Someone should do a study on the effects of stress on the body and the mind. Well, I am sure that it already exists somewhere, but I can tell you from my experiences that stress sucks. The only way to beat stress is to overcome it.
Over the last couple of years, I have become a massive proponent of parents helping their kids overcome stress throughout their lifetimes. Somewhere, somehow, parenting has turned into birth through the eighteen-year ordeal.
Parents will try to be the best mentors on Earth between one and eighteen to their children. They take them to soccer, help them with homework, and serve as their best friend.
Keep the Job, Quit the Mindset
Once the children go to college, then parents begin to focus on their retirement and life with an empty nest. The better the child does in school and life, the less support their parents will give them. “He is doing so amazing in life” is the common theme.
Now, this is where the stress comes in for the child. He is now 22-35 years old, and everyone expects him (or her) to have everything figured out. The amount of sheer responsibility on his shoulders is enormous, and many young people break under the weight.
Let’s take a look at the average young person and the responsibilities that they have:
- Housing. No matter if they are buying and renting, housing is super expensive. Moreover, it is rising at an astronomical rate.
- Spouse. We want our kids to have kids early, meaning for them to get married beforehand.
- Kids. Children are costly and stressful.
- Jobs. Corporations and governments no longer care about your child’s livelihood. They are a commodity to use and abuse.
- Life debt. Just living an American life can be stressful. Cars, utilities, schools, etc., all lead to a high cost of living.
- Student debt. On top of a life debt, they are carrying over debt from school. School debt prevents them from saving early on in life.
- Retirement. Now, with all this going on, they are also in charge of their retirement plan. “Save while you are young!” they say. How?
I have been there in my late 20s and early 30s. The thing is, you don’t feel the stress that is constantly weighing on you because it becomes routine. You have so many things going on that it just seems like the day-to-day grind that everyone is going through.
It Feels Good to Be In Control of Your Finances
But you do feel it when things go wrong—when the car breaks, appliances fail to work, or your child needs to come home from daycare. All of a sudden, the mountain of stress starts to grow taller.
But not everyone at this age feels this stress. Nope, a subset of people can navigate through life with a different form of stress, but it’s not life stress. Their state of stress comes from making the right choices and building a future life through investments. Yes, they are rich people.
I am not even talking about big-time millionaires and billionaires; I’m talking about people who have discovered passive income. Passive income is the key to relieving your entire cycle of life stress and moving to something I call “investment stress.”
Are Limiting Beliefs Keeping You From Greatness?
Investment stress is something that most people want to avoid because it involves knowledge and working with people. You see, to become rich, you have to add value to someone else’s life. You have to understand their issues and help solve problems at a profit—this defines an entrepreneur.
When we talk about cryptocurrencies, retirement planning, investing, real estate, and business, 95% of people want to avoid these topics. Yes, more young people than ever are investing in the stock market, but the majority are using it as some form of gambling.
Investment stress consists of having tenants, watching the stock market ebb and flow, navigating through downturns, starting a business, dealing with clients, and tracking interest rates. Those are just the tip of the iceberg; however, the average person doesn’t want to deal with these “headaches.”
As you can see, there are clearly two types of stress that exist, and you have a choice of which one to follow. You have “life stress,” which comes from the lack of money, and you have “investment stress,” which you form during the creation of money.
A funny thing happens, the more investment stress you achieve, the less life stress you feel. After a while, say 2-4 years, investment stress isn’t anxiety; it is more of a mission or goal than a daily stress event.
Minimalism: 7 Ways it Leads to Financial Freedom
Once you cross over into becoming an investor (especially an inside investor), you learn how to create money. Making money is the difference between life stress and investment stress and the reason why rich people’s lives seem so much more fluid than ordinary people’s.
Let’s look at a small example of money creation and how the two sides handle the situation. We will say that a couple needs a new computer to work on their master’s degree after hours. It needs to be a specific type, and it costs $1,500.
Mr. Life Stress doesn’t have any cash reserves. He can’t ask for a raise at work because he just changed jobs recently. He makes decent money, but daycare and private school eat into his cash flow. He decides that putting the laptop on his credit card is his only option.
Mr. Investment Stress welcomes the challenge to create $1,500. He knows that $1,500 is roughly two months of Airbnb for his converted garage. Since he has a blog, he knows that the business can buy the laptop and review it. He can then set up affiliate links to make passive income from the purchase over a couple of years. He also needs to conduct a “wash sale” on some of his capital gains in the stock market; this would be a good time to do that.
Mr. Investment Stress decides to have his blog business buy the laptop and conduct a review. It can be entirely written off on business taxes, and he can earn more passive income from affiliate sales. Not only did he not have to pay for it from his wallet, but he will also turn a profit from buying the laptop.
What Would Your Life Look Like Without a Paycheck?
Now, which of the two would you rather want to be? When you fully convert to investment stress, life stress seems to fade away magically. I call this Stress Freedom.
I define stress freedom as having multiple choices to solve a situation, giving you maximum flexibility. I will refine this definition as I build out this term. In our example, Mr. Life Stress didn’t have many options; he just had a fallback plan, which was his credit card.
As we transition our children into the real world, we leave them with a ton of life stress and no tools to solve issues. We tell them to save for emergencies; that’s the best plan. But saving is vastly different from creating money.
Mr. Investment Stress has a high yield savings account, just like Mr. Life Stress. However, Mr. Investment Stress wants to create money. It is a challenge not to use his savings account. He will find a way to turn almost any situation into a net positive gain in his life. Investment Stress is a personal challenge to create money.
If I needed $10,000 to repair a broken pipe in my home, I would use either savings, a loan, or a credit card to get the job done quickly. However, I will then find a way to create $10,000. If that means opening my rental car business, adding RV hookups to our home and renting the space, or renting storage space, there are ALWAYS ways to create money.
Millennials, Homeownership, and Kids
As parents, we are doing a HUGE disservice to our children when we don’t learn about investing in retirement planning, investments, cryptocurrencies, real estate, and business. We are leaving them with the burden of life stress.
Yes, learning to invest can be stressful upfront, but you will learn how to create money in the long run. You can download all of your investing experience into your children so they too can “create money.”
My wife and I have converted our life stress to investment stress. We now look for challenges when money situations arise. We are proactive and not reactionary. We can solve issues with cash flow and the creation of money.
Ask yourself, if you needed to create an income stream of $50/month, how would you do it? Could you go to your boss and ask for a $0.50/hour raise? Could you bake and sell cakes on the weekend or host a coffee event every month?
From -$77,000 to +$150,000 in 22 Months
I’d gather that most people couldn’t come up with a way to create a $50/month income stream without some form of earned income. And if you can’t do it, your child probably can’t do it. Most people will drive Uber or deliver pizza. That’s not the path for long-term success.
We have a roommate with an old car. I would ask him if we wanted to car share in the evenings. Since we have two vehicles and I hardly use my car at night, it wouldn’t cause any issues. I could charge him $100/month plus gas. I would have added value to his life—he gets to drive a newer model car plus save mileage on his car—and created a nice income stream for myself.
Being able to create money is a learned trait. You have to read and study pure entrepreneurs to think this way. I have read 55 books in less than a year, and I continue to read every day to keep fresh ideas flowing into my head.
I am very passionate about teaching our kids to create pure money. It is like wearing a set of money sunglasses. Most people cannot see what you see; they only know jobs, resumes, and vacation time. Those aren’t the terms to leading a fulfilling life and achieving stress freedom.
In part two, “Achieve Stress Freedom,” I will present a step-by-step guide to adjusting your mind to envision a world of money. I already wrote a book on becoming wealthy called “4 Steps to Becoming Rich (book)” but this is about seeing what others don’t see. Then, being able to show your kids the same thing. Sort of like the Matrix, but better. Enjoy and Happy Investing.
- Free PDF Downloads: Download FREE PDF books here
- Financial Mindset: Become CEO of Yourself (book)
- Retirement Planning: Retirement Planning at Any Age (book)
- Investing: How We Plan to Retire on Dividends (book)
- Cryptocurrencies: My First Book on Cryptocurrencies (book)
- Real Estate: Financial Independence through Real Estate (book)
- Business: Retire Rich, Retire Comfortable with a Business (book)
- Everything plus way more: The Biggest Book on Passive Income Ever! (book)
- I bought a Kindle Oasis: Check it out Amazon
- Read My Books for Free: Free Kindle Books Schedule
- Sign up to Access our “Hidden” Free Kindle Book Schedule
- Follow us on our Facebook Page (here). Join our Facebook group (here)
- Book Reviews: 54 Takeaways from 54 Books (book)
- Want to Build Passive Income from Books and Affiliate Marketing? (Learn here)
Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Leave a Reply