Scivive: Money, Power, Respect

In this next post, we’ll explore a few of the highlights from Chapters 4, 5 and 6 where Richard goes into three very important aspects our lives and some secrets to getting them right. Hang in there if you made it this far, we’re half-way through!

Money

“Owning a business is an easier way for making lots of money than a solitary profession.”

The only way for you to become wealthy is to own a part of a business, asset or property. You won’t get rich renting out your time. Plus it trains you over time to get used to being under someone else’s control, which many refer to as a, “wage slave”. Make money, invest it and work towards financial freedom. It’s much more impressive and fulfilling to be financially independent by 40 than work 40 years for a company, retire at 65 when you have much less time to enjoy your wealth. But you have to do it, you have to want it enough where you’ll do anything (within the ethical realm) to get it and hang onto it. A taste of freedom can truly make a man unemployable, in a good way.

“The car made the world a better place than the horse. Few people today know that the citizens of New York were worried they would be literally covered in feet-deep horseshit over time, because it was accumulating faster than they could clear it.”

The definition of technology is doing more with less. Cars go faster, provide shelter and last longer than a horse on average. Social media, for example, lets you reach millions of people that you would never have seen or talked to before, but it also increases your anxiety. The world isn’t black and white, it’s full of trade-offs and technology is no exception.

“When you own a business, you help many people. When you work a job, you help one person, your boss, assuming the company has a single owner.”

Owning a business always wins. It’s how you escape the rat race and make no mistake, if you work a 9-5, no matter if you make $50k or $500k/yr, you’re in the rat race.

“If the government doesn’t enforce your contracts or keep people from stealing your ideas and customers and goods, what do you have? Commerce is only possible through a group communal enforcement of goods.”

Rule of law is paramount for a country to prosper. If you don’t think so, go ask all failed countries or one’s that are about to fail. There are good laws (ones that still make sense) and bad laws (ones that didn’t stand the test of time and aren’t useful anymore), but laws protect people and property, so you want them in a free society.

“Focus on something that someone else actually cares about that you can solve a problem for.”

Being the best at juggling or making paper airplanes isn’t making the world a better place. Focus on spending your resources on things that scale, creating more people to help you and solving a problem the world needs help solving.

“The 80/20 rule makes it so that 80 percent of your problems come from 20 percent of your customers, and 80 percent of your profit comes from 20 percent of your products, etc., so by focusing on the good stuff, and getting rid of the bad, you can do great things.”

Focus on what matters or at least be honest about it when you’re not. Spending 2 hours to help one person doesn’t scale, but maybe that person is important to you and your success depends on their success. When you’re spending 2 hours helping a stranger, don’t pretend you’re being productive. If you don’t do it often and you feel like you need to pay it forward today, then do it but don’t call it progress, call it taking a break from progress, which is fine.

“More money = less risk. Better environment = more opportunities.”

Why do people want to have financial security? It gives them time to do what they prefer to do, instead of what they have to do for money. With plenty of money, you don’t risk your or your family’s livelihood when you want to quit your job and go figure things out. And the better environment you create and cultivate (deliberately), the more likely you’ll be sensitive to good opportunities.

“The more money you have, the more time you have. The healthier you could be, the healthier you can eat, and the smarter your friends are, the more opportunities that show up.”

Rich people aren’t evil, well some of them are, but the vast majority of them just took risk, made good judgments and spent their time doing what they wanted to do: get rich. Envy them if anything, just don’t hate them.

As Naval says, “If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you”.

“Even if someone gave you an amazing profitable idea with a high likelihood of working, you still wouldn’t do it.”

Because ideas are cheap, action is rare and you’ll always feel as if you miss out on good opportunities, not necessarily because you actually do, but more likely because you’re just not sensitive to them.

“Change isn’t what we need, progress is. Disruption isn’t what we need, progress is.”

Progress means change over time in the direction you’re pointing. Getting closer to your goal means less getting lucky that you did something today and more being surprised if you didn’t do something productive today.

“Analysis paralysis is real, if they don’t know what they’re buying is the right thing you offer, they won’t buy. This is why more products can be worse. Just like more payment methods can be worse.”

Try classifying decisions as Type 1 and Type 2 (or Type A and Type B).

Type A decisions are what car or house you buy, who you marry and where you live. Those need more time and discussion. Type B are things that don’t matter if you get them wrong, easily reversible and won’t make a big impact either way, such as what to eat for lunch. Most decisions in life are Type B decisions, so don’t waste time making really good decisions on stuff that doesn’t matter. Now you could argue that the little things add up, these decisions compound, etc. That’s true, but you can train yourself to make small decisions quickly while exercising good judgment.

“Would you rather Google have more cash to do things, or that your neighbor Bob can buy more beer? To some degree it’s better for the world that Bob drinks less beer and some companies have more money.”

It’s obviously better to give your fortune to any charity that you believe represents your values vs to give it to a random guy you like. They have resources, education and business acumen which the average person often does not.

“Ingvar Kamprad started IKEA. He owns most of IKEA through INGKA Holding and Stitching INGKA Foundation. He took his share of IKEA, put it in a trust, and the trust pays no taxes, so he basically pays no taxes. Rich people do this all the time. They either move to a country where there is no tax on worldwide income, or no capital gains tax. The concept that you’ll always pay tax is a little overblown if you are a member of the capital class.”

Who pays the most tax? Those who make income or sell for short term gains. Stop paying more taxes than you need to: research long term capital gains, trusts, companies and retirement accounts.

Power

“Choose your initial state. Starting from the same state every time improves consistency.”

If you want to make progress, figure out a routine that builds you up instead of drains you. If you want to get better at something, you wouldn’t just do it whenever you randomly think about it, would you? Set up your environment where you’re more likely to be inspired and more often, start fresh with whatever wakes you up in the morning and you’ll start measuring and motivating yourself without evening knowing it.

“Always focus on the present and the future.”

You can’t change the past, so why try? The reason it’s so easy to dwell on the past is because we have this natural instinct, which is useful but overdone, this drive to learn from our mistakes. The problem is we tend to not know how to stop, especially when we can’t work past an issue and keep dragging it into our lives which affects our present and if it continues, our future.

The most simple way to release these things is to stop working on everything else, dedicate some time to work through the issue, bring it to the best conclusion you can, and then stop thinking about it. If you think it’s over, it’s over. Replace those bad memories with good ones. You’re stronger than you think and most things can be overcome with pure effort and diligence, you just have to decide, above all else, it’s what you want to do and then ruthlessly, relentlessly put in the work.

“Anything you generate in this world, whether its text or images or videos, you need to have it backed up, for if it was important enough for you to spend the time making it, then it’s important enough for you to spend the time to make sure it doesn’t get accidentally deleted.”

In the tech world these can be referred to as a disaster recovery plan or backup system. You need some redundancy for your work to make sure if something goes wrong, computer dies, whatever that it’s not the last you see of your stuff. External hard drives are the easiest thing to buy and set up to backup every month or so and you still have full control over the data, unlike using the cloud.

“Power is when you can take the elevator into a department store’s special floor, flash your Black Card, and get free premium quality cappuccino that people without the Black Card can’t even buy because they don’t accept money there. They don’t accept money. All they accept is power. Power is currency. Power is exclusivity.”

There’s a reason people are either jealous or hate people who have exclusive access to this or that: they want it too OR if they can’t have it, they don’t want anyone to have it. Pretty selfish and destructive, huh? First of all, you should avoid hating anything or anyone. It doesn’t do you any good no matter what it is. You can hold contempt for a company or person without letting them constantly anger you. If you feel powerless, it’s not because someone took away your power, it’s because you probably never wanted power in the first place. Don’t blame people who want things for getting them and if you don’t have it, go want it more and compete vs blame the world.

“Money is not power, knowledge is not power. Power is power.”

Money solves money problems. Knowledge solves knowledge problems. Power solves your inability to affect change and money and knowledge amplify your power.

“The guy that pays you decides what you do with your time.”

This is why you want to be your own boss. Pay yourself through owning assets, property, passive income and being a part of the capital class instead of living paycheck to paycheck or project to project.

“If consciousness is the most important and valuable thing in the entire world, then you should be mindful of what you spend that consciousness on.”

Stop playing video games. Games are a great way to waste time, unless they are explicitly educational, such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad’s Monopoly-like game called Cashflow. That one is pretty cool and will change the way you think about finance and business.

“If you spend all your time absorbing music that other people created, reading books which other people created, watching movies which other people created, reading comics which other people created, watching other people have fun, listening to other people’s jokes, then it’s very hard to be producing.”

Consume to understand, learn and then create and produce. If you consume for fun, recognize and acknowledge it and avoid it during you “create time”, which should be time set aside regularly to focus on making progress towards some goal or expertise in a domain.

“You can’t really listen when you’re talking, you can’t really talk when you’re listening…”

It’s so important in conversation to stop thinking about the next thing you’re going to say and really listen to what the other person is saying, so you can hear them and respond rather than just let them finish talking about what you want to talk about. Eye contact and acknowledgement goes a long way into making you into a good conversationalist. Assume the other person talking knows something you don’t until they prove otherwise.

“You think that there’s not a place in this world that you can have an impact. If you focus your mind, regardless of how ineffective you might think you are, or how powerless you might actually be, with enough focus you can make an impact.”

Everyone has the opportunity to do something great. If you don’t want to do anything great, that’s fine too, but if you do, change your thinking from “I can’t” to “How can I?” and sit back and watch the difference it makes.

“Don’t become Google, and stop training your kids to be Google. You just need to be Google long enough to get something in working memory to create something beautiful. You just need to remember something, a marker, an index. You need to know how to use Google. If you know how to use Google, you can have a bad memory for the rest of your life, because the Internet is not going away.”

Memorize the basics and take notes on the rest. Knowing all the dates of all the wars, when and where they took place and the outcome is a cool party trick, but that’s about it.

“When you fill your life with what you want, you’ll find out that you don’t have space for unwanted behavior, because it just doesn’t fit.”

Create your home and office environment in a way that makes doing what you want and being rewarded for it is effortless.

“You can sacrifice depth of knowledge for more effectiveness on whatever level you’re on.”

You don’t need to know how a computer works to use one. Yet, the ability to use a computer makes everyone 10x more effective in at least their professional lives. This is not an excuse to talk about things you know nothing about, but don’t be afraid to try things that give you a better shot at success, even when you’re new to them.

“Scivive will call these the great traps. Some of these could be described as circumstance, lack of opportunity, lack of time, complacency, “it’s good enough”, lack of creativity, lack of follow-through, too individualistic, no teamwork, not individualistic enough, or no unique ideas. We can also be held back by greatness that is too small in scale or learning things that become valueless.”

You are not defined by your circumstance or opportunities. Lack of time means you haven’t made it a priority. Complacent people do not inherit the Earth. Not creative? It just hasn’t come out yet. Don’t have any ideas? Have you sat long enough and studied and traveled enough yet? You define yourself and if you want to do something, you’ll do it and if you don’t you won’t.

“It doesn’t matter what trickery you’re using to do what you should do, but once you’ve done it long enough, it becomes a habit, and it becomes harder to not do it than to continue to do it. ”

Good habits create good results and bad habits delay progress. Make it so it’s friction-less to act on good habits and you have to go out of your way to act on bad habits. For example, if you don’t want to eat junk food, decide that you really want it, you need to stop eating junk food and then throw it all away. You can’t eat junk food if there’s none in your house. Now if you want it, you have to expend energy and effort, time and money to go outside, go to the store and get it. Maybe along the way it works itself out anyways if you take a long walk to the store and back.

Respect

“There’s power in admitting you’re wrong, and it’s so rare these days that it’s very notable.”

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they speak and act. What do they do when they’re wrong and people see that they’re wrong? Do they apologize and seek better understanding or do they never talk about it again? Do they get defensive when you expect an apology or deflect and try to justify their action? If you don’t know, just don’t pretend like you know. The difference between a real expert and someone on TV playing an expert is one knows they don’t know everything and the other assumes nobody will ever find out.

“Don’t make jokes too good at your expense.”

It’s OK and even necessary to be self-deprecating when talking to people, if you want to appear humble and down to earth, but find a balance. People prefer to have friends who are optimistic and think of themselves as winners vs someone who is constantly reminding everyone how and why they are a loser. Even if you’re losing in life, which everyone is at some point if you live long enough, don’t get stuck and don’t take it too far where people start to lose respect for you.

“Marriage is a way to amplify enjoyment in life.”

If you marry someone who wants you to succeed and visa-versa, you both will probably get what you want. You helping them helps yourself in so many ways, so it’s ok to be a little selfish and greedy here as it's mutually beneficial. You help with chores around the house, they have less reason to resent you. You go make wise investments so they can leave their 9-5 and start their own business, they feel it easier to show gratitude and less stress and more fulfillment with their career. They make you feel secure, you have an easier time connecting with them and taking risks such as having kids, buying a new home or traveling the world without coming home broke.

The best marriages are where both people are incentivized and rewarded for bringing out the best in the other person, which usually brings out the best in themselves. It’s a beautiful thing or could be a tragedy when one or both people can’t get over themselves, won’t work through issues, make sacrifices, be honest and so on. It takes two, not one and not one and a half.

“The art of winning friends and influencing people is only as good as your influence is positive instead of evil. Maybe you’re an asshole? Then maybe the world would prefer you not be good at influencing others. Good societies prefer that evil people remain powerless.”

Open societies incentivize good behavior and good ideas and punish bad behavior and bad ideas. The problem is that while people can agree on the majority of the things on both lists, there’s quite a few up for debate and evolve over time, such as all the major issues of the day: abortion, conservative vs liberal, to war or not to war, free education, money in politics, what schools teach, religion, etc.

“Saying “thank you” and not saying “please” is a better, more effective, more efficient way to interact with people.”

Be nice, but direct. Show gratitude, but be clear with your ask and expectations unless the person you’re interacting with already has a track record of doing stuff well.

“If you want to say great things, you need to read and hear great things.”

Encourage your kids or significant other to read and watch the classics, movies, books, papers and all other foundational content that most of the world’s stuff is based on. If they acquire a taste for the greats, chances are they’ll keep on that path and enjoy related works as well.

“You need to self-adjust your expectations for the impact that you’re going to make in regards to the people that you’re speaking to.”

You wouldn’t walk up to a janitor and start talking about computer science, would you? At best they’ll be impressed, at worst confused but there won’t be any real connection since you both don’t speak the same language. If you want him to help you change the trash can, talk about janitorial stuff and not how computers are taking over the world. Relate to people with what they know and they’ll see you as one of them. Somebody comes over to fix your toilet, don’t brag about your high paying job or else they might not take it easy on you when the bill comes. Why would they? You basically told them you could afford whatever it costs already, anyways.

“You make your destiny.”

Isn’t that a wonderful thing? There’s no benevolent person pulling the strings to make you fail just when you thought you were going to succeed. Stop doing the “imaginary horribles” game and start compounding your successes until you “get tired of winning”.

“If you truly want to be loved, you’ve got two options. Search harder, to find someone that loves you as you are. Or, improve who you are. Be more loveable.”

Be someone deserving of being loved, as the saying goes. Also reminds me of it takes too happy people to make a happy relationship.

“Don’t spend time on learning or talking to single individuals when you can create a framework that can allow other people to do it. Write a spec, enforce it by means of an enforcer; then you’re no longer limited by your hours.”

This is how you scale yourself: hire people you can trust, train them as needed, pay them well and let them take care of the stuff you’d rather spend money to save your time on. This goes for any contractor you hire or property manager you keep on payroll.

“Oh, my family member needs money. Let me lend it to them. He’ll pay me back. Oh, I’ve never heard from my family member again, and now they tell anyone that’ll listen that I’m a piece of stuff because they owe me money.”

Avoid lending family members or friends money. If you can afford it, just give it to them and get back the social credit and potential reciprocity instead or trade it for a favor or let them sell you something.

“There appears to be many advertisements for diversity and quotas and report cards out there. Why are you classifying by race? Why don’t you classify by stupid? How many stupid people have you hired? Or how many rage-filled people? Or how many depressed people? Or how many people who always say the wrong thing? Why are you using race to select between people? Doesn’t that make you a racist? Isn’t there some more important categorization that you can use for humans? You’re better off dividing people by profession, or by their free time activities.”

Another one of those tragically badly executed, good intention filled social phenomena that we can’t wait until it goes away. Modernism doesn’t have all the answers, Postmodernism throws the baby out with the bath water, so perhaps Metamodernism has a chance to be the most healthy way forward.

“Laughter, yelling when surprised, crying—all are signaling mechanisms built to tell those around you the truth faster and more honestly than you could consciously through speaking effort.”

Our senses and emotions are amazing social signals and we use them in so many more ways than you consciously imagine. Just like poker tells or not laughing at a funeral, we train them or don’t and see what happens.

“Tony Robbins’s six human needs are: certainty, significance, variety, connection, growth, and contribution. Growth and contribution do not exist as needs for lots of people, because many people are happy with the way things are. They don’t need anything else, they’re happy.”

• Certainty that things are OK

• Significance and their place in the world

• Variety in what they see, do, watch, eat, etc

• Connection with others

“A good apology has the minimum dumbass excuses possible. Dumb excuses don’t lead to a brighter future, dumb excuses don’t tell someone that you are actually a good person that cares about them and wants the best things for them and is also committed to doing the right thing. ”

Look the person in the eye, acknowledge what went wrong, why you did what you did and your plan for not letting it happen again. Talk with them until they believe you and then do not do it again as it’s not a mistake if you keep doing it, it’s a choice.

“Demand respect, even if indirectly. You can pay people to do as you wish even if they don’t respect you, so respect is a way people can be influenced for free-ish.”

Respect must be earned within inner circles, but can be bought at restaurants and hotels. But disrespect can come from anyone at any time, so be ready to reflect and ensure it doesn’t hold up if you prefer mutual relationships where both parties get along without pretending to like or care for each other.

Whew, and that’s a wrap on these chapters. Let’s continue to study and finish up!