Upping the Downside

Do You Share This Problem With 33% of People?

When you drive on the freeway, you keep about 3 - 4 seconds worth of distance between your car and the car in front of you. This is an example of slack. If something unexpected happens---like the driver in front of you slamming on the brakes---your slack allows you to get where you are going without disaster.

Research indicates that 33% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. This means they have no spare cash. No financial reserve or cushion.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you don't have any slack. That means that when something unexpected takes place it will instantly disrupt your finances and everything that is attached to your finances.

What happens if a crisis like any one of the following strikes?

• Emergency health problems
• Emergency home and car problems
• Sudden economy changes/problems
• A disabling injury
• Death of spouse or family member
• Loss or change of job
• Reduction of income
• Sharp increase in living costs (heat, food, clothing, fuel, electricity, health insurance)

Any one of these would completely wipe out somebody living paycheck to paycheck.

Think about what it costs to survive and what it further costs to maintain your standard of living. Are you using debt to maintain your standard of living? Are you using debt just to get by?

Your finances are a system. A basic principle of a system is that it requires enough slack for something unexpected to take place without disrupting the underlying process.

The phrase "expect the unexpected" is cliché but it is true. Learn to create slack in your life so that you can accommodate the unexpected and keep moving forward.

Wellth?

You operate in your business day-to-day and the money is coming in. But what happens if some kind of catastrophic event occurs? What will happen to you professionally if your income is disrupted for a few days? A few weeks? A few months?

In 1992 Hurricane Andrew struck Florida. The result: $30 billion in damage, the destruction of 47,000 homes and the permanent loss of 20,000 jobs. This type of unpredictable, catastrophic event is why you need to develop the discipline of wellth.

What is wellth?

Well + Wealth.

Wellth is the starting point of professional resilience. Wellth is survivability in terms of physical (well) and monetary (wealth) well-being.

There is a proverb:

"He who has health has everything."

That's a good start but realistically, if you have health without financial security, you could eat your cake if only you could afford to buy it. On the other hand, if you have financial security but no health, you can afford the cake but now you can't eat it. That's why wellth is the starting point of professional resilience and why the concepts of well and wealth fit together.

Wellth is something that you develop by design. You create systems to support wellth and remove obstacles that stand in your way. You also develop buffers buffers in terms of money and resources to safeguard you against the unpredictable.

What kinds of things could you do develop more wellth?