Last week I had a post re: LinkedIn and how to drive traffic. I’m gonna change gears drastically here and talk retirement. As in retiring rich! 

Ever wondered how Michael Jackson, Nicholas Cage, Mike Tyson, Billy Joel, 50 Cent, Meatloaf, Willie Nelson, Curt Schilling, and so many others manage to go broke?

Read on and I’ll explain a topic I’m insanely passionate about and exactly how and why rich people die broke.

Unnecessarily.

Hockey

Next week I’m leaving for Italy to play inline hockey (ice hockey on rollerblades) for Team Canada at the old man world championships.

If it goes like the other years, I’ll likely get run over by some large angry men from Czech Republic / Slovakia / USA / Germany, etc…. … and hopefully score a goal or two against Italy / England / Australia / New Zealand / France, etc… 

Last year the Czechs won and we lost to the Americans in the bronze medal game (I still have nightmares about missing a breakaway to tie it up late in the game)… this year we have a great team and a real shot at a Gold Medal. 

The boys are great and, regardless of the outcome, we’ll have so much fun it should be illegal.

Wish me luck!!

Money 

Anyhoo… Travel is something that’s pretty common to dream about in retirement. The scary thing is running out of money prior to running out of time like so many others. Tough balance for the old folk.

In fact, if you give me a room of 100 people over the age of 40… collectively their top fear is becoming a paraplegic and the second greatest fear in the room is “running out of money in retirement.”

Money is easy to make… Hard to keep.

My Dad has a saying “Everyone needs your money more than you do.”

So true.

My expertise is building profitable business coaching practices with recurring revenues and not really in helping you dodge a wheelchair… but if you’re going to make a bunch of money you might as well ride out your blue hair days with cash in the bank. 

One of the huge advantages of being a business coach/consultant is that you never really need to retire, stop or even slow down. 

Unlike a realtor unsteady on the stairs… they’re probably not going to sell a lot of houses.

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is the highest paid business consultant in the world he invests time and money with businesses he can influence positively.

He gets paid a little differently… but make no mistake, he’s a business consultant like you and I and he has no plans to slow down.  Warren Buffett is having too much fun.

Better news… at 50 he was a rich guy but a nobody in the general population. Today at 88 years of age, due to his ability to build businesses, he’s like a rock star signing autographs and paid millions to speak for 30 minutes on stage.

What other industry (other than owning a professional sporting franchise) other than the business building can you go from nobody to rock star signing autographs between 50 and 88?

Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary did it. Richard Branson, Barbara Corcoran, Ray Kroc, and so many others. Follow my lead and you can be signing autographs one day too!

Here’s the deal… Over 50% of the people in North America have no idea how much money they need to retire.

If you were to try and lose 50 pounds… you’d be wise to step on a scale.

I make people a lot of money…. Always blows my mind how often they literally just give it away (lend it to friend’s cough cough. You lose the friend and the money).

There are several common mistakes people make when thinking of setting up their retirement. The biggest is not starting.

Remarkable how stuff like this is almost always psychological.

At a minimum start with a small amount and consistently invest.

Warren Buffett was asked the secrets to his wealth and he said:

1. Being born in America

2. Good genes so he lived long enough

3. Compound interest. “People have no idea the power that it really has.”No advice on this topic is guaranteed. Professional investors follow different paths to accumulate their fortunes.

Old money

And to lose them. I will tell you my personal philosophy is:

“OLD MONEY = NEVER SELL”

I’ve never sold a piece of real estate I own. Never will. It’s income (rent money) for the rest of my life.

Plz, digest that… I will retire with income not just a sizable chunk of change (tax-free capital gains) and hoping it lasts as long as I do.

Point me to a family that has “old money” as I’ll point you to great-grandparents that never sold a valuable asset.

Here are some steps to accomplish financial freedom and to enjoy your blue-haired days.

Step 1. Understand the secret sauce of asset allocation. 

This one is critical. This is how (why) Mike Tyson, 50 Cent, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel (Johnny Depp??) and countless others all went bankrupt after making obscene amounts of money.

They neglected asset allocation. You’ve probably heard of “diversification”… asset allocation is 100 times as important so please listen up and take some notes.

Think of it this way… you need to create “3 boxes” for yourself and your family.  

The first box is where you place 33.3% of your money… safe and secure with low returns. Examples are your home which is an asset but should not be looked at as an investment. Life insurance policy, cash, and cash equivalents are other examples. 

The second box is the risk/growth bucket which is fast and potentially volatile where you can experience significant wins but also lose the 33.3%. Examples would include Equities/Stocks, real estate investments, commodities, business, etc… 

The third box is your “dream box” which is where you have a lot of fun and enjoy a better quality of life with a third of your hard-earned money. Examples would include season tickets to a sporting franchise, crazy holidays with your family, the theatre, fly first class, hand over a house to your parents, etc… 

Saving is just one step of financial freedom.

Step 2. Become an investor rather than a consumer.

You can own a new iPhone or you can buy $1000 of Apple stock.

Which do you wish you did ten years ago?

Step 3. Educate yourself in the area of investing. 

If you want to be able to play hockey at the highest level… you better know the rules. Investing is no different.

The fees you pay without realizing would blow your mind.

Your money compounds but so too do the uneducated persons fees.

1% or 3% sound pretty similar and most ppl would not bat an eyelash at 3% fees.

Well, if you had a $100K  investment and getting a 7% return annually, paying 1% in fees, you’d end up with approximately $574,000 in 30 years. Not bad.

On the exact same investment of 100K over the exact period of time and you were paying 3% fees you’d only have about $324,000.

Not knowing the rules of the game will hurt you. Good news? Once you know the rules a little better you can start to take advantage of the system instead of it taking advantage of you. 

Step 4. Don’t psyche yourself out before starting. 

Most create a monstrous number they require to retire and it, therefore, stops them from even starting. I guarantee you’ll be surprised how much less you need than what you assume to live a great life in retirement.

Bottom line, get started. Stop buying $1000 iPhones and start investing that hard-earned after-tax money.

Step 5. Create a lifetime income plan. 

Most people pay off a home (the majority of)… sell it and then plan to retire off the money. Question: What if you live to be 120 (which I plan to do!!)?

Running out of money and then having to get a job at Home Depot at 85 sounds a little rough.

You don’t want to just retire with assets…. you want to retire with income.

As per the above example, it’s worth repeating, owning an investment property (old money = never sell) and then renting it out.

The house will appreciate (tax-free money you can draw rather than sell) but the $3,500 per month rental income is income for the rest of your life. Assets won’t buy your groceries. They won’t let you travel.

If you want to retire rich, focus on income.

Step 6. Invest like the 1%. 

This means to learn from the very best available. The book ‘Money Master the Game’ by Tony Robbins is an absolute must-read for every family in western society.

My personal roadmap entails reading each day to learn one small thing on Wealth, Marketing or Business.

Over the course of 12 months, you’ll be amazed how much you can pick up and how your roadmap will successfully evolve.

Bottom line… a successful business coach (one that helps his clients make money) will never have to worry about running out of money in retirement.

It gets easier as you go and you get paid significantly more over time… for less work!

Follow the above 6 steps… and have passive income for the rest of your life.  I’ll see you at the ripe ‘old age of 120…

I plan to still be standing. Likely in diapers and terribly grumpy… but I’ll be standing :o) 

Obsessed with your business coaching success,

Karl Bryan

PS. Always remember:

“You don’t have a client problem.

And you don’t have a money problem.

You have a refusal to help people before they pay you problem.

That’s the problem.”

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