Financial hardship creates strong, resilient communites.

We love inflation…

Wait. What?

Let’s rephrase that. We DON’T love paying more for gas, energy bills, or basic goods and services but, at The Fittest, we see opportunity in challenges and know that growth only comes from discomfort. That discomfort isn’t always physical, though we love what our blood burning workouts result in. That discomfort could be social like we talk about here. It could be from countless stressors, including financial stressors. 

So what good can come from inflation?

Let us tell you. 

1. Resilience. When we go through hard times financially, we learn what we can live without. We learn that the luxuries we once thought we wanted or needed don’t make us happy. When we cut back on luxuries like fancy cars, cable television, or fashion, we learn that they didn’t really matter to us all that much and what really matters is our deep bonds, community, and the very basics that shaped us to become the baddest mammalian predators ever to walk the planet. When the hard times are over, our focus doesn’t shift back to all the nonsense we could buy, but instead remains on the important things. That’s growth.
2. Ingenuity. As we go through hard times and the things we decide we can’t live without break, like our automobiles or refrigerators, that becomes an opportunity to learn a new skill. Instead of taking it to an expensive repair shop, hiring someone to fix it, or buying a new one, we head over to YouTube University and learn how to fix it. That’s a skill that you don’t unlearn, but it instead becomes another tool in the belt. 
3. Financial management. When hard times hit, we learn where our money goes really quickly. We learn how to better manage our finances so that when things are better, we can save, accumulate a nest egg, and be far better off than when we were not worried about money and just threw it around like it didn’t matter. At The Fittest, we use planners and to prioritize, execute, and dominate our tasks, and that includes personal money management. 
4. Back to nutritional basics. This is our favorite one. As prices of gas rise, the transportation and storage cost of food goes up and that effect snowballs. That has caused the prices of groceries to climb faster than the price of almost everything else. Why is that good news? It’s good news because people will think hard about their food choices on 2 fronts:

1. Actual nutrition: If you are forced to choose between buying Oreos or ground beef when you used to be able to afford both, you’ll likely buy the beef. Multiply that by all of the choices you must make at the market and you’ll almost certainly improve the nutritional value of your food intake. By default, you’ll become a more dominant version of yourself as a result of financial hardships. Expert tip: Organs are cheap. Ask the guy behind the counter for liver (because it’s probably not on the shelf) and there’s a chance he’ll just give it to you or perhaps charge you for the packaging. True story… One of the Fittest staff bought a beef heart from a local butcher for $2.37.
2. How we shop: When times are tough, it’s nearly always the case that local farms or markets that source their food from local farms are cheaper than big grocery stores. They don’t pay the exorbitant transportation and storage costs that big stores pay so they can charge less. The quality is also generally much higher. The bonus here is that you can develop a personal relationship with local farmers and food curators to better understand where your food comes from. Then when finances aren’t so lean, you will likely maintain those relationships and you’ve forever changed how you shop. That’s a double win. If you don’t know where your local farmers are, go to Eat Wild. 

‍

We can help.

At The Fittest, we practice what we preach day in and day out. We know our local farmers and butchers. We sharpen our swords as we develop the skills to repair things. We plan financially. We don’t waste time on silly “luxuries” like watching mind-numbing garbage on cable television. We can help you do the same. Simply email our performance experts.

‍