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The Ice Cube
The Compound Challenge

The Ice Cube

My Latest
The Ice Cube
The Compound Challenge
A Money Question
My Latest
My latest tells you everything you need to know about Trump’s new tax bill.
If you are a business owner, you are going to want to check this out.
I break down:
100% Bonus Depreciation
QBI Deduction
Estate Tax Exemption
SALT Deduction
QSBS Changes
You can check it out here ⬇️⬇️⬇️
The Ice Cube
I’m back and excited to be writing again.
My excuse for being away is that I was studying for my CFP® (Certified Financial Planner®) exam.
For those unfamiliar with the CFP®, think of it as an MBA but in personal finance.
Yeah, true nerd stuff.
But just as I preach to our team at Moment and our clients, we are always striving to improve.
As Kevin Kisner once said, “This ain’t no hobby.”
That has to start with me.
I mean, heck, one of our core values is continuous improvement.
So, the last few months I have been head down to pass this exam.
Well, good news on two fronts:
I passed
I am back writing The Advisor’s Playbook
This experience got me thinking about one of my favorite visuals ~ An Ice Cube Melting.
Now consider for a second that an ice cube at 32 degrees is frozen.
No signs that with just one more degree, it will slowly turn into liquid.
You know, I think life is a lot like that.
We take small steps without ever seeing the progress.
Then one day, boom, the thing melts.
In a lot of ways, building wealth is the same.
That is what I want to talk to you about today.
Let’s dive in…
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The Compound Challenge
We have all heard of the power of compounding.
If not, go check out any investment calculator and put in some basic numbers, then multiply it by a few decades.
The numbers explode.
Easy to see on a calculator or spreadsheet, but hard to see in real life.
You see, in real life, compounding takes decades; it doesn’t happen in a click of a mouse (like that online calculator).
In working with clients, one of the biggest challenges is that our best planning takes years (sometimes decades) to come to fruition.
Sure, there are brief moments where we see small progress, but in the grand scheme of things, it often feels like nothing is happening.
That is, until the progress is impossible to ignore.
So, I want to give you a simple trick I use to stay on track and let time do the heavy lifting.
If you have been following along for any time at all, you know I love to start with the end in mind.
Every good decision I have made starts with the end in mind, and then I work my way backwards to what needs to be accomplished today.
So step one is to start with the end in mind.
The hard part is that the planning you are doing might take decades to come to fruition.
So step two is you need to be able to have “aggressive patience”.
I love that term, and I first heard it from Andy Frisella, founder of 1st Phorm.
It simply means this: patience doesn’t mean you just sit around and do nothing, hoping the desired outcome happens.
No, you have to take the daily, monthly, and yearly steps…even if it feels like you can’t see the progress.
Financial planning is the same way.
You aren’t just going to wake up in 20 years in a great financial position.
You have to save each month.
Invest when it feels uneasy in the market.
Implement the small tax strategies every year.
Consistently do that for a few decades, and then bam, your end result.
Said another way ~ To achieve the dream, you have to do the boring.
Reminds me of when I was studying for the CFP®.
Heck 50% (or more) of the information doesn’t apply to the clients we serve.
Yet it is a step towards my dream outcome ~ Building a firm I would be proud to be a client of.
So it was a necessary step in the process.
Guess what, when I passed, there wasn’t some grand celebration or immediate change to our business.
Yet it was just another step to melting that ice cube.
I want you to think about the decisions you make in your financial life the same way.
The monthly investment you make doesn’t change your life.
Doing it over decades does.
The yearly growth in your portfolio doesn’t change your life.
Doing it over decades does.
The decision to invest when the economy is uncertain doesn’t change your life.
Doing it over decades does.
It is like that ice cube ~ You barely notice it melting until it is impossible to ignore.
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I preach this because I have seen this in my own life.
I have been investing for 16 years.
For the better part of the first decade, it felt like nothing was happening.
Sure, the portfolio was going up, but it was just little steps over time.
Now I look back and see what compounding has done ~ it is impossible to ignore.
So my advice to you is this: Just start…and if you have been doing it for a while, just keep going.
Build your tolerance for aggressive patience.
You know the kind that pushes you to do the small thing each day while still having your eyes on the long-term goal.
I promise that if you do that, you will wake up in a few years with something that is impossible to ignore.
Until next time, my friends!
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A Money Question
What is a small step you can take today?
I’ll start ~ This year, I have started to aggressively reinvest in Moment.
Guess what, we won’t see the true progress of those investments for years to come.
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3 Ways I Can Help You
💰 Schedule an introductory call with Moment. We help athletes, entrepreneurs, and key employees build and protect wealth.
📹 Check out my YouTube channel. A safe place to get smarter with your money.
📷 Interact with me on Instagram. Where I provide bite-sized daily content to level up your money game.

Moment Private Wealth, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, located in the State of Missouri. Moment Private Wealth provides investment advisory and related services for clients nationally. Moment Private Wealth will maintain all applicable registrations and licenses as required by the various states in which Moment Private Wealth conducts business, as applicable. Moment Private Wealth renders individualized responses to persons in a particular state only after complying with all regulatory requirements, or under an applicable state exemption or exclusion. Nothing in this content is intended to be, and you should not consider anything in this content to be, investment, accounting, tax, or legal advice.