What you spend your time on
I'm currently listening to the audiobook The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. He talks about the idea that you can either choose to plan for your retirement through a life of servitude, or opting to take the fast lane and unlock massive potential that allows you to retire in a matter of years.
One of the main takeaways from the book that has resonated with me is being mindful of what we spend our time on. The book, on it's surface is misleading. It talks a lot about the the money aspect of wealth, but really it's about the time aspect of wealth. The wealthy mindset is about having full autonomy of your time in that you don't need to trade it for money.
Passive income comes to mind here. Wouldn't it be nice to earn while I'm sleeping. Even with that, I may still need to work a set number of hours in order to maintain the flywheel of passive income. In fact, those are some of the hardest working people because there is no limit to the potential they can earn.
But go beyond that, there is a set amount of money—when managed correctly—allows the money to do the work that in turn makes more money. That's when true time freedom comes.
It has made me take stock about the activities I spend my time doing. Does the activity help me build wealth, or is it a slow lane activity which barely moves the needle in growing my wealth.
Time is the only currency we have. We can't get more of it. You want to focus your time on maximising the return of investment. Just like investing money can make more money, investing time well, can give you more time in return—or to put it more succinctly, prevent you having to use that time in exchange for money in the future.
So how do you do it? Entrepreneurship really. You want to create value in the world that gives a multiple—or uncapped potential—of what you can get in return.
Some businesses require you to be in the business for them to generate revenue. This does not free up your time. Unless that business can run autonomously—as in, you hire others to run it—or you can sell that business for a huge sum of money, you will not achieve your goal of time freedom.
Today's ah-ha moment is that if you want to retire young with wealth that means you can do what you want, when you want, then you need to take specific actions to make that happen. These actions mean creating value which has uncapped returns and aren't tied to your time.
What about you? Do you fancy the idea of being free from having to trade your time for money? Let me know.
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