Common Sense Financial Podcast Brian Skrobonja: Author, Financial Advisor, Entrepreneur

“The Truth Will Set You Free!”

This is a phrase we have all heard and it originated in the New Testament in John 8:32, when Jesus said to the new believers, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Whether you are trying to figure out the destination of your soul and the meaning of life or simply trying to figure out how to be smart with money and build real wealth, you have to know the truth.

You have to know what is real and not just theory, what is fact and not fiction, what is truth and not just opinion.

Opinions are like a beating heart, everyone has one and they flow from each of us like breath but you have to protect yourself from being a collector of opinions and be a seeker of truth. People often speak with confidence when sharing their theories, ideas, and opinions explaining them as facts.

People also tend to show only what they want you to see. Social media is a huge part of our society these days and if you spend anytime on it at all you quickly discover that everyone is more successful than you are, they have nicer cars, take nicer vacations and their family is better than yours.

That is all of course a lie but it can still leave you having these feelings and the feelings can drive behavior.

It doesn’t have to be social media, it can be anything that influences your way of thinking. All can lead to irrational decision making and living in this gap between fact and fiction.

The Gap is the space between what you think you should be doing and what you actually should be doing.…It is this space between what you think you know and what you don’t know.

The biggest mistakes are made in this gap.

In this podcast I will discuss The 6 Biggest Mistakes of 2019 and how to avoid them in 2020.

The most wealthy and financially independent people I know realize something that most people don’t. They realize that wealth…true financial independence… is not found in the amount of money that you have.

That is what most people believe… they think that if they have a lot of money saved that they will have this sense of independence. And there is some truth to that…accumulating a lot of money is a great accomplishment in this consumer driven society.

In this podcast I want to share with you this simple paradigm shift that I believe could be the most significant money lesson you ever learn.

Pensions are becoming more and more of a dinosaur as companies are moving away from them and are replacing them with 401k type plans.

There are multitudes of reason why this shift is occurring but the primary reason is due to the simple fact that pensions are unsustainable.

Pension had their hay day in the 1960s but began to fail opening the door for the government to enter the picture.

The truth is, pensions have been struggling to keep their head above water ever since and outside of government are no longer viable.

The point is that at one time pensions were as common as 401k’s are today but times are changing and if you have a pension there are things you should consider to protect yourself from a financial crisis.

Whether you are drawing a pension now or are planning to draw from one in your retirement, what I will share in this podcast may impact your future benefits.

The goal of every business owner is to increase and expand income sources and grow profits while minimizing what is needed to generate the income.

To grow your income, you can do more of what it is that you do that creates revenue or find ways to tweak your systems that will result in an increase in cash flow without the need to create more revenue.

Know and understand your cash flow needs. Plugging leaks in your spending can increase cash flow and your ability to invest back into your company.

Anticipate your future cash needs can free you from relying on a bank to lend you money giving you the benefit of EARNING interest instead of PAYING interest.

Overpaying your taxes when there are legal and ethical ways to reduce them is wiliness on your part to overpay your taxes and voluntarily give up precious resources that you could be using for your business.

Whether you want to build a business to sell or build a business for generating a stream of income for yourself…the goal should be to have a business that runs and operates without your day-to-day involvement.

Money is a HUGE part of our life yet schools don’t spend time teaching us how to manage it and most families don’t share their experiences with one another.

Without guidance and learning best practices to achieve success, we are set up for FAILURE before we even begin our relationship with money.

It seems reasonable to believe that it would be a good idea to acquire some training on how to effectively think about and handle money BEFORE we get started.

These are a few basic points about handling and thinking about money that I believe are the FOUNDATION for all other decisions you will ever need to make with money.

• Everything is about cash flow
• Work to control the outcome
• Average rates of return are misleading
• The government is not your friend
• Unicorns aren’t real.
• Banks are not your friends
• Projections are made up
• Don’t be a consumer
• Know the difference between leverage and debt

It’s interesting to me how little people really know about life insurance.

Most people when they think of life insurance they think about its use to protect families, pensions, liabilities and business.

But there are other uses such as banking, retirement, tax reduction, long term care and portfolio diversification that is not often considered when thinking about life insurance.

I think one of the limitations people have about life insurance is its complexity but its also the negativity that surrounds these plans.

We are going to discuss all of this and more but before we do I want to say that to get the most from this, I would encourage you to set aside any biases you may have based on things you have heard and consider why I use this in my personal planning.