8 Seconds Movie Quotes

The second I get into a car and we start driving, I imagine a fatal crash to the last detail. When I’m in the liquor store, I imagine a robbery by the time the cashier tells me the total. Every plane ride is an 8-hour movie in my head of me planning what I would say to the stranger on my right if the pilot announced the plane was crashing. I always imagine these scenarios. Family dying. Earthquakes. The earth suddenly falling because gravity left the party. It’s exhausting. Yesterday someone was afraid of me. I was bicycling with Austin and we saw a dead deer on the road. It was so large. Austin nearly fell off his bike when he saw it. Then he looked over at me confused. He asked why I didn't react to it. I told him it was because I’d already imagined one six miles back. There are always two worlds playing in my head at once: what’s in front of me and what could be.

1. A Rich Life means you can spend extravagantly on the things you love as long as you cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t. 2. Focus on the Big Wins—the five to ten things that get you disproportionate results, including automating your savings and investing, finding a job you love, and negotiating your salary. Get the Big Wins right and you can order as many lattes as you want. 3. Investing should be very boring—and very profitable—over the long term. I get more excited eating tacos than checking my investment returns. 4. There’s a limit to how much you can cut, but no limit to how much you can earn. I have readers who earn $50,000/year and ones who earn $750,000/year. They both buy the same loaves of bread. Controlling spending is important, but your earnings become super-linear. 5. Your friends and family will have lots of “tips” once you begin your financial journey. Listen politely, then stick to the program. 6. Build a collection of “spending frameworks” to use when deciding on buying something. Most people default to restrictive rules (“I need to cut back on eating out . . .”), but you can flip it and decide what you’ll always spend on, like my book-buying rule: If you’re thinking about buying a book, just buy it. Don’t waste even five seconds debating it. Applying even one new idea from a book is worth it. (Like this one.) 7. Beware of the endless search for “advanced” tips. So many people seek out high-level answers to avoid the real, hard work of improving step by step. It’s easier to dream about winning the Boston Marathon than to go out for a ten-minute jog every morning. Sometimes the most advanced thing you can do is the basics, consistently. 8. You’re in control. This isn’t a Disney movie and nobody’s coming to rescue you. Fortunately, you can take control of your finances and build your Rich Life. 9. Part of creating your Rich Life is the willingness to be unapologetically different. Once money isn’t a primary constraint, you’ll have the freedom to design your own Rich Life, which will almost certainly be different from the average person’s. Embrace it. This is the fun part! 10. Live life outside the spreadsheet. Once you automate your money using the system in this book, you’ll see that the most important part of a Rich Life is outside the spreadsheet—it involves relationships, new experiences, and giving back. You earned it.