šŸ§  3 rules that CHANGED my life

Read to the end for a big turtle

Welcome to reThinkable - my weekly newsletter where I share actionable insights to build a wealthy healthy life.

Hereā€™s what weā€™re covering:

  • šŸ“ The Two List System

  • šŸŖŸ The Regret Minimization Framework

  • šŸ’­ The Thinking Zone

When I first got serious about personal finances, I was overwhelmed with the number of money decisions I had to make every week. Should I save more? What could I cut back on? Did I remember to invest? Did I pay that electricity bill?

So, I did what anyone does when faced with so many decisionsā€¦

I did nothing.

Soon, problems piled up and my finances began to spiral out of control.

But thankfully, I learned how to automate my finances before things got too bad. Nowadays, my finances run on autopilot, without any effort.

Itā€™s what allowed me to to take back control of my money instead of letting it control me.

Now, I want to help you take back control.

Iā€™ve been been working on a project to teach you, step-by-step, how to automate your finances. And the best part? Itā€™s completely free. Iā€™ll share more details next week.

In the meantime, I want to talk about 3 rules that were integral for me to becoming financially free.

šŸ“ The Two List System

When I was starting one of my first businesses, I had a lot of things on my plate:

  • Should I focus on my side business or strive for a promotion

  • Should I work for another hour or go to the gym?

  • Should I watch The Office or hang out with friends?

I knew if I tried to prioritize every task, I would be subpar at all of them. Every action has a cost. Each thing takes up time, energy, and space that could be put toward something else.

While eliminating useless tasks and decisions is relatively easy, it's much harder to let go of the things you care about. The most helpful concept I found is the "Two List System," popularized by Warren Buffet. Hereā€™s how it works:

  1. Take out a piece of paper and write down the top 20 tasks you have to accomplish this month

  2. Circle the top 5 most important ones 

  3. At this point, you should have 2 lists: the 5 tasks you circled are in List A, and the other 15 are in List B.

You might think you should work on List A as soon as possible and tackle List B when you have spare timeā€¦

But thatā€™s wrong.

Everything in List B, while also important, is ultimately just a distraction when compared to List A. So now, consider everything in List B the "Avoid At All Cost List". Even if the world is about to end, do not look at List B until List A is done.

šŸŖŸ The Regret Minimization Framework

My first job after college was on Wall Street. I made a pretty good amount of money and  had a solid career trajectory ahead of me.

However, I was miserable. 

As someone who didnā€™t grow up with money, I felt terrible that my new job was to help the rich get richer. 

What I actually wanted to do was the opposite ā€” help close the wealth gap by teaching everyday people financial literacy.

But I was petrified to follow that dream because it was a big risk. Should I quit a stable and promising career to start something from scratch?

One idea that helped me was the ā€œRegret Minimization Framework,ā€ coined by Jeff Bezos. This framework helps you make big decisions by envisioning your future self.

So during that time, I imagined being 87 years old and reflecting on my life, asking myself which decision I would regret the least: staying in my secure job or pursuing my dream?

Thankfully, I made the right choice.

šŸ’­ The Thinking Zone

A few years ago, a close friend shared his dream of becoming a writer, but he didnā€™t know where to start. He believed he needed a perfect plan before beginningā€¦

No matter how hard I pushed him, he just wouldnā€™t do it. Then, I realized he was stuck in the ā€œThinking Zone.ā€ 

The ā€œThinking Zoneā€ where people plan and strategize but then one of 2 things usually happen:

  1. You believe you a flawless plan before you start or

  2. You come up with a plan but you feel so excited about your plan that it feels like an achievement in itself, which prevents you from taking any real action.

If youā€™re stuck here, you need to shift your focus from ā€œhowā€ to simply getting started.

The easiest way to start is by breaking the bigger picture into smaller pieces. 

For instance, when I made my first YouTube video, if I had focused on the finished product from the start, it would have been overwhelming. Instead, I started with an outline, planned each scene, recorded it, and progressed step by step.

Each small action created a feedback loop that motivated me to continue. Action generates quantity, which improves quality, which generates motivations, which leads to more action.

For every person that takes action, there will be thousands of others who had similar ideas but just didnā€™t act on them. You want to be that 1 in 1000 ā€” not the other 999 that are looking and thinking ā€œthat could have been me.ā€

šŸ“ˆ The safest investment you could make

Today's newsletter is brought to you by Silo

I get asked about my investment portfolio all the time. Itā€™s pretty consistent for the most part, but for the past 24 months, Iā€™ve been investing in government bonds with 5% yields. Thanks to high interest rates, bonds can yield anywhere from 5% to 25%, or even higher, depending on your risk tolerance.

What I love about investing in bonds is that Iā€™m locked into my 5% rate for years, which means even if the Federal Reserve cuts rates to 2-3% over the next 12 months, I still earn 5% yield on my money.

Silo has made the bond investing process a lot easier. Siloā€™s mission is to have companies and the government pay you by simplifying the bond investing process and making it more transparent. Silo lets you invest in corporate bonds from over 2,000 top companies like Apple, Google, and Netflix, as well as government securities like Treasury bills and notes, which are considered ā€œrisk-freeā€ since theyā€™re backed by the US federal government, and they charge just $1 per bond. 

šŸ”Ž reThink More

šŸ” Would you prefer a side of inflation or a side of recession with that burger?

šŸ’¼ The job market is really good but only for this group of people.

šŸ‘” So apparently Gen Z donā€™t want tech jobs anymoreā€¦ hereā€™s what theyā€™re looking for now.

šŸ“ reThinkable Quiz

Which of these scenarios applied The Regret Minimization Framework?

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PS: Hereā€™s the big turtle

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