Category: Philosophy

When it comes to compounding, we tend to only think of money. After all compound interest is how our stock investments grow and how our student loans work. What if I told you life itself is about compounding?

For example, knowledge compounds. Every time you read a book you are compounding knowledge. Each year you work in your profession, you gain more mastery and knowledge. Each year you add to the knowledge of the previous years. Knowledge compounds. The more you know the more you can understand. You can only think to your highest level of comprehension. That level rises each year as you compound knowledge.

Relationships compound. Relationships are built on trust. As you maneuver throughout life you will meet and come to know many different people. As with every person you meet, initially, you both are strangers to each other. As the relationship matures you go from simple acquaintances to true friendship. Many of you reading this may be married. Initially, your spouse didn’t know you. But that stranger ends up becoming one of the most important people in your life.

When you start and stop different projects and endeavors, you are preventing the compounding from occurring. Many people don’t realize that compounding is the key to success. Without the compounding, we wouldn’t have any of the marvels of modern society.

“Money is not the prime commodity in our lives… time is.”

If I were to give you a choice between 1 week or $100 dollars, to which would you assign more value? Most of us would say the $100 bucks. However, money isn’t the most precious commodity in this case. It’s time. Warren Buffett has over $100 billion to his name, but he can’t buy 100 billion weeks. Or even 100 billion seconds.

If you were to ask most older people what they would want more of, they would say time. Money wouldn’t even come up. When they say youth is wasted on the young, this is sort of what they refer to. We spend our youth doing things that ultimately won’t matter even 1 month from now. We wish we were smarter. We wish we were taller. We wish we had a better job. Etc. etc. All are examples of time wasted.

Let’s apply this concept to how we treat our careers. Most people undervalue themselves and their time. Once more, instead of finding a way to obtain the proper value for their time, they accept their realities and instead begin “living for the weekend”.

I implore you to change your paradigm. Begin treating your time as the most precious commodity on Earth. After all, you can always get 5 more dollars; you can never get back 5 elapsed minutes.

Money is important. But money is only a tool. Endeavor to buy back your time. Stop leasing it to people at a discount.

I’ve been reading a lot lately. A lot of the great movers and thinkers of the world of all races and creeds. People who have established generational legacies that will long outlive them after their deaths.

There’s one commonality I’ve noticed.

They all operate as if there are no rules. They don’t ask for permission. They ask for forgiveness.

In fact, most will say not knowing the rules empowered them because it allowed them to think outside the box.

It’s a simple concept but huge when applied to business.

Don Peebles is a black multimillionaire real estate developer. He didn’t come from money. Didn’t have any inheritances or rich uncles or assets. In building his real estate empire, he never wavered or inquired as to why he shouldn’t do something. He just did it and anytime there were obstacles he hurdled them. He used what he had to achieve his goals regardless.

Recently, I was listening to the story of Christina Qi. She runs a hedge fund and had no experience at all in the finance world besides an internship. Neither she nor her partners had any experience as high-level executives. Now they run Dormyard and manage billions of dollars in capital. They started with $1000.

And yes, sometimes people have safety nets to cushion falls (they come from money, 2 parent households, etc.), they all have had differing levels of obstacles as well. But for the committed, obstacles only serve as rest stops on their paths to success.

Act as if there are no rules.