I had a conversation recently with a health coach who wanted me to recommend an abundance coach for her to refer her patients who are looking for such a person.

My response to her was very direct: There is no such thing as an abundance coach because there is no such thing as abundance being created in the financial realm by anything other than learning the math required in the various investments one can make that will build financial abundance.

Most people who call themselves ‘abundance’ coaches have no such knowledge and instead focus on ‘mindset’ because it is theorized that those who have learned that having wealth is bad can never create it. Well, this theory may hold some truth, but one still needs to grasp the mathematics behind making sound investments, a knowledge that abundance coaches lack in my 30 years of helping others with mindset through hypnotism.

Please note that in the past, I have employed some abundance coaches and not one of them had a clue how to work investments. Not one of them had a substantial portfolio of any type of investments.

There is also a similar problem with so-called investment advisors. Most are employees of investment companies, be they mutual funds or insurance agencies selling you the products they represent. Most do not have an investment portfolio of their own. So, in reality, they do not know in how to best help you build yours.

So, what do you do?

You find those people who have built investment portfolios for their clients and do as they direct. There are many people who are ready and willing to help you start with YouTube videos and books by Ray Dalio, Warren Buffet, and Warren’s partner Charlie Munger, to name a few. They have their own ideas on how best to build wealth with Ray Dalio heavily in the stock market, using his own understanding through history of how best to make money based on where the markets are at any time. Buffet & Munger purchase companies with good management keeping the management in place while taking over ownership. There are others you can find who invest in real property and commodities such as Robert T. Kiyosaki, who of course wrote the book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and developed the “Cash Flow” game that teaches how to invest.

However, if you are not into investment as much as just living a life that is fun and fulfilling, all you need to is figure out what you find interesting and fun to study and implement in your life and do that with your life. Most people do not require more than $100,000 to be happy and many much less depending on the amount of toys they feel they need such as the size of their home, type of car, and whatever else people spend money on in the search for feeling happy – which by the way is found inside you, not with all the expensive toys people are too often falsely believing will make them happy. This is because it takes a lot of money to keep up with even more extravagant things people purchase.

For myself, I left most of my material possessions in a storage unit when I left Massachusetts for California back in 2013. Since then, I have been traveling the world and relying on others to cover the cost of maintaining an apartment or hotel, while easily moving from place to place with a medium-sized suitcase and a backpack that can be packed in 15 minutes. I learned many years ago during my first 2.5 months living in Israel after a trip to Sydney, Australia for 2.5 weeks to be a coaching assistant for my NLP trainers that one needs very few material items to be happy and live an excellent life. I appreciate my Kindle reader because it allows me to have as many books as I desire, as long as they are formatted for the Kindle, since not all books are, unfortunately.

I would suggest that you journal meaning taking a pen and a notebook and writing down the type of life you would like to be living. Where would you live? What would you be doing to make your income? What type of people do you want to be surrounded by? Which kinds of culture are you interested in experiencing? Many in larger countries like the U.S. and of course, the many varied countries of the world, some of which have their separate cultures within them as well.

Then figure out how much money you need to be able to live this life. I have found that by living in countries where the US dollar goes much further which also have much better quality of food, much better mass transit, and kinder people than in many areas of the US, especially on the East and West Coasts, that I require much less money to have an amazing life than anything I could ever have in the US these days given all the inflation and internal conflicts among the people on so many areas of life it is daunting.

We humans are lucky that we can critically think and then make informed decisions about how we wish to live. However, few people really take the time necessary to do this and end up living lives of quiet desperation leading to massive stress, which leads to health problems. So, this is an important area of life to be thought through to create your future the way you want it.