Iain Dooley - Expert in computers and the internet

Whenever I hear a financially wealthy person say something like “the more money you get, you realise that it’s not all that important” there are inevitably reactions from people who are not financially wealthy saying something like “it’s all well and good for you to say that now you have money, but I have to eat and pay rent and money is hugely important to me”.

I saw a discussion today on hacker news[1] about this and it got me thinking: I’m pretty sure those rich folks know that you need money to eat and pay rent, what they’re taking about is a lust for a much higher level of wealth. The “fuck you” money level of wealth.

And when people start businesses, especially young people, they’re not thinking “boy I hope I can eat and pay rent” they’re thinking “if I have money I can do whatever I want and people will praise me and I’ll feel important”.

When those rich folks talk about money not being important I think what they’re really saying is that apart from the obvious fact that they don’t have to worry about eating and paying rent anymore, the other stuff about being rich that they thought would matter, doesn’t matter.

In fact, the thing that seems to master most is the freedom to direct your own time and work on things that you’re interested in.

For most people, especially young people, the level of wealth required to do that is actually very small.

When I attended a conference recently run by Shirlaws coaching[2] they talked about needing to “know your number”; the amount of money that you would need in order to have the freedom to work on something that interests you. When people actually work out what this number is, is often surprising how small it is.

When you don’t have money, it’s easy to just say “I need lots of money” and either be discouraged into not taking action, or to assume you need to risk everything to create a breakout success.

But the truth is that if you really work out your number and what you might do over the next 10 years to achieve that level of wealth, you may be surprised at how achievable it is.

For those too pessimistic to take action, this may inspire them by making a much more achievable goal.

For those with a boom or bust mentality, committed to “get rich or die trying”, it may give them a much more realistic attitude to the level of risk they need to take in order to achieve their goals.

Either way, defining what success will look like to you (at a minimum) is a great way to set realistic goals and take action towards achieving them every day.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9011818
[2] http://www.shirlawscoaching.com/australia