Time is ticking…less than a week before my birthday (August 25) aka the official starting date of the $10 million, 10 year challenge.

Generally, I’m excited about it! It’s been great talking about the challenge with people and getting their take on it. 

The reason I say generally excited is that I do have some fears around it, fear of failure, fear of executing, fear of the public accountability I plan to use as a tool to keep me motivated. 

I can’t wait to get into it though! It feels like I’ve been talking about it for a while now and it’s time for the rubber to hit the road. 

The way I operate best is under pressure, I was thinking today about how a different type of personality would likely be more organised, have a clear plan, be ready to “hit the ground running” but we’re all different and I just don’t operate like that. I need to be thrown in the deep end vs studying swimming, watching videos, going to lectures etc. As an analogy. 

I’m not completely reckless though, I do have a rough plan for the first 3-6 months, I’ve broken it down into primary and secondary focuses, primary being money related and secondary being support related. 

Primary:

1. Goleman Group (my job / current main source of income)

2. West Coast property (rental property, long term Tennent)

3. West Coast development (Weka Retreats: boutique short term accommodation)

4. Shares (trading and dividends)

5. Minority shareholding in a local business (dividends eventually)

6. Looking at other options to make money (part time job, contracting/consulting outside of my day job, Uber / Uber Eats driving, buying and selling stuff on Trademe / Marketplace etc etc)

Secondary:

1. Sleep, I believe sleep can serious affect productivity, prioritising sleep is a major focus, using tech and being conscious of doing what I can to get sufficient, quality sleep is important

2. 75Hard, continuing through phase 2 & 3

3. Nutrition, generally eating clean

4. Alcohol, limiting this to special occasions & trips away, avoiding too many benders

5. Physical fitness, gym, running, yoga, walking, keeping as active as possible which correlates to sleep quality

6. Reading / education, continue

I’m still deciding on what level of detail I’m going to go into with the numbers. A big part of me wants to be fully transparent and reveal everything, it’s likely the way I’ll go there’s just a couple of considerations / sign off’s to get with that.

It’s important to me that this is something that other’s can relate to and if I’m not disclosing the numbers I think that would feel a lot more abstract and less real. 

There’s several draft articles I’m working on, topics like:

• Budgeting / balancing lifestyle reduction with this challenge

• Productivity, making the best use of time

• Starting point and details on where I’m at 25 August 2022

• Forecasting / how will this actually work and how could I make $10 million

Would love to hear any suggestions you’ve got.

David