Stop looking at your net worth on a screen. Seriously. Close the app.
That number is lying to you.
I see this every single week. People come to me with spreadsheets that are color-coded to perfection. They track every dividend, every capital gain, and every superannuation contribution. They look successful. On paper, they are crushing it.
But they have no actual strategy.
They have a collection of financial products. They have a pile of stocks, a mortgage they call “good debt,” and maybe some crypto they bought because their brother-in-law wouldn’t shut up about it at Thanksgiving.
That is not a strategy. That is shopping.
Most people approach money like they are filling a cart at a grocery store. A little bit of tech stocks. A dash of bonds. Maybe an ETF because the internet said it was safe. Then they sit back and pray the green line goes up and to the right forever.
Here is the problem. The world does not care about your spreadsheet. Markets break. Currencies debase. And when the tide goes out, you find out that “diversification” often just means you lose money in five different ways at the same time.
Investing in Physical Assets to Hedge Digital Risk
We have become obsessed with digitization. We love the convenience of clicking a button and owning a slice of a company in California. But we have totally forgotten the value of holding something real.
I had a conversation with a buddy of mine last month. He’s heavy into tech stocks, loves the volatility. But he started getting nervous about the banking sector. He called me up in a panic. He didn’t want advice on another stock pick. He wanted to know where to buy silver on the gold coast because he happened to be vacationing there and suddenly realized he didn’t own a single asset he could physically hold in his hand.
He wasn’t looking for a quick flip. He wasn’t trying to time the market top. He just wanted insurance.
He realized that if the power goes out or the banking app glitches, his net worth is zero until the lights come back on.
I told him that buying precious metals isn’t about getting rich. It’s about not going poor. It is the anchor in a portfolio that is otherwise floating in the cloud. Yet, 99% of the portfolios I review have zero allocation to physical assets. Not gold ETFs. Not mining stocks. Actual metal.
If you can’t touch it, you don’t fully own it. That sounds paranoid until it becomes obvious. By then it is usually too late to fix.
The Truth Behind Holistic Financial Planning
You cannot separate your money from your life. They are the same thing. This is where Holistic financial planning actually matters.
Most people treat their finances like a junk drawer—random policies, accounts, and tax returns thrown together over a decade without a plan. You have an investment guy, a tax guy, and an insurance guy, and none of them talk to each other. That is a disaster waiting to happen.
A real holistic approach cleans that mess up. It integrates your business cash flow, your personal liquidity, and your physical hedges into one coherent machine. It forces you to ask the questions a simple graph cannot answer.
- What happens if my industry disappears in five years?
- Can I afford my lifestyle if inflation hits 8% again?
- Do I have access to cash if the banks freeze accounts?
I once worked with a client who had $2 million in retirement accounts but couldn’t come up with $10,000 cash for a sudden medical procedure. He was “rich” on paper, but he had no access to his wealth. We fixed that by looking at the whole picture, not just the ROI. That is the power of true planning. It doesn’t just grow your wealth; it makes your wealth usable.
Analyzing Purchasing Power vs. Inflation
Let’s look at the scoreboard.
Since 2020, the purchasing power of the dollar has taken a beating. We all feel it at the grocery store. But look at the data. Cumulative inflation over the last few years is upwards of 19% depending on whose numbers you trust.
If your “safe” investments returned 4% a year during that time, you didn’t make money. You lost purchasing power. You are poorer today than you were three years ago, even if the number in your account is higher.
This is the silent killer.
Most strategies focus on nominal returns. They chase the 10% gain. They ignore the fact that the currency they are measuring that gain in is melting like an ice cube on a sidewalk.
You need to pivot. Stop chasing yield and start chasing value.
Strategic Wealth Preservation Steps
So what do you actually do? You stop gambling and start building a fortress.
- Get Liquid
Keep a stack of cash outside the banking system. I keep enough cash in a safe at home to run my house for three months. It yields zero interest. I don’t care. The “return” on that money is that it is there when I need it, instantly, regardless of what the bank’s hours are.
- Get Physical
Buy things. Real things. Land. Gold. Silver. Tools. Things that have utility or intrinsic value. When the digital world catches a cold, physical assets keep you warm.
- Get Skills
The best hedge against inflation is your ability to earn more money. I spent $5,000 on a specialized course last year instead of putting it into the S&P 500. The return on investment from the new business I generated was about 400%. Show me a stock that does that consistently.
Most people are sleepwalking through their financial lives. They follow the herd. They buy the index funds. They trust the system.
But the system is designed to keep you on the hamster wheel. It is designed to extract fees and keep you working until you are 65.
If you want real freedom, you have to break the model. You have to be willing to look stupid to the average person. You have to buy assets that don’t pay dividends but do preserve wealth. You have to hold cash that loses value to inflation because you value liquidity over yield.
It isn’t sexy. You won’t have cool stories to tell at the country club about how you crushed earnings season.
But you will sleep better at night. And when the next crisis hits, you won’t be the one panicking. You’ll be the one ready to buy.
Does your current plan account for a world where the rules change? If not, fix it. Today.
