Lifebuilder with Stephen Courson

You can now download my Lifestyle Strategy template for free at www.everything.money Start with Challenge Question: It’s an age old saying. Money can’t buy happiness. But can it? Like, actual true happiness? I guess the question is not so much “can money buy happiness” as it is “what do you consider happiness”?  Quote – “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’...

Start with Challenge Question: Do setting goals make a difference in your everyday life? Is there such a thing as a bad goal? If you planned a roadtrip, but never set a destination, doesn’t that sound kind of ridiculous Goals give you a purpose and direction.  Quote – The problem with not having a goal is that you can spend your whole life running up and down the field and never score. Fact #1 – P...

Five Jobs That Make Over $60k And Don’t Need a Four-Year Degree  Question – Do you need a four year degree to make a decent living?   Point #1 – Is the quote by Musk.  Quote – “You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve.” – Elon Musk Point #2 – A college degree has a direct correlation to value in fields like engineering, accounting and nursing. But increasingly, a d...

If you want to build a Lifestyle Strategy so you can earn more money and have more time to spend on the things that are important to you, then download my free Lifestyle Strategy Playbook at www.everything.money.  Join me for a personal discussion on what the lack of gratitude did to me in 2020 despite having some of the most amazing moments of my life happen in 2020. In this episode, I discuss wh...

Investing: Where to Start?   Sometimes the best investment doesn’t look like an investment.   Point #1 – Before you invest in property, stocks, or anything else, you have to look at your debt.  People don’t realize it, but sometimes paying down additional debt has the BEST RETURN on your money? 20% on a credit card is a better “investment” than buying a stock with a 10% return. That’s a 100% bette...

Why are we so afraid to talk about money? Why is it considered a social taboo?  From an American perspective, we can blame the British for this one. Jodi R. R. Smith of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting said that the wealthy didn’t need to discuss it because most wealth was based on land so it was relatively easy to figure out what someone earned. And those further down the feudal ladder had very l...

Bitcoin is the most popular buzzword in money right now and almost no one really knows what it is. But the only thing people ask me is whether or not they should invest. So…should you? To answer this question, we are going to treat this like a video game. You have to pass certain “bosses” or “quests” in order to be able to advance to the next one. If you don’t pass one of these, then you can’t kee...

Check out www.everything.money for more insights and get our Lifestyle Strategy Playbook to help you save more and live the life that you want! On to Black Friday 2020! 1.     Start early   So a few years ago, to minimize people literally trampling and fighting each other at the door, the stores starting spacing out Black Friday over a few days over a few weeks. This has reduced the loss of human...

Have you ever made a big financial mistake? What was it? Listen up and I’ll give you mine…  And by the way, I’m not talking about “should have bought bitcoin in 2012” or “wish I put my life savings in Apple stock in 2005”. Give me something legitimate because even if you had bought those back then, I’m willing to bet my amazing dog and partner in crime, Leia, that you would have sold out before it...

Quote – “In America, anyone can become the President. That’s the problem.” – George Carlin Truth #1 – Uncertainty sucks. Especially in 2020.  Regardless of who wins, both candidates have been pretty vague about how their plans will work. There’s lots of promises and the outcomes are based on government efficiency which, outside of the military, has been proven over and over again to run as smoothl...

This was a quiz in Forbes magazine a few years ago. Most people only get 2 correct… 1. As a general rule, how many months' expenses do financial planners recommend that you set aside in an emergency fund? a) 1 to 3 months b) 3 to 6 months   c) 6 to 12 months d) 12 to 15 months Correct Answer: The correct answer is C, which is "6 to 12 months."  2. If you have too many credit cards,...

How far would you go to NOT have a serious conversation about money? Quote – “Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but its reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale. – Zig Ziglar Quote – “I’m scared to death of being poor. It’s like a fat girl who loses 500lbs but is always fat inside. I grew up poor and will always feel poor inside. It’s my pet paranoia.” – Cher This New Yo...

When interviewing for other positions inside your existing company, it’s good to also interview externally as well. This way, if you have other job offers, you can use their “potential salary” as leverage in your existing one.  Point #1 – Interviewing over the phone It’s important to speak clearly over the phone. Without the ability to see you, making sure our speech is understood is very importan...

Do you know any millionaires? I do. If you hang around millionaires whether they have $1 million or $100 million, most of them think about money the same. It’s a simple thing but its life changing. They don’t think in terms of amounts, but percentages. Numbers don’t lie, but they can misrepresent what is actually going on. We see this in data that politicians and large media outlets put out. They’...

The economics of a 4-year degree have changed. So is it worth the high price tag for that diploma? Point #1 For – One of the biggest selling points is that graduating from a university and becoming an alum makes you part of a network and network = net worth Harvard just announced it was doing the entire Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters online due to COVID-19. No onsite classes. But what didn’t...

What number means you are rich? What threshold has to be crossed in your opinion for you to call yourself “rich”? Financial Brokerage firm Charles Schwab has people between ages of 21 and 75 surveyed to find out what it means to be considered wealthy. The magic number across everyone who surveyed said $2.6M. BUT, since COVID-19 hit, people have seemed to readjust their thinking of what’s essential...