The Most Valuable Currency...It Ain't What You Think!

At the end of every episode of the podcast I say something along the lines of how much I appreciate your investment of the most valuable currency we all have in life and that is our time. I go on to say that I will always cherish that investment and do my best to return more for you than you’ve invested but that its ultimately up to you to do something with the return on that investment by taking action. I say that because its what I believe but I wanted to take this week’s show to do more of a deep dive into the concept of the different currencies of life and why they’re so important. ​

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We all work in or come from industries that deal with the most commonly accepted currency, which is simply money. Currency is typically understood to be some form of exchange with and for something of value like cash, bank notes, coins, or some other exchange of value. In essence, we’re trading one thing for something else. To make money to pay our bills, we trade our time for currency. Coming from the real estate, lending, and appraisal world, we deal with cash value, cash equivalents, money, the value of money, the rising and falling values of what that money can buy on any given day, week, or month and we generally have come to accept that the word currency means money. If you travel around the world you will encounter currency exchanges in almost every airport and they will take your home currency and exchange it for the local currency so that you can buy goods and services using the locally accepted form of money.  
  
Having travelled all over the world in the past 25 years I have currencies from many different places sitting in my vault. I have South African Rand, Polish Zloty, Euros, Czech Korunas, Bulgarian Levs, Lithuanian Litas, and several other Eastern European currencies before they started using the Euro. These all represented some form of currency of the places I was working in at the time and the way that I could receive something of value in exchange for the local currency. We all know how this works because we do it on a daily basis wherever we go. We put gas in the car, we transfer $30, $40, or $60 of our currency for their product and off we go. The exchange of our currency for the fuel into the car allows us some mobility to live our daily lives in a greater geographic area than if we weren’t able to drive around.

For most of us, that means we can go earn more money to put more gas in the car and we can drive a greater distance to do so. Eventually, the tank runs dry and we have to make another exchange of currency for gas and do it all over again. If we want apples, we give the cashier $10 in cash, he or she gives us a bag of apples that will be consumed and there will be an exchange of the apples nutrients and energy into a form we can utilize for some limited period of time as energy for our daily activities and, like the fuel for the car, eventually the energy is used up and we need to refuel again to keep going. Again, the point is not about how this works because we learn this in elementary school. We’ve all learned the skill of earning money and then spending that money on something we want or need to live our lives. This is what is typically understood to be currency when we hear the word. 
  
What is almost always left out of the understanding of currency is what goes into acquiring it and the other types of currency that are, in most cases, more valuable than money. If you listen to the show, you know what I think is the most valuable currency because I say it in every episode, It’s your time. Your time is your most valuable currency because its something that you can never get back once its spent. We have a limited amount of it, which is, of course, unknown to us every day. We can tell how much money we have in the bank or in our pockets, but you never know how much time you have left. You don’t know how much time you have left to save money, invest money, earn money, spend time with loved ones, enjoy travel, create new experiences, hear, see, smell, taste, make love, use your hands or feet, and the list goes on. Today could quite literally be your last in any one of those categories thus making time your most valuable currency. Without it, there’d be little point in acquiring the most common currency of money.  
  
With that in mind, I’d like to just plant a few seeds today to get you thinking about this idea of what we trade for something else and the value we place on those activities. If, for no other reason than to give a little more meaning to my closing statement of each episode when I say I appreciate you investing a little bit of your most valuable currency with me each week which is, of course, your time. And to do that we have to discuss what I call the other currencies of life so that you can decide for yourself which one is the most valuable for you. I say it is our time based on what I believe to be the obvious reasons: its finite, albeit for an unknown duration, its non-renewable, and if used well, can greatly enhance the other currencies of life. One of the great things about time is that we can use it however we wish, but this can also be its greatest flaw. It can be used for lots of things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things and I have no doubt we can all list 15 or 20 things we did already today that, if we really questioned how important they really were, we’d conclude they aren’t important at all.  
  
So what are the other currencies I mention? If you were to read Tim Ferriss’ book the 4 Hour Work Week, he says the 3 important life currencies are money, time, and mobility. Money for the obvious reasons, time for the ones I just mentioned, and mobility, meaning the ability to live and earn from wherever you desire whenever you desire to do so, based on the theory that when you are free to earn from wherever and whenever you choose, the value of money exponentially multiplies. This translates to something like the guy who makes $500,000 a year working 80-90 hour weeks simply cannot be as happy as the lady who makes $40,000 per year working 20 hours per week and enjoys other activities in her free time. There are lots of qualifiers to make that statement true, but the principle idea of it is what the benefits of mobility are based on. However, I believe Tim Ferriss leaves out one of the most important in that list which is the currency of health.

Although I believe there is an inherent assumption that one needs to be healthy to be mobile, have lots of time left, and earn enough money to be happy, its just never spoken and rarely written about and I think its important to add to our list of the most important currencies of life. So the Blaine Feyen list of most important currencies, in order of importance, are time, health, mobility, and money. Since most people listening don’t have the ability to just pack up and leave their homes and work from an island somewhere, lets not focus so much on the currency of mobility and instead focus on the triumvirate of Time, Health, and Money. If you think of each one of these as sides of a triangle with time on the bottom and health and money on either side, then you could throw mobility into the center inside of its own circle as in, if you take care of the the outer three, the inner currency of mobility becomes a happy benefit or return on your investment of the other three.  
  
Why health? Well, for one simple reason, without it there is little point in caring much about money. Without health, time will be the only thing one hopes and begs for and money will merely be a necessary requirement in the search for better health. There’s a somewhat famous quote from the Dalai Lama that goes like this: when asked what surprised him most about humanity he replied: “Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money in order to gain back his health…” The quote goes on from there but I’m cherry picking the good part because I think it’s the part that has the most value for the masses. While I don’t agree with everything the Dalai Lama says, I would tend to agree with this general sentiment because the statistics and history prove it to be absolutely true. The reasons, well those can be argued in the form a debate over the costs of health care, politics, cost of living, multi generational poverty, lifestyle choices, etc., but the important part of that view is simply the folly of trading our most valuable currencies of time and health for the currency of money, only to have to then trade that money later on in an attempt to regain some of our health, in an attempt to have just little more valuable time on this earth with those we love. 
  
One of the important aspects to fully understanding this concept of life’s most valuable currencies is that, whether its money, time, health, or mobility, we’re always in a state of trading one for another. Every decision we make we are trading something for something else. If we say yes to one obligation, we are saying no to another. We cant be at our kid’s soccer game and at the board meeting so when you say yes to one, you’re ultimately saying no to the other. And this is true of almost every decision we make. If we say yes to Christmas cookies and egg nog, we’ve said no to feeling good in an hour or the next day. If you say yes to drinks at the bar, you’re saying no to time with somebody else, or time at the gym, or time on the exercise bike, or pick 5 of the other things that you’ve ultimately said no to by saying yes to that one thing. We’re always borrowing on credit today and will always have to pay back the interest on that debt the next day, week, month, or year.  
  
When it comes to our health, its typically only discussed in terms of the negative. Meaning, it usually only comes up when something is wrong, at which point somebody is doing something to regain it. We tend to feel like if we aren’t dying, we’re probably ok at this point. We push ourselves by staying up too late, working too hard with no complimentary stress reduction practices like meditation, yoga, and exercise, we drink too much and tell ourselves that we do that to relax, and just generally live off of the credit we’re constantly borrowing against in pursuit of the most common currency, which is of course, money. We tend to borrow against the currencies of health and time in an effort to gain more money. The irony being that we tend to think that more money will mean more time, better health, and more mobility. This means, of course, that its not really the money we want, its what the money represents for each of us. We don’t really care about the paper bills, we care about what those pieces of currency represent to us by way of time with our loved ones, better transportation, better living conditions, more experiences, and the eventual freedom that comes from not needing to worry, or even think, about having to physically work to earn it anymore.  
  
Almost everybody has some kind of fantasy that one day they wont have to work anymore and just enjoy the fruits of the many grueling years of labor. This is the traditional idea of retirement and something I and Tim Ferriss refer to as a deferred lifestyle plan. The author Henry David Thoreau warned not to spend “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” He meant, of course, that the most valuable part of ones life is when we have the best health, the most time (or so we think), the most resources, and the best likelihood of enjoying it. He is also famous for saying, “man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone”. In essence, its not about accumulation but elimination. The great martial artist Bruce Lee said, “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”  
  
So what does this all mean and what are you saying Blaine? What I’m saying my friends is that we must not place more importance on one of the least important life currencies and trade our most valuable currencies of time, health, and mobility in return for a little of the first. Now, I know what some of you might be saying, “try living in poverty Blaine, say this when you’ve got tons bills to pay or not enough food to eat. Tell somebody who is living on the street that their time, health and mobility is more important than money when money is what they need to buy a meal.” I get it. When you don’t have it, money can be one of the most important and sought after forms of currency. Especially when you’re hungry, cold, homeless, or worse, dying and in need of more resources. I get it! Those are all very valid sentiments, although terrible arguments for trading your time and health for a little bit of it.

Even the cold and hungry tend to plead for more time and not money when they are aware of an impending end. We all have to trade our valuable time to earn money until we’ve made enough good investing decisions to be able to live off of the returns on our passive investments, which is a whole other episode. What we don’t have to do is trade or borrow against the currency of health in order to earn more money. With increased health comes more time, better time, more experiences, and more mobility. When we borrow against that most valuable currency and trade it for income, we will eventually have to pay the interest on the debt which means spending the very money we traded it for to try and get some of it back.  
  
Take a close look at your life, your days, weeks, and months. Take a deep dive into your values and your goals. If every one of them is geared toward the one currency that is the most abundant and available to those who add value, its time to take a closer look at the other ones. The one I just mentioned, by the way, is money. It is by far the most abundant and available to those who create and add value for enough other people. It’s the easiest to gain back once lost, the easiest to spend and not miss, the easiest to give away and get back more in return and the least important of the 4 we’ve talked about today. Of the 4 life currencies, time, health, mobility, and money, I strongly encourage you to address all four in your monthly life and business strategy sessions. What?! You don’t have monthly life and business strategy sessions? Ok, add them to your quarterly strategy sessions then. Wait, what?! You don’t do quarterly planning sessions? Fine, add them to your annual planning session but address each of the four currencies and decide which ones you will place at the bottom of your pyramid for stability. I would strongly encourage you to make health your most important currency with time on one side and money or mobility on the other. Whichever one you don’t put on your triangle, throw into the middle of the triangle.

If you want my advice, I’d encourage health at the bottom and time and mobility as your sides with only on the inside. This gives a nice representation of the 3 most valuable ones and how they can with lead to more of what’s in the middle OR a better way to view the pyramid in that configuration is to see the center of the pyramid, the money, as the means to more time, better health, and increased mobility. This, in my opinion, is the most empowering configuration. And although I sarcastically tease about your monthly, quarterly, or annual planning, I know most of you don’t do this which is why so many struggle with the money part and willingly trade your time and health currencies for the first one. This is not just your problem, by the way, this is a universal problem and a product of the times we live in, the beliefs we’ve been given, the mentors or lack of mentorship we had growing up, and a serious lack of training in these areas. Start at least doing annual planning and tracking to your goal and see if you don’t see a few things change for you. If you have trouble in this area, shoot me an email and I’ll give you some key steps to doing this kind of future planning and lifestyle development.  
  
I’ll end this episode with a story, a parable if you will. This is from the great Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.  
  
There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. 
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. 
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?” 
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.” 
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished. 
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said. 
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?” 
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.” 
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. 
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.” 
The fisherman continues, “And after that?” 
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.” 
The fisherman asks, “And after that?” 
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!” 
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?” 
  
Thank you for investing your most valuable currency with me each week my friends, and if you haven’t figured out by now what that is, its your time. I take very seriously your investment of that most valuable currency and will always do my best to return more for your investment than what you’ve spent. It is ultimately up to you to do something with the return on that investment. Take a close look at what you’re trading, or worse, borrowing against each day in search of money and make some changes that move you closer toward balance than what you may be experiencing right now. The changes can be small incremental 1% changes each day toward more, better, smarter, cleaner, healthier, and life giving and affirming instead of life sucking. Remember, the bill always comes due when we borrow or trade against one for the other so choose wisely which ones you invest the most heavily in. Three of the four are finite while only one of them is infinite. You cant get more time, you’ll have a hard time getting back your health once gone, and your mobility will always be hampered by a lack of time and health. Focus on the most important ones and you’ll find money to merely be a happy facilitator of the other three. 
  
Thank you my friends, make the absolute most of the time you have this week, we’ll catch up again next week. I’m out… 
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