Nelson Nash’s Becoming Your Own Banker – PART 1 Lesson 8: The Problem (continued)

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Content: Page 18, Becoming Your Own Banker Fifth Edition

There is an analogy from the airplane world that helps us to see the absurdity of what we saw in lesson 7 of how the average American handles his money.

I’ve been a pilot for over 56 years, and it was obvious to me from the start that you can’t fly an airplane through a vacuum. It must go through an environment.

You have seen the weather maps with the “highs” and “lows” on it. The best flying weather is in the “highs.” Bad weather is associated with the “lows.” In the northern hemisphere the “highs” turn clockwise, and they will move from west to east over the face of the earth.

Now, imagine this – there is a gigantic “high” that covers almost all of North America and the center is right over the middle of the country. You are located in Birmingham, AL, you have an airplane that will fly 100 miles per hour, and you want to fly to Chicago. The problem is that you have a headwind of 345 miles per hour! (notice the 3.45 to 1 ratio that we had in lesson 7). Guess which direction the airplane is moving! Right! Towards Miami at 245 miles per hour! It matters not what the airspeed indicator is telling you. The results are dictated by the environment. If you really want to go to Chicago, this is a good time to get your airplane on the ground – quickly! It is the best thing you can do.

Have some patience. Let the air mass move on — it will — they always do – and it will move from west to east. When the “high” gets directly over Birmingham, now get in the airplane and head to Chicago. There is no headwind and you are covering the ground at 100 miles per hour. At this stage, what I refer to as “the arrival syndrome” comes into play. “Whee, we are making progress toward our goal and you just can’t do any better than this!” Nonsense! Stay on the ground and let the air mass move on further east.

Now you have an airplane that can fly at 100 miles per hour, but it is being pushed toward your goal by a tailwind of 345 miles per hour. Your ground speed is 445 miles per hour! Fantastic! This is a dramatic improvement over the first two situations. But, you see, it is much more dramatic than what most folks think.

Everything you do in the financial world is compared with what everyone else is doing. In America, most folks are doing the equivalent of flying with a 345 mile per hour headwind. Isn’t it obvious, if you have a 345 mile per hour tailwind, that the difference between you and them is 690 miles per hour? In all three examples the capability of the airplane is the same — 100 miles per hour.

Translate this example into the financial world and it is pretty obvious what is really going on. Many financial gurus are concentrating on encouraging people to “get out of debt” and that is a wonderful thing to do. In our airplane analogy that is the equivalent of flying with no headwind. But, I have yet to hear one of these folks recognize that the most profitable thing one can do is to create the perpetual “tailwind” to everything that you do financially. It seems that this thought never registers in their consciousness.

But most financial gurus spend all their time “trying to make the airplane fly at 105 miles per hour” or something like that! Controlling the environment in which the airplane flies is far more effective.

You can’t do anything about the environment in the airplane world, but you can do it in the financial world. It must be done by creating a banking system that serves all your financial needs.

This course is about how to create a perpetual tailwind to your financial world that will, eventually, serve everything you do. You can’t do it without getting in the banking business. In the next lesson we will see what it is like to get in that business.

Pleasant dreams! Use your imagination. It can be a wonderful world for you!