Length: 2,800 words
Note: I sincerely endeavored to distill tons of financial research here. I love you.
Hey Friends,
Let’s talk about financial wealth-building.
Now, I know this is an activating topic that can easily make people close off and shut down.
So, I invite you to pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and set an intention to approach this with an open mind.
I honestly believe the information in this article could be positively life-altering for many people.
Peace and Love.
Let’s get started:
The Impact of Money
As we all know, money is an unavoidably important area of life for ~99% of people in modern times.
Getting your financial house in order can mean the difference between…
A life spent with crushing debts, anxiety, and being in scarcity/survival mode VS…
A life spent feeling abundant, grateful for the tool of money, and financially free.
Some may say, “True abundance is not about money. It’s possible to feel and experience abundance in any situation in life.”
On one level, that’s true. And yet…
It’s not the full picture.
Getting Radically Honest About Money
The fact is that we’re human, we have basic survival needs, and money hooks in *very* deeply to this basic-survival programming. Our culture conditions us to feel and experience money as a stand-in for fundamental safety and security.
As such, in my experience and observation, it is vastly more difficult for human beings to feel truly expansive, abundant, and free when they are burdened by significant debt and living paycheck to paycheck.
The last few years, I studied money and wealth-building intensively, and I also went through some major rollercoaster-initiations around money…
I believe these initiations were a ‘karmic reset’ that helped me to:
Clear out old money karma.
Viscerally understand the money struggles that many people on Earth are dealing with.
In early 2021, I was flying high with zero debt and about ~$50k in savings/investments.
In 2022, due to a strange confluence of factors, I went through something of a ‘financial implosion.’
By late 2022, I had wracked up nearly $30k in (mostly credit card) debt, and only had about ~$12k left in savings/investments, meaning I was about ~$18k ‘in the red.’
This situation was massively triggering for me. It brought up tons of deep wounding and conditioning to be released, and it taught me a tremendous amount about the money struggles people on Earth are facing.
But thankfully…
I turned it all around.
Now, in early 2024, I once again find myself with zero debt and a growing nest egg of ~$24,000 in savings/investments, with a clear plan to build generational wealth. I know ‘what went wrong’ previously and how to avoid those mistakes in the future. I now feel grounded, clear, abundant, and optimistic.
That means that in the past ~15 months, I increased my net worth by about $42,000, going from $18k ‘in the red’ to $24k ‘in the green.’
How did I do this?!
Well, first and foremost I have to give the credit to God, from whom all love, power, prosperity, and good things flow.
On top of that, though, there are *foundational principles* of money and wealth-building that I utilized to ‘turn the ship around’ for my family—and create a solid foundation and plan for long-term growth.
(In Council of Kings, we’re diving deep into these principles. It’s still possible to join us. Simply reply to this email and I’ll tell you how.)
I want to give you the core blueprint here:
The Simplified 4-Step Path to Wealth
Let’s dive in:
1) Aggressively pay off all debt.
Go ‘nuclear mode.’ Start viewing debt as a scourge to be scrubbed away as soon as possible and never allowed in again.
Don’t judge yourself for your debt—just get militarily serious about paying it off as soon as possible.
Do whatever you need to do to make this happen while staying in integrity.
Consolidate loans.
Move in with parents or family if need be, or find super-cheap-rent-with-roommates or house-sitting situations.
Live on home-cooked meals.
Be frugal.
Buy only what is essential.
Put every spare dime toward the debt.
(Note: Don’t be so frugal that you destroy your own joy and health by penny-pinching. Do find the right balance for you, but realize most people could be vastly more frugal. Read about Diogenes for inspiration.)
Frugality played a huge role in my family’s shift in financial fortune these past 15 months.
I know many people say ‘good debt’ or ‘smart debt’ exists, but I’m highly skeptical of this claim. For most people, I don’t think it’s true—except perhaps for a fixed-interest-rate home mortgage at ~1-3%.
The psycho-spiritual-energetic cost of debt must be considered. For me it feels hugely draining and heavy to carry debt. Get honest with yourself and find out what feels right to you.
Recommendation: Read Baby Steps Millionaires by Dave Ramsey to supercharge your debt-repayment and wealth-building journey. Also listen to his podcast.
2) Continually look for aligned ways to increase your income or create new (passive) income streams.
This is crucial.
Continually ask yourself how you can increase income.
There are infinite ways to create/increase aligned income.
The foundation is service.
Look for ways to enthusiastically serve more. Be grateful to serve.
View it as God working through you.
The more enthusiastically you serve, the more this will create opportunities for you.
Apply for better jobs or side-hustle jobs.
Polish your resume.
Learn new skills.
Learn business/entrepreneurship.
(Alex Hormozi’s books [this one and this one] are an excellent place to start learning business. His podcast + the ‘15-Minute Client’ podcast by Luke Charlton are also great.)
Add huge value to people’s lives and learn to ask a fair price for it.
Look for ways to create passive income by creating something once that can be sold forever and earn ongoing income.
3) Spend substantially less than you earn. Pay yourself first and save.
Many people don’t save anything.
If people do try to save, they usually pay all their expenses first, then at the end of the month, check if they have anything left over to save (and there usually isn’t).
This is backwards.
Pay yourself first: Create an (automated) habit of transferring ~10-20+% of all income to a separate savings/investing account as soon as you get paid.
10-20+% on top of whatever you’ll need for taxes, rent, food, and all other expenses.
If this seems impossible, start smaller, with 1-5%. Get creative.
There are always many ways to cut costs and save.
Again: Go ‘nuclear mode’ if need be.
Make a budget: Create a spreadsheet and find out exactly how much you earned and spent in the past 3 months. Find ways to cut costs. Then make a budget for the coming months with new allocations of how much you can spend on each category of life. Stick to it.
Our culture has trained us to believe that it’s normal and okay to spend money we don’t have, yet this is almost always a bad idea.
The Bible warns against debt for a reason—there’s age-old wisdom there.
I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to take on debt; I can see how a fixed-low-interest home mortgage may be a good idea for some people in some contexts some of the time. For the most part, though, debt is the ‘financial devil.’
Build the muscle of saving at all costs, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and experience the immense relief of doing so.
4) Habitually/systematically invest in a wise & researched fashion.
Once you’ve paid off all debt and started saving, your first priority is to save up a 6-month ‘buffer fund’ or ‘emergency fund’ — 6 months of liquid cash savings, stored in a high-yield savings account that pays ~4-5% interest (I use wise.com), which is only to be touched during ‘emergencies’ or unforeseen events with unforeseen expenses.
Dave Ramsey also recommends saving up a ‘1-month emergency fund’ before you pay off your debts, so that you have some kind of protection against unforeseen events. I think this is a good idea.
As you are saving up your 6-month ‘buffer fund’—or even while you’re still paying off debt—you may want to already open a vanguard.com account and toss ~$500 in it, just so you can already begin to build the ‘investing muscle’ and start seeing yourself as an investor and wealth-builder.
Investing is a large topic, but the simple rule of thumb for most people is to use tax-advantaged accounts such as a Roth IRA or 401k to invest regularly/monthly in low-fee (1% or lower) index funds such as the S&P 500 index, and do not touch those funds for ~20-30+ years. (I also recommend putting ~5-15% of your investments in Bitcoin.)
Through the power of compounding, a $100k investment growing at 10% per year would be worth ~$1.6 million after 28 years. You simply must have the discipline to not withdraw the funds through the market’s inevitable ups and downs.
A Few Final Insights & Tips
So, those 4 principles form the basis of how I increased my net worth by ~$42,000 in 15 months—and how I intend, God willing, to build and steward generational wealth over the course of my lifetime.
This of course is easier said than done. And there are more principles and nuances that are beyond the scope of this breakdown. It is possible, though.
One thing I didn’t mention yet: The vast majority of my income these past 15 months came from leading men’s work, 1:1 and group coaching, creating plant medicine retreats, and cryptocurrency investing. I also earn a bit from writing/music. Read more about my unorthodox career story here.
(I refused to withdraw my cryptocurrency nest egg even during my worst debt because the first rule of investing is to never sell at the bottom and I was extremely confident the market would recover, and now it has. Read my guide to cryptocurrency investing here.)
I have worked very hard to grow my businesses, increase my income, and become a better investor—and this continues to be a central focus for me in 2024. I am devouring books and content on these subjects. I am excited about what’s to come.
I truly believe one of the absolute best things you can do for your financial future is to become a serious student of wealth-building, entrepreneurship, and career-building. If you continuously study and read about these subjects and apply what you learn, you massively increase the likelihood you’ll end up financially free.
Being able to not worry about money massively frees up one’s bandwidth, energy, and resources to focus on the more important aspects of holistic wealth, such as closeness with God, family, relationships, vocation, impact, creativity, health, happiness, and legacy.
Next Steps: Where to Go From Here?
Start here: Read those books by Alex Hormozi and Dave Ramsey that I mentioned earlier in this post. Become an insatiable student of wealth-building and apply what you learn. Listen to the podcasts I cited earlier. Join the best free subreddit communities on wealth-building.
For the men here: As I mentioned earlier, this month we've just started a new chapter in the Brotherhood called 'Council of Kings.' That means that in the next few months we have a strong focus on long-term visioning/planning, life-foundations, career, business, wealth-building, legacy, impact, creativity, heart-centered leadership, humility, courage, service, and solidity. We’ve already started, but it’s still possible to join us and get a lot out of this container. It’s charged up. Reply to this email or apply here to move on this.
Total Money Reset: A Program I May Create —
(Help Me Decide Whether to Create This!)
I am strongly considering creating something called…
Total Money Reset.
A ~5-week group program & methodology for resetting your relationship to money, ordering your financial house, embodying your Wealth Builder, and learning/embodying the foundational principles of investing & financial wisdom.
This method would incorporate a tool called the Holistic Money Audit, as well as lessons on core money principles and an actionable Financial Plan I co-create with you.
There’s a vast difference between reading an online article VS immersing yourself in a structured journey alongside a group of good people on the same path who hold you accountable. The latter is far more likely to effect real change in your life, at a far more accelerated pace. That’s why I want to create this.
YOUR feedback is a HUGE factor in determining if I create this. Please reply to this email if this is something you’d want to invest in (at a reasonable price), or if replying is too much, please consider at least filling out this simple anonymous poll:
THANK YOU so much for responding to this poll.
It really helps me.
If you want to help even more—plus get a sneak peek of other things I might launch soon, which may also spark business ideas of your own—please fill out this simple survey.
THANK YOU.
You’re beautiful.
I love you.
Trust yourself to the River.
Let go and let God.
And get your shit together! ; )
Fierce Love,
J
Jordan Bates is a dad, husband, space holder, men’s coach, rapper, course creator, blogger, truth lover, entrepreneur, investor, co-creator of Apotheosis, and author of four books.
Note: The books in this post are linked to Amazon via affiliate links, meaning if you purchase I get a small kickback that supports the blog. Thank you much.
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