Yesterday I wrote: “What is the 10x thought I’m missing out on right now?“.
Today an example of 10x thinking from Derek Sivers, a true 10x thinker, and one I have followed for many years, including incorporating his idea of a “Now” page into my own site and keeping it updated regularly with what I am focussed on now. Derek is perhaps best known for the “First Follower – Leadership lessons from dancing guy” YouTube video, otherwise known as “How to Start a Movement”, which now has 7.7mm views. He also shares his ideas from time to time via blog posts, including this brilliantly simple piece of 10x thinking on how he got rich. After briefly telling his own story about how he quit his job at 22 and has never had a job since.
It’s not how much you have. It’s the difference between what you have and what you spend. If you have more than you spend, you’re rich. If you spend more than you have, you’re not. If you live cheaply, it’s easy to be free.
Now, there is one absolutely massive caveat to this, which is that so, so many in our unequal and inequitable society never have the choice to be free in this fashion, making enough to live on is a constant challenge. However, for those who can make more than they absolutely need, often society has us fill our life with “optional extras”.
For example, the streets around where I live have so many expensive brand-new cars. When you are buying a £50,000+ new car (as many of them are), you are choosing to spend the money you are earning, and perhaps you are planning to work in a job until the retirement age of 67. You may not be aware that spending money on such things is a choice that limits your freedom, but it does.
As for me, I feel rich when I feel free to do what I like and when I like. For work, I love to build deep relationships with a small number of individual clients, so I have designed my work and life around that. As to my personal life, here are a couple of “life hacks” that may not be 10x thinking, but are certainly way beyond 1x thinking.
- The first hack, and most simple, is that I have never ever bought (or leased, an even worse deal that so many go for out of convenience) a new car. Never have, never will. The newest car I have ever bought was two years old and I bought that at 37% less than the new price. When you consider the UK’s higher rate tax and national insurance for those in employment, then take a £40,000 car, then that is c£15,000 in depreciation in two years, a loss that you paid double that for because you pay a combined tax burden of about 50%. In other words, you had to earn £30,000 in order to have the privilege of having a new car rather than a two-year-old one. Not for me, no thanks.
- My second life hack was regarding the home I just bought. I bought a very pleasant house and also a modest and small one. It suits my needs (and yes, my five sons are grown and gone), and so I was able to flip the general UK thinking of “buy the most expensive house you can afford” to “buy the least expensive house that meets your needs”. I won’t go into the actual budget, suffice to say it was at least 35% lower than the top range of my budget. Now take the car example in terms of the total cost to earn, then multiply the numbers by around 10x. The difference is indeed several hundred thousand pounds.
So, when you see my modest house with two used cars (soon to be one electric one, am downsizing further) parked outside, perhaps then factor in that these are choices and that such choices can create freedom. As Derek noted in finishing his blog post:
Magicians wave one hand around to get your attention, while the other hand does the trick. To be smart, watch the other hand.
If you watch the other hand, what might you see?