Cars, houses, relationships, beauty, youth .. these are all illusory assets. All of these are by-products from the management of our human biosuit. The stewardship of our mind and body will yield the illusory assets (or liabilities) accordingly.

Master your body, the physical will follow.
Master your mind, the metaphysical will follow.

This occurs when contentment is confused with complacency.

Contentment is the shift from “me vs others” to “me vs myself”.
Contentment is the shift from “I am not content, because I need x to be happy” to “I am happy with what I have now, but I will always see if I can outdo myself”.

Complacency is the “me vs nothing” mindset.  It is the “I don’t need to do anything, I don’t need to grow, because I am satisfied with everything, and nothing needs to change”.

I am content with my body shape/how I look, but I will never be complacent with my health.
I am content with my earnings, but I will never be complacent with my work.
I am content with my education, but I will never be complacent with my learning.

Be content, be happy with the abundance of gifts we have in every moment.  But be ever diligent, never complacent, in the management of those gifts. Continue to grow, grow, grow in the sublime peace of contentment and joy that arises from personal productivity and wise use of time.

However, now that I’m 30 and have learned a (little) bit more about life, I’ve learned there is a correlation between how long you have meaningful work and how long you live, and “retirement” really means the ability to choose the work you desire – to own your own time at any moment in time.

Since I think it is good if we can all live long lives so that we may accumulate as much wisdom as possible, it is good to keep working until we die.  However, it is also within our power to be retired at any given moment.

Strive to live in the paradox of a working retirement, balancing work with play in every moment.

The best work is selfless, and serves others.

The best play is selfish, and serves yourself.

Both are necessary, in balance and harmony for fulfillment.

A deal maker integrates people. A successful deal maker creates value for two human parties so that both come together in agreement and create synergy. The more successful the deal, the more value there is created on both sides, and the greater the synergy and output of the combined agreement.

For example, a car salesman (don’t we love em) has to create value between the buyer and his own commission. The better the deal and value is for both, the more likely there will be long-term business (which is long-term value).

A systems creator integrates the information and the abstraction/meta-layer of human interaction. For every created system, the more efficiently it flows, the greater the value creation. Systems must constantly be tweaked and optimized to improve and maintain efficiency.

For example, a car engine is a system created by engineers. The engine integrates knowledge of physics and math. The better the engine’s performance* the higher the value.
* performance can be measured on multiple scales – eg mpg, horsepower, etc – but all are a result of the integration of scientific knowledge

Both take two disparate entities (either human or abstraction) and organizes some form of connection between them. The more synergistic the connection, the greater the value.

Systems support the deals. Deals depend on the integrity and competency of the system.
There can be no human value exchange without integrating some level of a human-created system. The more complex the system, the larger the deal (typically).

Do you prefer creating and optimizing deals or creating and optimizing systems?

The appearance of a footprint in fossil records provide insight into the origin of a species. Disappearance of a footprint may indicate extinction of a species.

For millennia, humans have shared a common footprint (5 toes, ball of foot, etc.). However, with the invention of the modern shoe, a myriad of new footprint species now roam the earth.

Consider the imprint we make – what is conveyed through it? Sports shoes will leave a distinctly different mark upon the earth from leather dress shoes, and again from sandals. The vehicles we drive also leave an imprint on the earth, and are an extension of our footprint.

What does our physical footprint say about our inner core? How are we expressing ourselves via our footprints?

The toolmaker provides craftsmen the ability to transmute their thoughts into action, to manifest their vision in the physical world for others to share and enjoy.  The toolmaker plays a vital role in the variety of the human experience, as tools are a way to unlock the potential of the human mind.

Both the craftsman and the toolmaker are inextricably linked in creating change and value in the world.  The craftsman must choose the right tool suitable to their passion and circumstances, and the toolmaker must create a tool that opens up wide fields of potentiality.

Google provides the tool of search engine marketing to many businesses.  Ableton provides a tool for music making.  Photoshop provides a tool for graphic design.  Master craftsmen have built wealth through leveraging these tools of Google, Ableton, or Photoshop.  In turn, Google, Ableton, and Photoshop all build wealth because they provide the ability for other people to create wealth.

Are you a toolmaker, empowering and opening new fields of potentiality, or are you perfecting and honing your use of a tool to become a master craftsman?  What is your tool?  What is your craft?

As Rand once said, “there are no contradictions”. If there seem to be, one of the premises is false. In this case, it is the notion that contentment and ambition are on the same scale. That if a person is more ambitious, they are less content. And if a person is more content, they are less ambitious.

I believe that contentment and ambition exist on different spectrums – in fact, different time dimensions.

Contentment is an indicator of how one deals with the present moment. What is the emotional state for the NOW. A person with a high level of contentment is able to have inner peace and tranquility in every given moment. A person with low level of contentment is anxious or agitated in any given moment.

Ambition deals with a future state – where a person would like to be in a different time dimension from the NOW. A person with a high level of ambition has a large delta from current state to future state. A person with a low level of ambition has a small delta from current state to future state.

As such, we can experience high levels of contentment and ambition at the same time (like the Dalai Lama).  Or we can have low levels of both – such a person is never happy with what they have, nor are they desiring to make any change for their current situation.   A person can also have low contentment and high ambition – these people are constantly striving for more but are never satisfied.  Or a person can have a high level of contentment and low ambition.  These people are happy and peaceful but never reach their full potential.

What are YOUR levels of contentment and ambition?

Competency is the result of track record. This can be recognized through occupational achievements, education, raw intelligence, etc.

Integrity is the result of a person’s spiritual state and value system. This can be recognized through their moral choices, lifestyle, honesty, consistency, commitment, etc.

When we meet somebody new, in order to trust them, we must validate both their competency and integrity. Similarly, for somebody to trust us, they must validate our competency and integrity. This can take time as we dig into their history, get to know them, etc. However, this process can be sped up through use of the “Trust Triangle”.

The Trust Triangle works by principle of extension. Person A trusts person B, and vice versa. Person A does not know person C, but person B trusts person C and vice versa. Person A’s trust for person C accelerates through person B’s trust of person C.

In this way, we can accelerate a person’s confidence in ourselves by establishing trust through a mutual third party. Similarly we can vet a person’s trustability through a mutual third party.

As such, it is important to build a wide network of trust so we have more nodalities to vet and establish trust through.