You get plenty of shots to make it BIG.
I hear many peers make the following statement “I’m not doing the right thing. I’m wasting my time. I’m not in the right spot, job, project, or not with the right people.”
The statement implies that starting early or starting right now is the only correct option. These people speak like there is only a tiny window of opportunity that may evaporate at any second. They talk like success is a make-it-or-break-it situation where you get only one shot at it.
Five years is all you need
I disagree strongly with this as long as you set your life up in the ‘right way’. Then, you’ll get many windows and opportunities to become successful.
These ‘many opportunities’ come in the form of The Five Year Rule:
- Within five years, you can become a master in any new subject.
- Within five years, you can build a brand new profitable business from scratch.
- Within five years. you’re able to reinvent yourself completely.
- All the above roads are achievable until you’re unable to do the work or too old to read, think and write.
Let’s assume that I’ll be able to do real meaningful work until the age of 75. Then, of course, I hope I can do meaningful work until I die at the ripe age of 120 but let’s take the average male dying age for the below example.
I have 46 years left to start new projects, build a new profitable business or completely reinvent myself.
When you believe in the Five Year Rule, I have 47y / 5y = 9 projects and new chapters in my life. That is quite a lot of new opportunities still ahead.
Every new try increases my odds of winning
I’m never worried about my current path since I’ll have many years left to do things and start something new. And, I’ll be able to do them with the lessons and learnings from the past.
That is the compounding part.
The further you get, the wiser you become, the more experiences you have and the more lessons you carry with you, which will increase your chances of success because, in most cases, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel.
How to make the Five Year Rule work for you
Believing in the Five Year Rule gives me peace of mind.
I trust in the process, and I can say: “Whatever happens within the current 5-year project, I’ll have many other shots at it”.
But remember, living your life this way only works if you genuinely believe in the below statements when you say them in your head:
- l am mentally prepared to start from scratch every 5 years. I’m willing to do so, and I’m not afraid to do so.
- I don’t care what others think about me starting all over or what they think of me. I do it because I know a new opportunity lies ahead.
- I’m dedicated to getting the most out of these new 5 years. I will never half-ass it. It’s always GO Time. No breaks in between (okay, okay, maybe short breaks to recoup, learn from the past and take a breath. But it’s all about getting on the horse again after you fell or you’ll get scared of the horse.)
- Besides the mental preparedness, you’ll need to mentally and socially withstand the financial setbacks of starting from scratch again. I started my second company with outstanding debts from my first company and finally managed to set my second company with a profit. You need to be prepared to take hits.
Is the Five Year Rule anything for you?
Are you ready to deal with the beliefs laid out above? Most people are not. They stick to shitty jobs with marginal yearly increases in return because they can’t fathom the five-year rule.
You can only live out the Five Year Rule if you can scale back once you start over. It would help if you had a good grip on your spending habits and your general habits. Starting over requires discipline in many areas of your life.
So how do you design a life for yourself that fits the Five Year Rule into it?
Let me show you how I mapped out my life using the Five Year Rule.
- My First 10 years (starting from when I was 20, 8 years ago): I need to build a profitable business or income-generating assets that grant me freedom, wealth, and a budget to invest in new projects, new startups and my writing.
- The Following 5 years {starting from 30): I want to write a book on business and life in general. Next to that. I want to write a fiction novel. Basically, I want to spend it writing, investing, and living on dividends from my assets.
- Finally, for the next 30 years: I want to stay extremely curious and do whatever comes to mind.
If I haven’t reached my goal of building a profitable business when I don’t have enough assets to sustain my lifestyle, I’ll rinse and repeat the process until I have the assets that grant me the next step.
That is my path; like a game, my life has levels. So go out there and design your levels, play them to your fullest, and play them hard.
If you could build out your life in blocks of 5 years, how would your life look, and what would you like to achieve?