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What got you here won’t get you there

“What got you here won’t get you there.”

When you’re in high school, you try to fit in. That’s a good skill because you find your friend group and you can succeed.

When you get to college, it’s somewhat similar but not nearly as important because so many diverse people come together.

When you get into the real world, fitting in means you become invisible. Invisible is bad. If you want to win at life, you have to be different. I don’t mean different to be different. You have to specialize and show that specialization. If you fit in, no one will remember you.

The articles today all discuss ideas around that theme:

Where Are You Still Using Single-Ply? [Tim Ferriss] – “As I held the toilet paper in my hand, I realized that it was single-ply. Clearly, I had long ago decided to save money by cutting this corner. “We are not in a position to indulge in such excesses!” I imagine I might have thought, shifting my shopping gaze from comfy double-ply Charmin to a war-ration house brand of single-ply.

Of course, here’s the problem: single-ply is a fool’s bargain. It’s a translucent sham. If you don’t want to shove your fingers directly into the pit of despair, you need to fold it over itself again and again, defeating any cost savings. And even if you did save $5 per month, isn’t the extra $5 worth trading 30 days of butt-sanding for 30 days of butt-caressing?”

Being frugal helped get me where I am but staying extremely frugal will not help me build wealth. Sometimes you have to be thinking in “survive” mode and sometimes you have to switch it to “thrive” mode – you can’t forever stay in one or you’ll remain in the same place forever.

(many thanks to Bill from FamZoo for sharing this with me!)

The ladders of wealth creation: a step-by-step roadmap to building wealth [Nathan Barry] – Speaking of “what got you here won’t get you there,” this is clearly evident when you talk about building wealth. Nathan Barry goes through his mental model of how to climb up the income ladder. “What lessons do you need to learn to go from odd jobs around the neighborhood to owning a real estate empire? From working as a freelancer to selling your own digital products? What about from working at Wendy’s to owning a SaaS company earning over $1 million per month? That last one is my own path.”

You can’t trade your time for money forever, you have to move up the ladder if you want to break yourself from that cycle.

Will this $1,000 matter when I’m financially free? [Budgets Are Sexy] – This last nugget is a short post by J. Money in which he captures an important point – don’t beat yourself up too much for “small” things.

Be a friend and send today’s Apex to a friend! Please? 🙂