PROMETHEUS LAIR

Make.Every.Breath.Count

Life is like a game of Tetris.
Mistakes sum up fast. Success disappear quickly.

I talk about Generational Health a lot: the skills and habits to thrive in your body and help your family and loved ones to do the same. But for some reasons it makes me feel stack in a box. I want to help people (men specifically) to thrive in many more ways than health.

Then the other day I read the expression Prosperity Margin.
I read it and I loved it.
In nature it defines your ability to increase your odds of surviving as much as possible.

In our world is the difference between the best players and the worst ones: practice specific skills.

Practice builds muscle memory. It moves you from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence. Lets you access new levels and equip with better skills and tools.

The difference between the best players and the greatest ones is a lot of practice and refined knowledge, usually channeled through a mentor.

Take this BOOK for example: In Relentless, Tim Grover explains how he trained people like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and many others to be the best.

He kept stressing that the hardest part in an athlete’s career is when they sign a multi million $ contract. Because many then relax and and their career usually ends there, it just takes them few years to realise.

And even with millions in their pocket, NBA athletes and rich people are able to go broke. Unless they become financially literate.
Shaquille O'Neal might be worth $400MLN today but he almost went broke in his first NBA years. Then he learnt from a financial planner.

There are lessons to be learnt at any stage of your life and if your parents or the schools you attended did not provide you with the tools to excel in life, too bad, and welcome to the club.

But it’s 2024 and with 2025 at the door, it’s time to own who you are regardless of your shortcomings, and take responsibility of who you want to be and what it takes to get there.

Today, we talk about:

Money Money Money

Money are a physical manifestation of energy.
When you pay for something you are channelling that energy you collected with time and resources. Given its physical energy manifesting in your bank account and pockets, there are ways to attract it or repel it. And it usually starts from your mindset.

You might have read or heard of the book Rich dad Poor dad. This is one of the first books I ever read when I was completely financially illiterate. And I’m talking about this because health and wealth are directly related, like two ponds connected by a stream.

If one stagnates the other one will be impacted as well.

The more I read the book, the more I realised that I had the former dad and my parents did not raise me financially literate, quite the opposite. And quoting Fight Club, what you own, ends up owning you. And that’s 99% of the world.

Liability VS Asset

Not understanding the difference is why people are poor and stay poor:

• A liability is something that loses value over time (a car, a new phone, a house)

• An asset is something that gains value (a stock, gold, Bitcoin)

  
  You might have noticed I put house between liabilities. House flipping is a very profitable business model, but to own a house or owning houses just for living and renting them comes with a different sets of costs that will drain your bank account.

  
  Not understanding the difference between the two is what keeps most people poor and stack in the loop: I experienced directly the mum of a friend and my dad receiving a big lump sum of money and immediately using most of them to purchase a brand new car. Different lives, same dynamics.
  
  You might have read the story of Ronald Read, the janitor that accumulated $8MLN in dividend-producing stocks over many years of investing.
  
  Most people today are impatient. We are the generation of ‘I want everything and I want it now’. Chasing the quick reward.
  

  The average american does not have 200$ for unforeseen emergencies.
  Also the average american spends 200$ a year in lotto tickets. I kid you not.
  

  Your chances of looking at a stranger and guess their phone number are higher than the chances you have of winning the Lotto.

  Become financially literate instead.
  

  To end things with another quote I love, ‘learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.’

Books I highly recommend

Rich dad Poor dad: brilliant book for any age to understand the basics of money, the mindset to attract money, what makes money and what leeches them and many more things that will change the direction of your life.

I will teach you to be rich: your step by step master plan from a doer.

The Psychology of Money: Your reality unfolds in front of you based on the way you look at things. If you look at money in a negative way, it’s time to fix it.

The Intelligent Investor: this book is the Bible of investing. Published in 1949, its teachings are still applicable today.

The Richest Man in Babylon: Storytelling at its best. This 1926 book was originally a set of pamphlets (with a collection of parables set in Babylon) the author was giving away to banks’ customers to promote financial acuity.

What I’m watching

From Ray Dalio, one of the greatest investor of our time, comes an animated VIDEO that will glue you to the screen and leave you smarter and wiser than when you started.

Music I’m listening to

Holocene - Bon Iver: This used to be my alarm song for many years and one of my favourite songs and Artist.

Tools I recommend

Cash Flow - Board Game: if you want to learn how money works (and teach your kids) in a fun way, this board game will serve you well

Quote that stuck

“I’m not telling you to love it. I’m telling you to crave the result so intensely that the work is irrelevant.”

Tim S. Grover from Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable