Completely Rethinking The Comfort Ladder: I Was Wrong #1
Imagine you were the wealthiest person in a poor community. You are well-known and everyone looks up to you. But you have a problem. Because of the gap between you and everyone else, you feel guilty. You can afford to do whatever you want whenever you want, but the same is not true for everyone else. You want to maintain your position, as after all, your whole life has been focused on getting to this point. So what do you do to remove the guilt? That’s when you have an idea! You have more money than you need. You don’t care as much about
The Bucket and the 80% Rule
Who says you have to do one thing with your life? You know my opinion, I say it all the time… ask yourself what you want to do with your life, but never expect to find a single answer! Secondly, always have a complicated answer to the question “What do you do?”. This is a stupid question, a ‘box-thinking’ question, and if you have a simple answer, it means you fit simply into what people can understand. Be hard to understand, but not at the expense of your own clarity. We talked in a recent article about being a ‘Renaissance Person’, about being a
How to Figure out What Your Time is Worth
You know what the biggest obstacle is to selling a home? As a real estate agent (or ‘broker’ for my American friends), I can tell you for sure. It’s not the market. It’s not the time of year and it’s not the weather. It’s the client. Funnily enough, the client, the one selling, is usually the biggest obstacle. They very often stand in their own way. Though more specifically than 'the client', it is more accurately, the client's biased and inherently flawed view on how to understand value. Everyone thinks their house is Xanadu It’s called ‘The Endowment Effect’ - where people value something more highly just
How to Trade Your Time for Work and Avoid Slavery
The fact is that you invest your time. The same way famous investors like Ray Dalio, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are investing, so are you. But the most important resource you’re trading with is not financial capital, but your own time. This is factual. It is not a questionable reality. The only uncertainty is whether you are aware of it or not. We have talked recently about the kidnapping of Marshall Godeyemi, lessons from United Airlines Flight 173 and the Two Steps to Purchase a Slave in the 21st Century. These lessons teach us one key thing - people are bad at managing
Two Steps to Purchase a Slave in the 21st Century
Buying a slave in the 21st century is needlessly frowned upon. I can assure you that there is a perfectly legal method of doing so and I will happily talk you through it today. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world. When I mention 21st century slavery I’m not talking about the swept-under-the-rug style of modern slavery, though I’ll forgive you for thinking of that. That slavery is not legal, the kind I’m referring to is. It is not something happening in dirty and corrupt parts of the third world. It is happening on your street. Right now - I can
Track Your Time (United Airlines Flight 173)
December 28, 1978. United Airlines Flight 173 takes off on its way to Portland, Oregon USA. It has an experienced crew. The captain is Malburn McBroom, aged fifty-two. The first officer, Rodrick Beebe, is forty-eight at the time. Flight engineer Forrest Mendenhall is the youngest of the trio at forty-one years of age. All is going well. The aircraft approaches the airport at Portland and begins to lower its landing gear. Suddenly there is a problem. A shock ripples through the aircraft. McBroom looks down at his equipment, and does not see an indicator that the landing gear has been lowered and clicked into place. Panic
Enough
The young boy played in the sand box. He spent all day making a sand castle, crafting it so that it was grander than all the other children's sand castles. He ran to his mother, grabbed her by the hand, and dragged her over to the play area. "What do you think of it mother?" the boy said. The mother looked for a good while, paused, and said "Enough". The boy put his head down, sad and disappointed, and walked away. The young boy was at school. He partook in a speaking competition in front of the entire school, all the teachers and students.
Value Your Time (Kidnapping Marshall Godeyemi)
Meet Marshall Godeyemi. He’s twenty-eight years-old and works for a big marketing company in Sydney. Oh, and you’re about to kidnap him for a handsome ransom. First you hatch a plan. You assemble a small group of friends
Why Cavemen Didn’t Want Sports Cars…
When I was just four years old, I wanted a Woody toy. He was my favourite character from the Disney film Toy Story. Though if I’d been born in 1980, or 1880, I wouldn’t have wanted a ‘Woody’. We know a lot about early civilisation from cave paintings and archaeological research. Without ever having read a book on this subject, I can safely say that despite the many records on cave walls, there are no paintings of Ferraris or Lamborghinis by cavemen. I think it’s because cavemen did not appreciate fast cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLfkdIdPKpI When I was a bit older, maybe ten this time, I saw
What if you’re playing the game wrong?
Mary said she’d be happy when she had the perfect man. Joseph said he’d be happy when he could afford to live uptown, instead of noisy, smelly downtown. Angela said she’d be happy when she’d published her first book. Bruno said he’d be happy when he’d realised what his dream job was, what he wanted to do with his life. Everyone has a ‘when’. When I was young, my cousins and I used to play hide-and-seek. One of us would cover our eyes and begin counting downwards from 10. 3… 2… 1… “Ready or not, here I come!” And then the seeker would go on a manhunt