So now I’m gonna try to list the building blocks of my life and I was gonna say I was a successful life which are really both because I’m a very average person, but really my life has been very successful.

Now here are the building box

Find the right girl get married and stay married

I think that’s a big key right there getting married being in love and then building on that initial romantic love into what I consider. I’m much more real love of dealing with the daily grind and sticking with it. That’s what Pete test did. We were like an institution I said to one person one time it was like a tattoo, Pete and Tess. It was our email and it was our mantra and we had tough times. We certainly had difficult times to get through, but we didn’t quit and we didn’t stop loving each other and even though we went through changes getting married and staying married and really as the same goes staying together for the sake of the children. There’s nothing wrong with that so that’s building block number one.

Number two is get a good job and stick with it. I was very very lucky to get paid to do what’s in my nature which is to be a helpful person. I was in a staff meeting one day where we were talking about social work is not what we do it’s who we are and that was very true for me and it’s even true today because now I’m working with Hospice and I’ve never felt more connected to my work to my occupation

Number three would be avoid debt or if you fall in debt get out of that the only debt that’s really worth inheriting is your mortgage without the mortgage you couldn’t buy the house without the house you wouldn’t have equity you wouldn’t have a place to live. I don’t think real estate is a good investment for money making, but I do think it’s the most important investment for living.

Number four and maybe number one as far as actually building wealth is to invest in the stock market and it doesn’t take a genius or a financial planner to simply look at the index funds and invest just as they say, the dollar cost averaging of putting a little money into the stock market every month for all of your working life this will pay off so invest in index funds the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 have been my best investments other than like I said the blue chips of Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple.

Number five I’m gonna say, number five would be the ability to believe in yourself and to be able to say no, or at least to be able to say let me think about it. This is something that I’ve been learning only in these last few years I tried to do that when I was a supervisor instead of answering someone’s question right away I would say let me think about it giving yourself that space allows yourself to just do exactly what you’re saying think about it. Don’t feel pressure to make an immediate yes or no answer think about the pros and cons of any decision and then reach a conclusion and move ahead. I make the joke that you know I study things relentlessly and then make a spontaneous decision, which is true you know studied maybe every electric car out there when I decided I wanted to be able to buy an electric car but I ended up buying a Chevy bolt which Tess and I both love the salesman and we made that decision. I don’t know if it was the best decision but it was one of the best cards I’ve ever had and we really enjoyed it and losing test was the biggest loss of my life, but you know I thought I wouldn’t survive it, but I did and I think that’s another part of the decision don’t allow even the worst to prevent your life to destroy you take a few minutes or a few days or a few weeks whatever it takes to think it through or allow it To permeate your feelings, but don’t allow yourself to hate yourself or kill yourself. Just hang in there and see what life brings in in my case Life brought me many gifts that I never would’ve expected or known after losing test. I did get closer to my daughter. I did get closer to my cousin and now I have a new girlfriend and I never would have expected any of those things to happen and I also survived financially and that’s a big part of it all of the planning all the investing that we did was really pretty much to take care of Tess if I passed away and as it turned out, it was test that went first, but all that savings ended up benefiting me now death is on my agenda. I don’t know if it’s an agenda or an itinerary but anyway it’s very much going to be my future because it’s unavoidable and the only thing about death is when or how it’s gonna happen and neither one of those are completely predictable or controllable so I think in terms of the five building blocks I don’t wanna be afraid to die. I don’t want to be afraid of what’s on the other side in my mind. What’s on the other side is heaven in my mind what’s on the other side is nothing we were born in a little space of eternity and we returned to that space of eternity and this little glimmer of light we’ve had is what we call Life and we try to make the most of it, but I have no fear of being born. I had no fear of before I was born and I believe death will be the same way if I joined some sort of cosmic spirit, then that will be what it is, but I just don’t believe in hell let’s just say that I don’t believe in hell I believe hell is just one of those stories that people tell each other to kind of scare the Jesus out of them and you know create control. Heaven on the other hand is the carrot part of the stick and you know we strive to go to heaven, I believe that Jesus and Buddha, and all the great mystical teachers or ethical teachers, you know, believed in the very same things which Jesus called the golden role do other others as you would have them do to you. I’ve tried to live by that. I’ve not been a good soldier necessarily, but I’ve not been a horrible one either and again I’ve been very very fortunate to be able to have people in my life that I love and I love me back that is the biggest part of the five steps. It is true. Find someone to love but less I’ve probably should’ve learned a lot a long time ago and still kind of learning is you have to love yourself and that doesn’t mean an arrogant love for yourself it just means excepting yourself just excepting yourself with all of your faults and limitations, but also some of your strengths and just allow yourself to be yourself and that’s what I’m still learning to do