MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (90 page)

My heartfelt wish and the purpose of this book is to give you yet another way to expand and deepen the quality of your life and the lives of all those
you
have the blessing to love and touch. In this, it’s been a privilege to serve you.

And I look forward to someday, hopefully, crossing paths—either being able to meet you and serve you at one of my events somewhere in the world, or just meeting you on the street. I will be excited to hear how you used these principles to enhance your life.

And so, as we part, I want to leave you with a blessing, and a wish that your life will forever be filled with abundance. I wish for you a life of joy, passion, challenge, opportunity, growth, and giving. I wish for you an extraordinary life.

With love and blessings,
TONY ROBBINS

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. We train psychologists and professional coaches who learn core practical and psychological skills to make a difference during these crises. If you are qualified and would like to volunteer during a time of crisis, reach out to the Anthony Robbins Foundation (
www.anthonyrobbinsfoundation.org
).

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. Using patented technology with bank-level security.

Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.

—TONY ROBBINS

7 SIMPLE STEPS: YOUR CHECKLIST FOR SUCCESS

Here’s a quick checklist for you to use anytime you want to see where you are and what still needs to be done to move you along the path to financial freedom. Take a look at the 7 Simple Steps and make sure that you not only understand them but have also activated them.

Step 1: Make the Most Important
Financial
Decision of Your Life

1. Did you make the decision to become an investor, not just a consumer?

2. Have you committed a specific percentage of savings that always goes toward your Freedom Fund?

3. Have you automated it? If not, do it now:
www.tdameritrade.com
or
www.schwab.com
.

4. If the amount you’re committing now is small, have you committed to your employer to use the Save More Tomorrow program? See
http://befi.allianzgi.com/en/befi-tv/pages/save-more-tomorrow.aspx
.

Step 2: Become the Insider: Know the Rules Before You Get in the Game

1. Do you know the 9 Myths, and are you now protected? Here’s a minitest:

a. What percentage of mutual funds beat the market (or their benchmark) over any ten years?

b. Do fees matter, and what’s the average mutual fund fee?

c. If you pay 1% versus 3% in fees, how much of a difference does it make to your final nest egg?

d. Have you taken your broker for a test drive? Have you gone online and seen what your current costs are, how much risk you have in
your current investments, and how your current investment strategy has compared over the last 15 years with other simple, inexpensive options?

e. Do you know the difference between advertised returns and what you actually earn?

f. Do you know the difference between a broker and a fiduciary?

g. Are target-date funds your best option?

h. How do you maximize your 401(k), and should you elect to use a Roth 401(k)?

i. Do you have to take huge risks to make big rewards? What are some of the tools that will allow you to get the upside of the market without the downside losses?

j. Have you identified any of the limiting stories or emotions that have held you back or sabotaged you in the past, and have you broken their pattern of control in your life?

2. Do you have a fiduciary now representing and guiding you? If not, go online and find one at
http://findanadvisor.napfa.org/home.aspx
or go to Stronghold and review its services approach (
www.StrongholdFinancial.com
).

3. If you own a company, or you’re an employee with a 401(k) plan, have you taken 30 seconds to check how your fees compare with the rest of the market? Go to
http://americasbest401k.com/401k-fee-checker
.

4. If you’re a business owner, have you met your legal requirement to benchmark your 401(k) against other comparable plans? Remember, the Department of Labor has reported that 75% of the 401(k)s it audited resulted in an average penalty of $600,000 (
www.americasbest401k.com
).

Step 3: Make the Game Winnable

1. Have you made the game winnable?

a. Have you found out what your real numbers are? Have you figured out what it’s really going to take for you to achieve financial security, vitality, and independence? Have you calculated it?

b. If not, go back and do that right now. Or if you want to revisit them, go back and do the numbers now or go to your app, where
you can keep the numbers in your pocket, and it will be calculated in a few minutes. You can do it in just a few minutes.

c. Remember,
clarity is power.
See
www.tonyrobbins.com/masterthegame
.

2. Once you’ve got the numbers, did you use your wealth calculator and come up with a plan that shows you how many years it will take in a conservative, moderate, or an aggressive plan to achieve financial security or independence? If not, give yourself the gift. Go to the app and do this now.

3. Have you looked over and made any decisions about the five elements of how you can speed up your plan and achieve financial security or independence even faster?

a. Save more:

• Have you looked at the places you could save? Your mortgage? Daily purchases?

• Have you implemented a Save More Tomorrow plan so that you don’t have to give up anything today, but when you get additional income in the future, you’ll save more? Go to
http://befi.allianzgi.com/en/befi-tv/pages/save-more-tomorrow.aspx
.

• Have you found something that you could cut down easily in order to increase your savings? Is it the $40 pizza? Is it the water bottle? Is it Starbucks? And have you calculated how much more money you’ll have in your Freedom Fund and how much faster you can achieve your goals by doing this? Remember, $40 a week can equal $500,000 over an investment lifetime. You don’t have to do any of these if you’re already on target, but these are options if you’re not yet on target to achieve your financial goals.

b. Earn more. Have you found ways to increase the value you can add to others? Do you need to retool yourself and switch to a different industry? What are the ways you can add more value and grow more so you can give more?

c. Save in fees and taxes. Have you come up with a way to apply what we’ve taught you to reduce your fees and/or reduce your taxes?

d. Get better returns. Have you found a way to invest with greater returns without undue risk? Have you reviewed any of the portfolios that are here that might enhance your earnings and protect you from those gut-wrenching downturns in the market?

e. Change your life—and improve your lifestyle. Have you considered a new location with an even better lifestyle? Have you considered putting yourself in a place where you reduce or eliminate state taxes and then put all of that money toward building wealth and your family’s financial security and freedom?

Step 4: Make the Most Important
Investment
Decision of Your Life

1. Have you decided on asset allocation so that you never put yourself in a position to lose too much? (Not all your eggs are in one basket, right?)

2. Have you decided what percentage belongs in your Security Bucket and what specific types of investment you’ll use to be safe and still maximize returns? Are you diversifying with different types of investments within the Security Bucket? Have you decided what percentage of your savings or investment capital will go in the Security Bucket?

3. Have you decided what percentage belongs in your Risk/Growth Bucket and what specific types of investments you’ll use to maximize returns yet still limit your downside as best as possible? Are you diversified with your Risk/Growth Bucket?

4. Have you evaluated your actual risk tolerance effectively? Did you take the test developed by Rutgers (
http://njaes.rutgers.edu/money/riskquiz
)?

5. Have you considered your stage of life and whether you should be more or less aggressive based on the length of time you have to save and invest? (If you’re young, you can lose a bit more because you have more time to recover; if you’re closer to retirement, you have less time to recover, and perhaps you need more in your Security Bucket.)

6. Have you evaluated the amount and size of your cash flow and whether that will play a role in your level of conservativeness or aggressiveness in your asset allocation?

7. Have you resolved the ratio of Security versus Risk/Growth as a percentage of your overall investments? 50/50? 60/40? 70/30? 30/70? 40/60? 80/20?

8. Have you come up with a list of short-term and long-term goals for your Dream Bucket that excite you? Do you have to wait until someday
in the future, or do you have some things you’re going to make happen right away?

9. Have you established a way to fund your Dream Bucket with either a small amount of savings or a portion of the profits of windfalls from successes in your Risk/Growth Bucket?

10. Rebalancing and dollar-cost averaging:

a. Are you consistently committing the same amount of money to investments regardless of whether the market is moving up or down? Remember, timing the market never works.

b. Are you continually rebalancing your portfolio, or do you have a fiduciary doing this for you? Either way, this is crucial to optimizing returns and minimizing volatility.

Step 5: Create a Lifetime Income Plan

1. The power of All Seasons:

a. Have you taken the time to read, understand, and take action on the powerful insights that Ray Dalio gave us with his All Seasons approach? He has brought successful investment returns 85% of the time and lost money only four times in 30 years, but never more than 3.93% to date!

b. Have you gone to Stronghold and taken five minutes to see what kind of returns you’re getting on your current investments compared with All Seasons (and other portfolios) or to see what it would take to set up an All Seasons portfolio in minutes?

2. Income Insurance:

a. Have you done the most important thing of all? Have you made sure that you will not run out of income as long as you live? Have you established a guaranteed lifetime income plan?

b. Do you know the difference between an
immediate annuity
and a
deferred annuity,
and have you selected which might be right for you depending on your stage in life?

c. Have you reviewed and initiated a hybrid annuity or tapped into the
upside-without-the-downside
strategy that’s now available to anyone regardless of age and without any lump-sum payment whatsoever?

d. Have you gone online and found out how much future income you could have for as little as $300 a month or more? If not, go to
www.lifetimeincome.com
or call an annuity specialist at Stronghold.

3. Secrets of the Ultrawealthy:

a. Have you investigated how to drastically cut the amount of time it will take you to achieve financial freedom by 30% to 50% through the use of tax-efficient life insurance strategies? Remember, PPLI (private placement life insurance) is great for high net worth, but anyone can use the policies offered through TIAA-CREF with minimal deposit amounts. If you haven’t yet explored these tools, reach out to a qualified, expert fiduciary today or contact Stronghold for a free analysis.

b. Have you invested the $250 to set up a living trust so that your family is protected and your assets will go to them without going through a year of probate? Have you protected your wealth not only for your current generation but also your grandchildren and your great grandchildren?

Step 6: Invest Like the .001%

1. Have you taken the time to absorb some of the short interviews with 12 of the smartest financial people on earth, the greatest investors in history?

2. Who is the “Master of the Universe” in the financial world? What kind of returns has he gotten compared with anyone else, including Warren Buffett, and how could you invest with him if you wanted to?

3. What did you learn about asset allocation from Yale’s David Swensen? Or J.P. Morgan’s Mary Callahan Erdoes?

4. What did you learn from the indexing master Jack Bogle? Or from Dr. Doom, Marc Faber?

5. Did you capture the simple strategy that Warren Buffett now recommends for everyone, including his wife and her legacy trust?

6. Did you absorb the importance of how to get asymmetric returns?

7. Did you absorb the $100,000 MBA that Paul Tudor Jones gave you by never making an investment of less than five to one and always tapping into the power of the trend?

8. Did you check out Ray Dalio’s
How the Economic Machine Works—In Thirty Minutes
video? If not, watch it now at
www.economicprinciples.org
.

9. Did you soak in the concepts of Kyle Bass’s solution on investing where you cannot lose money? Remember the power of nickels? Where investments are guaranteed forever by the US government, and you’ll have a potential upside of anywhere from 20% to 30%?

10. Did you take in the core lessons from Charles Schwab, and Sir John Templeton’s gift that continues to give of being able to know that the worst environment is your greatest opportunity—to be most optimistic when the world is “ending” like it did in World War II, like it did in inflation in South America, like it did in the Depression, like it did in Japan after World War II? Did you absorb his true core strategic philosophy that made him the first international investment billionaire in history?