2374: Beyond the Bank Account: 3 Assets More Valuable Than Cash

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Alrighty folks. One of the videos I watched over the weekend was Ken McElroy and his lovely wife Danielle talking about three things that are more important than money. Now let me set the stage for you so we have clarity and yes, we will go through the three things. Ken and his lovely wife Danielle were up for the holidays visiting Ken's mother. Near as I can tell, ken's mother is 95 or 96 years old, something like that, and she's living in a very nice old folks home. So basically Ken and Danielle went around and they interacted with the folks and they came away with three things that were more important than money. I want to have this conversation with Jason Hartman, run through these three things because both he and I do a lot of traveling and I think we've seen the same things, but we'll get into that in a minute. How you doing, Jason?

Hey, good. Michael, good to see you. Happy New Year to you and everybody.

Absolutely. So when I was watching this or listening to Ken's video, I was just thinking about all the interactions I'VE had with folks 70, 80, 90 years old when we do these amazing five and six star vacations. And the first thing that apparently is more important than money is it's, I think it's pretty hard to disagree with. And that is health. Right. Health is more important than money. Because again, as you say, if you don't have health, it doesn't really matter if you, if you get sick. It's the only thing that matters. But I'm curious what you think on health being something that's, that's more important.

Oh, you know, they say a, a healthy person has a million wishes, a sick person only has one wish. And that is, that is definitely true. I don't know coming from Ken, if this is all exactly accurate, but whatever. But you know, conceptually, I mean, I agree, certainly your health is incredibly important.

I would say the only thing you.

Could argue that might be more important than your health is your spirituality. And that just depends on your belief system, your belief in God, the forever after, etc, but that's very individual, very different. So we'll go with health as an earthly concern. Yes.

Yeah. And the other thing about health, again, I worked in tech for 20 years and I was in a very high stress job and I saw my peers and frankly, people above me lean into bad habits. Right? Not, not only drinking, but pharmaceuticals and cheating and, you know, all of these just other habits. And you know, it doesn't matter how you look on the scoreboard, but if you're, if you're rotten to the core and you're, you're addicted to things, your life can spiral really, really fast. And I just think more people need to pay attention. Right? You're on this rat race, chasing money. And if you're not taking care of yourself and you're doing things that could short circuit your future, it's just not worth it.

Yeah.

You know, I think that a good.

Way to look at some of that stuff is that money is a magnifier. As Earl Nightingale said many years ago, when I was 17 years old, I discovered his great work and it was life changing for me. You know, he said money is like alcohol. It makes a good man better and a bad man worse. Look, we all have our indulgences and I actually believe that a little bit of escapism is healthy. Actually, you know, some may disagree with me on, you know, just a moderate amount of escapism is kind of a reset. It's kind of like rebooting your computer, rebooting your phone. You know, it sort of Makes you fresh in a way, you know, so, so, you know, listen, I drink alcohol a little bit, maybe once a week, I'll have, you know, a couple of drinks. I used to have more when I was a kid, but it's just too hard on my body nowadays. And when I say kid, I mean a young person. Of course, health is got to be the most important earthly concern. No question about it.

And if you're an indulgent person with.

Bad habits, money will just magnify those opportunities, you know, I mean, Wall Street's the perfect example. You know, I always say that Wall street is the modern version of organized crime. And you've all probably seen the show Billions, you know, maybe you've seen lots of other movies and shows about Wall Street. Read about Wall street and all of the parties and the decadence, you know, the cocaine, the strippers, the whatever, right?

You know, that's just so unhealthy and awful.

People have to keep their indulgences under control. For sure.

Yeah. And the last thing I'll say on health that I just want everybody to hear is as somebody who went on a year long health kick last year and did some amazing things, I could tell you from firsthand experience, it's a lot easier to remain and stay healthy at 30 than try to get healthy over 50.

No question.

Don't burn your 20s and 30s because again, when you're 20, you're made of plastic, right? You roll an ankle or whatever, you're fine the next day. Just tape it up, man, you're 53 and sneeze wrong, you know, breaks. So again, realize, yeah, yes, I gotta, gotta take a week off. Oh my God, that sneeze was terrible. So again, folks realize as you get older, getting healthy will get harder, but it's still worth it, right? If, if you're like me at 52 and you're unhealthy and you're 35, body fat and you want to, you want to get better, you can. It's just going to take more work than it did when you're 20. So that's, that's the first one. Health is more important. The second one was kind of on the same lines, but, but I do think it bears a separate category and that is actually mobility. Being mobile is taken for granted when you're, I don't know, below 50, maybe even below 60. But as somebody who has gone on some amazing cruises and gone some to some amazing countries, I'm always left flabbergasted at the folks who spent tens of thousands of dollars and never leave the boat because they're in a wheelchair or a walker or whatever. So, folks, you've really got to watch your mobility. If you use it or you lose it, even if it's just walking again, one of the biggest things for my health transformation was simply walking. And folks, please watch your mobility, because once that's gone, it's nearly impossible to get back. What do you think?

Yeah, I definitely think it's true. Look, our bodies were designed to move, and we've got to move them. It's just really, really important. And to your point earlier about recovery, you know, I had a pretty bad dual shoulder injury, both shoulders, a little over a year ago when I was hosting one of my famous yacht cruises, my yacht masterminds. And I'm gonna do another one. Michael, you've got to come on this one, Croatia in June of this year. So it's going to be great. We get great people together and mastermind and just have a lot of fun. And rent.

Right.

I charter these big super yachts.

It's amazing. But anyway, I was doing water sports.

And I hurt both of my shoulders really badly, and that recovery was awful. I basically couldn't work out for about a year. I mean, it was like someone says.

Well, take a yoga class.

And I've done. I. You know, I used to do yoga religiously. Like, I. And I. I don't mean religiously.

Yeah.

But I used to do it all the time.

Yeah.

And. And it's like, first I've got to just see if I can raise my.

Arms above my head.

Can I wash my hair? That's all I want to do.

And can I sleep?

Can I not wake up in pain.

While trying to sleep? I mean, it was so bad. So what I realized from that is that had I been in better shape, you know, the old thing is dig.

Your well before you're thirsty, right?

Correct.

Had I been in better shape in advance of that injury, it probably would have been either completely prevented or just a much lighter issue than it was.

So I really have new respect for injuries and how they can just take you out of the game. It was awful. I mean, it was. It was just awful.

So mobility, not getting injured is a.

Big part of it. It's like, you know, it's like Warren Buffett says, we're. Look, we're both investors. We talk about investing. That's what we teach. But Warren Buffett says, you know, the first rule is, don't lose money.

Right.

Well, don't lose your mobility. Don't get injured. Right. That's the first thing.

So, yeah, what I did do, though.

And this may sound like a retreat, but whatever, I did decide to stop.

Or at least really reduce my interest.

In sports where injuries are likely. You know, all my life I've been a skier. I love to ski, and I'm. I'm pretty good at it, or at least I used to be. I haven't been doing lately. But skiing is just. You're just asking for an injury, right? That's a high injury potential. And I just don't want to go through this again.

It's funny you brought. It's funny you brought that up because, again, one of the things that, you know, my history says, I. I did. I did CrossFit for about four years, or maybe even four and a half years.

That's good and bad. That'll get you injured a lot of people across.

Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was in amazing shape. Strongest probably I'd ever been. But, yeah, I mean, it brings on injuries and. And I still remember that nasty kettlebell swing that slipped a disc in my back and I was out for like, six weeks. And, like.

Yeah, to your point, you know, just.

No, no more stream stuff.

Okay.

No maxing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, as somebody who did a remarkable transformation last year, you know, I. I would tell you, again, it's. It's not about going heavy, right. You know, for example, you know, I can bench 225, right? So I can get 225 up for reps, but it's. It's work. I need a spotter. You just never know when that last rep, it doesn't work. So instead of trying to max out and go higher, I would bench 185 or sometimes even 150, but I would go for 15 or 17 or 21 reps without a spotter because I could always get it up.

So, again, that's all.

That's all variable, depending on your body weight, of course. Correct, Correct. You should certainly be able to bench your body weight, right. For a man, not a woman.

Yeah. So. So here's the thing. Let's liken that to investing, right? Because, you know, that's. That's what we teach with investing, right. Are you constantly one of these people.

That'S trying to hit the home run?

And, you know, if you're trying to do that rather than just doing the daily boring work, Right? The.

The work of investing, of being patient.

I mean, a big part of investing is just patience. It's waiting, right?

It's just showing up every day, managing.

Your properties, managing your managers, doing the boring stuff. Whereas some people just try to hit these home runs, they try to time the market, they try to do all this stuff and it just like, look, there are so many studies saying this just doesn't work. Occasionally you'll hear a lucky story, right? But that would be likened to injury.

Prone sports, extreme sports, extreme powerlifting, whatever it is, right?

You're, you're going to get an injury.

You'Re going to get a big setback. For me, just show up and do the boring work. Yeah.

Yeah. Repetition, discipline, keep doing the reps, don't go for the home run, grand slam, whatever. I agree with that. Well, let's get into the third thing. This is the one that I, I honestly question because again, you got to remember the setup. This is an old folks home. And you know, again, they talked about, I think they said there's like six centurions there, which means there are six people over a hundred. And the third one that they talked about was relationships. And basically one of the currencies inside the community was how many people came and saw the residents.

Right.

Some people had, you know, you know, kids routinely come, you know, every week, every month. Others had nobody come.

Yeah.

And, you know, it did get me thinking a couple of things. First and foremost, I have a really small circle. So I'm not, I'm sure I would be on the side of. Not a lot of people come to see me, but I'm just curious. Yeah, see me first.

I don't know. Yeah.

Amen. Amen. But it did get me thinking, you know, investing in relationships more. I've always run a small circle because I just always felt I was moving at a different rate or speed than the people around me. And I didn't want anybody getting in my way or slowing me down. Right or wrong or indifferent. That's just who I was. But now I, I step back as somebody, you know, that's, you know, over the hill, right. Over 50 and I'm like, am I doing this wrong? Right.

That should not be considered over the hill by today's standards. You, you should be in great shape, over 50 and, you know, taking on the world.

I mean, I like it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah.

But.

Yeah. What do you think, what do you think about relationships being one of those things that's more important than money?

Of course, you know, no one could.

Deny the importance of relationships and to liken that to investing again, you know.

Investing largely is a game of having.

A team Having relationships, having contacts who can help you exert leverage over a deal or a problem to get it solved, right?

So relationships, no one could deny that.

That'S important, the value of masterminding, because, you know, it goes back to the who, not how idea. And that's super important. So no one could deny how important relationships are. They are. They're one of the major currencies of life.

However, I do want to point out an interesting distinction. And there was a famous author who.

Or is a famous author who wrote a book about this, and I. I just can't for the life of me remember who it was.

But it's kind of counterintuitive. And I, I want to say this.

Because very few people understand this, and you made me think of it when you said you run in a very.

Small circle and look up this concept.

I can't remember who was the, the person behind it, who came up with this theory. That seems to be very true, and.

It is the value of weak ties, okay? So a lot of people would think, well, I've got these deep friendships, deep relationships. You know, it's quality over quantity, right? You know, I'd rather have three close friends than 300 acquaintances, okay? And that actually is not necessarily true.

And that's, that's behind this whole weak ties theory.

And what they did is they studied people's lives for a long time and they found that people with more relationships that were actually weaker. Interesting, interesting idea, weaker relationships, but more of them. Those people were able to get a.

New job sooner if they were laid off.

They were able to get a new romantic relationship sooner because they just knew more people.

Interesting.

The weak ties. People had more and better romantic relationships. They were able to be introduced to new people. They were able to be introduced to new employers. They were able to be networked into, you know, doctors and specialists that could help them with health issues and overcome all sorts of things. They were invited to more events, more social events, more parties. They just had bigger networks. So I think this goes back to balance, right? There is a balance between this and. You do want to have deep relationships, of course, but you don't want to be so focused and consumed with those deep relationships that you don't cultivate some weak relationships and have, you know, a higher quantity of weak ties, because it's. It goes back to the idea of Metcalfe's Law, okay?

And by the way, the person who promulgated this theory did not talk about Metcalfe. That's. That's just me. Or at least not that I know of.

But Metcalfe is the person who invented.

The Ethernet, which is the predecessor to the Internet, okay?

And that's the idea of networking computers, okay? And the. The idea behind Metcalfe's law is that the value of a network expands exponentially by each new node you add to the network. So think about simple example of the telephone, right? If I have this telephone and you have your phone, Michael, and we can talk to each other, and that's great, but if we can only talk to.

Each other, the phone has limited value.

The fact that we can talk to the entire world has incredible value. The network grows exponentially with each node on the network. So balance the weak ties with the deep ties.

Very important, no?

I love all of that. And again, I'm often reminded that. And I think about myself when I started my wealth journey at 30 after basically wasting my 20s, right? I spent every penny I made when I was in my 20s, and it didn't figure it out until I got smacked in the stock market. But, you know, no matter when you figure this out, never forget your health, your mobility and relationships, because again, I know from firsthand experience, as someone who ignored all of that for too long, it takes more work and energy to get back later. So again, I want to shout out Ken and Danielle for making me think about these things again. It does correlate with what I've seen. And of course, happy investing.

Happy investing. And happy New Year.

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