In the centre of the cost of living crisis today, start with knowing your numbers.
In banking, everything starts with knowing your client. Bankers call it KYC. If the approval of the compliance officer is missing, the banker can not open an account for the client. It is a key benchmark in banking. Today, I will discuss a further acronym; KYN — know your numbers!
Well, you are not a bank. What does this stand for?
In your personal life, everything starts with knowing the nuts balance if you want to live in harmony and abundance. It doesn't matter how deep your pocket is.
Wealth does matter to many people. However, I will reframe riches in this article.
Let me define abundance in a broader and more mature way:
Abundance is a state of spending less than you make — and having some savings and sharing capacity.
You may agree or disagree. It does not change the fact that this is a gravity problem. It exists, and you can not stand against it unless you leave the planet Earth.
The chains
20th-century education is based on a staged learning experience. It is derived from the needs of society after the 18th century’s industrial revolution. Then the education system became a NORM FACTORY. ORGANISATIONS have consumed the human product as the workforce and the NATIONS as the citizens.
At the end of the day, we live in a civilised world. We are not a bunch of tribes anymore. We have to be domesticated in a standard factory.
The system had a simple framework.
EDUCATION- WORK — RETIREMENT
And many standard societal norms in between. They are mainly based on consumption and competition.
I will never argue that this was the best system for the past 200 years. Even its best-case scenario was staged between 1990 and 2020.
But, does it really anymore?
We are living in Great Inflation years, if not a post-globalisation era.
Do you still believe in the institution of retirement?
I don’t.
The system is broken.
Can we define a new framework ( the EDUCATION — WORK — RETIREMENT one) as:
LEARN — CREATE — REST
And keep this as a continuous lifetime loop rather than staged performances? I mean as lifetime sprints — many times with many iterations.
Forgetting the conventional schooling, working and retirement planning.
Creating new ways of learning, working and rest intervals.
Or let me ask you this way; can we break our chains? But, keep our roots?
The roots
They are simply your higher SELF, your VALUES and your intimate RELATIONS militant on Earth…
Everything else is a CHAIN.
They may all change!
Once you choose to break them.
We thrive as long as we are rooted. Plants have the physical ones; humans have them coded in the DNA, patterns and programming.
If we cut the roots, we DIE. If we break the chains, we GROW.
It is not the RED pill or the BLUE pill.
It is the RED wire and the BLUE wire to cut. If we cut the ROOTS, we will explode. If we break the chains, we will embrace CHANGE.
And it is okay to deepen the roots even better!
The numbers
The numbers are the AX and SAW to break the chains.
They are your freedom tools.
If you employ them in the correct equation, the solution will be your freedom formula. You will be using them as a SAW to break your chains.
You will create a safe place away from FEAR!
A place where there is much JOY!
Or
They are your tools for self-destruction.
If you employ them in the wrong equation, you will cut your roots and end up in a zombie apocalypse — a place of EGO, UNREST and SUFFERING.
Any freedom formula starts with knowing your numbers, aka KYC.
KYN is the gravity constant in any freedom formula.
Do you know your numbers?
The nuts balance
Take out a pen and paper
Write down your monthly expenses.
Add a ten per cent markup for savings.
Add another ten per cent markup for sharing.
The sum number is your minimum nuts balance — the MNB
MNB is your number.
Know your MNB.
Put it on paper.
Now, stress test it! (This is another topic for another article)
I recommend no app or excel sheets to calculate MNB.
Go with the FERMI estimate and use pen and paper. (This is the topic of the previous issue)
Much more accurate for estimations under extreme uncertainty — which we call life.
If your earnings from a JOB-TO-BE-DONE are higher than your MNB, you may sharpen your saw to cut your chains.
If you know your MNB, reframing the JOBS-TO-BE-DONE that will take you to the new LEARN-CREATE-REST loop is easier.
JOBS-TO-BE-DONE is your vehicle ( or moonshot) to take you to your MNB. As long as you persist and have many iterations of your learning and creativity, you will enlarge the diameter of your loop each time. It will grow in size with a higher density.
In this new process, there is more FUN, FREEDOM and ABUNDANCE.
If you do not know your MNB, I wish you a happy life in the zombie land. It is the old rat race in a linear staged line.
Start with KYN
Calculate MNB
Go WILD
Have FUN
Enjoy FREEDOM
Live in ABUNDANCE
