How it all began

When we were kids, our parents asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. It’s harmless when they told you that you can be anything you want. Unfortunately, the older you get, the more you get told that your dream is just a fantasy. In your 20’s, people will say something along the lines of, “you need to wake up and face reality.” Don’t listen to those people. They’re toxic.

I dream of a life of passive income, where I am free to take a “mini-retirement” to travel anywhere in the world.  Currently, I am redirecting course to make this dream a reality.

So when I first came across Ramit Sethi, I was extremely skeptical of him.  Who is he to talk about “improving your social skills,” “how to be confident,” or best of all, “how to find a job?” Who is this guy?  In the beginning, I liked his YouTube videos quite a bit because most of them were short, to the point, and had pieces of advice I could implement from that point on.  I quickly realized that his content was some of the best out there because it was based on results.  He had such great content that I trusted him just enough to buy his book on Amazon.  I rarely spend money on things, so for him to convince me to buy something of his, nonetheless a book, I was impressed.

I got the book shipped home.  I had never picked up a book of my own accord in my life, so after ordering Ramit’s book, I kind of went on a book buying spree.  It was like if I read a quick summary of the book and bought it, I didn’t have to take any more action.  Buying the book was enough action.  My parents even gave me a call and asked why I was ordering so many books – they genuinely thought something was wrong.

At the time, it was finals week, and I only had two finals.  One was on the first day of finals, and the other was on the last, so I went home for the time between exams.  When I got home from school, I brought all the books downstairs to my desk where I keep my computer and video games.  After being in school for three months straight, my craving for video games outweighed my interest in the books.  I don’t have video games at school, so this was like being able to eat as much pizza as I could consume after being on a diet for three months.  I went back to school to take my exam, took it, and then hopped on the train to ride back.  It was nice to know I was going home for a month long break from school.  Unfortunately, my phone had died, so it was just me, myself, and I alone for the train ride back.  It was pretty late at night, so no one else was around.  I began to reflect on what I had done the past week, and I realized I had not accomplished anything.  I wasn’t even enjoying the video games that much anymore; they were just something to do.  They were a way to procrastinate the internship applications I knew I should have been starting.  I tried to answer the question of “what am I doing with my life?” multiple times throughout that train ride home.  I was just going through the motions every single day.  I wasn’t really enjoying it as much as an outsider, or even close friend, would expect.  It genuinely frustrated me because I didn’t understand why I felt this way.  I had life made for me: the best parents any kid could ever ask for, private high school, an elite university, and an amazing girlfriend.  What else could I ask for?  Yet I still felt so empty.  When I got home that night, I went straight to bed because I was exhausted.

When I woke up the next morning, I went downstairs to my desk to turn on the computer and video games.  I played video games for about an hour and again realized that I really wasn’t having any fun.  I turned off the video games and just sat there.  The piles of books stared me down.  I had also remembered that I had come across Ramit’s CreativeLive course on personal finance and entrepreneurship.  I wasn’t ready to sit down and read because that’s boring.  Like most people, I took what seemed to be the path of least resistance.  I cued up sixteen hours of video and began watching it.  It was pretty good, but I was bored in about twenty minutes.  I was so bored that I went upstairs and exclaimed to my mother “give me chores to do!  I am bored out of my mind!”  This cyclical process of getting bored and doing chores went on for the rest of the day.  The next day, there was something subtly different: it only took about a half an hour to get bored.  The third day, I could watch about an hour straight of video.  I didn’t notice these small changes at the time, but I now greatly appreciate them.  These incremental improvements are what gave me the momentum needed to take me to the next action step: reading.

After finishing the personal finance and entrepreneurship course, I was out of video content.  I had watched just about everything there was to watch from Ramit’s free content, too.  The only cheap content I had left to consume from Ramit was his book, so I picked it up and flipped through.  I skimmed selectively at first, but quickly found myself consumed into an entire chapter.  There was one vital thing he convinced me of: the money in my savings account wasn’t doing any good just sitting there.  This was the point where I knew I needed to take life-changing action.  I talked to my parents that night and told them about Ramit.  I was still unsure about doing this, but I told them I wanted to open a retirement account and invest in a low fees target date fund.  They were somewhat supportive and said something along the lines of “this sounds like a better idea than spending all your money.”  A business owner himself, my father said, “If you open the account before the year ends, you can put the minimum in for 2014.  If you decide to take a job over the summer, you’ll still have the option to put the minimum in for 2015.  However, if you wait until 2015 to open this account, you can only put in the minimum for all of 2015.”  This urgency gave me the last nudge I needed to open the account.  The next morning, I followed exactly what Ramit’s book says to do, and I opened my retirement account and put the minimum in for 2014.  Life-changing action was taken.

From the day I got home from that train ride to the day I opened this retirement account, it had only been about five days.  In just five days, I felt like I had accomplished so much.  Christmas was only in two more days, so I took a break.  The day after Christmas, my family, girlfriend, and I left for Florida for vacation.  I packed up some of the hardcopy books I had bought and my Samsung tablet where I loaded a few eBooks on from my buying spree.  I read one of the shorter books just waiting in the terminal, and half of another longer book on the plane ride there.  My family and girlfriend thought I was acting really weird because I had gained such an interest in reading.  I couldn’t stop though.  I ended up reading four books that week while we were in Florida.

When I got home, I started reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.  I thought the last few books I had read in Florida were good, but this book passed all those other books combined in value.  Even though the 4HWW is about 420 pages, I read it in about two days.  It was incredible.  It got me to dream of a life I never thought was possible.  I made the decision that, at least for now, I do not want to work for a large company after I graduate college.  I want to build my own company or work at a small startup that has a goal of going from “zero to one.”  Most of all, I want to be able to take a “mini-retirement” at any time in my life.  I dream of moving out to Buenos Aires, or other seemingly foreign places, for three months at a time to learn about other cultures and completely immerse myself in living in a different country

It’s these incremental improvements that are key to building the momentum needed to take just slightly bigger action steps each and every day.  It’s these ever growing action steps taken each and every day that make a big difference in the long run.

What small action can you make today to start improving your life?  Leave a comment and let me know!