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_{Exploring the compass, risk management, and mirrors}

Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading Intentional Dollar — where we look at old money ideas through a new perspective.

What’s inside?

• One tool to experiment with

• Two quotes from others

• Three questions to dig deeper

• Four lines of poetry for the point

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.

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_{One tool to experiment with:}

The Compass

No goals, no standards, and no opportunity for excellence. 

That’s where we stand without direction; where we stand without a compass. 

The state of existence sans compass is like floating in the air and waiting to be guided by the whim of the wind. Forward, backward, left, right — anywhere and everywhere. It’s all fair game when there’s no place you’re aiming for. 

The wind will suck you in like a vortex, pulling you toward impulse, distraction, and despair. Screen time and pleasure purchases. TV binging and comfort food buying. 

These listless, aimless states are connected to our dollars, and they control how we spend them. 

A good litmus test to determine whether you have compass is to catalog your distractions. These are the empty, feel-good habits. Binging series after series. Thoughtless scrolling on apps. Checking notifications as soon as you’re alerted. Saying yes to every request. And so on. 

Here, the quantity of distractions is inversely related to the quality of your compass, or your goals. 

More distraction means less orientation toward a goal because the distractions serve as steep barriers to progress. 

But a lot of us have goals. We aspire to alter some facet(s) of our current existence to attain or adorn more status, money, proficiency, power, or respect. 

The reason we have the goal is because we want the thing it brings. Inherently, this is also the embedded evil of these particular goals. Once the objective is met and the coveted prize achieved, we see that is was the pot of gold at the rainbow. We keep chasing, see goalposts.

But to say this is not to kick dirt on goals. Goals are the guiding compasses for the journey, and I’d venture to say that instead of authentic goals, most of us have light aspirations — hopes instead of goals. 

By nature of deciding what’s important to you, which, by the way, will be different than what’s important to me and those around you, you enable yourself to orient toward the trail that takes you there. 

So, you have to carry a compass. 

Failing to carry a compass will cost you. Money cost, time cost, soul cost. 

Requisite tolls on the road of distraction. But, avoidable, if you set a clear direction and commit to be relentless in pursuit. 

_{Two quotes on risk management:}

Put your risk hat on for a moment, are you toeing the line with risk of ruin? What uncontrolled, yet controllable, risk sits in your financial life?

_{Three questions on mirrors:}

1. Which of my financial decisions would be distasteful If someone held a mirror for me to fully see the reflection?

2. How could a metaphorical financial mirror help me reconcile ego/vanity purchasing?

3. Some mirrors give off a distorted image; is it possible I’m looking at my money through one of these wonky mirrors?

Which question stuck with you? Questions like these are spotlights for the mind. Reply to this email and let me know which one shined light on a previously dark cave.

_{Four lines of poetry for the point:}

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Content ideas, questions? Reply to this email or reach out to me at [email protected]

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. These weekly posts represent my simple thoughts, a few quotes, and some questions — for educational purposes only.