Life Built Upon Pillars – The Venice Life-Structure
Is your life built upon pillars? Will your future wealth be dependent on today’s income? As always, it depends! It depends on so many factors that even tomorrow can be a game changer in either a wealthier direction or into a more uncomfortable financial situation. Therefore, it is important to have a strong structure from the very beginning.
If you compare your life setup to the city of Venice, you’ll want to make sure your city is built upon many piles/pillars. These pillars are invisible to the outside world and one can only guess how stable your “city” really is. Pillars may consist of your family, your friends, your job, your passion, your interests, your passive income sources, your investments, your knowledge, your recognitions, your skills etc. Each pillar has a different strength and therefore you cannot compare yourself to anyone else because your setup is unique. We have gathered the five most important pillars on which to structure your life:
Venice Life Pillar #1
Define your pillars, they represent your advantages, your strengths and your passions. You might have a strong academic-pillar, a medium family-pillar and a strong business-pillar. You might be someone who has a strong network-pillar, or you define your creativity as a pillar. No matter what you define as your set of pillars, make sure you have passion for them, you are good at them or you are passionate about becoming very good at them and they are part of your life. For example, if you never plan on getting yourself into cryptocurrency, do not make it a pillar, unless or until it is part of your mindset and/or skillset.
Venice Life Pillar #2
Strengthen your pillars. Your life is built upon these pillars and as reality has shown us again and again, you will fight various battles in your life. Maybe it will be a health issue you will struggle with or a financial downfall. If you have strengthened your pillars and protected them well enough, you will make it through these life crises and become even stronger. Each flood, pandemic and crisis that has hit the city of Venice has made it bigger and stronger.
Venice Life Pillar #3
Rebuild your pillars or add new pillars to your life structure. When life offers you a miracle, i.e., the birth of a child, an opportunity in your career, or an unknown path discovered on your life’s journey, turn it to your advantage by creating a new pillar. Conversely, if you should lose interest in something you were very good at, do not hesitate to put it aside, but be aware, inattention to a pillar will slowly make it weak and ultimately unusable to you.
Venice Life Pillar #4
Protect your pillars. In life there are some basic pillars that everyone should and must have. Your family, your health and your job are very important pillars that you can even split up into more pillars. Have a very close family, a wider-family and a general-family pillar as well as a sports-pillar and a nutrition-pillar. Same thing with your job: maintain a pillar just for your regular job, one for your passive income, one for investments and one maybe for a startup that you are helping with.
It is very important that you protect the pillars which define you. Ask yourself what would happen if one of these pillars break or cannot stand the pressure anymore. Do you protect your close-family-pillar while you are strengthening your job-pillar? Have you thought about hiring a cook for Saturdays to gain more time visiting with your family, especially if you dislike cooking? If you do not like working in the yard, hire a gardener so you can have more quality time with your family or working on your wealth or career pillars.
Venice Life Pillar #5
Enjoy your life. No matter how hard you are working to build your life, it is vital to allow yourself to experience the joy of life. If you have visited the city of Venice and walked through the narrow alleys, crossed the innumerable public places of all sizes, walked the bridges, and experienced the tiny shops, you know what a pleasure it is to visit this beautiful city. You also need to take time to visit your own life, not merely work at building it. This can give you new eyes to see where you may need to re-focus or define areas in which you may choose to build exciting new pillars for your life.
We hope you found this short article about building a stronger “Venice” pillar foundation helpful. If you have questions or need expert tax or family office advice that’s refreshingly objective (we never sell investments), please contact us or visit our Family office page or our website at www.GROCO.com. Unfortunately, we no longer give advice to other tax professionals gratis.
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