Shane Parrish

how much money you had, how much status you had, how many promotions you had.

You were able to tell yourself the story that I did.

I sacrificed all these things, maybe my relationship with my partner, in order to achieve them.

That makes sense sort of evolutionarily because you think about it, evolution cares about survival of the species, not the happiness of the individual.

I remember when I was 17 and I overheard a conversation with my parents and their financial advisor that the military had provided.

So both my parents worked for the military full time and they were trying to decide whether to fix the roof or fix the car and they couldn't afford to do both.

And I remember just thinking in that moment,

I never want to be in this situation where I have to choose between two necessary things that I have to fix and I have no money.

And at this point, I never lacked a meal, but I didn't have a lot of extras.

And it changed how I think about money from that moment on.

I was like, I need to become independent.

And for me, independence meant I don't need a paycheck in order to fix the roof or fix the car.

How do you think about money and independence?

Isidore Sharpe, the founder of Four Seasons, has this excellent quote, which is, excellence is the capacity to take pain.

And when we think of that, our minds just instinctively go to physical pain, but we don't think of psychological pain.

We don't think of financial ups and downs and being able to just survive because you can't compound if you don't survive.

And then the other thing about compounding I think people misunderstand is that

All the advantages come at the end and not at the beginning.

They're very slow at the beginning, but it's that last double that makes a huge difference.

How do you deal with that when you have $1,000?