Fit Rich Life

Newsletter #52

Weekly Tips, Tools & Strategies to level up your Fitness, Money & Life
Newsletter Archive

“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.”
— Elbert Hubbard, American Writer

Greetings Fit Rich Fam!

Spring is around the corner and I'm about to start cutting down to suns-out-guns-out shape.

Two key ingredients to that process are utilizing my favorite Pre-Workout to get the most bang out of my workouts and supplementing with a high-quality Protein Powder to lock in the gains.

Fortunately for you, my favorite Pre-Workout and Protein Powder supplement company (Vedge Nutrition) is having a FLASH SALE this weekend and offering a 25% discount with code DRAGON at checkout.

It's a perfect time to stock up.

The sale ends Sunday 2/25 so get on it now.

Without further ado, let's proactively build your Fit Rich Life.

This is your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to take your Fitness, Money, and Life to the Next Level.


FITNESS: Utilize the 3-2-3 Sleep Prep Method to optimize your recovery.

Recovery is one of the most important aspects of your fitness.

The greater your recovery, the better your training.

With high-level training and good recovery, you're able to reach new levels of fitness at a faster rate.

When you're young and made of rubber and magic you can drink and party all night and the next day get up and go crush a workout.

As you get older your body requires greater attention to your recovery.

High-quality sleep is the foundation of good recovery and is critical to optimizing your fitness.

The 3-2-3 Sleep Prep Method is a simple framework I utilize to maximize my sleep quality. Here is the framework:

(3) Have your last meal 3 hours before bed. When I was younger I could eat a massive meal and immediately go to sleep and feel fine the next day. Now that I am in my 40's the closer I eat to bed the worse my sleep quality and the more fatigued I feel the next day. I've also tested this against my WHOOP, Oura Ring & Garmin and I can see a massive difference in my recovery scores from a data perspective when I stop eating 3 hours before bed. My Heart Rate Variability (HRV) drops significantly and my Resting Heart Rate (RHR) goes up significantly the closer I eat to bed. The higher your HRV and the lower your RHR during sleep the better your recovery.

(2) Cut off beverage/liquid consumption 2 hours before bed. The more times you have to get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night the more often your sleep is disrupted. I consume a lot of liquid throughout the day. I aim to over-hydrate in the first half of the day and then start to taper off during the second half. Then I'll cut myself off from beverages 2-hours before bed except for a few ounces of water to take my bedtime supplements. This empowers me to sleep throughout the night and only get up once to use the restroom.

(3) Put on blue-blocker glasses 3 hours before bed. After dinner, I put on my blue-blocker glasses to start to reduce the blue-light stimulus to my brain so that I can prepare my mind to be relaxed for sleep. I know some people like to have all screens off at least 1-hour before bed, which I think is a great strategy, but I like to enjoy a show or two after dinner and read on my Kindle before bed and this strategy allows me to still have screens on while reducing the blue-light stimulation to my brain. I also use dinner as the cutoff point for social media use.

Utilizing the 3-2-3 Sleep Prep Method has empowered me to radically increase my recovery scores to the point where I've been getting 100% Sleep Score on my WHOOP for over a month. This has led to incredibly high Recovery Scores on all of my tracking devices.


MONEY: The different levels of Financial Independence.

Financial Independence (FI) is when your money makes enough money to cover the cost of your lifestyle indefinitely.

This is based on the 4% Rule of Thumb which is from a study done that shows that you can live off 4% of your investments for at least 30 years if not a lot longer 96% of the time and in many cases you'll end up with a lot more money left over after 30 years.

What I love about Financial Independence is that once it is achieved all work is optional, or you get to do only the work that you enjoy.

I don't think I'll ever retire as I enjoy being productive and contributing to humankind, but at this point in life, I only want to do work that I truly enjoy.

Achieving FI allows me to do what I love without being concerned about money.

Here are the major levels of Financial Independence:

Coast FI - This is where you've invested enough money to reach FI  at some point in the future without additional investments and you can start spending all of your income.

Barista FI - This is where you've accumulated enough investments that all you need to do is earn enough money to bridge the gap between your living expenses and what you can pull from your investments based on the 4% Rule of Thumb. For example, let's say you need $60K to cover your annual living expenses and you have $1 Million invested. In this case, you would just need a low-key job like working part-time as a coffee barista to earn $20K and then you'd pull $40K difference from your investments each year.

Lean FI - The money your money earns is enough to fund a simple lifestyle. It may not be your ideal lifestyle, but if you had to cut your living expenses down to the bare minimum you could afford to live off of your investment portfolio with 4% Rule of Thumb.

Classic FI - This is where you've invested enough to live a good lifestyle indefinitely. This will be a different amount for everyone based on your living expenses and where in the world you live. I live in California which is pretty expensive compared to most other areas around the world. This is where I'm currently at.

Fat FI - This is where you can live a very lavish lifestyle as you have a very large investment portfolio. The cost of where you live plays a big role here. I could move from California to a lower cost of living area like Mexico and immediately be in the realm of Fat FI, but since I love living in California and plan to stay here I am continuing to work towards this level of FI while only doing work that I love.

The neat thing about FI is that you start to accumulate greater levels of Financial Freedom as soon as you get on the path to FI.

It's not a light switch, but more so a spectrum with increasing levels of freedom as you travel along the FI Journey including:

Emergency Fund - Having 3-12+ months of living expenses saved up massively reduces psychological stress as you're no longer stuck living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Becoming Debt Free - I was in debt from age 15 to 35 and it caused a massive amount of mental and emotional stress. I'll never forget how good becoming debt-free felt. It was like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and my baseline happiness radically increased.

F-You Money - This is where you have enough money to step away from a soul-crushing job, or toxic work environment, or are no longer stressed about losing your current job as you have more than enough money to cover your cost of living until you find the next thing. For me, when I got F-You Money, I fell in love with my 9-5 job as I no longer felt shackled to the job. Just knowing that I didn't have to stay at the job to cover my bills made me feel free. It shifted my paradigm to seeing my W2 job as a stepping stone to Financial Freedom that was paying me to build skills that would serve me in my entrepreneurial endeavors.

Hitting $100K Net Worth - There is something mentally magical about hitting that first $100K Net Worth via investments. Once you hit this there is a mental shift that happens for many people where they truly realize that they can build serious wealth and they start to see the power of compounding interest.

Becoming a Millionaire - This is another major mental milestone. Becoming a Millionaire was one of my childhood dreams. Once you have a Million Dollars invested you truly realize the power of compound interest as you start to see your money making boatloads of money. The S&P500 went up by ~23% in 2023 which means that you would have made $230,000 just off your investments without doing anything. Now that's powerful AF.

All of these milestones give huge mental/emotional benefits and the sooner you start your FI Journey the sooner you start reaching new levels of Financial Freedom.


LIFE: When to get help with your goals.

When I was younger I thought I had to figure everything out on my own or it didn't count.

I also thought that I was smart enough and driven enough to do it on my own.

Looking back, I see how these beliefs held me back from bringing some of my deepest dreams alive because I was "the thing" holding me back.

When I finally got a fitness coach I got the body of my dreams in 6 months after trying and failing to do it on my own for over 15 years.

When I hired a coach to help me launch my podcast I got it off the ground in 4 months after talking about it for almost a decade.

When I worked with a business coach to build my own Fitness & Money Coaching Program I did over $100K in the first year.

This happened after I tried and failed miserably to launch a coaching program 7 years prior.

I now have a rule that if after 3-6 months I still haven't done what I say I want to do then I need to get professional support to hold me accountable for bringing the goal to fruition.

So, if you've been thinking about achieving a goal for more than 3-6 months it's time to get professional help because you are what is standing in the way.

I guarantee it will be one of the best investments you'll make.


Closing Thoughts:

It's the end of February.

Are you on track to achieve your goals for this year or have they already fallen by the wayside?

Whether it's fitness, money, career/work, your relationship, or something else do yourself the favor of getting the support you need and deserve to live your best life.


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I am sending you all lots of Energy & plenty of Dragon Magic!

Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,

Justin David Carl

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. I run a custom-tailored 1-1 & group mastermind coaching program that will empower you to achieve your dream body, master your money & live your best life. Yup, it's a proven Fitness, Money and Life Coaching Program unlike anything else out there. You can book a free consultation with me here or just drop me a note on Instagram to find a time to connect.

2. If you work in an office introduce me to whoever handles your office snacks, catering & employee experience to take your work wellbeing to the next level. I'm a founding member of Garten, a tech-empowered employee experience & wellbeing platform that top companies utilize to power their most important asset (their people). Email me at >>justin@garten.co<< to set up a meeting.