The $7 Million 7 Years Wealth System

I don’t get the point of the exercise at all …

This whole concept of the Number, Your Rear Deck Speech, and the associated “Lee’s List” is difficult because it is intangible and personal …

… it only has meaning to YOU and you alone!

That’s why I thought that I should share Di’s recent comments in response to a good-natured back-and-forth between us exploring the role of ‘hair salons’ in one’s Life Purpose:

Well, then I don’t get the point of the exercise at all. Am I supposed to have some higher-than-thou kind of motivation in order to BE motivated? I thought the point was just to BE motivated. Lee’s List looked like a bunch of “what I would do with the money” to me, along the lines of his personal desires. So did Scott’s. So, if I haven’t somehow in all those writings already said what I’m doing with the money, then it’s just not coming thru clearly.

My point is simply this:

I’ve traveled this road, and I can tell you that the road to the top of the hill (and, you’ve already had a ‘sneak peek’ at how steep each of the 7MITs’ roads might be) is going to be EXCEEDINGLY tough … emotionally tough … mentally tough … physically tough … and, the list of ‘toughs’ goes on.

On some level, you already understand this simply because you know a lot more people would be rich if it were simply a matter of luck, knowledge, or external factors (of course, they ARE factors, too).

It’s my belief, and experience, that a lot of motivated people simply fall off the path to riches because they hit Roadblocks Number 1 thru’ n, and eventually give up …

…. or, more likely, simply settle for less.

Think about it; you want $10 Mill. and you make it to $3 Mill. then a fork in the road appears: an easy way (stop now and pocket the $3 Mill.) or the hard way (say NO to the ‘offer’ and roll the dice again).

Which road will you take?

Well, you think you MAY know the answer, but I can tell you that you won’t KNOW for sure until you get there!

This happened to me, but somehow I persevered beyond Roadblock (n+1) …

… I believe THE reason that I managed this was because there was only ONE measure of success to me:

Achieving my Life’s Purpose as measured by the $5 Mill. that I needed for my travels and the fund for my ‘creative adventures’.

And, yes, I got the cars and the houses, and the home theater and all that stuff, but they really weren’t that important to me, and still aren’t.

For example, the US house is on the market, the Maserati at the dealership on consignment. Who knows what the house is like that we have bought in Australia (we haven’t seen it yet)? And, I know I won’t buy another Maserati there (at least not straight away … so here I am looking at BMW’s again) simply because taxes double the price of ‘exotics’ Down Under.

It is what it is …

Hardly suffering, but the point is, we buy what we reasonably think we can afford because we have a large bank account because we aimed for OUR top and got there.

Who knows what would have happened if our Number was $1M or $50M … all I know is that it was $5 Mill. (and, we got lucky enough to overshoot in the process of cashing out).

As for the tangibles – ‘finer things’ – in life:

I didn’t ever put a $4+ Mill. house or a Maserati in my Number; I did pick a ‘rich’ lifestyle – sure – but, that was VERY secondary to fulfilling my Life’s Purpose with: travel; time; and, a ‘slush fund’ … all of which allows me to do what I am doing right now (just STARTING to really LIVE my Life’s Purpose).

Plus all the other stuff that I have planned (and, for once in my life, left gloriously unplanned)!

So, Di.

This boils down to YOU … what is so important to YOU that you simply won’t back down until you get to it … the WHOLE shebang, not some ‘booby prize’?

It could be in what you’ve already written … it could be more than you’ve written … it could be less. But, when you find IT (if you haven’t already), you will know, without a shadow of a doubt.

Of course, if you have found IT already, that’s it … STOP … smell the roses for a while before we launch into the journey-proper … and, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

But, if you can’t find IT now – even after looking real long and hard – don’t worry … push on with what you DO know, but leave yourself open to the possibility that something more may appear … or, may not.

Oh, and if you’ve been following this discussion between me, Di, and the Others and this exercise STILL doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry …

… SKIP IT and simply make your best guess at a Number (and Date) and see what happens … nobody knows how Life will pan out for YOU; it may just work out fine, anyway 🙂

BTW: Since I drafted this post a few days ago (in fact, as soon as Diane raised the question), Diane has revised her Lee’s List – I can see from what she has now written that she totally ‘gets it’ – after a little help from Jeff – so I thought that I should share an extract, here:

I went back to Lee’s 2nd List and here it is, then paralleled my stuff to his organization. In the end, I like what Jeff said and will address that at the bottom.
@ Adrian – thanks for posting my life’s purpose…
A). $ 350,000 ……. Design, write and publish course materials.
(B). $ 500,000 ……. Travel to states & Countries 6 times a year.
(C). $ 300,000 ……. Help Establish chaplains programs & donate.
(D). $180,000 ……. Two vehicles & expenses (domestic type)
(E). $ 400,000 ……. Create & Publish Magazine (God & Stress management)
(F). $ 550,000 ……. Two yearly Personal “Family” vacations (stress relievers)

(A & B (B is for A)) Travel costs for 6 months overseas living, researching and writing, with no other visible source of income: $55,000
(to enable A & B) Living expenses: $90,000
(C) not enabling any programs or specializing in donating
(D) Vehicle within the states: $15,000 annually, with maintenance/insurance
(E) I’ll use a blog – free to me and readers – to gage and increase readership and interest, but not to the extent that I would detract from the “real” writing – no cost, tho perhaps might want to set up a LLC and a webpage professionally eventually – say $20,000 upfront (assuming I hire expensive designers to do it for me and then to run it) and $5k per year thereafter. Right now, Barry has one and it is about $20 per year and he updates it himself. So, I’ve been figuring this is negligible for us. IF the money from the writing allows it, then we do it. If not, we stay “free”
(F) Researching and writing and living like this IS the stress-free vacation – going home to visit them is a lot more stressful  and is considered part of the travel costs anyway (the direction that is backwards) for when it is necessary or desireable, hopefully the latter, but my parents are in their mid-70s and this will be when they are near or into their 80s, so I would expect some travel back to the states from time to time.
But…$6,000 for yard/garden – this is a big stress reliever as well.

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