The Foundation of Purpose
100km of gravel, a 6-month hiatus, and the hidden link between purchasing power and our pursuit of "Bigger Things."
It was snowing at the start of the race yesterday.
When the second snow squall hit, Kris simply said, “well at least it’s not raining”.
Yesterday was the first race of the season and we endured a cold, wet, 100km gravel race in the Northumberland hills.
With an IRONMAN coming up in August, I’m trying to do some events to keep me motivated and help get me be ready.
The truth about the gravel bike races is that I actually really love them.
I love the training, the night before and morning of preparation, and I actually love the event, the adventure and the beauty of the roads and nature that we ride through.
And as Kris texted me this morning, “It feels great to do hard sh*t”.
It does.
During my 6 month writing hiatus, I’ve had a lot of time to think about… what am I actually writing about anyway?
And it always felt a little disjointed that I would write about endurance racing, life coaching, chasing our dreams and inflation, money printing, Bitcoin & real estate.
Huh… how do these things relate?
The answer hit me during Seb Bunney’s presentation at the Your Life Your Terms event.
He was presenting on how financial forces shape our lives.
It really clicked for me that if we are living paycheque to paycheque or fighting to pay the mortgage, struggling financially, it is far more difficult to pursue our purpose and Bigger Things.
Seb explained it using Maslow’s Hierarchy and the green arrow on the left side noting that as our purchasing power goes down, so do our choices and our capacity for self actualization of pursuing and achieving one’s potential.
As the monetary supply is increased (aka money printing) it causes inflation which reduces our purchasing power as I discussed in Fix the Money, Fix the World.
Bigger Things #66 - Fix the Money, Fix the World
There is a British sailing tradition of wearing red pants after you have crossed the Atlantic Ocean under sail.
As Seb notes in his book, The Hidden Cost of Money,
"Maslow states that before we can address our needs higher up the pyramid (such as tiers 3 to 5), we must meet the needs of those lower down, with our physiological (groceries and mortgage/rent) foundation need to be met first and foremost.
As our focus shifts increasingly towards meeting basic survival needs, we risk losing our sense of self.
When we lose touch with our true selves, we also lose our sense of purpose and become more susceptible to external forces.
Instead of living fulfilling lives, we find ourselves merely working to survive, missing out on the richness and depth of our human experience.”
Missing out on our purpose, our full potential, our Bigger Things.
In order to pursue our purpose and full potential, it’s much, much easier with increasing purhasing power (the blue arrow).
To have increasing purchasing power, at least one of the following must true:
Your Income is going up more than true inflation
Your Savings are going up more than true inflation
Your Investments are going up more than true inflation
Sadly, true inflation is increasing very rapidly.
True inflation is expressed in the the Chapwood Index or we could simply look at house prices in Canada as a proxy.
Since 1971, house prices have increased an astonishing 2,840% or 6.4% per year. So it’s pretty simple - we need to get an annual pay raise >7% per year, every year (UNLIKELY) or else we better be investing in some stuff that makes more than 7% a year, every year.
My strategy for doing so, I’ve talked about in many previous articles…
Be Short Fiat, Be Long Hard, Scarce, Uncorrelated Assets
I’m not a financial advisor.
I’m simply a guy rooting for you and your family.
I’m a guy hoping each and every one of us can pursue our purpose and achieve our full potential.
If your purchasing power is the green arrow and going down, it’s really tough.
If your purchasing power is the blue arrow and going up, it’s still tough but much, much greater chance.
Your purchasing power going up is the foundation of you moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy.
I want you to have the best chance possible, so I’ll continue to point out the fact that the money printing caused inflation.
And I’ll keep updating you on how I’m increasing my purchasing power and protecting myself and my family through investing in hard scarce assets like Bitcoin (and related proxies like MSTR, STRC), and real estate.
How increasing my purchasing power is then supporting going after my purpose, my full potential and my Bigger Things.
To Your Bigger Things,
Brad 💕👊
You are receiving The Bigger Things Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial, accounting or legal advice. Do your own research, come to your own conclusions and make your own decisions.
The purchasing power part is particularly relevant for me right now. I'm finding that matching true inflation feels like running uphill with a headwind, especially now. Hard assets are the play, and honestly so is just keeping the grind going even when it's uncomfortable. The Maslow framing tied it all together nicely. Welcome back.