From the Inside Flap

Trading either commodities or foreign currencies might sound exciting. But if you haven’t mastered even the basics of money management—establishing an emergency fund, maintaining a budget, and setting money aside for your children’s education and your retirement—can you honestly say you’re on the path to perfecting the art of personal finance?

In Financial Jiu-Jitsu: A Fighter’s Guide to Conquering Your Finances, financial advisor and Jiu-Jitsu enthusiast Scott Ford shows how mastering your finances—like mastering a martial art—has nothing to do with perfecting thousands of exotic, technically challenging moves. Rather, mastery is as simple as performing a handful of basic moves thousands of times. These basic financial moves include:

• Prepare to Win: Paying yourself first, maintaining a cash safety net, managing credit wisely, and never procrastinating
• Balance and Base: Determining your specific financial goals, and developing a vision for your life
• Closing the Gap: Overcoming your fear of the unknown by creating a personal balance sheet and using it to analyze your current financial situation
• The Power of Respect: Choosing and working with a financial advisor
• Timing: Taking advantage of tax-deferred investments, maxing out 401(k) contributions, and contributing to IRAs
• Gain Control: The basics of an estate plan, living trust, pourover will, and power of attorney
• Position Before Submission: Protecting yourself with insurance
• Attitude: Planning for your retirement

Learning Jiu-Jitsu taught Scott Ford to face both personal and professional challenges head on—to anticipate problems, to be open to new ideas, and to seize opportunities. Now, in Financial Jiu-Jitsu, he teaches you how to use the guiding principles of finance to build a solid financial foundation that can then be leveraged to help you achieve your long-term financial goals, while building lasting wealth for you and your family.

You can’t plan for everything life and the economy might throw at you. But after reading Financial Jiu-Jitsu, you’ll be prepared for almost anything

My father at 73 is still working – which is not a good thing. I feel there is time for him to retire. My parent was not able to save money, due to bad financial management and lack of resources to create wealth. It upset me that it can happen to any of us. I gave up a lucrative career in Toronto to be with my wife in Clyde, NY. And now I feel I might never be able to create a great amount of wealth to support my family and to retire at a young age.