Almost one-third of Americans have a net worth of zero or less.

Over half of Americans don’t know how to calculate their net worth.

Nearly one-in-four Americans aged 59 and above have yet to set for retirement.

That’s according to a new survey from Credit Karma.

This is a whole bunch of bad for many reasons. If you are 59 or older and have no nest egg, you needed a financial plan over 10 years ago. The sad reality for people in this precarious situation is dire and needs to be addressed asap.

• You will likely need to continue working in your 60s and 70s to keep your head above water. Health probably becomes a significant factor. Many people will have to work until they die.
• Healthcare and long-term care expenses are only affordable with a vast savings war chest.
• You must rely on state and federal assistance without family covering your expenses. Anyone that has dealt with government-run-anything understands these options are subpar and inadequate.
• State-run assisted living facilities are rampant with abuse and neglect.

There is no good way to spin this, and the government isn’t coming to the rescue. No politician or party will drastically overhaul the healthcare system, Social Security, or federal income taxes. Most people want roughly $1-3 million to retire easily and comfortably. A few $1,200 stimulus checks or wiping out $10,000 in student debt will not make a significant dent in reaching that goal.

I cannot provide a constructive message for people nearing retirement in their 50s and older. Things look bleak but are not hopeless. Righting the ship is still possible with quick action and the right resources. But I lack the personal experience in this subject to provide helpful advice on retiring without savings.

I want to warn those still decades from retirement: you have time but must show more urgency to achieve your financial goals. To retire comfortably, you must change your lifestyle and mindset about money.

Saving money and frugality does not create wealth. Investing does.

If you want to unlock wealth, you need to invest. Saving $5 a day by skipping Starbucks isn’t create wealth; what you do with that $5 and the other discretionary income will determine if you can build wealth.

Not buying luxury cars or designer clothes will provide you more savings and better odds of staying out of debt, but being frugal does not create wealth.

A lot of young people today are actually good at saving money. The problem is, where is that money going? Remember, many things you buy for $5-15 today will be $20-30 in the future. So, if you take that $5 from skipping Starbucks and stow it away in a savings account or something that cannot beat inflation, that $5 couldn’t even buy you one coffee in the future.

If you rush in to lock in your money in a 12-month CD with a 3-4% APY or a high-yield savings account yields upward of 4-5%, you are just losing less. As the great Harvey Spector said, “That’s the difference between you and me. You wanna lose small, I wanna win big.”

These vehicles won’t help you reach your retirement goals. If you put most of your money into CDs or savings accounts, you likely have too much of a scarcity mindset. Unless you have a salary of over $150,000, you shouldn’t be doing this because even Americans earning this type of salary aren’t pouring their discretionary income into inflation-losing vehicles.

Take smart risks, and think exponentially, not linearly.

If you make less or slightly above the median income, you cannot save your way into millions… It’s possible, but it would require a lot of sacrifice, luck, and time.

You are just an average person making around the median salary. How do you get ahead?

Get a part-time job, new job, or side hustle.

“A healthy person has a thousand wishes, a sick person just one.” – Tony Robbins.

Getting a part-time job or working overtime consistently can bring in more money; however, at what cost? Do you really want to work 50-80 hours a week? The cost of overworking will likely have a toll on your mental and physical health. The payoff needs to be huge if you are going to risk your health. But ask yourself again, is it worth sacrificing your long-term health and quality of life for a larger paycheck.

Job-hopping to increase your salary has worked for many people, but there is an obvious limit to this. You cannot expect a 10-20% yearly raise for the rest of your working life. At some point, there is a ceiling on the salary you can earn from a single job. This is a short-term strategy to build wealth.

Looking at a side hustle is a bright idea. How to turn passive income by committing a minimal amount of hours. The problem is you aren’t likely to get wealthy from it. A side hustle could replace a full-time income, but the odds are not in your favor.

Jasmine McCall makes $105,000 monthly in passive income for her Youtube Channel.

Could you be an outlier like Jasmine?

Wanting to be a social media influencer isn’t a bad idea. Trying to do it as a side hustle in addition to your primary source of income is low risk with a potential for a high return. The problem is the probabilities aren’t great. Building an audience requires a lot of legwork and patience. You’re first few years, you will likely only net a little. Remember, a lot of influencers that “made it” were highly accomplished in their professional careers. Many have a skillset and talent that allow them to succeed in social media.

The problem with the self-employed and those working a non-traditional career is that many end up working more hours than W2 employees and have the same wage or make less. They also have to pay more in taxes and insurance. Many of these workers have the same problem as those working a conventional job from an employer.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to pursue your dreams and passions. To be an outlier, you must embrace risk and failure. If one cannot tolerate failure, one likely won’t take the risk and experience growth.

Investing is the ultimate side hustle.

Investing is the best way to achieve wealth using a risk-reward ratio or looking at things based on probabilities vs. possibilities. Wealth from investing can grow exponentially, while the chances are not improbable.

A relatively small percentage of actors achieve financial security through acting. The same for high school athletes that want to go pro. Climbing the top of the corporate ladder and becoming a famous TikTok famous are things not in your statistical favor from happening.

My philosophy. You need to take risks if you want to get an enormous reward. That risk may have to be unconventional and out of your comfort zone. Most importantly, you have to risk losing a lot of your safety net to make a vertical move. That’s the cost of success: The loss of certainty for the potential of a bigger prize. But you need to take intelligent risks. Not just buying lottery tickets or praying and dreaming for a white knight to save you. Investing provides reasonable risk probabilities with enormous rewards, not just pie-in-the-sky hope and dreams.

Investing is the ultimate side hustle because it is accessible to anyone that can open a brokerage account. The barrier of entry is nearly nil. It is the ultimate weapon to build wealth, yet few take advantage of it for various reasons, which I have written about in the past.

A lot of people compare investing and gambling to the same thing, which is not categorically true:

Casinos are quite different from the stock market, where the chance of a positive return over a long period of time, say 10 years, is over 94%. Put another way, the chance of losing in the long term is just 6%, versus 100% with gambling. For every $100 put into the stock market, there is a 94% chance you will gain an additional $96 after 10 years (an annual return of 7%), and I am being conservative. Past performance indicates the annual return of U.S. Stocks has ranged from 9% to 14% over the past 10 to 30 years.

Is Stock Investing The Same As Gambling?

The odds of making money in investing are incredibly high. The odds of making money in gambling are extremely low. The main difference is that investing is boring, while gambling is entertaining. Unfortunately, many people cannot differentiate investing from gambling, which explains why many do not invest anything at all, too conservatively or too recklessly.

The secret sauce with investing is that it can passively turn a small amount of money into a large windfall. It doesn’t require hours of editing videos or meeting with tenants. There are no maintenance fees, mortgage, or insurance needed.

The most important question any investor has to ask is, ‘What do you have to lose?’

Donald Trump asked this when he was appealing to black voters in 2016: “What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump?” he asked them. “You’re living in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed, what the hell do you have to lose?”

If you are not investing, what do you have to lose? Turning a net worth of $50,000 to $5,000,000 requires risk. You can get this from compounded interest and just patiently waiting.

People generally have much more to gain than to lose. By the time people realize this, it’s too late. Investing long-term in your 50s and older is much more complicated than when you are younger.

I have seen this numerous times since when I was a financial advisor. A lot of people near retirement have a lot of financial regrets and missed opportunities. It wasn’t so much the bad investments but those never made when the opportunity was available. The window wasn’t short either, as people had decades to do something but let fear and complacency get in the way.

To tie this all together, the #1 trait for great investors, entrepreneurs, and really successful people, in general, is how people deal with adversity. If you can handle adversity, you can manage risk.

It doesn’t matter if it’s adversity created by the environment or adversity you create yourself. When you have a difficult situation, you need the mindset to take it and run with it. Some people just take it and make it work. They feed on adversity. Some people see trouble, and they just quit, as talented and intelligent as they are. It isn’t so much a game about IQ and intelligence but temperament.

There are some people who, in the face of adversity, become calmer. When the world is falling apart, their heart rate decreases for some reason. You will likely succeed in investing and life if you can be calm and opportunistic under adversity.