Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. – Albert Einstien

Not everyone is born rich. Life shouldn’t be hard just because you are not rich right now. The person who does a job has the dream to work for himself but the NR has the dream of having others work for him. So who is an NR? The salaried worker who has a remote work arrangement that allows them to achieve 90% of the work in 10% time and enjoys the rest of his time. NR is also a business owner who has only a few profitable customers and can work remotely from anywhere in the world.

“DEAL” – an acronym for a process for being New Rich

D-Definition

E- Elimination

A- Automation

L-Leverage

Definition

Retirement is the last reservoir of capital to survive in a worst-case scenario which is sad in itself. You need alternative activities of rest and work to survive. NR’s aim is to have mini-retirement throughout their life.

Everyone has a list of things they want to do but haven’t done for a long time. We are nervous to take a leap into an unknown area. So, the author has a series of questions where you need to first define the worst thing that could happen if you take that leap, the impact this thing could make in your life if they are temporary or permanent, and the likelihood of them happening and how can you resolve those things and get back to life. We often imagine the very worst scenario in relation to these leaps that may have the slightest chance of happening. I am no different but, after doing this exercise I realized they are not that bad. It is just the fear that holds us behind.

We often underestimate ourselves and overestimate the fear out there. This is the reason many people fear taking a larger leap toward a bigger goal. But, these goals are often easier to achieve, as everyone is backing you have less competition ahead.

Elimination

Pareto’s Law says “80% of the outputs results from 20% of the inputs”. You need to identify which 20% of input are resulting in the 80% output in your work and in your life, which 20% sources are resulting in 80% happiness. You can perform an 80/20 analysis of your life, business, work, or anything. You can eliminate the 80% that is not producing the desired result and focus on that 20%.

Parkinson law says “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If we have a deadline coming up we tend to finish a project in one night that was pending for months. So, if you have only 2 hours for a task, the deadline will force you to complete that project in those two hours. But, if you have 15 days to complete the same task, you spend 14 days doing nothing. A shorter time period assigned to a task means a greater focus on the task resulting in better quality.

Combining the Pareto’s 80/20 law and Parkinson’s Law, you need to identify a few tasks that generate the most outcomes and assign a short time to them for a quality result.

We have this notion of inventing things to avoid what is important and what matters. Stop inventing things to avoid what’s important. Find a single task, that needs to be completed within a day for you to be satisfied with your day. Limit the number of tasks within your to-do list and assign smaller time slots for each of them. Follow the low-information diet and go on a one-week media fast. No social media, no news, no audiobooks except for one hour of TV each day for pleasure. Also no surfing web, no reading books except one hour of fiction before bed. Batch similar activities to reduce cost and free more time like reply to email just once or twice a day at a fixed time or buy groceries for a week at once. This reduces repetitive tasks.

Automation

Work smarter and automate things so you can delegate your tasks. When determining what to automate choose a time-consuming task that should be well-defined. Outsource the work and let others work for you and keep track of per-task cost rather than per hour. Most of the successful companies in the world outsource work like Apple or Microsoft. Once you are satisfied with the test of outsourcing, outsource all of your time-consuming tasks. While outsourcing work contract freelancing company rather than a freelancer so when something goes wrong you don’t have to rely on one person, you will have a backup who can replace one another. Ensure all outsourcers are willing to communicate with one another to solve any problem and allow them to make expensive decisions starting with $100.

If you want to do business or sell products first pick an affordable reachable niche market. Then, brainstorm products in the market (do not invest yet) whose benefit can be encapsulated in one second, is affordable to the customer ($50-200), the product should be manufactured within 3-4 weeks and any questions should be fully explainable in an online FAQ. You can either resell, license (burrowed from someone), or create your own product.

After that micro-test, the products i.e. if you are reselling a product, just get a couple of products to micro-test or if you are creating your own create a few products for test. Make your product start out from the competition, test the advertisement and then decide whether to invest or not.

Now once you decide to invest, you need to rollout and automate the business. For the first 50 orders do it all by yourself. When you start shipping more than 10 units per week, find a local fulfilment centre and ask the manufacturer to ship the product to this fulfilment centre directly. When you have more than 20 products sold per week, you have cash flow and so find and set up an account with an end-to-end fulfilment centre.

More options lead to indecision. While creating products has fewer options so that the customer doesn’t get confused. Use the 80/20 principle, only do business with customer who is reasonable. The 20% of the bad customers will create 40% of your expenses and eat 40% of your time. Offer a loose-win guarantee in your business. For example, delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free by Domino Pizza. Put multiple emails and phone on your website and direct them to you at the beginning but once expanded have multiple departments for contact. Set up an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) remote receptionist for a small price. Always remember to not provide your home address, use a post office box.

Liberation

Negotiate remote working, if you have a job. First, start by asking yourself if you were your boss, would you trust yourself to work outside of the office? Try working in a different environment like home or café. Increase productivity with the 80/20 rule. Start with 2 days a week, and provide an increased output when working remotely. Gradually, negotiate with the boss showing the productivity factor and business benefit. Do this until you can work completely remotely. If your boss refuses, you should consider changing your job.

Just because you made a bad decision 5 or 10 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t make a good new decision now. This applies to job and life both, if you are not happy with your job, change it or quit. Ask yourself are you likely to achieve your goal in your current job or somewhere else.

If you feel quitting is permanent no it’s not, you can always come back to it later. If you feel quitting will ruin your resume, don’t sit after you quit do something fun and put it on your resume. Uncommon things are great discussion topics in job interviews.

If finance is the problem, find a job or cash flow before you quit. If you are fired make some adjustments with your expenses and start looking for the next gig, it can be hard but you will survive. Think what you will do if you get fired right now, how would you get things under control?

Take mini-retirements which is moving to one place for 1-6 months before going back home or to another location. You don’t escape from your life but rather relax, enjoy and see the world. You need this time to unplug yourself from the routine and stress.

Traveling and living like this often is cheaper or equivalent to your normal day-to-day expenses, so make no excuse. Living in a different place or country with all the free time is often exciting and scary. Learn a new language or a skill overseas. After the mini-retirement, revisit your dream lines and reset if necessary. Service can be just a musician putting a smile on someone’s face, it shouldn’t be necessarily saving something. Find the cause that you are interested in and do it.

Every day look into the mirror and ask yourself “If today were your last day, would I do what I am about to do? ” All pride fear falls away and you will understand what needs to change in your life.

Fav Quotes