True Wealth

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What's The Cost In Time
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What's The Cost In Time

Gordo Byrn
Dec 20, 2022
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What's The Cost In Time
truewealth.substack.com

This week, I am skiing in the Rockies. Each time I’m up here, I get the urge to buy a place. To date, one of my best investments has been not acting on this impulse.

The typical question: Can I afford it?

Two better questions:

  1. What’s the cost in time?

  2. How will this make things better?

Dig as deep as you can with those questions.


TIME is more than what we spend directly on a project.

  • Energy spent indirectly

  • Energy not available for other projects

  • Crowding out good ideas…

…because we are thinking about assets we didn’t need in the first place.

It’s difficult to see the value of keeping space in our lives.


What are your top three tasks for 2023?

Where do you desire MORE?

My list:

  1. Write

  2. Get Fit

  3. Share Experiences with My Wife

My list requires time, not more assets.

How about your list?


As I age, I get more time. Thing is… I have less energy.

Three favorite articles on time, follow.

  1. The Window of Time, How I Broke Free

  2. Wealth In Time, A Better Way of Calculating Wealth

  3. Money Value of Time, A Framework for the Self-Employed

They’ve been lightly edited.


The Window of Time

I was taught that all my problems would be solved if I made enough money.

Didn’t Work

Spending creates golden handcuffs.


Living a big-city lifestyle had my younger self trapped. His large spending created a hurdle that would have taken him decades to overcome.

Valuable years.

Put another way, the weight of my spending was preventing me

  • From launching towards my true self

  • Meeting a wonderful wife

  • Creating a better life

My solution was simple

  1. Save half my take home pay

  2. Get myself to a low-cost environment

  3. Create independent income streams to cover my cost of living

  4. Surround myself with people who lived my values


My 30-something self did a good job for me.

What he wasn't able to see was the Window of Time. It didn't matter to him because he was “rich in time.” Having his basics covered, he risked time on changing direction.

Eventually, we realize we have more wealth than time. This is most likely to occur in what we call the "peak earning years."

Cutting spending, leaning into saving, buying an extra couple years before I'm old...

...all trades you should consider.

Two landmines I hope you avoid are:

  1. Peer-driven spending that leads you away from what fills your heart

  2. Creating capital for future family members, when they'd rather spend time with you now

Buy time gradually.

Spend time with intent.


Wealth In Time - WIT

How to connect:

  1. Spending

  2. Time

  3. Wealth

Let’s bring back my 20-something self. He was living in London, working in finance and renting a room to keep his overheads down. 

Coming out of college, having more cash flow than he needed, he felt rich.

But was he?

He earned $75,000 and was spending $32,000. How wealthy was he?

His net worth was $20,000.

Net Worth “divided by” Spending = WEALTH IN TIME

His WIT was 7 ½ months.


Roll forward to my early 30s. I’m a young Private Equity partner and hit $1 million net worth.

I was spending $250k a year, felt flush, but was I wealthy? Let’s find out.

$1,000,000 / $250,000 = 4 Years

Not wealthy, especially when you consider my life expectancy was over 50 additional years.


At 31, I realized my spending was buying me NOTHING.

  • What I liked to do was swim, bike and run

  • I had fantasies of leaving the corporate world

  • I took action

  • I applied to emigrate to New Zealand

Arriving in Christchurch, I was able to buy a five-bedroom house for US$110,000. My cost of living plunged to $25,000 (NZ$60,000).

My WIT jumped to 40 years.

Most of my family thought I was nuts.

Best trade I ever made.


Money Value of Time

This is a useful calculation.

Annually, I make the calculation at the level of Business, Family, Household and myself.

Start with time:

  • How many weeks a year do you want to work?

  • How many days a week?

  • How many hours per day?

Weeks * Days * Hours = Billable Hours

Billable Hours are the time you have to generate revenue.

What should you charge per billable hour?

Desired Net Income + Overheads = Gross Revenue Requried

Gross Revenue Required / Billable Hours = Rate Per Hour

A case study from my 40s to illustrate:

Screenshot 2014-12-16 09.13.06

The first column was my 2009 goal for my athletic consulting business.

  • Generate $5,000 per month net cash contribution to my family

  • One week per quarter spent training alongside the team

  • Four hours of focused work per day

  • One day off per week

The second column was reality, and it was a good life.

  • Work every day

  • Discover I can only be productive for three hours per day

  • Take two weeks off and return to 1500 messages - realize I can't "bill" my inefficiencies

The third column was my goal for my 50th birthday.

  1. Understand: Your average billing rate is your new minimum

  2. Vow: I will stop doing low-value work

  3. Consider: Where can I deliver 2x my billing target in value added

Can I be 3x more efficient than a $35 per hour coach? Yes. The two-year transition was painful, but I got there.

When I arrived at the middle column, I needed to make a decision moving left (for a little more time) or moving right (for way more time).

How much of your time is spent on bringing satisfaction to your life?

Thanks for reading True Wealth by Gordo Byrn! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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Gordo Byrn
Jan 1Author

Do you mean this one?

Die Broke: A Radical Four-Part Financial Plan https://a.co/d/7eLZGEK

I liked it and heard there's a more recent version of the same concepts.

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Iñaki de la Parra
Dec 21, 2022·edited Dec 22, 2022Liked by Gordo Byrn

Great sum up of true wealth. Started moving into the 3rd column myself; is painful to let go, but ultimately comfort and negative mimetic desires can be vicious cyles traps. Thanx G!

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