Reading Time: 3 Minutes
Hello everyone!
Hope we’re all having a great weekend. Bit wet here in Old Sydney town, but that didn’t stop MrsFrugalSamurai and I from hosting our friends over for some fun and games last night.
Twas a fantastic night, full of laughs and happy stories – although I would have liked to have won Poker!
Today’s post is a continuation of the fortnightly series on “What I’m Viewing”, basically a short-list of articles and videos around the inter-webs to make us all just that bit more financially savvy.
“What I’m Viewing”
Want to become a Multi-Millionaire?
No, it’s not just another click-bait article – this post is written by a guy I respect and an avid reader of, Ben Hardy. Ben’s posts always make sense and this is one which I think is applicable to a lot of us.
Here he shares 15 tips on what we should implement in our daily lives, in order to reach our financial goals.
I especially like points 8, 9 and 15 – how about you?
The top 5%
This one is from Seth Godin – American author and marketing guru, and another blog I subscribe to.
His posts are short, direct and extremely thought-provoking.
Here Seth lays out the the 5% rule.
That is, in any field aim to be in the top 5% – not the next Lebron James or Serena Williams, or the next Oprah Winfrey or Steve Jobs – no they were outliers and once-in-a-generation superstars in their fields.
“…The approach is to pick the right set to be part of. Not, “top 5% of all surgeons,” but perhaps, “top 5% of thoracic surgeons in Minnesota.” Be specific. Find your niche and fill it.”
Mel Robbins: 5 Second Rule
This one is selected by MrsFrugalSamurai. She follows a motivational speaker named Mel Robbins who has created what’s known as the “5 second rule”.
“The 5 Second Rule is simple. If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it”.
Watch Mel explain it in her own unique style here.
Mega Moguls got $10.8b richer in 2018
This article from the SMH explains how the titans of the hedge fund and investment management industry made an absolute fortune in 2018 yet again.
Names like James Simons (+USD 1.6 billion), Ray Dalio (+USD 1.26 billion) and Ken Griffin (+USD 780 million) made substantial gains to their net wealth.
In recent times, much has been spoken about the positives of passive indexing and low-cost ETF’s as an investment strategy.
But it just goes to show that the truly best in the investment industry, the ones who can out-perform the index consistently, they are worth their weight in gold (and get paid as such!)
Chinese Borrowers Miss Bond Payments
And finally, this Bloomberg article holds particular relevance because I think the next steep financial downturn is going to be led by an implosion in the Chinese economy.
So any news out of that country, I follow with enormous interest.
In this article, it describes how two large Chinese borrowers missed their scheduled bond repayments earlier this month.
The significance of this is huge. By missing their repayments, it could highlight the lack of liquidity and confidence in the Chinese market currently – a market which is heavily underpinned by government and state backing.
Just have a look at the Bloomberg chart in the article: missed bond payments quadrupled in 2018!
Somehow I can’t shake the feeling of when three money-market funds of French Investment bank BNP Paribas froze their redemptions in 2007… we all know what happened afterwards.
I’m hoping this is not a similar canary in the gold mine…
~~~
That rounds out the top 5 of what I’ve been viewing this past fortnight.
I think there’s some nuggets of wisdom there, what do you guys think! Let me know below.
What do you think? Did you enjoy this post? Please help me out if you enjoyed this and put your email in and click on the little “subscribe” button at the top right. This way, you’ll never miss my words of awesomeness! So do the right thing, be a subscriber and get it straight to your inbox fresh out of the oven!
