“Good thing you’re married, otherwise, no woman would ever go out with you!” retorted my friend when I told him I scrubbed my LinkedIn profile of all work experience and simply put that I was an Assistant Varsity Tennis Coach.

“Heck, you’re not even the head coach, but only the assistant!” he went on to dig. My friend is a successful entrepreneur who has not yet decided to be free, despite having buku bucks.

I wasn’t offended by his comments because we’re always jabbing at each other before going to battle on the court. Instead, I laughed and played along.

“Yeah, thank goodness right? It’s tough to find a good woman nowadays in San Francisco. Ready for me to kick your ass?” 

I believe everybody needs a money coach in some form or another. Your money coach can be your spouse, parent, best friend, sibling, or mentor. He or she just needs to be a little bit more experienced and financially savvier than you. If not, she needs to at least be a good listener so they can reflect back on your blind spots.

Despite giving plenty of 1X1 financial consulting sessions myself, I’ve never had my own money coaching session. I view the entire Financial Samurai community as a great platform to discuss various issues. Some things I’ve learned from all of you are:

• All talk, no action doesn’t inspire change. Telling people to do something doesn’t work as well as showing people through my own actions, e.g. posting 3X a week for eight years in a row, responding to comments at 5:30am, deploying capital based on my investment thesis, working towards my passive income goals, trying and failing all the time, etc.
• Producing quality content without self-promotion actually works. I’ve often wondered whether it’s possible to build a brand without being a public figure. Is valuing my privacy holding me back from maximizing my potential? Probably, but this site has grown every year since its founding in 2009, so I’m pleased with the progress.
• Being a minority does not impede me from getting ahead in America. I came to America as a freshman in high school after spending the previous 13 years living in Asia plus one year in Zambia. Going from being a majority to a minority was sometimes a difficult transition. I highly recommend giving it a try one day. You’ll build a lot of grit.

If I could do it all over again, I’m not sure I would have scrimped and sacrificed so much in order to come up with a $120,000 down payment for a condo back in 2003. It kinda sucked living in a studio with another guy for two years, especially when I brought guests over. I missed out on a lot of boozing and fun excursions as well.

Because I never once thought of having my parents buy me a ridiculously priced apartment in NYC that cost way more than their humble townhouse in Northern Virginia, I never asked! But in retrospect, perhaps I should have.

We know that plenty of Millennials expect massive inheritances once the richest generation passes. But is inheriting $1M+ after the age of 50 really so great? Not really. Therefore, I want to highlight some of the best strategies I’ve learned from adult children who were able to extract even more money from their parents while living.  

At 40, I’m starting to see more relationships fall apart than begin. But for those that are still lasting, the one constant seems to be that each partner is fairly equal in accomplishment. People with similar levels of accomplishment tend to be of similar age, income, wealth, and experience.

Among the many reasons why people break up, a lack of respect might be reason #1 followed by resentment as a close #2. Let’s say you’re much more accomplished than your partner; you will start losing respect if you catch him/her lounging instead of hustling to at least try to get to your level. If you’re the partner who is lounging, you’ll start resenting your partner for being so demanding, especially if s/he is much older than you.

The physical passion only burns for so long until substance takes over.