3 Powerful Keys to Living a Healthier, Wealthier, Happier Life

---

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and we may receive a referral fee (at no extra cost to you) if you sign up or purchase products or services mentioned. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

---

In 2018, we finally told our family and friends that we were moving to Boquete, Panama in 2019. That was a mixed bag of support and in some cases a big old dumpster fire.

Obviously, there was some sadness that we were moving away to another country. But what was more interesting was that a lot of the feedback we got was about how dangerous it would be with drug cartels, human trafficking, and excessive violence.

Here’s a little secret… it’s not true. I mean I’m sure some of it exists just like it does everywhere in the world. However, when you compare Cleveland, Ohio to Boquete, Panama, you’ll find that Boquete is actually a safer place overall than Cleveland. And honestly, we never had a single instance of feeling unsafe during our three years living in Panama.

The problem is the preconceived notions we tend to have floating around in our minds. When we don’t know something, we rely on what we may have heard or what we simply assume.

The bigger problem is that these stuck ideas can keep us from leading a more enriched life. And that’s not the only thing. There are so many things that we don’t even know we don’t know… and that lack of knowledge can hurt us dramatically.

For example, not fully understanding money or investments can seriously limit growing your nest egg or prevent any possibility of financial independence!

Your diet and health fall are another big example. Lack of knowledge in this area or following the crowd has the potential to cause huge medical issues down the line, a possibly much shorter life, or even just a painful old age. And those bad health decisions can affect your wallet tremendously, too.

What about exploring the world? Travel is usually ranked as one of the top things that people want to do in their lives. But until you make it happen, you likely don’t have as much of a grasp on the world as you might think.

We’ve all heard the phrase “expanding your horizons” at one time or another. Now, I want to tell you why that might be one of the most important phrases. Continuously becoming better at this has easily helped me live a healthier, wealthier, happier life and it can do the same for you, too.

Preconceived Notions, Stagnation, and Following the Crowd

It’s funny how often we limit ourselves without even realizing it. We carry these preconceived notions about the world – ideas we picked up from our parents, friends, or society – and let them shape how we live. Maybe it’s believing that a 9-to-5 job is the only path to success, or thinking international travel is dangerous and too expensive. Whatever the case, these mental roadblocks can keep us stuck and unable to explore what life truly has to offer.

The real danger isn’t just in holding these notions – it’s in letting them lead to stagnation. When you stay in the same place, doing the same things year after year, life becomes predictable. Sure, there’s comfort in routine, but there’s also a cost. That cost is the opportunity to grow, learn, and experience more. If you’re not actively challenging yourself to step outside your comfort zone, you’re missing out on the richness and depth life can bring… a healthier, wealthier, happier life.

Then there’s the crowd-following factor. It’s human nature to gravitate toward what others around us are doing. If your friends and family don’t travel, eat poorly, or rarely exercise, chances are you’ve fallen into similar patterns without even questioning it. It’s not about blaming anyone – it’s just how we’re wired. But when you break free from the herd mentality, amazing things can happen. You start making choices that align with your own goals and values, and suddenly, life feels a lot more fulfilling.

I was in this camp for sure. I was running through the motions… working a 45-hour workweek at a good job, living in a nice house in the suburbs, and spending my evenings and weekends with my wife and daughter.

There’s nothing wrong with this life, but something was missing and I couldn’t figure out what it was. But then came that enlightening day in 2014 when I stumbled onto Joe Udo’s Retire by 40 blog and everything changed.

First, I became aware that early retirement was not only a real thing, but it was completely feasible to do! That led me to the FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community where I’ve learned an incredible amount of information (and still continue to!).

That became the catalyst for us to retire early (I retired at the end of 2018 at 43) and then to do something even crazier… move to a foreign country that we had only visited one time before. It was another eye-opener as to what life outside of our bubble was like.

On top of that, I finally broke free of following the masses in another regard… my health. I’ve worked out consistently 4-5 days a week since I retired. And more than two years ago, I quit drinking completely.

These aren’t pats on the back. This is my way of explaining that I thought I was happy living in my bubble. But these changes (and so many others) have completely flipped my life around and helped me to start living that healthier, wealthier, happier life.

The good news is that changing this dynamic is entirely within your control. It’s all about changing your mindset and then taking action.

A Wealthier Life Through Continuous Learning

When I was stuck in my “time to make the donuts” life, we were doing pretty well financially. I had gotten myself out of the $30k in credit card debt (over $56k in today’s dollars!) that I had accumulated when I was a dummy naive back in college. Then Lisa and I continued on the right path by saving a decent amount of what we made over the years.

But here’s the thing – remember how I mentioned that you don’t know what you don’t know? That’s actually a profound piece of wisdom derived from Socrates who famously emphasized the importance of recognizing one’s ignorance as a starting point for wisdom. His assertion that “I know that I know nothing” aligns with the principle behind the saying that there are gaps in knowledge that a person may not even be aware they’re missing.

I made a lot of mistakes just because I didn’t know. I didn’t know that mutual funds include big hidden fees in their funds that you don’t even know you’re paying. I didn’t fully understand that past performance is not indicative of future results and that over the long run, you come out ahead with broad-based index funds rather than overpriced mutual funds. Did you know that when a mutual fund has some bad years of performance, they might close it or merge it into another fund to help mask that bad performance history? Yeah, I didn’t either for a long time. Then we end up with the problem of survivor bias risk in our investing decisions.

Do you know the pros and cons of CDs, Series I Savings Bonds, and U.S. Treasuries? How about utilizing tax strategies to legally pay significantly less taxes every year? When is a Roth IRA or 401(k) better than a traditional IRA or 401(k)? Most folks don’t know these answers and a lot of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

As I continued to learn more in the FIRE community since 2014, I became much smarter about so many avenues of personal finance. Because of that, our portfolio became a lot more streamlined. We’ve had an incredible market run over the past years. If you haven’t had growth in your portfolio, then something’s wrong.

But I feel extremely confident that we’ve had even bigger growth (and in a safer manner) than we could have because I now understand personal finance and investing better. I understand things like asset allocation and re-balancing. I understand tax efficiency more (I still have more to learn in this area though).

I use the free Empower Personal Dashboard to track our portfolio and net worth…

You can see that we’ve done pretty well, not just because of the market, but also because we’re learning and making smarter decisions.

What I’m saying is that we’re doing well, but we could have been doing better… much better. Learning what you can about money and investing is a great start. I don’t know everything about personal finance (far from it!), but I continue to learn and implement.

Personal finance is important to learn – maybe critical for most of us. But after that, keep learning about other areas.

Determine what’s important in your life and dig deeper. Read, take classes, listen to podcasts, and watch videos or documentaries on the subject. It’s all but guaranteed that you’ll come out with an incredibly better understanding and that’s a big key to a healthier, wealthier, happier life!

Becoming a Healthier You is No Joke

The U.S. has an obesity rate of over 42%… that’s almost half of the country!! How could that be?

Is it because we don’t know better?

Of course, not. Everyone knows that a healthy diet and exercise are the prevention and the fix.

So why do we have a problem? I don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you two glaring issues:

1. The food companies have too much power in the country and create and heavily market garbage that isn’t real food to us.
2. 42+% of the U.S. population is obese. Power in numbers, folks. Why should my friends enjoy crap food and little to no exercise and I can’t?

I can’t help so much with the first item. That’s one where we need to come together and get this garbage out of the country. Did you know that even Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is made differently in the U.S. than in other parts of the world?

U.S. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:

U.K. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:

Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate [Iron], Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid), Cheese Sauce Mix (Whey, Modified Food Starch, Whey Protein Concentrate, Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Contains Less Than 2% of Parmesan Cheese [Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Dried Buttermilk, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Blue Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Sodium Phosphate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Cream, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Enzymes, Yellow 5, Yellow 6).

Macaroni (Durum Wheat Semolina), Cheese (10%), Whey Powder (from milk), Lactose, Salt, Emulsifying Salts (E339, E341), Colours (Paprika Extract, Beta-Carotene)

Note that I haven’t personally verified each of these but it seems to be the consensus on that crazy old internet!

It’s stupid, right? This is stuff we stand for here in the U.S. that we shouldn’t.

Onto the second point. I personally believe that we’ve sort of just accepted bad diet and lack of exercise here in the U.S. as normal. I wouldn’t say anyone’s thrilled with it, but the food stuff we eat tastes good even though we know it’s bad for us. And if everyone around us is eating this garbage, it’s acceptable, right?

But it’s not and if you want to check off another bullet on living a healthier, wealthier, happier life, then this needs to stop.

And I’m not judging. This is one I struggle with, too. Why does “Enriched Wheat Flour” seem to be the first ingredient in my favorite foods (other than sugar, of course!)?

We do pretty good over here, but not great. I would say that we eat real meals the far majority of the time that are healthy for us. The struggle I have is the snacks and my sweet tooth (my Lord, I love chocolate!).

So I get it. But I also know that we’ve got more cases of cancer and other health issues springing up all over the place and so much of it unshockingly seems to point to ultra-processed foods. I can’t imagine anyone being surprised by this, but come on! The only way to stop this is… to stop this.

I’m doing better – I now eat more fruits and nuts as snacks. I eat a banana every morning and a Honeycrisp apple every day before or around lunch (so much better than stupid Red Delicious apples!). I snack on strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, almonds, and walnuts.

We eat a lot more fish and chicken for dinner and rarely any red meat. We eat a lot of veggies. I eat sardines (yeah, I said it – they’re great in oil on saltine crackers!) and tuna a lot for lunch. Now, I just need to get the chips and cookies out of this house and I’ll be in much better shape. Of course, if you touch my chocolate, there’ll be hell to pay! But I now try to eat just one small piece of it per day and only after dinner (most of the time!).

Then there’s the alcohol factor. That’s a problem in the healthier, wealthier, happier puzzle of life, too. I tried to cut back on alcohol for a lot of years and just wasn’t good at it – there was always a “good reason” to drink. Heck, I even created an alcohol tracking spreadsheet to see how much I was drinking. If you want it, jump on my mailing list and I’ll send that over to you along with a bunch of other cool spreadsheets you’ll enjoy:

But then I watched Dr. Huberman discussing what alcohol does to your brain and the links to cancer. Something about this hit me and I just outright quit right then and there.

Now, I don’t expect everyone to quit completely, but I will say that it’s become the happening trend. Younger generations have embraced drinking less or not at all. That’s not everyone, obviously, but the non-alcoholic beverage sector is growing so fast that everyone’s jumping in on making them. The choices for N/A beers, wines, whiskeys, seltzers, etc. are becoming huge.

What you do on this front is up to you, of course, but we all know it’s bad for us. It’s all about weening that out or even just down to very infrequently. Not only will that be better for your brain, your liver, your weight, and more, but I noticed a huge side benefit, too. I haven’t had a drink in well over two years now and my sleeping is tremendously better! Even one drink used to make me toss and turn at night and that doesn’t happen anymore.

And we can’t have a push for a healthier, wealthier, happier life without mentioning exercise.

The new year is here. We know that’s when people vow to start working out. That’s a great thing! But the gyms will all get crowded for a month or so and then back to crickets.

What happens?

Maybe you overdo it and are way too sore and regretting life to go back. Maybe life gets in the way and working out becomes less of a priority.

Whatever the reason, you need to go into this doing it right. Start slow. Yes, I know you can lift more weight or do more reps… but don’t. Take it easy and slowly ramp up over time. If your body’s not used to it, you don’t want to regret it.

And be consistent.

I used to say I didn’t have time for something (particularly working out). But then I realized – it’s not about not having time for something – it’s about priorities. We all have the same amount of time in a day but it’s what we put at the top of the list that matters.

So when you say you don’t have time for exercise, does that mean you don’t have time to stream a movie or show in the evening or scroll on your phone for an hour? Chances are you do have some time you could work out, but you’re choosing to do something else instead.

Make this something that you do without even thinking about it. Put it firmly on your calendar. Let your family know that from this time to that time on these days you’ll be unavailable because you’ll be working out. And then just do it. Don’t let things get in the way. Make it an actual appointment to do.

I lift weights 4 days a week for an hour or so every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Saturday or Sunday. I’ll shift a day if I know we’ll be doing something on one of those days. I do my workouts in the morning because that works best for me. My family knows that this is a priority for me and it’s part of my schedule.

I work out at home because I know me. If I had to go to a gym, I’d come up with excuses not to go. Some people are the opposite and need to go to the gym to get away from everything at home. Whatever’s best for you, just do it.

I also know that I need to work on my cardio more. My knees aren’t great and I hate running so I don’t do that. I’ve gotten better at walking regularly but I still need to get my heart rate up some more. It’s all about continuing to work on it.

A better diet and staying fit is an essential part of a healthier, wealthier, happier life. Not only will you be healthier, but you’ll feel better and that’s huge! And if you’re currently overweight, losing some pounds will make you feel less tired all the time.

A big bonus is that improving on these things pushes the odds up that you’ll be living a longer life. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d prefer to live a longer life that I’m healthy enough to enjoy.

How Travel Creates Happiness

Have you ever heard of any of these terms:

• Hometown bias
• Familiarity bias
• Spatial bias
• Geographic bias

They all have slightly different meanings, but in a nutshell, it’s when you place preference or favoritism on the place you live and know so well.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. If you love where you live, that’s fantastic!

The problem comes into play if that prevents you from visiting other places. One of the biggest keys to a healthier, wealthier, and happier life is seeing other parts of the world or your own country at the very least.

Why would that be?

I can think of several reasons:

• Planning for a trip and what you’ll do while there can be exciting!
• Depending on the place and time of year you go, it might be an opportunity to get out of bad weather where you live.
• The anticipation leading up to the travel gives you something positive to keep thinking about.
• You get an opportunity to see new places…
  • Explore different sites and learn about the history of that place or maybe the history that ties into your own life.
  • Learn what you like or don’t like about a place (maybe it’s so good that you end up living there one day!).
  • See what’s different or the same from where you live or other places you’ve visited.
  • See how people live in this place.
• You have a chance (should you take advantage of it) to meet other people…
  • With the locals native to the area, you might make a friend and learn more about their culture.
  • At the same time, you might have conversations with other travelers and learn more about their backgrounds.
• It’s just fun to explore new places!
• You broaden your horizons by opening your eyes and mind to the world around you.
• The memories you make while traveling (both good and bad) will stay with you forever and make for some great stories in your life to recount later.

Travel makes most folks happy.

“The data gathered by Hayes and Waters suggests looking forward to a future vacation makes people happier and is essential to mental well-being.”

— UA News Center – Want to be Happier? Plan a Vacation

It’s rare to find someone who travels the world (not counting business travel) who hates it. And for those who’ve “been there, done that” and realized they don’t enjoy it, so be it. You’ve tried it (hopefully more than once), determined that you don’t like it for whatever reason, and moved on.

But if you’re someone who just thinks to yourself, “Yeah, I’m fine here in the area I live and know,” you’re missing out on a chance for life-changing happiness.

We tend to have these preconceived notions about people and other places in the world without much justification. Maybe we heard a news story about a place, or it’s near another place that isn’t so good so they both must be bad, or the people there do things differently than me so I don’t like it.

I want to tell you that traveling will likely change your perspective completely.

As I mentioned earlier, some of our friends and family almost lost their minds when we told them we were moving to Panama… but they had never been there before. They were basing their concern (albeit well-meaning concern) on their own preconceived notions. After living there for just shy of 3 years, we learned that not only were their perceptions off base, but we also found the people (both the locals as well as the ex-pats) to be on a level of friendliness that surpassed what we were used to in the U.S.

We made a handful of great friendships with native Panamanians during our time there and still keep in touch with. I think we could have become closer with more folks there but we just weren’t proficient enough in Spanish to hold deeper conversations.

We also became good friends with a lot of ex-pats like ourselves from all over the world. We still keep in touch with them as well. In fact, we’re planning to house/dog-sit for some of these friends in April when we head back to Boquete for a month.

As we’ve started to travel to other countries or even throughout the U.S. on our road trips, we’ve had some awesome conversations with a lot of great folks. Although the media focuses on all the bad stuff that makes you want to stay in your own little bubble, you might be surprised to find out that the world can be a fantastic place that gives you so much back in mind and spirit.

Travel makes people happier.

“[Participants reported] regularly traveling at least 75 miles away from home also reported being about 7% happier when asked about their overall well-being than those who reported traveling very rarely or not at all.”

— WSU Insider – Frequent travel could make you 7% happier

Opening Your Eyes to a Healthier, Wealthier, Happier Life

Shockingly, I don’t have all the answers. 🙂

But I do know that we tend to get stuck in our bubbles and that holds us back from a better life. It’s important to veer away from following the crowd and make the changes needed to live the life you dream of having.

Focusing on expanding your knowledge, staying fit and healthy, and traveling can change your life completely. It’s something we all can do. Start with recognizing where you’re falling short and work on making changes – even if you just start with small changes.

Use this new year as an excuse to kick off a healthier, wealthier, happier life!

Plan well, take action, and live your best life!

Thanks for reading!!

— Jim