đ Good morning from Florida. Iâm Michele, and this is The Right Note, a mix of the most interesting things Iâm reading, writing, and learning about this week.
Iâve noticed a pattern over the last several years.Â
Why do so many still struggle with their weight and personal finances despite the thousands of new resources and available tools to help them?
More tools, resources, money (to solve the problem) â more progress.
When Tim Ferriss asked personal finance writer, Morgan Housel on his podcast what type of financial advice he would give his son, he couldnât answer. And not because he wasnât knowledgeable about what to do but rather because he knew it was personal.
I canât give him or anyone universal financial advice and say, âThis is what you should do, and this is what you should value, this is where you should go,â because weâre all so incredibly different in our goals and our talents and our aspirations.
Morgan mentioned on the podcast how he made a mistake in the eyes of his personal finance friends 3 years ago: he paid off his mortgage.
They were up in arms about his decisionââHow could you do that, Morgan? Money is cheap these daysâthat money could be making more somewhere else!â
While his friends were giving him the spreadsheet justification for why it was a bad decision, it made sense for Morgan. He knew that the peace of mind he would feel, knowing that his house was his and canât even be taken away from him, was worth any additional money he would have made elsewhere.Â
He knew himself.
Square pegs in round holes.
If you read every weight loss and personal finance book, you will notice they have very few things in common.Â
Of course, there is some advice that weâve heard for years on finances and food:
Eat fewer calories than you burn.
Spend less money than you make.
But these principles that were once the holy grail are even controversial today.Â
Further reinforcing my point that there is no one size fits all.Â
Do you remember when you blindly followed a diet or some financial advice from someone else? I do. And rarely would stick. Why? Well, they were someone elseâs (best) practices, not my (best) practices.
We spend so much time focused on which diet our friend was on that allowed them to lose 20 pounds or how they invested their money to enable them to retire early, but donât spend nearly enough time figuring out what is best for us.Â
Your practices > Best PracticesÂ
Iâve felt defeated most of my life regarding weight loss. I spent years trying on routines that didnât fit. Calorie restriction. Keto. Low carb.
So how do you figure out what âyour practicesâ are?
Know thyself.
We are sold all these methods, but often an essential piece of advice is left out: do you know yourself well enough to find a program or a plan that works for you? That works for your lifestyle, your personality, and your long-term goals?
I guess itâs a right of passage that some need to go through with our finances and our food.You need to figure out what doesnât work before deciding that the easy way will never be the best.Â
It took me a long time to figure out that the work wasnât the diet or the budget but that the real work was figuring me out.Â
There are no best practices. There is only your practices.Â
Once I understood that, it was easy to find what worked.
âď¸ Quote of the Week
No one can give you better advice than yourself.
âMarcus Tullius Cicero
Thatâs all for this week.
đ See you next Friday,
Michele