My Note
My highlights
218 highlights from Kindle. These are the lines I stopped at.
Recapturing the excitement of childhood isn’t impossible. In fact, it’s required. There are no more chains—or excuses—to hold you back.
If you have created a muse or cut your hours down to next to nothing, consider testing a part-time or full-time vocation: a true calling or dream occupation.
Full-time work isn’t bad if it’s what you’d rather be doing. This is where we distinguish “work” from a “vocation.”
For the duration of this trip, note self-criticisms and negative self-talk in a journal. Whenever upset or anxious, ask “why” at least three times and put the answers down on paper.
Slowing down doesn’t mean accomplishing less; it means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed.
is hard to recalibrate your internal clock without taking a break from constant overstimulation. Travel and the impulse to see a million things can exacerbate this.
Revisit ground zero: Do nothing. Before we can escape the goblins of the mind, we need to face them. Principal among them is speed addiction.
Don’t be in a rush to jump into a full-time long-term commitment. Take time to find something that calls to you, not just the first acceptable form of surrogate work.
But I can’t just travel, learn languages, or fight for one cause for the rest of my life! Of course you can’t. That’s not my suggestion at all. These are just good “life hubs”—starting points that lead to opportunities and experiences that otherwise wouldn’t be found.
Find the cause or vehicle that interests you most and make no apologies.
Service is an attitude.
Service isn’t limited to saving lives or the environment either. It can also improve life.
Service to me is simple: doing something that improves life besides your own.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. —OSCAR WILDE
(1) adults can learn languages much faster than children83 when constant 9–5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less.
The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated.
Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.
It need not be a competitive sport—it could be hiking, chess, or almost anything that keeps your nose out of a textbook and you out of your apartment.
The most successful serial vagabonds tend to blend the mental and the physical. Notice that I often transport a skill I practice domestically—martial arts—to other countries where they are also practiced. Instant social life and camaraderie.
I tend to focus on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill, sometimes finding the latter after landing overseas.
The different surroundings act as a counterpoint and mirror for your own prejudices, making weaknesses that much easier to fix.
Though you can upgrade your brain domestically, traveling and relocating provides unique conditions that make progress much faster.
To live is to learn. I see no other option. This is why I’ve felt compelled to quit or be fired from jobs within the first six months or so. The learning curve flattens out and I get bored.
fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.
I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. —VIKTOR E. FRANKL,
If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
I am 100% convinced that most big questions we feel compelled to face—handed down through centuries of overthinking and mistranslation—use terms so undefined as to make attempting to answer them a complete waste of time.82 This isn’t depressing. It’s liberating.
If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,81 these doubts disappear.
Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant.
These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100% alive and undistracted—in the zone.
Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-as-success mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with.
What the hell should I do with my life? It’s like senior year in college all over again.
Once you eliminate the 9–5 and the rubber hits the road, it’s not all roses and white-sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as “What does it all mean?”) become harder to fend off for a later time.
People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. —JOSEPH CAMPBELL,
Don’t be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times.
Once liberated, this automatic tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder.
Retirees get depressed for a second reason, and you will too: social isolation.
Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf.
The smarter and more goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be.
however—be it three weeks or three years later—when you won’t be able to drink another piña colada or photograph another damn red-assed baboon. Self-criticism and existential panic attacks start around this time.
In the beginning, the external fantasies will be enough, and there is nothing wrong with this. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this period. Go nuts and live your dreams. This is not superficial or selfish. It is critical to stop repressing yourself and get out of the postponement habit.
Decreasing income-driven work isn’t the end goal. Living more—and becoming more—is.
Too much free time is no more than fertilizer for self-doubt and assorted mental tail-chasing. Subtracting the bad does not create the good. It leaves a vacuum.
The retired and ultrarich are often unfulfilled and neurotic for the same reason: too much idle time.
I’ve Got More Money and Time Than I Ever Dreamed Possible … Why Am I Depressed?
What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness?
What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
The key to having more time is doing less, and there are two paths to getting there, both of which should be used together: (1) Define a to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions:
We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don’t feel that anymore. —OPRAH WINFREY,
Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless and cut the fat.
Most inputs are useless and time is wasted in proportion to the amount that is available.
THE 80/20 PRINCIPLE and Parkinson’s Law are the two cornerstone concepts that will be revisited in different forms throughout this entire section.
1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law).
Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.
remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or—in this case—to count the pea pods.
Throw it all up on the wall and see what sticks. That’s part of the process, but it should not take more than a month or two.
Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.
The customers are always right, aren’t they? Part of doing business, right? Hell, no. Not for the NR, anyway.
Don’t expect to find you’re doing everything right—the truth often hurts. The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them.
1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? 2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?
What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it.
1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.
It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. —WILLIAM OF OCCAM
one place to visit one thing to do before you die (a memory of a lifetime) one thing to do daily one thing to do weekly one thing you’ve always wanted to learn
What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?
What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank?
Create two timelines—6 months and 12 months—and list up to five things you dream of having (including, but not limited to, material wants: house, car, clothing, etc.), being (be a great cook, be fluent in Chinese, etc.), and doing (visiting Thailand, tracing your roots overseas, racing ostriches, etc.) in that order.
What would you do if there were no way you could fail? If you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. —VIKTOR FRANKL,
Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.”
The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.
This is when both employees and entrepreneurs become fat men in red BMWs.
This is how most people work until death: “I’ll just work until I have X dollars and then do what I want.” If you don’t define the “what I want” alternate activities, the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void.
Therefore, I just continued working, even though there was no financial need. I needed to feel productive and had no other vehicles.
The goal wasn’t specific enough. I hadn’t defined alternate activities that would replace the initial workload.
If you do manage to ignore the doubters and start your own business, for example, ADD doesn’t disappear. It just takes a different form.
Somewhere between college graduation and your second job, a chorus enters your internal dialogue: Be realistic and stop pretending. Life isn’t like the movies.
Adult-Onset ADD: Adventure Deficit Disorder
“What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”
Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.
The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is—here’s the clincher—boredom.
Let’s assume we have 10 goals and we achieve them—what is the desired outcome that makes all the effort worthwhile?
“What are your goals?” is similarly fated for confusion and guesswork.
“What do you want?” is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Forget about it.
The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits.
If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre.
Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.
If you don’t pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years?
What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action?
As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.
What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
Define the worst case, accept it, and do it.
Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do.
If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?
What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it’s easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under control?
What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1–10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?
Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life?
Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering.
thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit—aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer.
Don’t save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.
To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.
The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real necessities, and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming epiphany he’d ever experienced: The worst really wasn’t that bad.
How many do you have to go? It’s probably time to cut your losses.
If not, things will not improve by themselves. If you are kidding yourself, it is time to stop and plan for a jump.
Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago?
This is fear of the unknown disguised as optimism.
If you were confident in improvement, would you really be questioning things so? Generally not.
Do you really think it will improve or is it wishful thinking and an excuse for inaction?
Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.
Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income. This seems valid and is a tempting hallucination when a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell.
Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial.
Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don’t call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is quite fear-inducing.
There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. —YVON CHOUINARD,7 founder of Patagonia
As soon as I cut through the vague unease and ambiguous anxiety by defining my nightmare, the worst-case scenario, I wasn’t as worried about taking a trip.
Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?” —SENECA
Conquering Fear = Defining Fear
Why don’t I decide exactly what my nightmare would be—the worst thing that could possibly happen as a result of my trip?
My little baby had some serious birth defects. The question then became, How do I free myself from this Frankenstein while making it self-sustaining?
I hadn’t reached my limit; I’d reached the limit of my business model at the time. It wasn’t the driver, it was the vehicle.
The simple solution came to me accidentally four years ago. At that time, I had more money than I knew what to do with—I was making $70K or so per month—and I was completely miserable, worse than ever.
To do or not to do? To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.
Look at what you’re currently doing and ask yourself, “What would happen if I did the opposite of the people around me? What will I sacrifice if I continue on this track for 5, 10, or 20 years?”
1. How has being “realistic” or “responsible” kept you from the life you want?
People who avoid all criticism fail. It’s destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.
Eustress, on the other hand, is a word most of you have probably never heard. Eu-, a Greek prefix for “healthy,” is used in the same sense in the word “euphoria.” Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.
Distress refers to harmful stimuli that makes you weaker, less confident, and less able. Destructive criticism, abusive bosses, and smashing your face on a curb are examples of this. These are things we want to avoid.
10. Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good.
Of course, relative income has to add up to the minimum amount necessary to actualize your goals.
Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours. The whole “per year” concept is arbitrary and makes it easy to trick yourself.
Absolute income is measured using one holy and inalterable variable: the raw and almighty dollar.
What about income? Is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar? The New Rich don’t think so.
9. Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income.
The problem is more than money.
Busy yourself with the routine of the money wheel, pretend it’s the fix-all, and you artfully create a constant distraction that prevents you from seeing just how pointless it is. Deep down, you know it’s all an illusion, but with everyone participating in the same game of make-believe, it’s easy to forget.
In part, it’s laziness. “If only I had more money” is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment—now and not later.
There is much to be said for the power of money as currency (I’m a fan myself), but adding more of it just isn’t the answer as often as we’d like to think.
8. Money Alone Is Not the Solution.
Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time, defined simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do.
Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want. This is true of possessions and even time.
7. Things in Excess Become Their…
It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre.…
Most people are good at a handful of things and utterly miserable at most. I am great at product creation and marketing but terrible…
6. Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix…
Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the way if you’re moving. Get good at being a troublemaker and…
If the potential damage is moderate or in any way reversible, don’t give people…
If it isn’t going to devastate those around you, try it and…
5. Ask for Forgiveness, Not…
“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,”…
For all of the most important things, the timing…
4. The Timing Is Never…
Focus on being productive instead…
The size of your bank account doesn’t change this, nor does the number of hours you log in handling…
Let’s define “laziness” anew—to endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a fortune while passing through…
The NR, despite fewer hours in the office, produce more meaningful results than the next…
More time equals more self-worth and more reinforcement from those…
Few people choose to (or are able to) measure the results of their actions and thus measure…
This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead…
Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal…
3. Less Is Not…
Personally, I now aim for one month of overseas relocation or high-intensity learning (tango, fighting, whatever) for…
By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of…
The NR aims to distribute “mini-retirements” throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for…
Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane.…
How else can my 30-year-old friends all look like a cross between Donald Trump and Joan Rivers? It’s horrendous—premature aging fueled by triple bypass…
doing the same thing for 8+ hours per day until you break down or have enough…
2. Interest and Energy Are…
I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case—I have maxed out 401(k)s and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes—but don’t…
One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes.
c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine.
b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living.
a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.
Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons:
It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive.
Retirement planning is like life insurance.
1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance.
the basic rules of successful NR are surprisingly uniform and predictably divergent from what the rest of the world is doing.
Don’t follow a model that doesn’t work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.
If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, What if I did the opposite?
Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
Challenging the Status Quo vs. Being Stupid
Sports evolve when sacred cows are killed, when basic assumptions are tested. The same is true in life and in lifestyles.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. —PABLO PICASSO
The options are limitless, but each path begins with the same first step: replacing assumptions.
Options—the ability to choose—is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money—a lot more money—by doing half of what you are doing now.
Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the “freedom multiplier.”
Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire are fundamentally two very different things.
The blind quest for cash is a fool’s errand.
After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction.
To have freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting to work for work’s sake (W4W).
To think big but ensure payday comes every day: cash flow first, big payday second.
Does your life have a purpose? Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken existence on the weekends?
To have more quality and less clutter. To have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants are justifications for spending time on the things that don’t really matter, including buying things and preparing to buy things.
To make a ton of money with specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps included. What are you working for?
To be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the trains and have someone else ensure they run on time.
To distribute recovery periods and adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis and recognize that inactivity is not the goal. Doing that which excites you is.
To prevent work for work’s sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect
Outside of science and law, all rules can be bent or broken, and it doesn’t require being unethical.
The manifesto of the dealmaker is simple: Reality is negotiable.
The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.
The commonsense rules of the “real world” are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.
Is it really necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?
What if you could use a mini-retirement to sample your deferred-life plan reward before working 40 years for it?
How do your decisions change if retirement isn’t an option?
Test the most basic assumptions of the work-life equation.
Why do it all in the first place? What is the pot of gold that justifies spending the best years of your life hoping for happiness in the last?
How can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1,000,000?
People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy.
Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. It really doesn’t. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. —OSCAR WILDE,
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. —MARK TWAIN
The objective is to create freedom of time and place and use both however you want.
I encourage you to remember this often-neglected question as you begin to see the infinite possibilities outside of your current comfort zone.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Whether a yearlong sabbatical, a new business idea, reengineering your life within the corporate beast, or dreams you’ve postponed for “some day,” there has never been a better time for testing the uncommon.
When everything and everyone is failing, what is the cost of a little experimentation outside of the norm? Most often, nothing.