Archives – January, 2011
Here’s a quick list of a few of the fundamental differences Ferriss identifies between Deferrers (DF) and the New Rich (NR). Some of their goals are similar; others are very different. It’s a good synopsis of some of the ideas and concepts we’ll explore in depth later in this article series:
“Deferrers (DF): To work for yourself
New Rich (NR): To have others work for you
DF: To work when you want to
NR: To prevent work for work’s safe, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect (“minimum effective load”)
DF: To retire early or young
NR: 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. (more…)
January 31, 2011
Some people who have their careers taken away from them prematurely are left with unfulfilled career ambitions. If they don’t find a way of fulfilling those ambitions themselves they may start projecting these ambitions on to their children or other people around them. This often causes a great deal of unnecessary tension and strife with these people, especially when those ambitions don’t match that of the people around them.
Now most of you reading this are already self-employed in real estate. If you’ve been in the business for more than 3 years and you’re making at least more than your last 9-5 job you probably think you’ve forever escaped the rat race and all its miseries. Think again! Very few of us started out their career in real estate sales. Many of us worked many years or even decades in the 9-5 world before getting into real estate. So don’t underestimate how much those 9-5 years may unknowingly influence how you conduct yourself in your work today. (more…)
January 28, 2011
As you age the only thing that makes you less useful in any sense is your value to an employer. This is all because of retirement pensions and employers having to pay them to retired employees. The closer you are to retirement age, the less working years an employer can get out of you, and so the less value you are to an employer.
So anyone that says “the clock is ticking” regarding the number of working years you have left is simply speaking from the perspective of having been an employee facing eventual obsolescence, and is not at all considering your actual ability and usefulness in the business marketplace, now or in the future.
The biggest problem with conventional retirement is (more…)
January 27, 2011
The saddest thing is most people buy into the life plan of “work steadily until you’re old and then retire” hook, line and sinker. Even worse, the elder middle class indoctrinate the young from an early age with these appalling life plans and poison their ambitions. Many older people who have spent their lives working for others discourage the young from “risky” ways of making a living and advocate embracing security with both arms. That’s only because conventional work life worked for them and so to them it’s more or less a sure thing.
If someone in their 40’s working a full-time job starts to question what they’re doing with their life the people around them in the same boat will often do everything in their power to keep them where they are. In such cases jaded parents still mired in the 9-5 world or retired try quashing their childrens’ ambitions to escape 9-5, telling them that “the clock is ticking” and that they’ve only got a limited number of work years ahead of them for achieving financial security before their working years are over. They tell you to “make enough money to support yourself before you become obsolete”! (more…)
January 26, 2011
Conceptually speaking, retirement is as bankrupt an idea for living as it is a financial plan. It basically says “go to school for 15-20 years to prepare yourself for the workforce. Then go work at a job you may or may not enjoy for 96% of each year (which is 50 weeks out of 52 weeks per year) with only weekends as a respite before heading back to the daily grind. Do this for 35-40 consecutive years. Only when you’ve accomplished that can you enjoy some sense of freedom from work for the remaining 5-15 old and grey years of your life.”
“You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort” – Jean Cocteau (more…)
January 25, 2011
“Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty” – from The Four Hour Work Week
The below definition of retiring closely matches the conventional middle-class definition of retiring:
- to fall back or retreat in an orderly fashion and according to plan, as from battle, an untenable position, danger, etc.
“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. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy consuming. It is easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.” – from the Four Hour Work Week (more…)
January 24, 2011
Retiring to solitude is the best way of returning to ourselves. This retiring is a forgetting of everything else beyond ourselves, allowing us to focus on who we are and what we want to do, be and think in every way we see fit in how we go forward. In solitary times we see more clearly the negative aspects of our lives and therefore hopefully understand the necessity for getting rid of that negativity and how to do it. In solitude we better understand who we are, what we’re doing with our lives, and how we should move forward. So obviously we should take this sort of mini-retirement regularly for ourselves. Solitude is like going to the spa for a complete makeover. We emerge refreshed and renewed, ready for new adventures and challenges. (more…)
January 21, 2011
The 4 Hour Week is as much a guideline for the New Rich on working as it’s a philosophy on living.
One of the most pervasive and least thought about milestones we’re all faced with is retirement. Tim Ferriss has much to say against conventional notions of retirement:
“Retirement planning is like life insurance. 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 as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: (more…)
January 20, 2011
Let’s put this all into perspective by looking at insourcing vs. outsourcing this new employee project.
I have personally spent about 20 hours total to date in seeking this new employee and I haven’t even found a suitable candidate yet. If I continued on in this fashion insourcing there might be another 10 hours involved in sifting through subsequent resumes and conducting interviews. So that’s 30 hours or 1800 minutes of work for this project.
With outsourcing I could get this project done better and faster with a 5 minute conversation with Susan. That means I could spend 1795 minutes on doing higher level things like talking on the phone with broker/owners, trying to sell my Moneymaker site to them. If each telephone meeting was on average an hour long then that means I could meet with about 30 prospects. Conservatively let’s say I closed 25% of them. That’s 8 new clients.
So if you had a choice what would it be: getting 8 new clients, or saving $5000? The answer is obvious.
But wait … I could the outsourcing idea even a step further with this project! (more…)
January 19, 2011
Still, I’m faced with the prospect of reading through all these proposals, interviewing companies, creating a short list of the best candidates and hiring someone. In applying the Tim Ferriss style of thinking to the situation (remember: outsource, outsource, outsource) I realized I could handle this project even more efficiently than this.
What I realized I should have done from the beginning is (more…)
January 18, 2011
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