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- The Borrow Smart Chronicles - Your Hero's Journey?
"I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. "
Weekly Spotlight: The Call to Your Hero’s Journey
Joseph Campbell has probably had a profound impact on my life. I watched this series in college: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE8ciMkayVM called The Power of Myth. Watch the Hero's Journey if you only watch one in the series. Joseph Campbell was the first to see how all the great myths repeat repeatedly, with so many similarities in their unfolding. Our greatest movies tend to follow this plot, and I would ask you to consider if your life hasn’t followed it as well. You start to realize that you often have personal or professional journeys playing out simultaneously. Your career might be at a stage where you want to quit and do something new, or you want to learn to do what you do in a new way - you could be at Step 2 - The Call To Adventure. You also be going through a divorce with a spouse or partner and find you are now at Step 9 - The Ordeal and working through personal and professional challenges at the same time.
Right now for those in real estate and lending - interest rates have been a shock that started a new adventure for many, this shock challenges us to find new ways to be. The new NAR rules for compensation may affect realtors to start a new journey in engaging their world. Financial advisors are on the other side of this, - as they’ve found their difficult times in low-interest rate environments for their seniors now replaced with the benefits of higher rates making their clients more income.
where are you now on your journey? personally and professionally…
a BORROW SMART CONCEPT
Interest Rates Govern Resources
“[Joseph] Schumpeter himself saw interest as arising from the profits of creating destruction. ‘The true function of interest,’ he wrote, ‘is, so to speak, the break, or governor’ on economic activity.’ A ‘necessary break’, in Schumpeter’s opinion. Interest turns time into a cost of production. Time is money. Entrepreneurs who save time in production, who bring goods most quickly to market, emerge as winners in the game of creative destruction. Interest rations capital. Interest is not a deadweight but a spur to efficiency—a hurdle that determines whether an investment is viable or not. The rate of interest, Schumpeter wrote, ‘enters into every economic deliberation’.
an image from the CLA Course on how Rates can be discussed differently
Interest rates have a profound impact on all industries, not just lending. In a prior post we discussed that interest rates are money and money is time, or interest is the price of time. As I hear interest rates mentioned in so many conversations, I want to ask that you consider interest rates as the weather. The weather will change daily, weekly, and by season. What season are you in? Now within that season what is the weather for rates now? Be mindful of it, but it is what it is. Focus less on the external rate and more on the internal of what high rates are forcing you to learn that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. What is possible now because of higher rates? Interest rates are a two-sided coin.
Are you becoming a better salesperson? A better communicator? Are you learning new strategies? Don’t waste this Call To Adventure! A slow production environment where ‘time is money’ gives you more time to sharpen your weapons and learn new skills. The price of time is slowing things down ‘for now’. That will change.
The higher rates we pay are offset by the higher returns we earn elsewhere (not just on your money) but on the time you invest now in yourself.
And like the NAR, they’ll be coming for other existing benefits for the wealth - like removing the mortgage interest tax deduction for those who qualify.
LIABILITIES
What’s Happening?
originations are back on the rise - Source: Statista
payments are increasing on non mortgage debt, almost $100B increase in payment costs for credit card debt in the last two years per FRED
cost to buy a house continues higher as rates and housing costs rise
and this means you need more wealth to afford a house (see boomers and gen x)
fun fact - weather predictions are improving!
REAL ESTATE
What’s Happening?
builders making progress but slowly - Statista
lot of wealth through housing ownership will move from Silent generation to Millennial or later…
another look at ownership
existing home sales picking up
median home prices on the way up again
click to listen on Spotify - Geoff Zimpfer
housing prices only 2.4% below their peak
another look fro Aziz on prices finding support
again more home sales predicted to increase - hope this is more like the weather predictions
“In today's rush, we all think too much — seek too much — want too much — and forget about the joy of just being.”
ASSETS
What’s Happening?
interesting gap of wealth transfer from middle class 90%
what can you do with $1 these days?
are we breaking out to new highs or about to reverse this asset appreciation?
we are at that zone for a reversal but we never reverse - go Stonks go!
always fascinates me that HOUSING is left out of these numbers as a retirement asset
we’ve lost 50% of our buying power in a short period of time, but losing almost 25% of our buying power in a few years is profound…
“I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers of products and not really asking any of the questions.”
ON BEING HUMAN
What’s Worth Sharing?
Sleep is so important, and recent studies show poor sleep has major impact on cognitive abilities during the day, and larger ones as we age. One way to improve sleep at night is reduce stress during the day. Try this for 20 minutes - and see how it makes you feel.
Sleep is a period of rest and recovery experienced in some fashion by all living organisms, from hydra to humans. In humans, sleep consists of four repeating stages: three non-rapid eye movement stages (NREM) followed by rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Until the 1950s, most people believed sleep was a passive activity. We now know that during this period of deep rest, much is happening, including memory consolidation, processing information, clearing toxins, regulating endocrine and metabolic pathways, and healing and repairing. Sleep is primarily regulated by our circadian rhythms and their interaction with external cues (mainly light and dark), as well as by homeostatic sleep drive, which builds the longer we’re awake.”
DOPAMEMES
And Other Inspirations…
https://humanitariansoftinder.com/ - from Tim Ferris
Simple Poem to Describe a Perfect Day
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
Czeslaw Milosz
Hattip: FryAI
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