Consider two artists: MC Hammer and Chamillionaire. Most people know the former because he famously went broke in the 90s despite earning millions of dollars. It’s a good case of money fallacy that many people who earn well often ignore.
MC Hammer made 37 million dollars. But he spent 50. And when he declared bankruptcy in 1996, he had 13 million dollars of debt.
Now, look at Chamillionaire, who just like Hammer, was popular for a few years. When I was in college, he had a famous song called Ridin Dirty. I was never a fan and never heard about Chamillionaire again until a few years ago.
I read that used the money he made during those few years he was popular to invest. Now, he’s worth at least 50 million dollars.
Many things in life are the exact opposite of what we assume they are. For example, when it comes to personal productivity, we often think we need to work harder and do more to achieve more. That’s where counterintuitive life lessons come in.
More often than not, we need to do less. We need to narrow our focus.
In this article, I’ve summarized 5 of the most important counterintuitive lessons I’ve learned about different important life topics, running from achievement to mental health.
Many things in life are the exact opposite of what we assume they are. For example, when it comes to personal productivity, we often think we need to work harder and do more to achieve more.
But more often than not, we need to do less. We need to narrow our focus.
Our first instinct or thought is often not the best one. As Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
To live an examined life, we must examine. One way we do that is by reading articles, newsletters, and books.
This is the main reason I keep writing articles. I want to keep challenging my own ideas.
That habit has truly changed my life. I can’t tell you how often I’ve challenged my ideas in the past you. As a result, my decisions have improved.
Any type of pursuit in life consists of a few fundamental ideas and concepts. For example, theory and experiment have been the two pillars of science for centuries.
It’s the same for wealth building. I’ve identified five pillars that support our understanding of how to responsibly build wealth.
Self Investing: The foundation of wealth building is learning to learn skills without thinking about money. Accumulate as much knowledge as you can.
Income Generation: After you’ve invested in yourself, you can use your skills and experience to generate income.
Asset Investing: Then, invest a big chunk of your income in assets.
Asset Protection: Protect your assets and avoid losses.
Capital Allocation: Now, you’re wealthy and if you play it right, you will always stay wealthy. You just move around your capital.
This is a highly condensed summary. More on every pillar in the full article on my site.
Never forget that the ultimate goal of investing is to increase the pie for everyone. Let’s keep expanding that pie.
Today I have a small reminder from Seneca for you:
“Withdraw into yourself as far as you can, and associate with those who will make you better. Invite those whom you can make better.
Be a positive influence on others. And get close to people who are a positive influence on you.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found this edition of Wise & Wealthy useful.
All the best,
Darius
Join the 7-day Stay Centered challenge
I’ve created a one-week email course that you can do together with a group. It’s called Stay Centered, and it will help you to reclaim focus and live a meaningful life.
When you’re centered, nothing can hurt you. You will have inner peace no matter what happens.
How to unlock Stay Centered
You can join the challenge for free. Every day, you’ll receive a short email with a small challenge that inspires you to live better.
I highly recommend sharing it with your friends so you can go through the program together. I did it with my team, which was a lot of fun.
When I started blogging in 2015, I published two articles a week. I’ve kept that pace up for many years.
Sometimes people asked me, “Do you never run out of ideas?” To be honest, I asked myself that as well in the beginning.
My answer is, “No, you will not run out of ideas as long as you optimize your life for creativity.”
The way I see it, there are 2 phases of creativity:
Creation
Execution
One spends more time thinking or “incubating” an idea in the Creation phase. Afterward, when you’ve created the ideas, you can move into the Execution phase.
Separating your creative process into two phases helps you to come up with new ideas, and make sure you turn them into reality.
The biggest threat to our creativity is trying to be efficient during the Creation phase. When we aim to be too productive at all times, we lose our creativity.
The S&P500 is currently almost 25% lower than its all-time high. That’s a big drop to even the most mentally tough investor.
We’re dealing with stubborn inflation and the threat of a serious worldwide recession (if we’re not in one already).
Last week I was at a friend’s house who wanted to start investing in the stock market. He asked me, “What’s the best time to start investing?” He thought it was better to start when the uncertainty slows down.
“Maybe next year,” he said. While it’s always better to start investing today and not at some future date that will probably never come, it makes the most sense to start when prices are low.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s less risky to start investing when prices are low and we’re in a recession.
An important lesson from the writer Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club and many other novels):
“Avoid making your reader feel foolish at all costs! You want to make your reader feel smart, smarter than the main character. That way the reader will sympathize and want to root for the character.”
This is also true for every interaction with others. No one likes to feel foolish.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found this edition of Wise & Wealthy useful.
All the best,
Darius
Join the 7-day Stay Centered challenge
I’ve created a one-week email course that you can do together with a group. It’s called Stay Centered, and it will help you to reclaim focus and live a meaningful life.
When you’re centered, nothing can hurt you. You will have inner peace no matter what happens.
How to unlock Stay Centered
You can join the challenge for free. Every day, you’ll receive a short email with a small challenge that inspires you to live better.
I highly recommend sharing it with your friends so you can go through the program together. I did it with my team, which was a lot of fun.
