We need to teach that owning your time is the path to wealth

https://startupdreams.substack.com/p/the-greatest-economic-crime

by gsibble • 3 years ago

52 26 3 years ago

startupdreams.substack.com

Don’t let people steal your time. There is power in saying “no.” And it’s ok to say it.

Try this. Next time someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, respond with “How am I supposed to do that?” It flips it on them and makes them solve the problem they created.

Credit Chris Voss for this. He helped me realize no is fine, and a great way to fulfill a defensive time position. Time is money, but time is also life, so don’t let others steal it from you.

TechBro8615• 3 years ago

If you are working for a wage, someone is already stealing time from you, they're just paying you nominal amount for it.

pixelfarmer2• 3 years ago

But why is someone's time more worth than someone else's? Why are people being paid an amount they cannot even live from (i.e. their time investment is net negative from an economical point of view)? Looks like this value replacement for time has some major flaws and issues ...

ivanche2• 3 years ago

This! At first I felt uncomfortable saying that to people (and, more or less, all other things about which Chris wrote in his masterpiece) but oh boy it works like a charm every time.

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

If someone asks “How am I supposed to do that?”, I'm going to explain it to them. If you don't want to do something, simply say: "No."

ivanche2• 3 years ago

That is exactly the point of such a question! Your counterpart wants you to spend time and energy to solve their problem, while concurrently you'll think the whole time you have control over situation. If your counterpart is any good, they'll gently push you towards the solution they want implemented. In the end you'll be under impression it's your solution and your relationship with the counterpart was excellent.

SaberTail• 3 years ago

For centuries, people have advocated for systems where workers keep the fruits of their labors rather than have them appropriated by those with the ownership. They're called "communists" and "socialists".

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

And communism was such a massive success story with tens of millions of victims...

Spivak• 3 years ago

This is such a pointless discussion. If the economic and political atrocities that occurred under capitalism were listed out it would make the book on communism look like a pamphlet.

Shitty people doing shitty things can and will happen under every economic and political system. If you let people convince you that trying to break the cycle of worker exploitation by changing our literally feudalist corporate structure in any way is a one way ticket to the gulag then the only thing that will happen is you’ll be happier with the lot in life that’s been decided for you.

gooseus• 3 years ago

Yes, history remembers well the efforts of those people, and their results.

And if you define who counts as "workers" and who the "owners" are just so, you can also add "fascist" to the list of people who advocate for a similar system (national socialists).

It's almost as if rhetoric that promises "workers" a way to take back the fruits of their labor from evil "owners" is a really great way for populist demagogues (on either side) to whip up a Revolution that installs a new groups of oligarchs as a central Party apparatus that effectively owns everything... on behalf of the Workers, of course.

kevviiinn• 3 years ago

Fascism by definition is not aligned with workers, it is aligned purely with the interests of corporations and capital owners

gopalv• 3 years ago

"I can always make more money, I can't make more time."

This was something a mentor told me, but then described with a lot more nuance around what that means.

That money is something you can save or borrow, but time is a much harder thing to borrow or save. That when you are young time feels endless and money cramps you up. Instead of chasing money as a goal from that perspective, to chase the ownership of your time which you are going to exchange for money right now.

Not to retire and then chase your passion, but to exercise your passions when you have "young time" instead.

Sure, this advice has only been relevant to me after I got past all my debt.

After that point, you can turn money into time in interesting ways - you can hire a cook, you can live closer to work for more rent, have a babysitter for sunday morning.

But that the purpose of work is not to make money, but to spend your other time well.

pixelfarmer2• 3 years ago

Freedom is freedom given to others. Freedom is often misunderstood as personal/egoistical freedom, but that is not how it works if you want everyone to be as free as possible. For years I include that this means occupying the least amount of time of others with your own agenda, which clearly includes the usual paid work relationship, but also all sorts of other dependencies, most often artificially created ones to actually limit the freedom, like debt for good education etc. These self-proclaimed "free societies" we live in are a lot, but free? There is tons of spare room to the top, while the bottom is much closer than many think.

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

"I can always make more money, I can't make more time."

True. But with money you can buy other people's time and free your time to do other things instead.

brnewd3• 3 years ago

As software developers we are uniquely positioned to build products or services that can practically run on it's own, freeing up time to do more meaningful things in life. The hard part is coming up with the right idea and sticking to it long enough to bear fruit.

ChuckNorris892• 3 years ago

to build products or services that can practically run on it's own

No web service/app that is in the business of making money can just "run on its own", but needs constant development and maintenance. That's why the demand for web devs is so high. If every SW project would be a "fire and forget" experience as you claim, the career wouldn't be nearly as well paid as it is right now.

Even phone apps need to be updated or Apple/Google will remove them from the store.

SW in the '90's was more or less "fire and forget", but salaries and the demand then were nowhere near as high as they were to day.

brnewd3• 3 years ago

If you choose the right niche and use stable libraries there is no need to constantly chase the latest framework or software architecture. A lot of the endless development cycle is self induced work.

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

For the select few, including the one percent, we are compensated differently. We are paid for the solution, not for the effort. If a solution takes a day or a year, we are compensated the same amount. This difference means that time does not equal money, since the compensation is the same but time investment is differential.

But if you do X and win Y money, there's a difference between doing 365 * X in a year and win 365 * Y money and do X in a year and win Y money, so time IS money.

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

I don't get what the article means by "owning". Buying and owning stock? Starting and owning your own business? Taking part in cooperatives? How does one own time and equity?

DeathArrow6• 3 years ago

I think time is the single most valuable resource for any human being. You can own billions of dollars but there's only so much you can live.

thenerdhead• 3 years ago

This is a crucial difference between the 1% and the 99%: understanding that you must own your time and the output from it. That you must be able to invest it. That you must be able to define your own world through it.

Another reason why "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" or similar titles are best sellers. Because people don't fundamentally grasp the concept of ownership of assets and the leverage that gives you.

We need to teach that owning your time is the path to wealth

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