How to Spend Your Free Time Getting Rich
The key to becoming rich is you must own stuff.
In my experience, there are 2 things you should focus on owning:
1- Property (intellectual or physical)
2- A Money Machine: A scalable system that converts tech/labor into value
#1 can be intellectually and financially challenging (based on what type of property you wish to own).
You can buy rental properties, but you’ll have to save some money first.
You can create a patent for a widget that turns dog poop into salad dressing, but you’ll need to study a lot of books and do a lot of equations to get there!
With #2, you could easily own other people’s systems and take a portion of their profits. I would recommend investing in fixed rate perpetuities, stock indexes, and a Roth IRA and Roth 401(k).
However, what’s the fun in that?
Don’t you want to own your own money machine?
I think a better use of your spare time is figuring out what problems the market has that haven’t been solved, that you would enjoy solving.
Amazon, for example has a huge problem right now. Their delivered packages are being stolen night and day, and there hasn’t yet been a great solution for where to place them to prevent theft.
I recommend spending some time each day drafting problems that exist that no one else sees, and crazy ideas on how you would solve them.
Why do you think immigrants make the largest percentage of entrepreneurial money versus American-born entrepreneurs? Yes they work hard, but they also see things we don’t see.
In order to start seeing things other people don’t see, you need to train yourself to see every conceivable negative thing in the world as an opportunity.
-Neighbor complains about something? Opportunity!
-Dog poops on the lawn when you’re fresh out of salad dressing? Opportunity!
Spend your free time learning how you can convert these opportunities into cash.
Once you do that, create a system that leverages technology and labor to transmit this value to as many people as possible, for the lowest price possible.
The biggest mistake I made at the beginning of my career was thinking working was the way to get money.
It isn’t.
The key is to create something with your time that makes you money for the rest of your life. Something that you don’t have to constantly work on, like a 9–5 job.
My first mentor forced me to create a business that could run without me.
I thought that was insane, until I built it.
And it started with me spending my spare time finding a problem, how I would solve it, and building the system to transmit people’s work into tangible value.
Good luck!
Books to Read:
Blue Ocean Strategy
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Think and Grow Rich
Virtual Freedom
7 Habits of Highly Successful People
