It's K.A.F-ing season

The framework to know when you should or shouldn't do something

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Awkward… for some reason this email and a few others weren’t delivered the last couple of days. So you might receive more than one email per day in the next few days.

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Okay… I may have stretched it out a lil bit on the subject line…

Because in reality, K.A.F can be applied to every other area in your life.

I just use it in the context of finance — it is my jam after all.

Before the last two weeks, I’d never heard of KAF before… until the Presidential Election Deployment briefing happened.

If you didn’t already know, I was on reservist for 3 weeks.

Anyway… at the end of the briefing, my CO walked in and gave us a quick rundown of how we gonna run the op.

“So here’s the KAF guideline. Ya’ll know what’s KAF right?”

* silence *

“It’s Key Assessment Factor. The guideline is simple…”

“If you don’t do something about it and something goes wrong, do it.”

“If you do something about it and it turns out wrong, don’t do it.”

“….. I’m serious ….”

A voice in my head just went, “The fuck is that supposed to mean??”

I just charged whatever he said to the side and let it cook.

But this is where it hit me during a case study session.

Picture this:

You’re in your mid 40s, married with kids.

House is being paid for.

Kids are in school and are at the age where they can work part-time to support themselves and learn how to make their own money and be independent.

But education loan is about to pile up and you’re figuring out how to navigate them with your kids.

Stress. Hard. Boring. No bueno.

Career wise, you’ve been promoted. Which means more money, more responsibility and more time spent at work.

You start thinking about securing your retirement that’s bound to come in about 20 years.

20 years… That’s the time you have left to set your self up for another 15-20 years of retirement.

But here lies the problem…

In your mid 40s, things are already more expensive than when you were in your 20s.

So you can only imagine how much more expensive things will get during your retirement.

Which, my friend, begs the question…

Is 20 years enough to set yourself up for retirement and how much more do you need to put aside?

That was the case study.

While we managed to come up with a plan, it would have been much easier to plan out if this person started in his 20s.

When there’s less responsibility you have on your plate. Because in this current economy and a changing world order, there’s no way you can save your way to financial security.

We went from investing is a want to a need — just to keep up with our current lifestyle.

Cmon now… you didn’t think we failed to come up with a plan did ya? Faaamm this is what we do 😎 

Now, I believe, that the better questions you ask, the better answer you’ll get.

That’s a no brainer.

So when it comes to real life problems like this, while it’s good to have a plan, sometimes life just throws a curve ball at ya… in the face.

It’ll hit so hard that you’ll feel like Mike Tyson himself knocked you down to your kneeth.

So here’s a question I want you to ask yourself when you’re evaluating and planning real life shit like this.

What happens if I do and don’t do ____? And what’s the best available alternative…

And if you need more help, you know where to find me. Just shoot me a DM on Instagram, (@rkgc.io) and I’ll help you get sorted while delivering more sauce.

I’ll see you in the next one.

-RK 🥷 

P.S. In case you missed it, here’s the most recent market update: HSBC Market Insights - Emerging Markets V 2.0