I Used to Be Impressed by People Who Had a Lot of Money — But Now I’m Impressed by People Who Have Time to Think Deeply
Being told what to do is the adult daycare 99% of people live in.
A Rolex watch used to make me weak at the knees.
I wanted to know how they bought it. I wanted to know every detail of their career and how much money they made. I wanted to know everything about them.
Now I see this view of the world as stupid – it’s a sign of low IQ.
Then in the last 5 years I progressed to the view that real wealth is having free time. Free time is nice but if you piss it away it’s still a stupid goal. In the last 6 months my view on wealth has changed once again.
Let me break down what the real definition is of wealth.
“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think” – Ayn Rand
Ayn was a wild and controversial figure.
I don’t like everything she says, but this quote has stuck with me. Most people never spend the time to think deeply. They’re so busy impressing a boss or trying to fit in that there’s nothing left.
Thinking deeply is a luxury. It’s what wealthy people have secretly done for centuries.
People like me thought wealthy people just had free time. It’s only when you study them and are able to hang around them that you realize what they’re doing is investing time to think deeply.
Wealth is being a deep thinker, not an overthinker.
If you have no time to think deeply, you’re experiencing a level of poverty that’s worse than financial bankruptcy or even homelessness.
Thinking is how you join the dots in your head to make sense of this crazy world. This process is what forms true wisdom, too. You go from always being a follower and paying attention to external ideas, to having your own ideas.
Conformists never unlock true wealth
The default path in life is to conform, therefore adopting most of your worldview from somewhere else. This is the path to ruin.
Dan Koe explains why this is:
“In Ego Development Theory, a lower stage of development is the conformist stage.
A stage where people can’t think for themselves. They need to be accepted by the tribe. So their mind sees religion and other ideologies and institutional dogma as law. “Bible thumpers” for more than just the bible.
It seems that as new generations gain more of a collective voice, the conformist stage – mostly occupied by boomers – is slowly starting to fade out from the general population. More people are occupying higher stages of development.”
We all start out as conformists.
But true wealth happens after you stop conforming and decide it’s better to be weird and f*ck fitting in. You can spot a conformist a mile away. They’re glued to their phone screen like it contains the meaning of life and $10M.
The idea of true wealth is being reinvented
Money can’t buy you wisdom, and luxury feels like sh*t after you have a few months of it, perhaps, thanks to an inheritance.
Here’s what true wealth now looks like:
1. A social media newsfeed of 50 people that you curate
You must make space for thinking.
Most people have way too much input. They’re suffering from information overload. Even worse, when they go on social media they start on the homepage of whatever app they’re using.
So they get fed election propaganda and Elon Musk vomit conspiracies.
Stay the hell away from the default page of any app or website. What I do is curate my online spaces. I log into X most days but I never look at what’s trending or in the news.
Instead, I have a small group of high-signal people who I genuinely follow. I read everything they post, and their content is tied to an active goal or obsession I have.
I’m not just reading for the sake of reading – or to get unearned dopamine.
If you’re following more than 50 people you probably need to start again. Once you hone in on the right voices it dials up the ideas you think deeply about offline.
Less information equals more wisdom.
2. Time to sit and stare at a blank wall
It’s rare to do nothing.
Most of us can’t bear it. We always have to be doing stuff. But this is what keeps us mentally poor. Blank space allows your mind to rest. Staring at a blank wall is extremely productive. It’s where I have my best ideas.
In a world where trading your time for money is 10x less effective than before, your value is determined more by your creativity. Without blank space, you’re a humanoid robot with nothing valuable to add to society.
Blank space raises your awareness. That helps you notice your best ideas and join the dots. And, after all, that’s all creativity is.
3. Days and even weeks away from a phone
I’ll say it for those in the back of the room:
The dumbest people I’ve ever met look at phones for hours per day. Since 2020 I’d be lucky to look at my phone for even 30 minutes in one day.
Yesterday I went to test drive a Tesla car. The sales guy said “I tried following you up last time but could never get through to you. Is this the best phone number?”
Me: “I never answer any phone calls. Most of them are scams or other people’s obligations forced on me. I never check texts either.”
It felt a bit rude to say but it’s the truth. F*ck phones. They’ve made our lives worse.
It’s why my gym is full of phone zombies looking at screens. No one works out anymore. They do one set of bicep curls then look at their phone for the next 30 minutes before doing another one. This isn’t exercising or building muscle.
Perhaps we’ll once again face another lack of exercise epidemic as a result.
The solution is to do a hard reset.
Find ways to get the hell away from your phone for days or even weeks. By default, having a phone next to you or in your pocket forms anxiety and guarantees you never think deeply.
4. A vehicle to express your true creativity
Painting, knitting, illustrating, and acting are creative art forms, but for the last 100 years creative people like me have been underpaid.
It’s why the term starving artist exists.
I had a revelation recently (thanks to deep thinking). These more artsy forms of creativity serve a secondary purpose.
When we paint or draw it helps us unlock our creativity. While right in the thick of creative expression, I often have my biggest breakthroughs.
Escaping a life problem with an artsy expression of creativity helps my brain figure things out without me observing and, frankly, getting in the way. In a world of AI, we need more human art. Mark my words, a Digital Renaissance is coming.
Takeaway: waste time on a creative pursuit that has no outcome or goal attached.
5. Self-employment instead of a micromanagement job
I could never think deeply while I had a job.
I always had to worry about the next corporate restructure or round of layoffs. Every boss micromanaged me into the ground.
Even when I went to Japan to have a holiday I couldn’t escape. My day job constantly plagued my mind with other people’s problems.
As soon as you can, make the transition to self-employment – even if that means you’re a consultant or freelancer. It’s not the label but who tells you what to do that counts.
Being told what to do is the adult daycare 99% of people live in.What’s wild is the average person doesn’t even realize they live this way. They think being an adult baby in a daycare is normal, or even noble. Not really, amigo.
My best thinking happened a month after I quit my banking job forever. It’s been that way ever since. Suddenly I can think without having to worry what other people think. And I don’t need outside opinions from anyone to run my life.
I found all the outside opinions at work a distraction.
Most of these leaders knew nothing about me, yet they still wanted to give me unsolicited advice and fake-pretend they knew what was best for me, so they could manipulate me into completing their KPIs while they sat in coffee shops “networking” and having a good time.
6. Blank space to sit and write
If you don’t write you’re not truly thinking.
I write to have ideas. Weird how that works.
Start a daily writing habit. Use it to get to know yourself and make sense of all the inputs. Use it to think, then in the editing process tomorrow just edit out all the mental sludge that accidentally made it in.
7. Walk your way into mini-transformations
Truly wealthy people walk a lot.
They use it as a time to think. There’s something about combining forward movement with thinking that helps you to progress ideas and solve hard problems. Plus it feels good and gets the blood pumping.
If you don’t have time to walk for an hour a day, are you truly living? Maybe it’s a sign.
Final Thought
You may not be able to do all of these things above.
But your goal is to make enough money so you can enable this blueprint and experience true wealth. People who think deeply impress the cr*p out of me. I’m not there yet but I’m well on my way.
A life built on deep thinking is true wealth. It’s the best feeling in the world, and this way of life will help you understand the meaning of life.
Tell me which of these ideas you loved the most and why in the comments.
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Interestingly, I’ve experienced the opposite. As someone who’s been self-employed and working from home for the past six years, I often find I have too much time to think, which has affected my mental health.
When I’m immersed in the actual work for my business, I’m focused and engaged. But outside of that, there’s a lot of time spent alone. Even though I make sure to go out and get my 10,000 steps each day, the isolation and lack of interaction—being alone with my thoughts for most of the day—can be quite challenging
Writing is deep thinking. It lets writers connect unconnectable dots. Speaking from experience.