As I wrote a few days ago, there are many wonderful insights in Tony Robbins’ “Money: Master the Game.” Yet at its core, its message is essentially the same message repeated time and time again in investing books from Burton Malkiel’s “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” to JL Collins “A Simple Path to Wealth.” Tony succinctly says it here:
The core concept of successful investing is simple: Grow your savings to a point at which the interest from your investments will generate enough income to support your lifestyle without having to work. Eventually you reach a “tipping point” at which your savings will hit a critical mass. This simply means that you don’t have to work anymore–unless you choose to–because the interest and growth being generated by your account gives you the income you need for your life.
“Money: Master the Game,” p90
This is not an especially original concept, nor is it the first time I’ve written about it on this blog (Case in point: I wrote about it here and here). But as they say, “all roads lead to Rome,” and the game of investing doesn’t change from day to day. It is a multi-decade process of doing the same things over and over, namely diverting chunks of your earnings into your “money machine, ” as Tony puts it, until it becomes large enough to take care of you. Tony writes,
The journey ahead is one that requires your full participation. Together we are going to climb this mountain called Financial Freedom. It’s your personal Mount Everest. It won’t be easy…
“Money: Master the Game,” p89
It’s still the same game: save, invest, watch grow. Oh yeah, and don’t just do something, sit there! A critical behavior is learning to do nothing “when everyone around you is going crazy,” as Morgan Housel writes in his money book. You simply keep contributing, keep growing your ownership shares, keep collecting dividends, and stay the course!
To me, the most reassuring thing of all is that this doesn’t have to be hard. After all, slow and steady still wins the race 🙂
Meanwhile, onward and upward, climbing that mountain!