When you reach your financial security levels, most people ask “what next?”
Instead of answering the question, which is impossible for each person, we’ll provide a sneak peek at how your actions will *likely* change. As noted this is from the perspective of a business owner and no longer from someone interested (at all) in Wall Street. In addition, we’re assuming you’re a single male. Finally, this post can also be interpreted as “how to spot someone who has made it”.
1) You Will No Longer Have an Interest in “Opinions”: A common criticism here is we delete comments from people we don’t like and mark them as spam so they never return. Why? Simple. We don’t care about the opinions of people we don’t know. When you’re set for life you think differently. This is not a forum for “discussions” (see waste of time) and should never be viewed as one.
Instead of doing what most regular people do, we do the opposite… The typical person will ask 10+ people their “opinion” on a topic to make sure they make the “right move”. When you’ve already made it in life you’re not wasting your time discussing topics. You’re spending your time getting things done. This is simply because a successful person *knows how to find the right answer*.
Most people don’t deserve the right to an opinion in the first place. Why? They have not succeeded in the topic they wish to speak about. Instead of polling tens, hundreds, or thousands of people to get an answer that feels right, you’ll have a clear and concise step-by-step process to finding the right person to answer the question. Instead of asking strangers or acquaintances, you’ll go through your personal process and find the right person. Once that person is found, you pay the price to obtain the answer from them and execute as they say.
2) Disconnection from People: In our prior post, explaining how money will change your life, several unsuccessful people attempted to ignore the word *temporary* when we walked through the *temporary* negative effects of money. This is because your average person is looking for an excuse to avoid getting the things they want the most (fear of failure). This disconnection will likely ebb and flow depending on your own personal state. But. For the most part, it will be *temporary* in nature as you learn to hide your wealth from society (assuming that is the path you take).
It is certainly not normal to wake up on a Monday or a Saturday and not know the difference. For most, the days are clearly different as they have people to report to and deadlines to meet.
Interestingly, when financially set, you’re better off creating a reason to get on a somewhat normal schedule on weekdays to create your own grounding mechanism (avoid downward drug and alcohol spiral). This will help bridge the disconnection gap a bit. The gap will always be there. But. You’ll find ways to ground yourself for a more “relatable” life style.
Hint: there is a reason many rich people turn to charity work, forced human connection.
3) Nothing to Talk About: Unless you’re out with friends to meet other new people, you’re not going to have much to say in one on one conversations. You’ll come off as eccentric already. Most people have many issues they want to vent about while your entire goal is finding new challenges or sources of entertainment (dopamine rush without the health impacts).
You’re certainly not going to blow the lid on exactly what you’re doing so you’ll find yourself avoiding the topic everyone talks about: Work/Money. Ironically, once you have it, you don’t talk much about it during your *personal life* (again assumes you’ll be a stealth wealth person).
Since you have less to talk about, your social priorities will shift quite a bit. The only way for you to be enticed to go out and have fun is if there is someone you specifically wish to meet. Otherwise, you’ll likely go out solo and have a carefree night without being interviewed for the 100th time about “What is it that you do again… exactly?”.
4) No Stress: Assuming you’ve learned the art of stoicism, you’re not going to have any stress in your life at all. Your only interest will be in maintaining your current health, which is worth more than every single cent in your bank account. If we think about stress, it usually involves negative things that could occur to you if you fail at doing something. Therefore, if you can fail at anything and still be fine… it is almost impossible to become stressed. Your only stress will be self inflicted through physical exhaustion (fitness) or product creation (mental stress).
The real takeaway is that no one can apply stress to you anymore because they have no control over your life. Similar to creating forced human connections by picking up a routine that is done during the weekdays, you’ll create self inflected stress. Most will turn to the money game, trying to increase the numbers on a screen since it is the hardest game to play. There is no fun in life without a challenge.
5) Irrational Buying Behavior: You won’t think about *planning* for purchases anymore, you’ll simply look at items you want… buy them… or go through long stretches of buying nothing. If you’re earning more than you can spend the behaviors you exhibit won’t make much sense. Sometimes you’ll find yourself buying many items at once for prices that appear to be inflated (you won’t care) and other times you’ll delay purchases for long periods of time because you don’t feel like spending the time to obtain them.
The key here is that planning is no longer in your vocabulary when it comes to general goods/products. You’ll learn that possessions don’t matter much to you and all of your planning will surround memorable life events (trips) that take up material blocks of time.
6) Skyrocketing Time Value: The value of your time will increase at an exponential rate, you’ll become more protective of your free time on a weekly basis. Tolerance levels also decline at the same rate. This means you’re going to quickly change priorities and where you spend your time will rapidly evolve on a monthly basis *at minimum* as you review each week and the time you used wisely or burned each day.
An interesting note is your hobbies will evolve as well, for better or worse this blog will become a more sporadic hobby in the future. We haven’t seen much need to write anymore. We feel the content on the blog is already enough for anyone with a high IQ and competitive drive to succeed without silly motivation or discussion.
On a more positive note, we’ve officially started creating a basic product we wish we had several years ago. When our internal metrics are hit we’ll go ahead and press publish with limited “marketing” since books are not good products for money making purposes (Why? it is non-recurring revenue).
7) Rapid Learning of Complex Topics: Since the two types of growth are essentially financial and mental, you’ll find time to dive into complex topics. Each month (or year) you’ll find a new “difficult” topic that interests you and become a quasi expert in the field. We use the word quasi as you’ll know enough about the field to have interesting questions, but you won’t have the tools necessary to solve those questions without giving up another major slug of your time.
Maybe you’ll be different but every 3-6 months you’ll find the *truth* about a new topic which only makes you much more dangerous as people will be unable to lie to you easily. You’ll find yourself saying the tried and true “Wow, I don’t know anything about XXX can you tell me about it?” only to see if the person is a liar.
8) Mainstream Understanding: Instead of being part of the mainstream, you’ll understand the psychology of the mainstream. This is vastly different from being a participant as you’re simply selling your items based on mainstream philosophies while you avoid partaking in any of them. To put it more simply, the things you find fun… people will loathe and the things you loathe… you’ll sell, because its what the mainstream wants.
There is nothing wrong with selling mainstream products as that is where the market is. The joke is that your own preferences never match up to the needs of your average customer. If your product works and you use it yourself… the way you sell it would unlikely ever work on yourself.
9) Stable Dopamine Levels: The largest rush you’ll ever get is when you’re free. There is no doubt about it and once you’ve gone through the temporary drug/alcohol spiral to try and chase that next high, you’ll settle into a steady emotional state. People can yell at you, they can suck up to you, they can even attempt to get physical with you… Your emotional state won’t change much. Unless your life is actually at risk you’re unlikely going to get a material adrenaline rush.
This does not mean you have no emotions, it simply means you will always be stable. The highs and lows are smaller and day to day changes are quite irrelevant. Try to envision a buddhist monk and you’ll get an idea, the only difference is a slight smile to your face as you won’t require the intense mental concentration.
10) Distain for Authority: So long as you’re not breaking the actual law (sent to jail) you’re not going to have a shred of tolerance for anyone who attempts to act as an authority figure over you. In short? You’re no longer employable.
An accelerated increase in your pushback to anyone telling you what to do will be seen in short order. We can’t speak for the rich men with wives who boss them around as we’ll never understand those folks, but the rest usually exhibit personality traits of a recluse. Historically, it was bad to be ostracized from a tribe as it was part of basic survival. In this case, the isolation will be self inflicted as answering to someone will not be on the priority list.
11) Inability to Be Bored, Only Frustrated: Assuming you have a type B personality, you won’t find yourself being bored. You’ll go through spurts of being social and spurts of learning new topics as stated above. There are too many topics to learn about and too many places to see to possibly become bored for long stretches of time. In fact, you won’t be bored for short stretches of time.
The one downside, is delays in time (airplane delays, traffic etc.) will drive you nuts. Burning of your time is one of the rare items (next to health/your family) that will have any ability to impact your emotions negatively. This shows up in two ways: 1) if it is a travel delay you’ll scramble to find productive things to do… likely fail at doing something remotely and 2) if someone is wasting your time, you’ll pay the bill and leave or simply leave the conversation abruptly if there is no reason to wait.
12) No Impact from Rejections: This is a broad topic but can involve trying to sell a product to dating. When you know that you’re already set, it becomes impossible for anyone to rattle you with a “no”. If a person doesn’t want to buy your product you simply move to the next. Similarly, if you’re chatting to a girl on a date and she is negative towards you it won’t even be an after thought. Previously, most people will feel some emotion when hearing a “no” in either work or play. But. Those days are long gone and you can even take an emphatic no publicly. The event will be forgotten within 24 hours.
You’ll only remember positive things from your past as the negative items won’t seem relevant anymore. Again. Forgotten instantly.
13) Decrease in Mental Circles: When you’re doing everything to climb up, your brain is “on” constantly. You’re trapped in your head for the most part trying to figure out the next move. When you’re done, it is *extremely* easy to turn this function on and off. You could have emails, phone calls, text messages and a siren going off in the background but you’ll be able to tune out all of it at a moments notice.
This is critical as being trapped in your mind actually reduces work performance. Being able to shut down all thoughts as if you are at rest will allow you to learn and create at faster rates than the past.
14) Annoyance With Travel: A small topic but a dead giveaway someone is very well off financially. They absolutely hate flights that are not direct. They absolutely hate being in the airport. Finally? They also absolutely loathe specific cities and will do their best to avoid them at all cost.
“To travel to love to laugh” is something younger people want to do. “To see the world”. You’ll be tired of moving around a lot and will have a few set places you will call home.
15) Everyone Knows Each Other: The triangle gets smaller and smaller on the way up. The reality is that anyone who works in the same industry as us (no, not Wall Street anymore) has probably already crossed paths several times. In fact, we’d wager that if you’re in the top 1% (keeping it simple) in your industry… You’ll know every single person who is at or above your level by first name and last name basis within 6 months. Simply no chance it won’t be the case.
Funny enough, when you go to events/parties… Everyone will know the same people as well. This is why it does not make sense to put your face out there unless you are willing to pay the toll of being famous.
Summary Notes
Below is a quick summary of what to expect and we’ll also throw in some fun nuances and see if anyone recognizes similar traits in people they know (that are financially set).
– No interest in opinions, therefore will come off as a “know it all” and will generally dislike people unless prefaced with a reason to be speaking to them.
– Generally disconnected from society creating a largely eccentric personality by default
– Does not want to reveal much about his/her life with new people and therefore avoids all topics that most people chat about (work/stressful situations)
– Appears to be largely carefree
– Irrational behavior when it comes to spending habits
– Difficult to get a hold of unless “sold” on the event
– Interested in many new topics and continues to learn a new obscure item each year
– Understands human psychology well, yet all decisions on personal basis appear to be done with cut-throat logic
– Un-rattled emotionally, yet easily annoyed when treated like a “regular person” by a regular person.
– Zero tolerance level for wasting of time or being told what to do (unless specifically asking an expert and likely paying for said information)
– The word bored is killed from the vocabulary list
– Cannot seem to understand negative feelings associated with rejection, because rejections have no impact on their lives
– Clarity of thought
– Speed of travel is more important than comfort of travel (will travel “in style” if it does not impact flight duration)
– Seems to have the same biz contacts that remain unchanged for many years
