Hello, from France 
!
We left the beach a few days ago to explore city life in Paris...and it's been amazing!
We met up with Nick's family here as well and managed to have an amazing patio dinner together right in front of the Eiffel Tower.
That's me in the picture up top...I'm in a market in Versailles gathering bread and meats for our family picnic lunch on the Palace of Versailles estate where Marie Antoinette used to hang out.
She's quite the story.
Marie Antoinette was the Queen of France back in the late 1700s.
In the end, she was totally disconnected from the reality of the French and made a now infamous "let them eat cake" response when told the French population had no food.
If you don't know the story, let's just say things didn't end well for Marie.
This complete disconnect from the reality of the masses reminds me of central bankers today.
Our Bank of Canada, the U.S. Federal Reserve...all of them.
Just yesterday, one of the U.S. Federal Reserve Members, Mary Daly, shared that she didn't feel the pain of inflation any longer because she has "enough" and that most Americans have "enough" too. (Quick aside: her net worth is apparently in the millions).
It's these types of comments that really show how central bankers can't relate to everyday people.
This meme below sums things up in a pretty humorous manner, doesn't it? (we're not sure of the source so we don't know who to attribute credit to!)
If we reflect back on what has genuinely helped us navigate our personal financial waters the best, it's been this:
Working on ourselves. Our mindset, our beliefs, our outlook, and our focus.
And this came from reading books in our 20s.
Everything from Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, Robin Sharma, Robert Cialdini and Dan Kennedy...just to name a few.
To navigate the months and years ahead, we believe working on yourself will have some of the most positive impact on your future.
It's easy to get caught up in the latest real estate noise, market commentary, crypto bankruptcy, etc.
But that type of focus doesn't get you very far. And your attention is stolen from working on productive activities.
Reading books by the authors above has left us with some of the best ROI on life.
Reading some of Dan Kennedy's books left us with some things to ponder like these:
Separate Mistakes from Self Image: the way people box themselves in is by internalizing their mistakes and dwelling on them to such a degree that they cannot separate their personality and character from mistakes.
So "I have failed X times" becomes "I'm a failure". A person who goes broke in their first business concludes, "I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur or real estate investor".
The productive response from mistakes is "course correction" and to rise above them.
Here's another...
Immunity to Criticism and Self-Doubt: Maximum accomplishment is linked to immunity to others' criticism and to your own self-doubt.
Observations of many successful (and happy) people in many endeavours is that they are able to easily shrug off criticism, like "water off a duck's back".
Here's one more...
Visualize the Person You Want to Become: The majority of goal setting focuses on "things to get" and not "the person to become".
By focusing on the personal traits requisite for your goals, you automatically and exponentially increase your odds of achieving them.
We can speak directly to this last one.
When we began developing our own list of principles to live by, instead of having purely financial goals, it changed our world.
Almost overnight, momentum in our real estate and business and personal relationships improved dramatically.
Sounds strange, we know. But it's true.
So for the rest of this summer, instead of getting caught up in the latest financial and real estate headlines...
...go have a picnic, bring a book and read. Chill out, make notes, plan your future, and dream big.
And going forward, carve out daily time for you to work on yourself. Thirty minutes a day reading and planning is all it takes to make dramatic progress towards your ideal life. The key is to do it every day. Momentum is tough to create but once it gets going it's powerful.
Most people are too busy chasing headlines and giving their attention away to earn any financial freedom. Guard your attention, focus it back on working on yourself regularly.
This week, we have a brand new podcast for you with author, Robin Taub, about setting your kids up for financial freedom.
And we have a new Rock Star Minutes with Anthony Molinaro and Paul D'Abruzzo chatting about the fundamentals of multi-unit apartment investing.
Both are linked below for you.
Hope you're enjoying your summer, everyone!!
Over and out for this week,
Tom & Nick
