9 Things to Stop Doing in 2024 (To Get Rich)

Stop earning with your time. Start earning with your mind. There are nine things to stop doing in 2024. If you want to be richer than 99% of people, everybody's going to tell you all the things you should do. We're going to tell you what you shouldn't. If you do the small things, those small things compound into the big things, and the big things compound into your bank account directly. You can compound the things we're talking about, especially like the last three, which I think are more controversial, into literal zeros in your bank account. In fact, I kind of think it's the only thing that matter. It's not actually the tactics and investments you make, it's what habits you choose that most people refuse to choose. And that's what these nine habits are all about. Stop earning with your time. Start earning with your mind. Here's the reason why when you earn with your time, you can have only a linear growth, because every job usually increases by 3 to 4% per year in salary range. When you earn with your mind, you have a limitless upside because your ability is not constrained by the numbers and hours in your day. Let's break this down a little bit further. So when you earn with just your time, this is how that actually works. In the beginning, the only thing that you can focus on is wow, salary, lowest level, slowest growth. Then you can get to a level where you have bonuses, you make more. If you hit XYZ goal, then eventually maybe you could get into something like a profit share or a revenue share. And then finally at the peak pinnacle is equity. Because at the equity level, it's not always tied to your time. These are the layers of working for time. So here's an example about how you would do this. So in the beginning, you might sell your time by the hour, right? Let's say you're a consultant for X, Y and Z. Then you might sell your time in groups. Instead of having one person on the call, you have three people on the call. And then you might sell your time to many people. By doing what? Creating something once and selling it continuously. So maybe that means that you have a course that you sell. Maybe that means you have a book that you sell. Maybe that means that you have a product that you sell, but it's no longer tied to you. The one, it is tied to you. The thing once you divorce your time from the money that you earn, you have exponential return. And that's how you earn with your mind, not with your time. Go down field and we hit the Field goal, touchdown, basket, hoop. Stop living like a mess or you will be a mess. Especially when it comes to your desk. How do you become more productive every single day at your desk? It turns out 94% more productive is what humans are who actually have clean in workspaces. People who have messy desks are more often depressed and tired. Okay, but the question becomes, how do you do this? Really easy. Five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the evening. When you start work, you start clean. If there's anything messy on your desk, you clean it out before you get started. At the end of the day, I don't close out until my desk is also clean. And then I kind of like to have this power of ritual. So every single time I start working, I have a cup of coffee, I light a candle because I'm a nerd and I like the smell. I usually have flowers or a plant on my desk. You can pick it from your yard. Doesn't have to be anything fancy. And I have a set pen and a pad of paper I use every single time. That's it. Once you get into a routine and you have a workspace that is set, then your brain gets trained that when you go here, you do work. If you want to get rich, start with cleaning up your finances. If you want to get productive, start with cleaning up your desk. Cleaning equals a really underrated hack. Now, I actually have to pick this up because I'm supposed to do the things that I say I do. Shrink your frame, decrease the time you think about something to the time you act. So Parkinson's law is basically an old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. He tells the story of a woman whose only task in a day was to send a postcard. That should take a busy person, I don't know, three minutes. But the woman spent an hour finding the car, a half hour looking for her glasses, 90 minutes riding the cart, 20 minutes deciding whether or not to take an umbrella along on her walk to the mailbox, and on and on until finally her day is filled. Which is like a little bit funny, but something that we actually do in real life as humans, too. Now there's something else called the Ekrasia effect. This is another reason why we procrastinate. So Victor Hugo, famous author in 1830, was in front of a terrible deadline 12 months earlier. The author had promised his publisher a new book. But instead of writing, he spent that year messing around, having guests over delaying his work. The publisher, frustrated, obviously, set a deadline less than six months Away for the book, Hugo came up with a crazy plan. He collected all of his clothes and asked his assistant to lock them away. He had nothing left to wear except a pink shawl, which, like, he basically stayed in his study and wrote intensely during the entire winter. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was then published two weeks early in 1831. Ekrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It's when you do that one thing, even though you know you should be doing something else. If you can figure out a way to fight against a crazia, your version of the large shawl and no clothes, then you become part of the 1%, not the 99%. But how? One of my tricks to this is to break societal norms. You know how everybody always says, I'll get back to you about that next week? I don't allow that at my company or for myself. Instead of ever saying, get back to me next week, I, I say, how could we get back to me in 24 hours? How could we shrink seven days into 24 hours? Because that means I don't have to be smarter, richer, or better than any of my competition. I'm just faster. I write how long every task should take. This is a 15 minute task. This is a two hour task. And I ask my team continuously, how long did you spend on that? And so when you name the task, you limit the time that you can spend on the task and you set yourself a deadline. You've created your own version of the large shawl. The paper cut problem. Too many small yeses, they'll bleed you. So think about it like this. You get one paper cut, it's not going to kill you, right? It feels awful. I hate those things. But now imagine you continue to do it again and again and again. Every time you say yes to something, you are bleeding. A little bit of energy, a little bit of attention, a little bit of focus. And what I realized is I was saying yes to way too many things. And because of that, nothing was ever really getting fully done. Maybe it was getting halfway done, or it certainly wasn't my best work ever. And that's the same thing with paper cuts. They will slowly bleed away your productivity by you lying to yourself and saying that distractions are actually not that big of a deal. But actually, the numbers show us that we are 40% less productive when we multitask. On average, everybody is. But the question becomes, how do you stop time? Block your calendar. This basically means you keep promises to yourself and to your calendar. And on here, you can See, on Wednesdays is my call days. This is like nine and a half hours of meetings. I don't ever not show up for a meeting that I say I'm going to. And so it's the same thing. When I write a task on my calendar on Tuesdays, I don't have calls and I focus on a specific task. Like here we're looking at deals, or here I'm writing a book. I'm not doing anything else but writing the book. During that segment, keep a promise to yourself. And it turns out that paper cuts can't distract you. Next is use the guide. Like the one thing. I love this book. It's from a friend of mine, Jay Papasan. All about the one thing focusing on the one thing that will change everything. That if you do it, it will make your life easier. Get a focus kit. Here's mine. It's to make sure that you don't get distracted. In it is water with electrolytes and the specific focus powder, earplugs or earbuds so that I can listen to music. Usually I listen to lo fi house music. My to do list. And that's it. Wait, you're writing a book? Stop relying on motivation. Start relying on discipline. I learned this one from our good friend Jocko. When you use motivation only, it's like you get filled. Once you listen to somebody like Jocko, you listen to Tony Robbins and it fills your cup for week one. The problem is that decreases over time. And every moment you get further away from motivation is a moment you want to do it less. Here's the difference. If you do it with discipline instead discipline, actually the opposite happens. So in the beginning, you don't have a lot of discipline. You don't wake up every time at 6am like you're going to. You don't go to the gym every single day, but every time you do, it builds up a little bit more and a little bit more reserve until at the end of, let's say that same five or six period, you're full because disciplined is learned. And then it is ingrained, and then you continue to earn it every single week. As opposed to motivation, you have to go to somebody else to get it. A lot of people feel like everything that they're doing doesn't stack up. There's this long period where nothing happens and everything is pointless. But they don't realize that on the other side of pointless is actually where all the acceleration happens. I call it the 33% rule, which is you need to be the type of person who picks three things a year. So 33. 33, 33. That you execute on for at least one calendar year. And if you can do that, you'll shock yourself, because most humans can't even commit for a week. It's why 75 hard. Our friend Andy's program is considered so difficult, you know, less than three months. But if you can commit to a year or something, just about everything in your life can change. You know, Shane Parish talks about how when you first start doing things, it seems simple. And then the further along you get, you realize it's actually more complicated. And then past the point of complication, you get to a point of understanding where they appear simple. I actually don't think that's the case. I think that a lot of things appear simple to do, but they're not easy. One of the easiest things I found is to stop keeping your goals secret. It's called social accountability or social pressure. Basically, the other day, for instance, I want to do a huge tour next year. I want to do a book tour. It scares the hell out of me. I am nervous that I might bought be able to do it. I'm nervous that people might not show up for it. So I haven't really talked about it publicly at all because maybe if I don't talk about it publicly, I don't have to follow through with it. So yesterday, in a group of my most famous and accomplished friends, I said publicly, this is what I'm doing next year. And by Q3 of 2024, I will have done this nationwide tour, and here's what it's going to look like. And by the way, would you guys want to be involved? And that act of two parts, say it. And in public, and then getting them to be involved in it is the thing that will make me check my homework by the end of 2024, next year, actually do the thing that I said I was going to do. Stop. Perfectionization. I think about it sort of like the canoe. If all you do is row left, you're going to go in a circle. I don't know if you've ever felt like this, but I do. Where you feel like you're going like, left, right, left, right, left, right. You're like, why can't we just go straight? You know, why can't I just continue to move forward exactly, linearly, perfectly, into the future? And the truth of the matter is that even a canoe moves forward a little bit on an angle every single time. So that's what I remind myself about. That don't try to be perfect. Don't try to do it exactly right. Because first of all, there is no such thing. And second of all, that's actually how forward momentum works. It's a little bit of friction continuously to pull you forward, just like a canoe. One of you guys asked, how do you get started when you don't feel like you know what you're doing? I think just realize that nobody actually knows what they're doing. That the most successful people I know are uncertain and anxious all the time and just trying to figure it out. One of the best ways to get over that is to realize that you're actually not that unique. You know, I keep a group text with a bunch of other founders who are sort of at my level, and we just go back and forth about all the things we're struggling with today. You know, today we almost sent out a wire to the wrong person for, like, $710,000 this morning, and it was because my CFO messed up a few numbers on a bank transfer. That could drive you crazy. Or you could just talk to a bunch of other people and go, God, this happened to me today. And then something kind of cool happens. Back with your entrepreneur friends. They go, oh, yeah. You know, I was talk. Talking to my friend Layla, and she was basically saying, you know, that at least, like, you know, 24 hours of every week, she wants to murder herself, too. So it's. It's normal. And what happens is everybody thinks when you have a problem. I always wanted to see a visual like this. You think when you have a problem in the beginning, that once you get past this problem, that life will be better. And instead, what happens is your problems kind of go like this. You start out with a little problem, and then as soon as you solve it, the universe goes, oh, you ready for the next level of the game? And they give you a bigger one, and they give you a bigger one. They give you a bigger problem. And you progressing is just like you progressing in Mario Kart Level one, kind of easy. Everybody passes it. Level two, not as much until you keep getting problems so big that they would have crippled younger you. But for you today, it's not that big of a deal at all. And that's why I don't worry that much about getting started, because I know that I'm just going to have another bigger problem to tackle later on. And I'm probably not the only one struggling at this moment. I stopped drinking. That's not exactly true. I still drink a little bit because I don't want to have a robotic life, I would way rather hang out with Hemingway than life optimizing. Chad. I gotta think. Like Hemingway said, don't bother with churches, governments or city squares. If you want to know about our culture, spend a night in the bars. So I did stop drinking anything that isn't a nice glass of sipping red wine or tequila. I think if you just focus on quality not quantity, you can have fun without sanitizing your entire life. For instance, I've become friendly with Brian Johnson who wants to live to a billion years old but have like zero fun whatsoever in life. And I realized that I would way rather live to 100 instead of 150. Have some free and wild nights. So I think it's okay to drink and in fact it's probably okay to not wake up with a cold plunge and a sauna and a three hour meditation too. I think a little wrong is always right. But if you stay for a few more of these habits in this video you're going to see what the real solution is to drinking less and drinking better. Spoiler it's the people you're with and has nothing to do with the habits, the types of drinks, the places you're going, the what you're doing. Every problem you have is a who problem, not a how problem. Step Change Friendships if your circle hasn't changed but your age has, you're probably doing it wrong. You can't be the same person that you were ten years ago you and expect your life to change. You also can't hang out with the same people that you did 10 years ago and expect your life to change because most people just will not change. So you got to stop hanging out with your high school friends. Although I did marry one. The thing is, I think most people aren't willing to do the hard thing that Jim Rohn talks about, which is that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. 95% likelihood that you have very similar success, health and happiness scores as the people that you hang out with the most. And so are you willing to take a hard look and see if you're the one pulling everybody else up or are you guys all pulling each other up? You know, I kind of think about it like this in the beginning. We all start together in high school. You're that little group, you're tightly knit. But then if you're doing it right, you're hopefully on an upwards trajectory. A lot of your friends might not be, and you have to be courageous enough to make the cut. Even if you're doing it with love. The question becomes, how do you do this? Because this is going to enrage a bunch of people in the comments who are going to freak out at this point, this point, I see you, whatever, move on to a new YouTube video. And if you like it here, subscribe. I call this the three strike rule. So basically we all have a group of friends where when you go back, some of them chirp in your ear little negative things like, oh, I liked the old Cody. Oh, she was more fun. Man, you've changed. They get three strikes. The first time they say it, I probably say something like, I like the person that I am today. I'm really happy I changed. But if I have to do that more than three strikes, I go, you're just not my person and I'm not yours anymore. Obviously, because you like the old me and I'm the new me. It doesn't mean that I'm better than this person. It just means they loved who I was. They maybe don't love who I've grown into. That's cool. But I love me. So I'm going to do me. You. Do you. I think you cannot be what you cannot see. And so if all of your friends are at a certain level, it becomes almost unimaginable that you could be something bigger or better. In fact, that's why zebras often die if they don't have the same type of stripes. If a black zebra was born, if a zebra is born with a big huge white spot or a big huge black spot and they're in the wild, they die more often. Why? Because they're more easily targeted. And we humans all evolved from the plains of Africa with the exact same mentality. What happens is if you get with a group of friends where they are all up leveled, then it's safe there. Everybody else wants to protect you. If you don't, then your life probably gets a little bit harder because you do have a little bit of a target on your back. We humans, sadly, are usually motivated by scarcity and safety, not abundance and positivity. If you go to your group of friends and you tell them a problem you're having about the big thing that you're trying to achieve, a good way to tell if they are a ride or die for life or not is how they answer that question. Do they tell you to slow down or do they ask you how they can help you speed up? Keep the latter, ditch the former. I think you have to never be afraid to leave Your hometown to grow. It's too easy to stay the same when the scene does your people love you as you are now? They'll fear losing that you, your hometown will always be there. But if you want to become a person that is changed, it's much easier when you go to a place that is changed. Stop eating cereal for breakfast. And I don't mean that literally. There's a Mark Twain quote that I love and it says if you have to eat a frog, eat them in the morning. If you have to eat two, eat the big one first. And the idea behind this is to do the awful things you don't want to do first. Because it turns out if you do the hard things first, everything else seems a whole lot easier. All the success you want is hiding, usually in the work you are avoiding. So we have a tendency as human beings to want to check things off list because that feels good. Problem is, most of the things we check off a list have no bearing whatsoever on our future and us actually hitting our goals. You know, it doesn't actually really matter if you do the small things. What would matter even more is could you pick the one to two to three things that drive everything? And so we call this the frog eating method. Can you eat a frog every single morning? And if you got to eat a couple, can you eat the big guy first? The problem is, in our world, a frog and cereal don't look that obvious. We don't know what's the task. That's actually the frog that's going to move the needle as opposed to the sugary treat that you're going to wish you didn't have. And one of the best ways I've determined to figure this out is always go to what drives the dollars into the bank account. If you think about it, as an owner of a business, it drives me crazy when our portfolio companies are focusing on things that aren't driving revenue too early in the game. You don't have any sales. Why are we doing social media? Get on the phone, get in your email and start reaching out to prospects. Because you could go and try to throw a bunch of videos at a wide net and hope that you catch some fish. Or you could try to actually hunt. So if you're trying to figure out what's a frog versus what you cereal, don't do the sparkly, shiny, sexy things. The frog is usually the dirty thing that you don't want to do. Pick up the phone, call, close a prospect, send an email, close a prospect. Money in the door, chase it down. Anything that drives revenue and sales into you and your life is usually the frog. So pick your frog. There's a reason frogs are green. Because they're tied to money. Chase the money.