Pursue wealth, not money or status. Wealth refers to assets that continue to earn money for you while you sleep. Money is the way we convert time into wealth. Status is the position you hold in the social hierarchy. Note - Location 321 Social status is a zero-sum game.
Relying on renting out time is impossible to get rich. You must own equity (a part of the company) to achieve financial freedom.
One way to gain wealth is to provide society with what it needs but cannot obtain, and achieve scale.
To gain wealth, you must fully utilize the leverage effect. Business leverage comes from capital, labor, and products whose marginal cost of replication is zero (code and media).
There is a large number of robots available for us to use for free. To improve thermal efficiency and save space, these robots are concentrated in data centers. Use them.
Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computer science.
Set a bold personal hourly rate and strictly enforce it. If the cost saved by solving a problem is less than your hourly rate, ignore the problem; if the cost of outsourcing a task is less than your hourly rate, choose to outsource it.
What you truly want is wealth. Wealth is assets that can make money for you even while you sleep. Wealth can be factories and robots that produce. Wealth can be computer programs that serve clients day and night. Wealth can also be money in the bank that is invested in other assets or businesses.
To make money in society, you must provide society with what it needs but cannot obtain. If society has already created the needed products and services, you will no longer be needed.
Through the internet, everyone can find their audience. As long as you engage in unique self-expression online, you have the opportunity to spread happiness, accumulate wealth, build products, and start businesses. [78]
The starting point is not important; the action itself is what matters. Therefore, adhering to moral standards is not easy.
If you do not hold company equity, the correlation between personal input and returns will be very strong. Almost all salaried jobs, even high-paying professions like lawyers or doctors, require time input to earn corresponding income.
The first is labor leverage, which means having others work for you. Labor leverage is one of the oldest forms of leverage, but in modern society, its effectiveness is not the best. [1] I even consider it the most outdated form of leverage. Because managing others is a very complex and challenging job that requires superb leadership skills; otherwise, the manager might end up being abandoned by their followers and devoured by their subordinates. [78]
Capital is the second, relatively better form of leverage. Capital leverage is using money to expand the influence of decisions. [1] Capital is a more modern form of leverage, and utilizing it has a certain difficulty, requiring certain skills. In the 20th century, people gained astonishing wealth by using capital leverage. Capital leverage was the main form of leverage in the 20th century.
And things like programming, writing books, recording podcasts, tweeting, and filming videos do not require permission from anyone. It can be seen that new leverage acts like a balancer, greatly narrowing the gap between people and making society more equal. [78] For example, every excellent software developer now has a large group of robots working for them. After writing the code, these robots start working and earning money for the developer even while they sleep. [78] Relying on renting out your time can never lead to wealth.
One major goal of life should be to control your own time. The ideal job is one that utilizes the leverage effect. In this working model, you can control your time and be responsible for your output and results. If you bring a miraculous turning point to a company by providing an excellent solution, you will certainly receive financial rewards. Especially if others don’t even know how you did it, they must continuously pay you to keep providing that product or service. And the reason you can do this is because of your obsession, skills, or talent.
One other thing that benefits me: I value freedom above all else. The freedom I speak of is diverse: the freedom to do what you want to do, the freedom not to do what you don’t want to do, the freedom from being influenced by self-emotions or external factors, etc. Freedom is the value I cherish the most.
To face reality, you must let go of the self, eliminate self-consciousness, forget self-judgment, and calm self-emotions. Although humans are advanced animals, the existence of emotional self-consciousness brings rumination, allowing certain desires to blind our eyes, making us unable to see reality clearly, and thus leading us to rashly judge “how the world should be.” This situation often occurs, especially when mixing political demands with business issues.
The difficulty lies in seeing the truth clearly. To see the truth clearly, you must escape the self, because the self does not want to face the truth. The weaker the self, the fewer the restrictions on its reactions, and the lower the obsession with the desired outcome, the easier it is to see reality clearly.
The yearning for a beautiful reality blinds the perception of the real world. What is called suffering is the inability to continue ignoring the facts.
Note - Location 1130 The more I crave solving a problem in a specific way, the less likely I am to see the facts clearly.
Without thinking, you won’t have outstanding business ideas, nor can you make correct judgments. I encourage everyone to spend at least one day a week thinking (preferably two days, because even if you set aside two days, it might end up being one).
Only a relaxed brain can generate great ideas. A person who feels immense pressure, is bogged down in paperwork, is constantly running around, and is overwhelmed cannot think. Therefore, you must squeeze out time for thinking. [7]
Almost all biases are designed to help people make quick judgments when information is incomplete. For important decisions, set aside memory and identity, and focus on the problem itself.
Bookmark - Location 1244
If it is difficult to choose, the answer is negative.
The difference between people is not “educated” and “uneducated,” but “likes reading” and “dislikes reading.”
Read classic works in mathematics, science, and philosophy. Don’t read bestsellers, don’t watch the news. Avoid joining any so-called “book clubs,” avoid pursuing any social conformity. Place truth above social conformity. [11]
The reality is, life is a single-player game. A person is born alone, dies alone, and interprets everything in the world alone. Your memories belong only to you. Before you are born, no one cares; after you leave the world, no one cares. You exist in the world for only a few decades; life is a single-player game.
Essentially, the process of life is replacing bad habits formed unintentionally with well-cultivated good habits, striving to become a happier person. Your happiness index ultimately depends on your habits and the people you spend the most time with.
The more secrets you have, the lower your sense of happiness. [11]
The purpose of the news is to make people feel anxious and angry. But the science, economics, education, and conflict trends behind the news have positive significance. You must maintain a good state of mind and an optimistic attitude. [11]