If you’ve been listening to me and reading my letters, you know that I highly value personal Freedom. Increasing freedom in my life and the lives of those around me is a driving force in why I continue to do what I do. I view freedom in four core areas. Freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose. This month I’d like to talk about freedom of money. This can be a difficult topic to discuss because we all have different experiences and paradigms about how to manage, grow, invest, and protect money. The Bible has a lot to say about money. It’s the most frequently discussed topic in both the Old and New Testament. Psalm 62:10 says, “though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” The danger is not necessarily in “having material things” but rather in “setting our heart on them.” We’re warned in 1 John 5:21, “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” I never really saw how that verse applied to me. I mean, I don’t have graven images or carvings of physical idols laying around! I don’t have anything like that to worship or admire. However, when I read the verse in the New Living Translation (NLT), it comes alive to me in a fresh way. NLT says, “Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” This translation helps me realize that idols in my life can be more than just graven images. An idol is anything that takes God’s place in my heart. Thinking about it that way… I probably have the potential for many idols in my life. The danger with money is it can easily take too high of a place in our hearts. One thing that’s helped me to guard against this is to think more wholistically about my assets. Several years ago, I was introduced to an idea by a friend of mine who was coaching me on some money matters. As I discussed my assets with him, my list included investments, money in bank accounts, real estate, business equity, etc. Those were the things I consider to be my assets. He agreed that yes, those were indeed, all assets, but he suggested that I had other assets I hadn’t thought about or taken the time to recognize the value of. He taught me to think of my assets in four different categories…or quadrants. The first quadrant is Core Assets. Core Assets include our relationships, health, values, integrity, worldview, faith, belief system, etc. These are all at the core of who we are, and are in fact, assets (if we are willing to recognize them as such). The second quadrant is Educational and Experiential Assets . Formal education is an asset. You also have life experiences…both good and bad. Personally, I’ve learned more from my failures than I have from my successes. I love the quote from Hellen Keller, “A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.” The “turns” we’ve learned to make in life are all a part of our experiential assets. We should strive to be life-long learners. Living wisely is the goal! Our life education and our life experiences help us to live skillfully, and those learned skills are valuable assets too. The third quadrant is Charitable and Community Assets . These are things that we give time and money to that are outside of us, they have purpose that extends beyond our individual lives. Things we participate in or volunteer our time for. How we live out our faith, etc. The writer of the Book of James admonishes us to act on what we believe. These actions and beliefs are very personal in nature. Therefore, they are extremely valuable assets. Finally, we have the Financial Assets quadrant. This quadrant includes the things most of us consider assets. So, if you wrote down a list of all the things that you value in each of these quadrants, wouldn’t that represent a more complete picture of your net worth vs just financial assets minus liabilities? Your wholistic net worth is the sum total of all 4 quadrants. There is one final part to this exercise…Let’s say that I waved a magic wand and everything you listed in these 4 quadrants disappeared. In other words, you are bankrupt. You don’t have your health, you’ve lost all your relationships, you don’t have your faith, your education, the experiences you’ve learned from, no money, ALL IS GONE! You are broke in totality. Now, let’s say out of the goodness of my heart, I wave the wand and let you pick only one of the four quadrants to get back. Which would you choose to get back first? If you’re like most people, you’re going to choose your Core Assets (relationships, health, values, integrity, worldview, faith, belief system, etc.) Let’s go one step further. I’m going to wave the wand again and give you one additional quadrant back…but only one! What’s the second one you’d choose? From experience, when doing this with other people, most choose their Educational and Experiential Assets. It’s interesting that we intuitively know that if we have our Core, and Educational/Experiential Assets, most of us could rebuild our Financial and Charitable/Community Assets. I started this letter talking about freedom as it relates to money. If we view our assets as just piling up more money, we’re probably missing out on the abundant life Jesus talks about. Sincerely, Jeff Huston and the 3D Money Team 320-905-3306 invest@3dmoney.com P.S. One final thought. Forget ESG investing! It’s a foolish idea! Most of you know how I feel about the subject. Contrarily, 3D Money is committed to Kii investing (“Kingdom Impact Investing.) In other words, we consistently look for ways to have Kingdom Impact through the real estate investments we purchase and the profits we make. If you’re fed up with the rigged game of Wall Street and the unstable US banking system, we have several cash flowing real estate opportunities we are raising money for. We’d love to tell you more!