Tim Ferriss' Amazing Perspective

Ever since I first learned about Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, I have had a mixture of intrigue and inspiration. There are many successful people who follow trodden paths, and then there are forgers, modern intellectual Lewis and Clarks. He takes the status quo our culture feeds us, and turns it upside down. He made me realize that things are defined by my perceptions, and their interaction with me is defined by how I see them.

Yesterday I read his perspective on ideal life costing and was moved. It immediately shifted me to think about how I define/confine what a meaningful life is. Financial books and blogs engross us with defining a golden sum, the 'retire young' sum. What is that really about? Hoarding money until you can sustain the BMW and picket fence?

TMI—TARGET MONTHLY INCOME—AND DREAMLINES
For purposes of Lifestyle Design, it is necessary to move from annual thinking (“I make $50,000 per year”) and total costs (“A Ferrari 612 Scaglietti costs $250,509”) to monthly cash-flow. What is your ideal lifestyle in exact detail, and how much does it cost per month? This figure becomes your TMI—Target Monthly Income. This is divided by 30 to give you a TDI—Target Daily Income.

Consider the question: What would you do, day-to-day, if you had $100 million in the bank? If still blocked, fill in the five “doing” spots with the following:

• 1 place to visit
• 1 thing to do before you die (a memory of a lifetime) 
• 1 thing to do daily 
• 1 thing to do weekly 
• 1 thing you’ve always wanted to learn

Chances are that the ultimate TMI figure will be lower than expected, and it will decrease over time as you trade more and more “having” for once-in-a-lifetime “doing.”
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