#107 – Getting Ahead & Desired Outcomes

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Let’s jump in.

read online on my website 

read time 3 minutes 

#107 at a Glance:

• Quote: The rich vs the poor.

• Podcast: Mike Thurston x Chris Williamson.

• Mental Model: 3 levers young people can pull to get ahead.

• Hack: Achieving your desired outcome by James Clear.

• Tweet: The best reading protocol.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

Podcast I listened to:

First Things THRST E092: Chris Williamson

Terribly click-baity title and thumbnail but this was actually an extremely solid episode.

My biggest takeaway: the importance of training yourself to do one thing at a time.

Always love when these guys collab. Two of my favourite creators on the internet.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Podcast Length: 1 hour 47 minutes]

Deep Dive:

3 Levers Young People Can Pull To Get Ahead 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the predicament that young people (specifically 18-35 year-olds) find themselves in here in Australia:

• The median house price in Sydney is sitting at around $1.6 million, with the average house price across all of Australia surpassing $1 million for the first time in history.

• National rents have increased by 28% since 2021

• Real wages for 21-34 year-olds grew by just 1.3% in the last year, barely keeping up with inflation

• Roughly 16% of young people with post-school qualifications are underemployed (working part-time but wanting more hours)

Unfortunately, I don’t have a silver bullet to offer you.

However, being one of the people (along with many of you reading this) confronted with this economic outlook, I’m also searching for answers myself.

How can I best navigate these circumstances and put myself in the best possible position to financially succeed?

I’m probably as far from being an expert on this topic as you can get, but after reading books, listening to podcasts, and speaking to a lot of people smarter and more experienced than me, there seems to be a few critical levers that we as young people can pull in order to get ahead.

These appear to be 3 of the most significant:

1) Network

Who we surround ourselves with. This spills over into literally every area of our lives. From access to opportunities, things we learn, and even the way that we make decisions, all stem from the people within our circle.

Opportunity ultimately moves through people. The right nudge, intro, or piece of advice can completely change one’s trajectory. If success is built on the broad shoulders of others, it might be helpful to know a few giants…

2) Geography

First off, we need to recognise that the value attributed to a thing is not absolute; it is relative and circumstantial. To illustrate this: if the value of a bottle of water can vary dramatically depending on location and context (e.g. in a city versus in the desert), then why do we think the same doesn’t apply to skills and jobs?

Why is it that corporate roles in the same department of the same company doing the same work and working the same hours but in different cities or countries can yield a significantly greater wage in real dollar terms?

Geography really matters.

Geography is also an important consideration when it comes to tax rates. Doing the same job in Sydney (50% tax rate) versus in Dubai (0% personal income tax), assuming the same salary in real dollar terms and holding all else equal, would effectively provide one with double the take-home pay.

Now, this is not an advertisement to pack up and move to Dubai (at least not yet) because with geography comes a host of non-financial considerations. But I’m merely trying to illustrate the point that geography can make a huge difference to one’s personal financial situation.

On a micro level, assuming one were to stay in one of Australia’s major cities, decisions about which suburb to live in, the cost of rent, how long it takes commute to work, digital infrastructure, job opportunities, as well as the local networks one can access (going back to my first point), should realistically all come into consideration.

3) Additional Income

A ‘side hustle’ or essentially any form of income which can supplement a traditional wage whether it’s through a business or some form of investment strategy. Massively important according to almost every person I’ve spoken to with a degree of authority on this matter.

Aside from the fact that this is likely a necessity for the majority of people due to the affordability crisis we find ourselves in, there are some massive structural factors to think about as a young person which would make it handy to have a side hustle in the back pocket.

It’s no secret that due to the digitisation and globalisation of business, we find ourselves in what is globally the most competitive job market that there has ever been. Employers are no longer choosing between ‘Graduate A’ vs Graduate B’.

The choice is now something more like:

Graduate Applicants
vs
Contractor
vs
Outsourced Overseas
vs
Artificial Intelligence

It probably doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B…

***

Again, none of this is intended to be advice. I have just had the privilege of speaking to lots of clever people about this issue and felt compelled to share it with you all since, as I said, many of you reading this are probably in the same boat.

Hope it helps.

Hit reply and let me know what you think.

Hack I came across:

How To Achieve Your Desired Outcome by James Clear

“There is always more than one way to do something.

Write down as many ways as you can think of to achieve your desired outcome.

Then, rank them based on:

1. How much time they take

2. How much money they cost, and

3. How effective you expect them to be.

Choose the best.” – James Clear

I really love this approach.

For whatever reason, we tend to do things mostly because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done them.’

As a result, our decisions and actions usually arise not from our own volition, but rather some weird combination of what we’ve observed in others, how we’ve been taught, and whatever our intuition tells us.

Here’s the thing: strategy is mutable.

If there’s more than one way to skin a cat, that means there’s probably a better way than how you’re currently skinning it.

Physically listing out all of the potential (and even unrealistic or impractical) ways of accomplishing a certain goal or task can be an immensely powerful tool.

I’ve found that this provides me with:

1) Clarity in my direction – I’m going down this path because of a conscious and intentional decision that I’ve made.

2) Confidence in my approach – after weighing up the options, this is the best course of action that I have available to me at this point in time. Let’s play.

Tweet I liked:

The Best Reading Protocol

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

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Dimitri

(P.S. best ways to get in touch with me are via email or LinkedIn).