Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity
Rating
3/5
Date Started
7/6/2022
Date Completed
7/15/2022
Five Powerful Quotes from the Book
Quote 1
“One thing that I consistently observe is the dichotomy between savers and spenders. It’s obvious to most people that the spenders are überconsumers who make many consumptive purchases on credit and routinely go on shopping binges. What’s not so obvious is that savers are also consumers; they’re the opposite side of the same coin. When I talk about savers, I’m not referring to those who make wise and judicious preparations for the future. I’m talking about those people subject to the myths of the accumulation theory who hoard and accumulate out of fear, and avoid all expenses, regardless of value.
“Savers and spenders both make the majority of their financial decisions based on price. Spenders gloat about all of the “good deals” that they constantly find; savers are smug about not buying things. Where spenders get excited about the items they found for cheap, savers derive a sense of fulfillment by not making purchases that, in reality, they probably should have made. Spenders are reckless and foolhardy with their spending; savers are stingy and have limited productivity. Both of them ignore value; the spenders buy lots of low-quality items, and savers don’t buy much of anything, even when there are valuable things that would make them infinitely more productive if they could convince themselves to part with the cash.
“Neither spenders nor savers focus on productivity—the spender is a profligate waster of productivity, while the saver is too busy conserving productivity (which is also a form of waste, since unused productivity can’t be regained). Spenders exceed their current productivity, while savers suffer from considerable amounts of unused and unutilized potential. Neither of these types is primarily focused on how they can create value in the world, and neither of them fully understand stewardship; spenders consume value and savers hoard and limit value.”
Pithy Summary
Savers are not producers, they are consumers (just like spenders).
Quote 2
“One of the most important lessons we can learn in our quest to prosperity is that we don’t have to wait until we have money to be able to prosper. Prosperity is achieved by creating value, by maximizing our human life value. To refresh your memory, human life value is everything that we have to offer the world when we strip away all of our material possessions. It is our thoughts, our character, our ideas, and our unique abilities. We can create value now, and the more value we create, the greater our prosperity and the more money will come to us.”
Pithy Summary
Instead of working for money, work to create value.
Quote 3
“Suppose I have $1,000 to invest in a mutual fund. I invest it in a fund that has an estimated 10 percent return and enjoy a 100 percent positive rate of return in the first year. Now I have $2,000. In year two, the market actually drops 50 percent, leaving me with half of my $2,000, or $1,000. Year three results in yet another 100 percent positive rate of return, so again I have $2,000. Unfortunately, year four brings 50 percent negative yet again, so I’m back to my original amount of $1,000.
“The mutual fund company is pleased to announce a 25 percent rate of return on its prospectus for the last four years, but what does that mean for me? (Of course, this is an extreme example to prove a point. Mutual fund companies are much more subtle than this, because they would show the fund over a longer period of time so as not to highlight the wild variations in such a short period of time.)
“My actual return, as concerns the fund alone, is $0 and 0 percent—or so it would appear. The situation is actually worse when we take into account inflation (which, generally speaking, is grossly underrated by most media), the capital gains taxes I paid in years one and three, fund expenses (because the mutual fund company gets paid even for bad performance), and lost opportunity costs.”
Pithy Summary
It’s incredibly important to understand the story behind the numbers.
Quote 4
“Insurance gives us a permission slip to utilize all of our other assets. It unlocks the productive potential of our assets because, when insured properly, we are free to utilize them without fear of loss. We have but two choices when it comes to risk—retain it or transfer as much of it as possible. When people advocate self-insurance, what they are in effect saying is that people should retain their risk. No matter how many assets a person has, retained risk is retained risk, and it provides no option to replace lost value and production.
“Prosperity is not a do-it-yourself game. We all have different abilities and different Soul Purposes. Unless your Soul Purpose is to be an insurance company, why waste time, energy, and worry thinking of ways to be self-insured—especially when that is impossible anyway? How can you turn protection into production? Proper protection gives you the ability to focus on things that actually matter in your life because of the certainty that it provides. When understood correctly, the better your protection, the greater your productive capability and the lower your real cost of insuring yourself against potential losses.”
Pithy Summary
Insurance alleviates fear; and that powerful benefit is incalculable.
Quote 5
“Scarcity is about so much more than money and material resources. It’s a mindset, a way of viewing and interacting with the world, and it permeates everything we think and do. In large part, it determines who we are and how we act. It robs us of hope, steals our dreams, presents us with supposed evidence for living small and treating others badly, and renders us impotent, despite our infinite potential to create and make the world a better place. In a world of possible freedom, joy, abundance, and service, a scarcity mindset cripples us and aids us in seeing not much more than limitations, suffering, poverty, and selfishness.”
Pithy Summary
Maintaining an abundant mindset is absolutely critical to finding true joy in life.
About the Book
Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity – Audiobook | Ebook | Hardcover – “Our culture is riddled with destructive myths about money and prosperity that are severely limiting the power, creativity, and financial potential of individuals. In Killing Sacred Cows, Garrett B. Gunderson boldly exposes ingrained fallacies and misguided traditions in the world of personal finance. He presents a revolutionary perspective that can create unprecedented opportunity and wealth for thoughtful, mission-driven individuals.
“Our financial lives are intimately connected to our societal contributions, and we must be financially free in order to achieve our fullest potential. Sadly, however, most people are held captive in their financial lives by misinformation, propaganda, and limited knowledge. Through well-reasoned arguments, unflinching logic, and revelatory insight, Gunderson defeats common clichés and faulty retirement planning advice.”
About the Author
Garrett B. Gunderson – “Most people know me as the long-haired, bearded money guy. The financial disruptor. The author. The speaker. The guy who teaches people about the money myths that rob them of their financial future.”
Additional Resources
Tags
Business | Finance | Nonfiction