Without upfront capital to push forward, it’s hard to seize market opportunities; without reserve funds to cover the retreat, it’s impossible for the main money to exit smoothly.
The market is like a grinder—it never stops wearing you down. Your decision-making win rate keeps climbing, but your emotional part fades, little by little, until there’s nothing left.
Time is an invaluable asset.
Being wealthy means you have plenty of choices. You don’t need money to have many options.
If someone stands in the middle, your customer acquisition cost keeps climbing, which squeezes your margins. One example is that Google pays Apple around $9 billion a year just to remain the default search engine on iOS.
How do you achieve your 10-year goal in the next six months?
How should we change the way we work if we can only work one day a week?
If all current marketing channels disappeared, how would we acquire new customers?
What product features would allow us to charge 10 times the price?
If you had 10 times the resources, what changes would you make to the product?
Animal experiments show that high IQ comes at a cost:
1. To fuel the brain, energy consumption in other organs may be reduced (or they may be damaged).
2. High-energy activities like reproduction may be sacrificed for the brain.
But throughout evolutionary history, while individuals vary, they have no choice in the matter.