Out of this challenge that I put to myself, about feeling proud about myself, I said, “Let’s make a five-year plan financially of how you think you’re going to do. I’m 40 years old. And I want to give away ten percent of my pretax income every year, and some share of net worth.”
I said, “That would make me feel good about myself. If I’m capable, and I’m a leader, and I’m organized — the nice things that people say about me — then I should be efficient with my time, and I might be lucky, in that I can make more money, but no one can make more time.”
So the discussion I had with myself was, “You’re working 70 or 80 hours a week. Say it’s 80. If you’re going to tithe in time, you’re going to spend 8 hours a week, 400 hours, 500 hours a year on something that’s important outside of yourself. So you’re going to give money and you’re going to give time. And if you’re going to give 500 hours a year to something, over a decade you’re going to spend 5,000 hours. What do you pick?”