Maths won’t help you with this one
Get a grip on your mindset.
Get a grip on your actions.
Get a grip on your finances.
Get a grip on your life.
Ignore the Maths
We all know that mathematically speaking if time=money, then money=time.
One of my favourite things about Maths is its entirely free of subjective meaning. It’s so literal that you simply cannot argue its validity. But I’m going to try anyway.
‘Time is money’ is a term we all know. What it suggests and in fact is designed to motivate you to think is that every second wasted is money that could be earned. Or that you should maximise your monetary returns for your time. What a lovely middle class way to think.
If time=money then why aren’t all toddlers rich? Arguably they have on average the most amount of time out of all of us, and yet they aren’t all millionaires already. I’ve certainly been in employment before that had me working 100+ hours every week and had absolutely nothing to show for it.
Think about it this way, if you spent an hour every day sitting on the grass staring at the sky you’re wasting your time. But you aren’t wasting money, it costs you absolutely nothing, they aren’t linked.
So if time doesn’t equal money, then how can money equal time?
Getting a £5 an hour raise doesn’t mean you have more time. You’re still selling the same amount of your time as you were before, it just means they’ve incentivised you to carry on doing it for a bit longer.
Free Is Priceless
The real value of money is the time that it can buy you. The free time.
Money=time because an excess of money gives you an excess of free time. The equation works this way around.
Think about the scenario of sitting on the grass again. If you spent that hour a day on a business that earns you £500 a month and continues to grow, what are you doing with that money? You’re buying your time back. That business is replacing the time you would need to work to earn the same money.
We’ve all dreamed of winning the lottery. But what do we dream to do with it? I’d be amazed if anyone’s primary motivation and dream is to use the money to earn an extra £10 an hour and continue working. There will be varying ways of how people would use the money but a common theme surrounding them all is that they would use it to buy themselves free time.
The money IS free time.
And so how is this advice? What will it do to change your life?
The Investors Mindset
In a broad summary of the research, one’s happiness can generally be concluded as the level of freedom they have. Freedom to do what they want, with who they want, where they want, when they want.
So how you spend your free time may well have everything to do with how happy you feel. So how are you going to spend your time? Are you going to waste it staring at a TV? Are you going to spend it on your job, because someone once told you that time is money?
There’s only one way you should be spending your spare time in my opinion – Making more spare time.
Spare time compounds in just the same way that money does.
If you invest money in a fund that compounds, it grows over time and the rate that it grows increases.
If you invest your spare time as carefully as you would your money, it grows exponentially the same way.
We all waste time. It’s probably what led you here. It’s likely that we all question ourselves while we do it but we take the easy option and do it anyway or convince ourselves that life is to be lived now.
Think of it this way, if you got to 40 years old and you’d ‘lived your life’ wasting time and had nothing to show for it, would you be happy? Alternatively, if you got to 40 and you’d spent every minute of your spare time investing in more free time, so much so that you now lived completely free to do what you want, when you want, would you be happy now? I know which one I’d pick.
This is how you win at life. Your value isn’t dictated by how much money you earn per hour. Your value is how free you are to spend your time how you wish.
Invest in your education. Invest in your future.
Are you going to get a grip on your life?
We think no-one should be slaves to their money.
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If you’re reading this, know that you personally hold the key to changing yours and other people’s lives for the better. Are you going to act?
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