I began to notice this early in my career as a personal trainer. I realized that many of my clients were clearly people who have been successful in other areas of their lives (such as finance), because we all know personal training isn’t cheap. Yet, as disciplined and successful as my clients were in their respective careers, their health life was a disaster. I have seen in many cases, when my clients learned to appreciate the similarity between our financial lifestyle and health & fitness lifestyle, they were inspired to live a more balanced life.
Metaphors bring life and deeper understanding to concepts. With deeper understanding of a certain concept we are more likely to make a conscious choice on what we will do with that knowledge. The more conscious of a choice we make in taking action, the more likely we will be to stay with it in the long term.
Now, I’m going to be careful to avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect in terms of a finance expert, because I’m certainly not. But I am a fitness expert. And it is easy to draw basic conclusions and morph the 2 paradigms of finances and health & fitness together. First, look at how being overweight and in poor health are the same mindsets and realities as being broke and in debt:
| When it Comes to an Unhealthy Lifestyle We: | When it Comes to Poor Personal Finance, We: |
|---|---|
| Don’t track our calorie Intake | Don’t track spending |
| Eat more than we know | Spend more than we realize |
| Debate small factors about diets and workout types | Debate small factors about interest rates and hot stock picks |
| Value anecdotal advice over research | Listen to friends, our parents, and the media instead of read books and study |
| Are overweight, usually tired and in denial about it | Are in debt with a consumer mindset and justifying it |
| We think hiring a trainer or mentor is too expensive and are blind to the value they could bring | We think hiring a financial advisor is too expensive and are blind to the value they could bring |
Next, look at how being healthy & fit are the same mindsets and actions as building wealth:
| When it Comes to Being Healthy & Fit, we: | When it Comes to Building Wealth, we: |
|---|---|
| Pick a sustainable diet that’s low in processed foods | Create a sustainable budget and track how we spend |
| Weight train because lean muscle mass helps us burn more calories while at rest | Invest in our retirement accounts because interest compounds over time |
| Have patience and consistency even during our plateaus | Have patience and consistency while the markets go up and down |
| Eat less calories, burning fat | Spend less money, saving more |
| Focused on the long term goals of a healthy life | Focused on the long term goal of retiring without financial worry |
| Can withstand temptations and delay gratification | Can withstand impulse buying and delay gratification |
Perhaps through this lens we can see our health & fitness in a refreshing light. If we were to view our life as a wheel with many spokes we can see how having one spoke (area of our life) that is intact and high performing while another is bent and rusted can cause us to crash very soon. Living a balanced life literally synergizes other parts of our life for the better.
Onward!
Jordan