Speaker 1: We all understand how money compounds over time, but can
Speaker 1: you compound your health as well? There are surprising parallels
Speaker 1: between wealth management and health management. We have limited money
Speaker 1: and we have limited time, and we want to generate
Speaker 1: the greatest return on our resources. I'm Barry Ritolts, and
Speaker 1: on today's edition of At the Money, we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss how improving your personal health might even help your investments.
Speaker 1: To help us understand all of this and its implications
Speaker 1: for your portfolio, let's bring in Phil Perlman. Previously, he
Speaker 1: served as executive editor at stock Twitz, and he was
Speaker 1: the chief behavioral officer at Bank of the Ozarks. Today
Speaker 1: he runs the pro Institute, focusing on personal health and
Speaker 1: the process of making effective changes. All right, so parallels
Speaker 1: between wealth management and health management, what are they?
Speaker 2: You know? If we take the first fifty years of
Speaker 2: behavior economics, we go back and we say nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: four Canimin and Taversky publish Heuristics and Biases, and we
Speaker 2: take that as sort of the spiritual beginning of the science,
Speaker 2: and we think about what is the primary what is
Speaker 2: the one big takeaway so far from behavioral economics, and
Speaker 2: it would be this in my opinion, that humans do
Speaker 2: not always act in their own best interests, that they
Speaker 2: sometimes make very poor decisions, and that those decisions have
Speaker 2: ramifications for them in the present and over the long term.
Speaker 2: And so you're asking me about the parallel between health
Speaker 2: and wealth management, and I would say this than in
Speaker 2: health management, personal health management, how we take care of ourselves,
Speaker 2: that the exact same thing is true, that very often
Speaker 2: we make decisions that are not in our own best
Speaker 2: interests when it comes to our health. And if you
Speaker 2: look at the obesity rates and the metabolic health rates
Speaker 2: among adults in the US today, we could see that
Speaker 2: obesities is on the rise, diabetes is on the rise,
Speaker 2: high blood pressure is on the rise. And so we're
Speaker 2: doing the same thing. And so this idea that health
Speaker 2: and wealth management are really just two sides of the
Speaker 2: same coin. First of all, they are Second of all,
Speaker 2: they both affect our future selves. And so we want
Speaker 2: to take care of ourselves for the long term, and
Speaker 2: we know that we don't always make the best decisions,
Speaker 2: and so how do we counteract that? What do we
Speaker 2: do now?
Speaker 1: One of the things always surprises clients when I show
Speaker 1: them the impact of compounding returns over time, you get
Speaker 1: some really giant numbers if you let capital compound uninterrupted
Speaker 1: for decades. So, as long as we're talking parallels, how
Speaker 1: does health compounds over time?
Speaker 2: Well, these two are so similar health and wealth personal
Speaker 2: management that you get a very similar effect. If you're
Speaker 2: talking about compounding wealth compounding interest over time, the curve
Speaker 2: of that slope increases over time. So at first gains
Speaker 2: are very small. You invest one thousand dollars in the market,
Speaker 2: and even if the market goes up fifteen percent that year,
Speaker 2: you make one hundred and fifty bucks. Okay, not bad,
Speaker 2: but not much. But over time, as you continue to
Speaker 2: invest and you continue to compound, that curve increases, you
Speaker 2: begin to make more and more money. Well, the same
Speaker 2: exact thing happens in personal health management. We begin taking
Speaker 2: care of ourselves. Let's say it's January, which it is,
Speaker 2: and you're listening to this and it's a great time
Speaker 2: for us to have this program, and you decide that
Speaker 2: you're going to start getting healthier in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: And what you do is you start slow. Maybe you
Speaker 2: start walking, maybe you start jogging. Maybe you cut out
Speaker 2: desserts after eight o'clock at night, Maybe you stop eating
Speaker 2: so much pizza, Maybe you start doing a few small
Speaker 2: things that are moving you in the right direction. Well,
Speaker 2: the gains at first will be very small. But if
Speaker 2: you continue to progress, and that word is important, this
Speaker 2: is a progressive enterprise, just like compounding wealth. Compounding intro
Speaker 2: is progressive. If you continue to progress over months and years,
Speaker 2: your health will get better and better at an accelerating rate.
Speaker 2: And this goes by the way, this is important even
Speaker 2: in your fifties, even in your sixties.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the fundamentals. What are the areas anybody,
Speaker 1: but investors in particular, need to think about in order
Speaker 1: to become healthier.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm glad you're using the term investors, because
Speaker 2: here's the thing. If you are an investor and you
Speaker 2: are saving money, and you are being diligent, and you
Speaker 2: are you know, spending less than you earn and investing wisely,
Speaker 2: you are really thinking about your future self. You're really
Speaker 2: thinking about yourself ten or fifteen or twenty years from now.
Speaker 2: And the same is true with your health if you
Speaker 2: begin to act in a wise manner towards your health.
Speaker 2: So where do you begin? Well, for me, I like
Speaker 2: to really simplify it, and I like to think about
Speaker 2: it in terms of elements of health, the same way
Speaker 2: the Greeks and the Egyptians thought about four elements of
Speaker 2: the physical universe earth, wind, fire, water. I think, I
Speaker 2: say there's four elements of good health. And those four
Speaker 2: elements are nutrition, what we put into our bodies, body movement,
Speaker 2: were bipeds. We were born to move, sleep, and rest,
Speaker 2: how we allow ourselves to recover over time. And fourth,
Speaker 2: the surprising one is love and social relationships.
Speaker 1: Really interesting, So let's take a look at a few
Speaker 1: of those. How important is exercise and moving your body.
Speaker 2: Exercise is crazy and important because it affects all of these.
Speaker 2: These four elements are like the corners of a square,
Speaker 2: and when you are prioritizing these consistently over time, they
Speaker 2: all affect each other. You change one angle of a square,
Speaker 2: all the other angles are affected. And so our body
Speaker 2: movement affects our metabolic health, and that affects how we feel,
Speaker 2: how we perform, our stamina, our ability to bounce back
Speaker 2: when we have setbacks, whether those are physical or emotional.
Speaker 2: And really there's three areas. There is our breathing and
Speaker 2: how efficient we are at taking an oxygen that's aerobic health.
Speaker 2: And then there's anaerobic which really relates to our muscles
Speaker 2: and our bone density. And we know for a fact
Speaker 2: at that as our breathing efficiency and our muscle mass
Speaker 2: and our bone density increase and improve, we have a
Speaker 2: tendency of as humans to live longer are all cause mortality,
Speaker 2: which is really just the fancy term for what the
Speaker 2: probability is for how soon we're going to die, that
Speaker 2: all cause mortality decreases, so we stand a chance a
Speaker 2: better chance of living longer and staying healthier longer as
Speaker 2: we improve those three areas, how well we breathe, our
Speaker 2: bone density, and our muscles.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm a car guy, there are certain
Speaker 1: fuels I will only use for certain cars. I want
Speaker 1: the highest octan, I want the highest quality to put in.
Speaker 1: How important is our fuel? How important is our fuel
Speaker 1: for what we put in our bodies?
Speaker 2: This one is so important, and that analogy is so perfect,
Speaker 2: the better the fuel that we put into the only
Speaker 2: body we are ever issued on this earth. Whether you
Speaker 2: believe in God, whether you don't believe in God, whether
Speaker 2: you believe in evolution, whatever your reasoning, is onlybody we
Speaker 2: ever get. The better you fuel it with the better
Speaker 2: quality of foods and beverages that you put into your body,
Speaker 2: the better your body will function. And that goes for
Speaker 2: the energy component, which is what that analogy is with
Speaker 2: the octane of gasoline, and it also goes for the
Speaker 2: building blocks or the protein component, so higher quality protein,
Speaker 2: higher quality fats and carbohydrates.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about emotions and stress
Speaker 1: and psychological out look. What does this these various health
Speaker 1: benefits do to help us not get ground down by
Speaker 1: the regular ups and downs of the market. How can
Speaker 1: we maintain a healthy outlook and a stable perspective on
Speaker 1: what's going on around us?
Speaker 2: Well, our level of metabolic health affects our experience in
Speaker 2: the world and our experience all in the world. So
Speaker 2: we know for a fact that the healthier that we get,
Speaker 2: the better we function. So socially and emotionally and from
Speaker 2: an emotional point of view, the greater stress tolerance we have,
Speaker 2: so the more we're able to contain, the more emotional
Speaker 2: control and regulation. So we all feel things, but our
Speaker 2: ability to take whatever we're feeling and sort of maintain
Speaker 2: control over that and not have it affect us as
Speaker 2: much you know, you take a baby, right, that would
Speaker 2: be like the ultimate example. One little thing happens and
Speaker 2: they begin to cry, and the next minute they're laughing
Speaker 2: and smiling. The less healthy we are, the more we
Speaker 2: get like that, the more emotional volatility we have by
Speaker 2: improving metabolic health, the greater control that we have over
Speaker 2: the behavioral experience related to whatever emotions were experensis attack.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the healthier we get, the more
Speaker 2: contentment we tend to experience. So as an aside, we
Speaker 2: become happier people, we are less depressed. We know for
Speaker 2: a fact, we know from years of research that healthier
Speaker 2: people tend to be less depressed.
Speaker 1: So many of our listeners are probably familiar with the
Speaker 1: Harvard Study of Adult Development. I think they've been doing
Speaker 1: that for eighty five years, tracking all these people across
Speaker 1: their lifespan, and one of the things they discuss as
Speaker 1: a benefit of a healthier lifestyle is improved cognitive functioning.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about about that and what it
Speaker 1: means for people's decision making.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm one of those guys Barry, who believes
Speaker 2: that there's no separation between body and mind. In fact,
Speaker 2: no separation between body, mind, and spirit. You could write
Speaker 2: body mind spirit all is one word, all the letters together.
Speaker 2: The fancy philosophical term for it is a monist as
Speaker 2: opposed to a dullist or a pluralist. Mind and body
Speaker 2: and spirit are all one. And so the Harvard study
Speaker 2: is a fantastic example because what we find is that
Speaker 2: the healthier we get and the more that we exercise,
Speaker 2: the better our brain gets. And that's really a monist way.
Speaker 2: That's really a mind body is all one way of
Speaker 2: looking at the world, that we take one area of
Speaker 2: our mind, body spirit and improve it. Over here, we
Speaker 2: just start exercising more and we get a little bit more,
Speaker 2: you know, we sweat more times a week, and our
Speaker 2: brain actually improves. Our brain is part of our physical body,
Speaker 2: just like our byset is a part of our physical body.
Speaker 2: So it makes perfect sense. And by the way, that study,
Speaker 2: we were talking a little bit earlier about how surprisingly
Speaker 2: our social relations and love is also an incredibly important
Speaker 2: factor in our health and well being and in our
Speaker 2: longevity and in our health span, how healthy we stay
Speaker 2: over a longer period of time. Those guys water at
Speaker 2: Ol really emphasized that they found that as well as
Speaker 2: the exercise affecting our cognitive functioning. They found that our
Speaker 2: social relations and love affected our health span how long
Speaker 2: we stayed healthy.
Speaker 1: So our last question, when is it too late to
Speaker 1: think about getting healthy?
Speaker 2: It's almost never too late, and so you can be
Speaker 2: in your sixties or seventies. The earlier, the better, you know.
Speaker 2: It's just like going back to the compound interest in
Speaker 2: the compounding wealth. The earlier you start investing, the earlier
Speaker 2: you start dollar cost averaging every month for the rest
Speaker 2: of your life, the better. However, if you're fifty or
Speaker 2: fifty five, or sixty or sixty five, it is absolutely
Speaker 2: not too late. As a matter of fact, I really
Speaker 2: didn't start getting healthy until I was in my late
Speaker 2: forties early fifties, and now here I am at fifty
Speaker 2: seven and I could run a half marathon faster today
Speaker 2: than I could five years ago. And so it's never
Speaker 2: too late to begin. And I would only add one
Speaker 2: last point to that, and that is you can start anywhere,
Speaker 2: and you could start small. You don't have to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go run a half marathon, or hey I'm
Speaker 2: gonna cut out every bad food that I've ever eaten.
Speaker 2: You could just say Hey, I'm gonna start with a walk,
Speaker 2: or I'm gonna start by cutting out you know one
Speaker 2: you know, maybe cutting down on the drinking or one thing,
Speaker 2: and that becomes a gateway drug. Once you start feeling
Speaker 2: a little bit better from a behavioral point of view,
Speaker 2: that's a reward and you're like, hey, I want a
Speaker 2: little bit more of this. I want more rewards. I
Speaker 2: want to feel even better. And so you could compound
Speaker 2: your health over many, many years, well into your later years.
Speaker 1: Thanks Phil. So. To wrap up, wealth management and health
Speaker 1: management are kind of parallel. The advantages of making little
Speaker 1: improvements over time add up and ultimately lead to much
Speaker 1: better results and in a way that leads you much happier.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Retults and you're listening to Bloomberg's at the.
Speaker 2: Money sans Gaster.
Speaker 1: Busy Body do Body, Body does