The Key To Setting Your Course is to Know Where You Are At

The Key To Setting Your Course is to Know Where You Are At: (Audio)

Okay. It’s a long title to a fairly short piece.

While kicking off my new blog location and direction I have been reading some posts through the history of my 7+ years of blogging. There have been some good articles if I do say so myself…and there have been some stinkers. But that’s been part of my learning curve – with something to say, you have to learn how to present it, and take the blows of criticism, and there has been some, no doubt about it.

Still, there is a curiously silent throng of those who “like” what I say but may say so in person, or on a different platform from my blog, or send me a quick text or email to throw a few “Atta boy’s” my way.

All in all, it’s been a good learning curve with over 1,700 blog posts shared. That’s a pretty good library of thoughts. Some duplicated. Others are related to each other. But they collectively tell the story of who I am, what I think and hopefully point me into a future.

Still. Before I can write about where I’m headed, I need to know where I’m at and that includes some deep present tense analysis.

For this process, I will share something analogous to preparing for retirement.

Here’s a thought:

You have to know where you are financially and how far you have to go before that officious event, and then make a plan of direction, quantity, quality, and risk… all the while keeping your nose to the grindstone every single day.

When you are young in the game, you think you have all the time in the world. You do. It’s that time that works to your advantage, especially if you start socking it away earlier rather than later. Getting started early gives you time to learn math and the mechanics of savings, investments and compounding what you have into something that will last as long as it is needed.

You’ve heard that old math problem of saving a penny and doubling the collected amount every day. If you started with a penny at the beginning of the month and doubled the total daily, you would have over 10 billion pennies by the end of a month. That’s 10 million dollars.

When I was young, a penny could buy a handful of “penny candy”. For a quarter you could buy a lot of options for enjoying the journey. Today. That penny has no real value. It takes more than 100 of them to buy the smallest piece of candy and that’s probably worth only a bite or two. 

Part of the advantage of time is that you get to see how your investments are growing and understand what it takes to move things along faster. In other words “Time = Opportunity” and that proverbial penny can have some time to not earn anything due to the economy and then flow rapidly to larger growth at the appropriate times.

Again, it’s math. Lost opportunity often makes me think of math on the wrong side of “zero”… Negative math. Still the same numbers and counting logic, but the more you do nothing, the further you are from the opportunity to be on the positive side of “zero”.

Having more time with your investments means you have abundantly more opportunity for changing directions and the means of making your investments work smarter.

I enjoy following real estate market values and comparing similar properties around the nation. On LinkedIn, a realtor promoted a house in Flint, MI for about 15k… A similar house in the Seattle market could easily go for 250k or more, depending on the proximity to downtown, or in a more sought-after neighborhood in may go for even an astronomically higher amount.

Think keywords when considering your retirement and the needs of that far off place and time. Location. Location. Location. Timing. Opportunity. Foresight. Needs. Return. Better Plan!!

Here’s your present tense analysis assignment. Where are you today? Do you know where you think you want to be in 40 years? What are you doing to grow your personal value every day? Your job skills? Investments? Relationships? Knowledge? How much are you keeping aware of the changes around you so that a slump in the market or skill set finds you ill prepared for the next day?

When I started working with computers, and truly, that day goes back to my mid-teen years where paper data strips were used to key in stories at a newspaper, then keypunch cards for data storage, and now so much of my world is in the cloud. All that in less than 45 years of earning a living. If I had invested heavily in old technology as it was being eased off the scene, then I would continually be in a losing process, and investing heavily in the negative and losing arena.

So. Bring this back to direction. I know where I am, and perhaps where I want to go is more clear. It’s now time to start planning and preparing to take bold steps into my future.

How about you? Ready?