocket. Examples of liabilities are:

1. Credit Card Loans

2. Car Loans

3. Student Loans

4. Primary Home Loan*

   → The reason I include a primary home loan in this category is because most people’s primary home is NOT making them money. It’s a liability as money continues to leave your pocket each month. However, if you were to rent out parts of your home and earn rental income it would be included as an asset.

It was important for me to share these definitions along with some examples because most Americans chase after the shiniest car and the biggest house trying to outdo their peers, coworkers, and family. What these people don’t realize is they are continuously adding debt to their financial lives, especially as they upgrade to a bigger house and a cool sports car. What if you spent a few years collecting assets instead?

❗Lessons Learned

The art of non-finishing

One of the biggest things I’m learning this year is how to not finish everything I start. When we train our body to perform at the highest standard - we push hard. We become disciplined, rigorous, and sometimes even a little too strict. I’ve personally put so much pressure on myself on certain goals that it takes my attention away from the core of the activity. For example, this year, I set a goal to read 20 books by the end of this year but instead of feeling excited to learn more, I started feeling overwhelmed by my goal and the internal pressure of finishing each book fast. What I’m realizing over time is that starting something doesn’t automatically justify finishing it.

For example, if I now read a book that sucks, I simply put it down - even if I’ve read 4 chapters already. As easy as it may sound, it’s actually been a difficult process to learn.

This is now freeing up my time, energy, and attention to focus on important things rather than forcing myself to finish something. Remember, this could translate to various things in your life → a game, book, article, movie, meeting, and/or hanging out with a friend.

Time without attention is meaningless so try to focus on tasks that are truly fruitful to you.

📝Featured Blog Article

Burnout is real, but how can we avoid it?

Especially when we have a big task in front of us, it’s easy to procrastinate until the deadline approaches and then grind last minute. All around us, we’re told to power through and yet, after grinding through and overextending ourselves, we find that we’re experiencing symptoms of burnout.

It’s a vicious cycle I recently went through while training for a marathon and writing my eBook — feeling a surge of excitement at the beginning and inevitably feeling burned out as I rushed to reach the targets I had set out for myself to achieve.

Instead of trying to do everything all at once, what if we created a more balanced approach to achieving our goals?

⭐Rad Recs

This month, instead of sharing a book recommendation, I’m excited to share that I’m now accepting mentorship calls — book a call with me here! Wherever you feel stuck in life (career, goals, finances), I’m here to help you out.

👀Ask Me Anything!

Also launching a brand new section in this newsletter for you to ask me anything! Simply fill out the form below and I’ll answer it in my next newsletter!

Drop a question here to get an answer in a future newsletter: Link

Was it useful? Help us improve!

With your feedback, we can improve the letter. Click on a link to vote:

• 👍 That helped me. Thanks

• 😐 Meh - was ok.

• 👎 Not interesting to me.

P.S: I work hard to keep all the content on my website and my newsletters free so that it's accessible for everyone, but if you want to help support my writing endeavors, you can buy me a coffee.

Thank you for reading on! If you know any friends, family, or colleagues who would benefit from these insights, please feel free to share this newsletter with them! If this email was forwarded to you, consider subscribing to receive them in the future!