Here’s Why a Long-Term Mindset Can Help You Live Wealthier and Healthier (and How To Build One)

How you answer these five questions might tell you a lot about your financial future

Ben Le Fort
4 min readApr 3, 2024

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Photo by Bud Helisson on Unsplash

Most personal finance advice misses the crucial aspect of your mindset.

As an economist, I used to roll my eyes at the idea of cultivating a “money mindset” — whatever the hell that means. Money is about numbers, plain and simple. Make more than you spend, invest the rest in a diversified portfolio for the long run, and you’ll succeed.

I was trained to analyze data in spreadsheets, and when you bring a spreadsheet mentality to personal finance, it becomes exceedingly simple.

But financial decisions are not made by formulas in a spreadsheet — people make them. When people make decisions, you need to start thinking about what influences a person’s decision-making.

To be great with money, you need two things

  1. The ability to make good decisions
  2. Consistency in your decision-making over very long stretches of time

To accomplish these two things, you need to develop a long-term mindset.

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Ben Le Fort

I write about behavioral finance & evidence based investing. Want to work with me? e: info@benlefort.com Here's my Substack: https://benlefort.substack.com/