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WSPArchive: As you grow older, some things start mattering more. 20 of those - right here, right now.
Havenât done a list post in ages. Also took a hiatus the last two weeks to organize for next steps. Luckily, weâre back at it so itâs business as usual going forward. That said. We noticed weâve moved on from the prior âaudienceâ so this is going to be focused a bit more on the new audience going forward.
Just under a decade ago it seemed this website resonated with people in the mid-20s and weâve now moved into around late 20s/early 30s in terms of engagement.
This is naturally where the separation between the winners vs. losers in life *typically* occurs and weâll highlight the signs below.
1. Low Stress
People who havenât made it will claim that rich people are âstressedâ all the time.
No they are not.
There are two reasons for this:
making $200-250K a year in a corporate job with a family is not stress free, it is extremely stressful
people claim they know ârichâ people when the people they are speaking of have never talked to them and are unlikely rich.
This is as clean cut as it gets. If someone is in a low 6-figure position they are not rich, they are just âearning more moneyâ⌠That goes into more bills as lifestyle inflation kicks in for the vast majority.
Also. Rich needs to have a definition to it and we use $3-7M in your âthirtiesâ as a good proxy for this.
If someone reaches this quick financial definition of rich and they are still stressed out?
Well, they are simply *choosing* to be stressed out.
Outside of a health issue, having $150-350K coming in without lifting a finger (5% annual return), is more than enough to live a stress free life since you can always work part time to add some additional income.
Factually, to get to $3-7M you were likely earning mid-6 figures at minimum so working 20-30 hours a week is not a big deal.
2. Care Free Attitude
This is a different type of care free from the usual âfree spiritedâ attitude that hippies have in college.
When weâre referring to care free it is in respect to social issues.
If a friend makes more money than you do because he sold something or got a new product up and running, you should be thrilled jumping for joy and offering to buy him dinner/drinks.
This compares to your typical average bloke who will complain and say âhe should be more humbleâ. Or worse. Complain and make passive aggressive remarks suggesting he didnât deserve it in some way.
Care free also relates to personal life as well.
If someone decides to live life as a lothario or with a large family, it shouldnât be of importance to you.
At the end of the day, as long as they are set financially, what they do with their own life shouldnât bother you at all.
Sure you might not hang out with them as much based on different lifestyles. But. The lifestyle choice shouldnât bother you in any way.
Long gone are the days of making sure everyone around you is going down the right path.
Once youâve made it the decision tree is less relevant as the direction is already correct.
3. Low Body Fat
We were going to put in âmuscular and low-body fatâ but the problem is a lot of people who make it go into different types of sports.
Skiing is popular.
Snowboarding is popular.
Surfing is popular.
So on and so forth.
So weâll go with a low body fat percentage.
As long as you arenât running marathons with next to no muscle, youâre probably good enough with the âlow body fat ruleâ.
This is a good status symbol particularly once youâre over the age of 35 or so. At that point practically no one is in shape.
As a note a good way to have low body fat and maintain solid cardio fitness is through swimming.
Swimming is probably one of the best options as it is easy on the joints as well.
Two other alternatives are mountain biking and tennis.
Anything that requires high amounts of energy expenditure with lower impact (no jumping).
4. Rich People Problems
Naturally, your friends/close contacts will evolve into having the same ârich people problemsâ.
They include:
going out and drinking too much wine at dinner every day
too much travel
dealing with real estate issues for rentals
taxes
some sort of time consuming activity they are trying to outsource
Generally, you can figure out what type of person someone is by their closest contacts as well.
Essentially, if their friends have ârich people problemsâ then youâre likely talking to a rich person.
Another fun one. Anyone who makes it will have an immediate disdain for customer service. This is probably the worst business in the world and we have no idea how people run hotels.
Imagine running a full service product entirely around human interactions based on complaints.
These days walking into a hotel to check in makes you think âthis poor person has been yelled at 15 times at minimum todayâ.
5. People Get âStuckâ
There seems to be a hurdle around age 30 where most people stop improving.
This is due to changing responsibilities stacked upon one another.
Not a pretty picture.
The easy tell is when they are still talking about the same topics at age 30 as they were when they were in their mid-20s. There is no change across the board.
Still talking about making âan extra $15-20KââŚ
Still talking about the âbest place to go outââŚ
Still talking about travelling the world.
Just stuck in the same circular reference they were in five-seven years ago.
Naturally, the people who are stuck in this range end up becoming bitter.
They lash out and claim that everyone else is a liar since their lives are going down the drain. They eventually fade off the radar.
The rare ones that make it realize they are in a downward spiral and double or triple down on working out of the ditch while abandoning their current set of friends and lifestyle.
đŹ John Andre says
I agree 100% on this one, people I know that were killing it in their 20s often start to slow down and stop pushing it.
Itâs easy to get complacent as you get older, I try to force myself to keep the ball rolling
âĄď¸ We are on Substack Notes
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6. Physical Attention
The smart ones realize their bodies need a lot more attention. If youâve been taking care of your body for the last 30+ years youâll notice the physical slowdown at around 30-35 or so.
Please donât message about âdrug useâ to offset this.
If it were possible to beat father time, professional athletes would be playing well past their 40s. This doesnât happen. Athletes are forced to retire.
Physical attention changes commonly include:
skin care
massage therapy
laser treatments
creams/serums
botox injections
etc
There are many ways to fight the clock and most will be using at least two of the mentioned items here.
This doesnât even include the more extreme hormone replacement therapy that is becoming increasingly popular.
7. Avoid Unhappy People
This is the only âsuperstitiousâ item weâre involved in.
If anyone is throwing negativity your way or appears to be negative (life going in the wrong direction). Run away.
Donât try to throw a life saver out there, simply jump out of the way and move on.
There is something strange about momentum in the sense that negative energy can certainly cancel your positive energy.
The only difference here (when a life saver is worth it), is if someone is moving in the *right* direction but just canât get over some hurdle you can help with.
This might be worth your time. So go ahead and help in these situations as the person is in purgatory.
If it goes negative in a big way or positive in a big way youâll know within a few short months anyway.
Newtonâs first law of motion applies to life:
âA body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion unless it is acted upon by an external force.â
Do not use your energy and time to change the motion, simply help the motion that is already going in the right direction.
8. Net Worth Loses Its Meaning
At a certain cash flow threshold, net worth becomes a game of âgreed and prestigeâ and less about your day to day life.
This is why being stressed out and unhappy is a choice if youâre able to get rich.
Sounds crazy but it really does happen.
You end up being more focused on your cash flows as the âdigitsâ on the screen are not usable unless you sell. Youâll also have several investments that are not immediately liquid (like private company investments) so youâre going to focus more on your cash flow.
If we could do it all over again â we would have focused entirely on cash flow generating investments until a number was hit then worked on private investments after that.
Live and learn.
Related Archive
9. Smiling and Nodding Increases
If you already know this trick, itâs going to become more and more common as you get older.
Arguing with people is just not worth your time.
Simply smile, nod agree and delete.
This is something that will happen more and more.
In fact, weâd say it increases at an exponential rate.
After youâre 30 or so the amount of useful âinformationâ decreases substantially.
People are set in their ways so youâre better off finding interesting people that donât reiterate the same talking points you already know (or worse⌠information youâre sure is false).
10. Emotional Stability
Not sure how else to describe this - by this point you should have already seen a wide range of emotions from immense failure to immense success.
Since youâve already gone through the wild swings nothing really changes your mood.
People can be rude or nice to you and neither of them really change your day.
At the end of every night you wake up knowing that everyone else has to go to work for a living and suffer in a position they donât want to be in.
This alone makes it difficult to ever be upset when people are mean to you specifically.
The war is *already over* (youâre on the right side) so no reason to give these people the joy of seeing your emotions change.
Simply laugh at the pettiness and leave.
11. Dating Gossip
This is probably specific to this side of the web. We just donât have any interest.
If some guy or girl is struggling in the dating category we think itâs laughably sad (like a 10 year old trying to arm wrestle a professional football player).
Something happens here.
There is an *enormous* chasm between the rich people with solid social skills and the ones that legitimately struggle with women despite being wealthy.
It has reached a point where we really canât offer solutions.
If a guy/girl was able to become a multi-millionaire but still struggles with the opposite sex⌠we have to bow out.
They became successful the hard way (trial, error and effort) but think there is some special formula for dating/social skills. There isnât and there never will be.
Lift heavy things
Dress extremely sharp
Go out frequently
Talk to everyone in a fun and exciting manner
For those that havenât noticed, we actively delete all dating related questions now.
We find them repulsive and sad at this point.
In a rare twist of fate we have the same reaction that women do to guys who struggle with this stuff! Funny how that one turned out.
Womenâs intuition was correct, if the guy is desperate enough to ask the same questions all the time heâs just not a good person to date anyway.
Yes we know, you have to learn and ask at some point (everyone is a beginner). But. At 30+? No thanks.
12. Interest in Food and Drinks
As you get older your taste buds will evolve.
Youâre not going to look at menu prices for dinner since the $5-10 difference is not important.
What will happen is a change in your quality of food. Going to lower quality places is just not going to be worth it.
Better to go to a nice place or eat at home.
The middle of the range places are just a waste of money and time.
They are a waste of time as they unlikely open doors (wrong clientele) and itâs a waste of money as high quality food at home is certainly better.
To wrap up the topic, when you do go out to drink youâre not going to order âwellâ drinks. Itâs going to be a specific brand you like that is going to cost a few bucks more.
Also, more champagne vs. wine.
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