Context

Keywords

Summary

Highlights

Background

• Daniel was being paid a lot (around $500k/year) while at AWS

• Left in Feb 2019 without any concrete plans. But had over 5 years of expenses in savings (had 2 kids)

• Keeps his schedule relatively open and empty. Is extremely careful about the commitments and obligations he gets into

Motivation

• Dealing with motivation: as much as possible, eliminate the things you don't want to do. Even if it means leaving money on the table

• Giving up on a lot of money: convinced himself that he had written-off the AWS chapter of his life. He did not want to go back

• Future authoring: You spent time deliberately writing down what you want to happen in your life

• Life after quitting: Started on a spreadsheet with his savings balance and his expense rate, and figured how long he could last. Thought he would build a SaaS product, and if that didn't work out, then go to an information product. But uncertainty was giving him a lot of anxiety

• His approach now is to reduce the uncertainty. Instead of doing things in series, just does a bunch of things together.

Managing time

• You can see time as your enemy and time as your friend. If you're in a place where you're running out of money, time is your enemy. If you are in a place where you don't have to worry about running out of money and can just get compound returns over time, time is your friend

• Very first thought as a self-employed person: "I'll prototype a software product for 6 months and then share it with the world" ⇒ what happens if no one cares about the product?

Sharing your numbers leads to more followers

• Decided to build an audience on Twitter. Started to spend hours putting out content on Twitter and answering questions

• Sharing your analytics, financial information, and screenshots from your spreadsheet really helps!