PSA – Our final ONE Thing Summit & Goal Setting Retreat is one week away. Join Wendy and me online November 13–14 from 1–4 p.m. CT and get our complete 40+ page goal-setting guide. True to today’s theme, we’ve built a 1-hour masterclass on wealth-building into the Summit! Reserve your spot here.​

November 6, 2026 | Read Online​

Teach What You Want to Keep

In 2018, Wendy and I started an investment club. Wendy refused to call it that. Too boring. She christened it the Hot Millionaires Club. “Who doesn’t want to be a hot millionaire?” she argued.

Once a month, we gather with friends and team members who want to build wealth. We take turns teaching. If there’s a big new book on finance, only one of us has to read it. That person teaches the rest. When someone asks, “What do we really know about life insurance?” a member volunteers, does the homework, and teaches it next time.

And when a volunteer can’t make it at the last minute? We jump in. One of us will dig through old slide decks to find something to teach that night.

I’ve helped write three bestselling books on investing. I’ve read at least 150 more. You’d think I’d be set. But knowledge has a half-life. What I read in the early 2000s doesn’t manage our money today. While the basics rarely change, tactics and tax law vary from year to year.

That’s a big reason we’ve kept hosting all these years. It’s a forcing function – a commitment that makes something else happen. We didn’t just commit to learning about wealth. We committed to teaching it. Every month.

It keeps our investing knowledge relevant. And that helps us keep the wealth we’ve built.

If you want to keep doing something, teach it.

Teaching does two things for us. First, it keeps us learning. Second, it keeps us honest. It’s hard to tell a room full of people to save 10% of their income when you’re only putting 4% into your own 401(k). You either change your habits or cop to your hypocrisy.

Research backs this up. In a 2019 study, researchers asked about half of nearly 2,000 high school students to spend eight minutes giving study advice to younger kids. That’s it. Eight minutes. By the end of the quarter, the advice givers earned better grades in math and in the class they most wanted to improve. Turns out the people giving the advice were listening, too.

Wendy and I have done the same thing with goal setting. We set our first goals together in 2003. By 2006, it had become an annual retreat. We’d get out of the house and work through a simple process to get on the same page about the coming year and our future. Friends asked how we did it. So I emailed them a Word doc. Then a Google Doc. In 2017, we turned it into an event and taught it to hundreds of people. During COVID, thousands.

Teaching it every year made us live it every year. We couldn’t ask a room full of couples to set goals together and then skip our own retreat. No habit has done more for our marriage. And next week, we’re teaching one more time under The ONE Thing banner. You can register here.​

Goal setting and wealth building are a few of the things we refuse to lose. So we committed to teaching them again and again.

What matters most to you? Your health? Your money? Your relationships? Your craft? Find a way to teach it. Lead the next book club. Start a monthly lunch-and-learn. Host a club with a slightly ridiculous name. Teaching once will help you learn it. Teaching every month will help you keep it.

One question to ponder in your thinking time: What do I want to keep getting better at, and who can I teach it to?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Author | CEO | Coach

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