Quentin Tarantino tells a great story about a time before he was a famous director when he worked at a video store.
He was telling the other video store employees the types of movies he wanted to make some day. They told him, “Quentin, they won’t let you do that.”
I loved his response:
To which I replied back, “Who the fuck are ‘they’ to stop me? ‘They’ can go fuck themselves.”
Now I wasn’t a professional filmmaker back then. I was a brash know-it-all film geek. Yet, once I graduated to professional filmmaker, I never did let “they” stop me. Viewers can accept my work or reject it. Deem it good, bad, or with indifference. But I’ve always approached my cinema with a fearlessness of the eventual outcome. A fearlessness that comes to me naturally–I mean, who cares, really? It’s only a movie.
This is a man with principles.
There’s something to be said about the ability to do what you want without fear of repercussions from career risk, incentives, or the opinions of others.
Think about all of the billionaires who are beholden to shareholders and politicians. It’s possible to have all the money in the world but little in the way of freedom to do what you want.
What I love about Tarantino’s mindset is that it’s a different kind of rich. A rich that works when you’re a broke video store employee or a famous Hollywood director.
Doing things that bring you personal fulfillment is an alternative form of wealth.
There are various kinds of rich that extend beyond money:
You have the ability to unplug. Nvidia is fast approaching a $4 trillion market cap. Founder and CEO Jensen Huang is worth almost $140 billion.
The guy is extraordinary. Nvidia is one of the biggest corporate success stories of all-time.
But Huang can’t unwind because of the position he’s in.
In a Wall Street Journal profile, Ben Cohen explains:
He says he doesn’t remember movies he’s seen because he’s just thinking about work the whole time. And he rarely takes vacations, but Nvidia employees dread when he does, Kim reports, because that’s when he works even more.
You’re rich if you can be fully present while enjoying life’s little moments — taking a walk, going on vacation, spending time with loved ones, watching a movie, etc.
You can be money-rich but time-poor if you’re mind is always elsewhere.
You have your health. Health is wealth because a healthy lifestyle can literally extend your life.
On Plain English, Stanford’s Euan Ashley told Derek Thompson that every one minute of exercise extends the average person’s life by five minutes. If exercise came in pill form, it would be considered a miracle drug.
I’m also convinced exercise improves your mental health.
Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Smartless guys working out transforms his world from black and white to color:
When I work out, it makes me feel good. I always say to people, when I get up in the morning and I bicycle down to the gym, I feel like I’m cycling through a black and white movie, and then all of a sudden, when I’m finished working out and cycling back, I feel like it’s a color movie. The whole world is more colorful. I feel more positive.
I feel the same way.
I’m not sure the scientific specifics of endorphins but whatever it is I feel better after working out. I get my best thinking done on a walk or run. Lifting weights is my form of meditation.
Regular exercise not only gives you more energy but it helps you sleep better.
Working out is like compounding where the benefits seem to grow over time.
You have time for your family. I know a guy who made an insane amount of money from shares in a start-up that went public. It was a life-changing amount of money.
However, earning that money caused him to more or less miss out on the first ten years or so of his children’s lives.
His job made him miss their games, pick up and drop off at school, time at the playground, school functions, trips to the zoo, junk time at home — all of it.
Regardless of your job or how much money you make, if you have time for your family, you’re rich.
Further Reading:
Rich vs. Wealthy
