I woke up drenched in sweat from a dream this morning.
I was in a diner. I shared the table with someone… I took out a credit card to pay. I went to the cash register, and I didn’t have my card… in fact, all my cards and my cash were gone.
Scary, isn’t it? Lots of phone calls… all my accounts were emptied… But eventually I got above the dark cloud, regained my coherence and started thinking: am I doomed forever?
And I saw that I have assets… and I can get back to my computer and write an email, and I have money.
I built my assets for decades… and now they are there.
What about you? What assets have you built? What lasting things have you done?
What can you count to still have value after decades of your life?
One of the most ignored and most useful advice I have ever read comes from Warren Buffet, his 20 slot Rule.
It talks to stock investors, but it can be easily interpreted as an overall advice for a life well lived.
How do you know if you live your life well… if your life is a well lived life?
I bet you know… but what you don’t know for sure is why? What is it that you do that makes your life not well lived? Do you?
The principle I honor most is the principle of the strait and narrow…
not the biblical, religious, be good, don’t sin b.s., but the principle that the shortest route between two points is a straight line.
Simple, no fluff, no hesitation, no zigs and no zags… straight.
- This is a very unpopular view. The millions of articles would not be written if people honored this principle.
- Millions of PhDs would have to look for a real job.
- Millions of medical doctors… ditto. Do something useful, doc!
- Millions of lawyers… out of a job…
Oh, and Amazon would not be the Hitlerian power it is. World domination… people would be busy living a great, rewarding life… without Amazon.com.
What am I talking about?
Let me first say what Warren Buffet said to that group of would be investors:
Consider that you only have 20 slots on your ‘dance card’. When those are all used up, you can’t dance any more.
In a lifetime.
We live like we’ll live forever…
But no one lives forever, and no one has unlimited opportunities for a great life.
Only a few things you can do, at any one time, that will bring you health, wealth, love, and fulfillment.
Your time, your energy, your brilliance are limited.
If you use your time, your energy for minor, inconsequential things, then your life will be inconsequential, and you’ll be unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely, poor, sick… maybe all at the same time.
If I had a chance to ask you what are the irrelevant, inconsequential things you fill your life with, I am sure you’d be able to name at least 80% of them.
The remaining 20% is harder to see…
It is easier to see it on others.
Tai calls it ‘majoring in minors‘…
It is easiest to see if you ask the question: is this still going to be relevant five years from now? Will this matter five years from now?
My mother had one declared commitment that I know of. A commitment to make sure all her children had a higher education diploma, spoke two foreign languages, and had their own apartment or house they owned.
That is majoring in majors. Being on the side of the people she launched to the world. She succeeded, by the way.
Why is this a major? Because she needed to be an influencer so her children also major at least in some majors…
Most parents are caught up in minors, as far as their children go…
Most parents never think that who they are, what is important to them is either an example to follow, or an anchor to insignificant, boring, self-centered existence.
I didn’t like my mother and she didn’t like me. But I am forever grateful for her example.
Because of the anti-Jewish Laws that came about at the time (1938) when she would apply to university, she could not. the number of Jews was limited to next to nothing.
So when after the Russians liberated Hungary (1945), and she could go to university, she did. She already had two babies. So in 1947 she hired a live-in nanny.
Sounds selfish, sounds cruel, but it was the best thing both for me and my brother. She was free to study, and we were taken care of by someone whose identity wasn’t vested in us turning out in a particular way.
We had a nanny till I was 9 years old.
The worst thing that can happen to you is to be raised by your mother.
Or the worst thing you can do for your children is to raise them yourself.
I feel hate radiating towards me from you. Hate me as much as you want.
When you raise your children, you are majoring in minors. And they take you as an example… and they will major in minors too.
And they will be, forever, TLB 1, thinking themselves the center of the universe, think themselves better than they are, and wait for you to wipe their ass.
If you are happy, healthy, successful, fulfilled, financially successful personally then you have a good influence on your children. but show me a person who can be all that and wipe snotty noses, pick up toys, cook, clean, bathe, tuck in children.
Not possible. Why? Because your 20 slots in your dance card are taken by tasks that can be done by anyone, probably better.
The only menial task my mother did is cooking. Occasionally. But she used that task to talk to us, children. drill us on our studies, etc.
My father who was a famous economist, cleaned our shoes in the morning. I felt him. he used it as meditation.
I used washing the dishes as meditation: I did what my father did.
My mother never cooked a meal she didn’t already know how to cook. She didn’t spend her time hunting for new recipes. that would be majoring in minors.
She kept her dance card for what was consequential, for what was going to bring lasting health, wealth, love, and fulfillment.
When I talk to my students, when I talk to my clients, I am stunned how little time and attention they have available for their growth, for their aspiration to become worth a damn.
I just have to ask about their mothers… and I know everything I need to know.
People are busy. Their dance card is full. No extra or empty slots for what is important.
The few examples are the people on the top.
You want what they have, but you are unwilling to drop the stuff you are doing instead of what would, what could take you where they are.
Tai is accurate in that they are not that much smarter than him. or you.
They simply major in majors… while you are bogged down with the minors.
So bogged down, that you don’t even have one slot available on your dance card for something important, like your health. or reading. or listening to the 67 steps.
Ugh…
On the other hand I have a lot of request to record energy cleansing sessions for the brain and for the pancreas.
I am willing. but if you look. Ask yourself: if my diet were a good match for my DNA… would I have to cleanse my brain? my liver? my pancreas?
If I hydrated my cells diligently, would I need all those cleansing stuff?
I have an answer for you: you wouldn’t.
Here is a confession: for about three months I was doing an experiment on killing off the microscopic mites. I poisoned my body in the process. I was majoring in minors: anything you do to fix something is a minor. ask me if this is not clear, or if this doesn’t sound right to you.
So when I realized what I was doing, I desperately needed to cleanse my organs, especially my liver.
But I stopped poisoning myself. and my health number is 70% (not bad for an old woman with a bad heart) and my cell hydration is 50%. Obviously I am still not on the strait an narrow. but I am getting closer.
Doing cleansing, needing cleansing, means that you are not attending to the root cause of your toxicity. aka you are majoring in minors.
Regardless, I am going to do cleansing sessions. I am learning to do live broadcasts on Facebook. and as soon as I get good at it, I’ll do live session, and also record them.
But you… you should free up a few slots on your dance card, so you can start majoring in the majors.
PS: if you can see the similarity between this article and the Rock, pebble, sand article: it is not an accident. This article tightens the criteria. that’s the only difference.
