The Next Billion

The Weekly Offer System

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 18:30:55 GMT

Within the first 90 days, I received documented proof that this idea generated over $100 million in sales.

I just stopped keeping track after that.

While I came up with this idea about 10 years ago when I was in real estate, it has since then been used in various industries.
This is a weekly offer system that every single business should consider putting in place and I am going to explain to you how to do it.

It is called the Deal of the Week.

A pizza store would call it the pizza of the week
My friend is a watch broker - he called it the watch of the week
A friend who is a coach - called it the client of the week

In essence, it’s [something] of the week.

Here are the 4 reasons why:

Permission: When its a weekly thing, you have given yourself permission to make an offer and sell… without it being sleazy. For example, the pizza store could hammer you with specials every day or could just make sure the pizza of the week was awesome… and nobody would unsubscribe from that text message.
Sales: Instead of worrying about what marketing strategy to run next, you always know that you can do this 50+ times a year and it will continuously bring in customers.
Positive Associations: When you are constantly sharing special offers with someone, they have a positive association with your brand.
Brand: Talking about brand, it’s free brand recognition every single week.

In fact, Crumbl Cookies did exactly this and blew up their brand.
Crumbl was just another neighborhood cookie store franchise. Most franchise owners made no money, unless a soccer team or birthday party ordered 100+ cookies that month. All this changed when Crumbl put the weekly offer in place.

Every Friday, Crumbl corporate would do a mass push of its flavors of the week. It was the only 6 flavors they would be selling during the upcoming week.
All the franchisees organized themselves to bake and deliver on the demand of just those 6 cookie flavors. This made production easy, as they knew exactly what they needed from raw materials to ingredients.
Crumbl went hard on this campaign. While it started with text message and email, it soon evolved to video and social media pushes. Today, each of their weekly videos get millions of views and tens of thousands of shares.

The weekly offer built Crumbl’s entire business.

While not all of us have a neighborhood cookie store, there is still a way to clearly use this strategy and have this be the foundational piece of communication that to send to your database on a weekly basis.

I break down this strategy step-by-step, along with live sample messages in this video:

Here are the 3 big lessons that I learned deploying this across industries:

Name your thing: Deal of the Week or Smoothie of the Week
Send it at the same day/time every week
Force a click or reply. Meaning, have them click to redeem a coupon or reply to get more information.

Bonus: If you offer a professional service like real estate, mortgage, interior design, law, chiropractic, agency etc. then always hold something back in the email and force the reply.

For example:

In real estate, I recommend never putting the price of the “deal” of the week.
In mortgage, you could offer to cover closing costs if the refinance was done by x date, but I don’t add all the details
In chiropractic, you could offer a free “Computer Sitting Spine Alignment” worth $400 for just booking a consultation that week.

The magic words I use at the end of the email are:
If you are interested, just reply and I will get you all the details.

If you did nothing else in the next 90 days, put this strategy in place and you will see it bring a steady stream of revenue while also building your brand.

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10 Truths About Failure Nobody Taught You

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 20:15:42 GMT

Lessons in life will be repeated until they are learned. If the same thing keeps happening, that means there is a lesson in there you have not learned yet. I often ask myself, “What would need to be true for this to not happen again”.
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes. The goal is to walk away from every mistake with a heuristic (a thinking shortcut) like a rule, a framework, or a checklist.
Confidence is the memory of success. One bad outcome can mess with you more than ten good ones if you let it.
The best math you can learn is how to calculate the future cost of your current decisions. I try and play out 3 chess moves. Meaning, I ask myself “If I did this, what would be a reasonable outcome.” Then I do it two more times and see if I like where it lands.
Risk is often better than regret. The things I did not do haunt me more than the things I tried and failed. All your failures are the greatest stories you live to tell.
People only see the decisions you make, not the choices you had. Most people cheer for you until they start seeing you as more successful than them. Kinda messed up, but generally true.
Figure out how to guarantee defeat. Then do the opposite. This is the classic AAR (After Action Report) I learned from the Navy. I ask myself four questions after anything goes wrong: what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, why was there a gap, and what will I change.
The degree to which you can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth you can accept about yourself without running away. My biggest wins and best relationships have come from me taking massive responsibility for my actions, sometimes even when taking said responsibility was the irresponsible thing to do.
Your worst battle is between what you know and what you feel. As my business partner and bestie Leila Hormozi says: “Fugg your mood, follow the plan”
A winner is a loser who tried one more time. Never give up. Never quit.

I made this video that breaks down the three types of fear that cause people to fail and the tools I use to beat each one. If this list helped, you will like the video too.

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We hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in 63 days.

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 23:15:40 GMT

We posted 5 videos in 63 days and hit 100K YouTube subs.

That was one video about every 2 to 3 weeks.

Here’s what the portfolio looks like:

Video 1: Everything I learned from being around the Top 0.01% (442K views)
Video 2: Everything I learned at Goldman Sachs in 17 mins (236K views)
Video 3: Once you understand investing, you understand money (300K views)
Video 4: 7 Rules of Money (1.3M views)
Video 5: How to create generational wealth (200K views)

And here are 5 lessons I learned during the process.

1. Make 1/0 Content

1/0 content means content only you can make.

This is about your unique experiences, accomplishments, stories, and circumstances. You are not trying to have crazy stories. You are trying to make clear points and use your stories as proof.

Example: If I wanted to explain the importance of consistency, I would talk about how I have run the 5am Club for 15+ years, waking up at 5am every single day. That is proof I can point to. Nobody else can tell that story.

2. Keep Your Videos Connected

YouTube is a labyrinth of videos. It is a portfolio of your work.

Making videos on random topics makes everything harder on the algorithm. It makes it harder on viewers because after they finish one video, there is no natural next step.

You want your videos to be non-sequential chapters in the same book. That way, people know you better, stay with your content, and go deeper in the rabbit hole.

3. Respond to Comments

I could probably do a better job at this, but every time I had a minute, I would respond to comments.

I tried to respond to the thoughtful comments first, the ones where someone clearly put in effort. Then I would come back for the others. It gets hard when there are hundreds, but it should never be hard when there are just a few.

People do not even stop to like a video anymore. If they take the time to write a comment, the least you can do is respond.

4. Build a Visual Identity

If every video is edited differently, shot in a different location, and has a different visual identity, it confuses the audience.

You want it to feel like you the moment someone presses play. The edit, the visuals, the approach, the cuts, the fonts and colors should all be consistent.

I am getting better at this as we do more videos. We set up a new studio and locked in a consistent approach to shooting, editing, graphics, and overall feel.

The easiest way to do this when you are starting out: tell your team to follow a key creator’s approach that you like. That gives you a baseline of consistency before you develop your own.

5. Team

It would have been impossible to do this without a team.

There is concept research, packaging, scripting the framework, thinking about visuals, iterating with me on stories and viewpoints. That process takes time.

I am just one piece of it. I am the talent. Maybe 10% of the work. The rest of the team produces the media asset.

For every hour we shoot, we probably spend 15 to 20 hours in prep.

If you want to see all of this in action, check out the YouTube channel.

And if you like what you see, share it.

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The RN35: The Simplest Way to Beat Procrastination

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:31:09 GMT

Procrastination is normal and everyone does it.

Some of us procrastinate more than others, and I was one of the worst. Tasks would sit on my to-do list for weeks, and I just kept moving them from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday until I would start researching a new to-do list app.

Back in the days of Trello, I would just move the card from column to column.

I was terrible.

I read the fancy books and tried eating the frog, but I could never get inspired by that advice because who wants to eat a frog? I tried time blocking, priority matrices, and color-coded calendars, but none of it stuck. I am also color-blind, lol.

Then I had a random thought. If beating procrastination is easy for some people and hard for others, maybe those people know something I don’t. That means it can be learned, and if it can be learned, it can be taught, which makes it a skill.

That gives me hope!!!

In fact, this hit me when I was dealing with my taxes.

Just to be totally honest: I don’t even do my taxes anymore because I just collect my documents and ship them off to my family office, so I have it pretty good. But I still couldn’t bring myself to start, and the task sat in my Asana for 3 weeks straight.

I knew something was broken, so I sat down and wrote out every project I had been elegantly avoiding. There were eleven, and I forced myself to answer one question for each: Why am I actually avoiding this?

As you might imagine… the answer was the same for almost all of them.

I didn’t have a game plan, therefore I didn’t know where to start… so, clearly, I did nothing.

Our smart friends who do research about this stuff at Harvard’s Academic Resource Center found that not knowing where to start is one of the strongest predictors of procrastination. A lack of clear next steps causes more procrastination than laziness ever did.

When you say it that way… of course that makes sense.

So instead of trying to come up with a game plan for every project, I came up with a system that creates the game plan for me. I call it the RN35.

RN35 stands for Right Next 3 things that take 5 minutes each.

When you face a project you keep avoiding, ask yourself one question: What are the next 3 things I can do, where none of them takes more than 5 minutes?

Here’s how I used it on my taxes.

Instead of looking at “prepare taxes” as one task, I wrote down 3 small steps:

Open last year’s return folder and skim the first page (3 minutes)
Text my CPA to ask when he needs everything by (1 minute)
Create a new folder on my desktop called “2025 Taxes” (1 minute)

I did all 3 in under 5 minutes… and even kept going.

I pulled up my bank statements, then my brokerage statements, then my donation receipts. About 15mins later, I had everything packaged and ready to send.

A project that had been on my list for 3 weeks took under 15 mins once I had a game plan.

A few things that have helped me that may also help you:

Keep each task under 5 minutes, and if it takes longer, you picked the wrong task and need to break it down further.
Make each task something you can physically do. “Think about the trip” is not a task, but “open the Google Doc and write the first bullet point” is one that you will get done!
Write the 3 tasks down instead of trying to remember them.
Do all 3 in one sitting because if you do one and walk away, you lose the progress.

When I feel stuck now, I ask one question: What’s my RN35?

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The Single Most Powerful Habit That Helped Me Build 2 Billion Dollar Companies

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:30:20 GMT

The Single Most Powerful Habit That Helped Me Build 2 Billion Dollar Companies… is waking up at 4:45am.

Over the last 14 years, I’ve woken up at 4:45am every single day. I’ve tested every alarm clock, sleep tracker, and productivity hack I could find. I’ve helped over 100 entrepreneurs build their own morning routines.

I always come back to these 5 steps.

1. Your evening routine matters more than your morning routine.

I’ll be honest. I don’t go to bed at the same time every night. My schedule changes. Life happens.

But the best advice I ever got was the 3-2-1 rule:

Stop eating 3 hours before bed
Stop working 2 hours before bed
Turn off screens 1 hour before bed

I do this sometimes. Other times I don’t. But the nights I follow it, I have a good morning the next day. The nights I skip it, I can feel the difference.

2. Wake up to something you actually like.

It’s hard enough to wake up early when you’re building a new habit.

But think about a time when you were excited to wake up. I think about my kids. On school days, they drag themselves out of bed. But when we’re going to Disneyland, they’re up at 4:45am with no problem.

That made me wonder: what if I woke up to something I actually liked? What if the first thing I did in the morning was easy and enjoyable?

Maybe it’s a warm shower. Maybe it’s sitting by the fireplace with a book and dozing off a little. I figured out that if I made 5am feel like a treat instead of a chore, it got a lot easier.

So I made a list of things I would be excited to do when I woke up. Then I started doing them.

Most people load up their mornings with stuff they hate. Cold plunges, breathing exercises, 300 pushups, hot water with cayenne pepper. That’s a lot of pain before sunrise.

The best thing you can do is think about what you actually love and do that first. You don’t have to wake up and do 100 pushups. Just wake up to something you enjoy.

3. Remove every obstacle the night before.

This one I do every single night without fail.

Before I go to sleep, I set out everything I need for the morning. Water bottle, clothes, headphones, wallet. Everything is ready and waiting.

Then I close my eyes for about 10 seconds and picture tomorrow morning. I see myself wake up, turn off the alarm, put on my clothes, and walk downstairs. I run the whole thing in my head like a short movie.

When the alarm goes off the next morning, I just do what I already pictured. The morning feels easier because I already kinda rehearsed it.

4. Wake your body up fast.

For a while, I struggled with that groggy feeling where you’re awake but your body hasn’t caught up yet. I would hit snooze or sit on the edge of the bed for ten minutes.

So I tried something small. For one year, I did one pushup the moment I got out of bed. Just one. It sounds silly, but it was enough to get my blood moving.

Now I drink a full bottle of water as soon as my feet hit the floor. That works for me.

The idea is to find something that wakes your body up quickly. It doesn’t have to be intense. It just has to get you from groggy to awake. A glass of cold water, a quick stretch, a walk to the kitchen. Find what works for you and do it right away.

5. Find something bigger than yourself.

This is the one that changed everything for me.

14 years ago, I was not feeling well. I was working hard, our business was growing fast, and my body was starting to give out. My doctor ran tests for a week and noticed my numbers got better. He asked me what I did differently. The only thing I changed was waking up earlier to get to his office.

He told me to keep doing it.

So I texted three friends. I asked them to wake up with me at 5am for two weeks. I set up a phone call. I would log in, share something quick, and we would all start our day together.

The first morning, I heard three dings on the line. (The dings = like when someone joins a call it chimes, that’s what I am referring to here).

My 3 friends showed up.

The second morning, I heard four dings. They had invited someone else. Huh.

The third morning, seven dings. More weird people.

That phone call became the 5am Club. Today, over 10,000+ people have joined. We have CEOs, founders, a billionaire, a head of state, and members of Congress who call in. I have missed only 3 calls in 14 years.

Every morning, thousands of people count on me to show up on time. That’s way more powerful than an alarm clock.

When other people are waiting for you, you get out of bed.

If you want to join, go to 5amclub.net.

However you slice it, greatness is a choice.

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Three Partners, Three Roles, One Multi-Billion Dollar Bet

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:10:29 GMT

We are rebuilding the leadership structure of Acquisition.com to build a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

This is a managing partner-led model where Alex, Leila, and I are each going deeper on specialized areas to create a bigger and better future.

Here is what that looks like:

I am stepping in as CEO to execute on our plan to build the private equity business model of the future.
Leila is stepping into Executive Chair with her focus on building a world-class media machine and deploying capital into strategic investments.
Alex is leading the charge on our “money machine” by building the operating money models across our entire portfolio.

These strategic changes will allow Alex, Leila, and me to do more, work harder, and pull the future forward.

Here are 5 things we are working on that might be interesting to you:

1. Real estate: We are building a billion dollar real estate portfolio in 3 years. We are already at over $300 million of assets and actively growing. Take a look at the ACQ Real Estate website as we are thinking about inviting our network to co-invest with us.

2. AI first: Instead of focusing on getting more people to use AI, we are going hard to level up every single person in our business (and operating function) to become AI first. If you have experience doing this for companies, hit me up.

3. Leila’s book: Leila is writing a brilliant book on all the leadership lessons learned building the business. The whole point of the book is to train leaders inside Acquisition.com and our portfolio companies. Of course, you will have it in your hands to build and lead your teams. It is going to blow your mind.

4. House of brands: We brought on a new Chief Media Officer (you’ll hear about him soon, he’s badass) to help us build the media company of the future. You are going to see some insane approaches to content and show formats from Alex, Leila, and me, plus some new surprises. We can all agree that the world needs more than carousels and reels.

5. Category Kings: We made a big commitment to building the next batch of category kings. We are going to buy, build, or partner to create the dominant company in each market that we enter. We obviously can’t do a hundred of these, but we have our eyes on a few and we are going to point the entire media and operational infrastructure of Acquisition.com at them. If you want to become one, watch for our next announcement on how to apply.

I am sharing all of this because I told you I’m going to build in public.

I built two billion-dollar companies and missed documenting the journey as I went along. All the lessons are just in my head. That was my biggest regret. It’s why I started this Substack and called the “The Next Billion”.

When you get to watch the day-to-day decisions and see the leadership transitions, you can start to understand why we make them. It gives you a window into implementing something like that for your life and your business.

Remember this: The bigger the vision, the more you need focused people in their zone of genius to make it come to life.

I hope seeing this unfold in real time is helpful to you.

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The Loss That Almost Took Me Out of the Game

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:19:39 GMT

A few years ago, I lost a million dollars to a guy I trusted.

I had spent years as a professional investor at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, made over a hundred investments, and built two billion dollar businesses. I thought I knew how to evaluate a business and, heck, at least how to read people. This operator seemed fairly sharp, the numbers were clean, and the margins made sense. I did my homework over a 6 month period and I pulled the trigger.

Then I found out he was running two sets of books.

One for investors and one for himself. By the time I figured out what was happening, he was gone, and so was the money.

Oof.

I want to tell you about what happened next, because the money was not the expensive part.

For months after that loss, something changed in me. I started hesitating on everything. Deals that looked solid made me nervous, and I found reasons to wait on opportunities I would have jumped on a year earlier. I kept telling myself I was being more careful.

If I was being honest with myself, that was not what was happening. I had stopped trusting my own judgment, and that fear was keeping me on the sidelines while entire market cycles (and massive opportunities) passed me by.

It felt like getting into a car accident and then being afraid to drive. The accident was over, but I kept reliving it every time I sat behind the wheel. And the longer I avoided driving, the scarier driving became.

The million dollars I lost in that deal was painful, but it was a fixed cost. I lost it once and it was gone. The hesitation that followed was a recurring cost. Every month I sat on the sidelines waiting for conditions to feel safe, I was paying a price I could not see on any statement. The truth was that markets were moving, opportunities were compounding for other people, and I was standing still (nice way of saying stuck, scared, and jammed up) because I did not trust myself to make a decision.

That hesitation cost me more than the original loss ever did.

I had to make a choice: I could let that one bad experience turn me into someone who watches from the bench forever, or I could figure out what went wrong and build something that would let me get back in the game.

Let’s be real… it did not happen in one afternoon.

For a few weeks I just sat with the loss and let myself be angry about it. But eventually I made myself answer a hard question: what did I miss? Not what did the operator do wrong, but what did I fail to see? I realized I had evaluated the business but I had not evaluated what would happen to the people and the structure when things got messy. I had looked at the deal in good conditions and assumed those conditions would hold.

So I built a framework to protect myself for the future. I call it the Four Goods, and I run every investment through it now before I write a check or get involved in anyway:

Good people. Referrals are not enough. I need to know someone through a working relationship or shared history before I trust them with my money. The only way to really know people is to watch how they operate over time, especially when things get hard. This sometimes takes a hot minute.
Good intentions. Is this person friendly, helpful, and collaborative? There are two kinds of people in deals: those who want everyone to win and those who only want themselves to win. The person in the middle, the one who says the right things but acts differently, is the most dangerous person of all.
Good rationale. The deal has to work on a simple spreadsheet. If someone cannot show me the math in a way I can understand in fifteen minutes, I do not proceed. No spreadsheet, no deal.
Good contracts. I do not move forward on a contract unless I already have good people, good intentions, and good rationale in place. A contract without those three things is just expensive (as in drafted by an attorney) paper. It will not always protect you when things go sideways.

This framework did not guarantee I would never lose money again. I am a professional investor: I have lost some money since, and I will probably lose money in the future. But it gave me a way to make decisions I could defend to myself even when they turned out wrong, and that was what I needed to stay in the game long enough for compounding to work.

In fact, I broke down my core investing framework in this video… you can watch it on 2x speed.

Now I want to tell you why I am sharing this.

I guarantee this: You are going to go through something like this too. And if you have been an investor for some time, maybe you already have. At some point, you are going to make an investment or a business decision that goes badly, and it is going to shake you. You are going to feel like you should have seen it coming, like you were dumb or careless or too trusting. And when that happens, there are three things I want you to know.

First, you are going to want to stop playing. This is the most natural response in the world. You got burned and your brain is trying to protect you from getting burned again. But protecting yourself by refusing to make decisions is not safety. It is more like slow decay. Inflation eats your money, opportunities pass you by, and you lose more to inaction over 10 years than you lost in the original error.

Second, the real damage is not the money. In fact, the real damage is what happens to your confidence. When you stop trusting your own judgment, you hesitate on everything, not just investments. You start second-guessing yourself in business, in relationships, in decisions that have nothing to do with money. One bad loss can leak into your whole life if you let it.

Third, the way out is to build a system you can believe in. Not a system that prevents all losses, because, newsflash, that system does not exist. A system that lets you make decisions you can stand behind, so that when something goes wrong, you can look at your process and say, “I made the best call I could with what I knew, and I would make it again.” That is how you rebuild trust in yourself. Not really by avoiding decisions, but by making them in a way you can respect yourself for making them.

I built the Four Goods for myself because I needed something to hold onto after I got knocked down. Maybe it works for you exactly as I have described it. Maybe you take pieces of it and build your own version. Either way, the point is not the specific framework. The point is that you need something that lets you stay and play the infinite game, because the ability to keep acting under uncertainty is the most valuable skill an investor can have.

When that loss happened to me, I felt like I was the only person dumb enough to get taken advantage of like that. I was super freaking embarrassed. I did not want to tell anyone. But the more I talked to other investors (and my therapist), the more I realized that everyone has a story like this.

You are not alone when this happens to you. And you do not have to let it take you out of the game.

I hope this helps.

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10 Lessons I Learned This Week

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:30:29 GMT

Quitting your worst habit will change your life faster than starting your best new habit. Meaning, stop the leak before you fill the bucket.
Speaking of buckets, if yours is leaking… painting it won’t help. Ask the hard question on what is on your to-do list.
In a world where AI is coming for our jobs and our lunch, your communication skills determine your compensation more than your technical skills ever will.
The fastest way to change your life: change what you do in the first hour after you wake up. If you do nothing else except engineer the “Perfect First Hour,” you will win.
Successful people love boring habits. They wake up the same time, work out consistently, and read daily. Excitement is overrated.
The fastest way to spot a successful person: watch how quickly they turn ideas into finished results. Speed plus completion is king.
Uncomfortable truth: Most of your friends won’t support you until strangers start to celebrate you.
Hot take: Every successful person is someone who got tired of their own bullshit before anyone else did. They became their own worst enemy first. Then their own best friend. Most people skip step one.
The older I get, the more I realize that poor people overthink small decisions and rush big ones. Rich people do the opposite.
The people who win long-term are the ones who can hold two truths at once: be proud of how far you’ve come and be honest about how far you still have to go.

If you had to add a #11 to this list, what would it be? Drop a comment or shoot me a reply to this email.

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The Lifestyle Tax

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:26:00 GMT

When I left Wall Street to build Teles Properties, my wife Neeti was the only one working. We had just had our first child, and I made almost nothing for the first couple of years.

So we made one decision: live on her income only, forever. Whatever I made later would go toward saving and investing, and we would keep our spending exactly where it was.

We grew Teles 10x in five years and sold it. The work paid off, but we kept the same budget after the sale. For 14 years now, we spend what we spent back then, even though our net-worth is exponentially higher.

Here are some lessons that I learned:

1. This is not about saving on lattes.

No one ever got rich by skipping their morning coffee or putting an extra $3,000 in their 401k. I’m a capitalist, and I want you to make more money.

But you don’t keep every dollar you make.

If you made more this year and bought a new car to celebrate, you’re happy with the car, but you kinda gave back what you earned.

There are two levers: what you make and what you keep. Most people only pull the first one.

2. Making more money usually just moves the goal post.

When people start making more money, they start spending more money.

They believe that if they earn more, they have earned the right to spend more. And that is totally true. But you end up right back where you started, just with bigger numbers. No bueno.

3. Your income can disappear, but your spending habits won’t.

Most people bet that they will just keep making more and more and it will all work out.

But your income is probably not guaranteed.

If you lose your job or your business has a bad year, you still have the same mortgage, the same car payments, the same tuition bills.

The easier path is to keep your spending the same, even when you start making more.

4. The real benefit is not the money.

Once you keep your lifestyle fixed, you make better decisions because you are not stressed about keeping up. You can take risks, say no to bad deals, and wait for the right opportunity, because you don’t need the money right now.

5. It’s not what you make. It’s what you keep.

If your income grows and your lifestyle grows with it, you are doing a little better each year, but the gap between what you make and what you spend stays the same. That is optimizing.

If your lifestyle is fixed, your income grows while your spending stays flat. The (good) gap gets wider every year. That is maximizing.

Most people are trying to optimize. Keeping your lifestyle fixed is how you maximize.

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The American Dream Is Now a Rental

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:28:10 GMT

I used to think people who rented long term were making a mistake.

It turns out that they were just being honest about what they could afford.

Here’s the math: Nowadays, buying a home costs about 50% more per month than renting the same home. Affordability is at its worst level since the early 1980s. When buying costs 50% more per month than renting, owning a home stops being a goal and starts being a choice.

Let’s breakdown the math

In 2022, mortgage rates jumped from 3% to 7%.

Home prices did not drop because inventory stayed tight. At the same time, wages barely moved. The gap between what people earn and what homes cost kept getting wider.

Here is a little house math:

A home that rents for $2,500 per month might cost $3,750 per month to buy at current rates.
The real cost of owning that home is $4,500 per month. Here’s how: $3,750 mortgage, plus $400 in property taxes, $150 in insurance, and $200 in maintenance.
That is $2,000 more per month than renting. Over five years, that difference adds up to $120,000 in extra cash going out.

From 2019 to 2024, wages went up 20% but home prices went up 50%. Mortgage rates more than doubled but wages didn’t move as fast.

Meaning, housing costs skyrocketed and the math kinda stopped math-ing.

Think about it… if you want to buy your first home and you see that math gap, you naturally choose to wait. Also, if you already own with a 3% mortgage, you stay put.

The net result:

The resale market freezes.
The rental market takes all the pressure.

The important question is… why?

What is keeping the real estate market stuck?

Unfortunately, there are three things that are stopping the market from getting better.

1. Mortgage rate handcuffs

In 2020 and 2021, millions of homeowners locked in mortgages below 3%. Selling today means borrowing at 6% or 7%. Meaning, their monthly payment would double or triple for the same size loan.

When homeowners can’t afford to sell, inventory stays low and prices stay high.

2. Inventory gap

Since 2008, the U.S. built 4 million fewer homes than it needed. At current construction rates, it will take about 10+ years to catch up. When supply is scarce and rates are high, prices stay elevated.

3. Persistent demand

More than 6 million people are entering prime home-buying age before 2030. People still get married, have kids, and form new households even when they can’t afford to buy. That demand shifts from ownership to rental, keeping rental demand strong while the buying market freezes.

The history of renting in one paragraph

Renting used to be temporary.

First time buyers wait longer.
People who want bigger homes stay put.
Older people delay downsizing.
Mobility declines.
Rental tenure extends.

Meaning, You rented until you bought. Now renting probably turns into the normal way middle class families live for years.

We confused the vehicle with the destination

This is my hypothesis, which I will probably get a lot of flak for…

The American Dream was always about stability and moving up. If you dig deep, you may see that owning a home was just one way to get there. For 70 years, from 1950 to 2020, homeownership happened to be the best vehicle for both. You bought a home. You paid down the loan. The home appreciated. You built wealth.

Sounds simple.

But that path only existed because of specific conditions.

Interest rates declined for 40 years.
Government policy subsidized ownership through tax deductions and cheap mortgages.
Suburban land was abundant and cheap to develop.

As those conditions started to reverse: Rates went up. Land became scarce. Credit got expensive.

In essence, the vehicle stopped working.

The confusion is thinking the vehicle was the dream itself.

The dream was always stability and mobility. Homeownership was just how Americans achieved it from 1950 to 2020. Before that, most people rented.

This is not unique to ‘merica!

This already happened in most of Europe.

Germany has a 50% homeownership rate.
Switzerland has 42%.
France sits around 65%.

These countries have stable middle classes and strong economies with long-term rental markets. They never built their wealth model around homeownership.

I would argue that this continues for years if rates come down slowly.

Affordability is at 1980s levels.
Supply is constrained.
Mortgage lock prevents any quick reset.

The longer this lasts, the more the change starts to become permanent. Owning becomes something fewer people do. Renting becomes normal and long term.

When the vehicle that carried the American Dream for 70 years becomes inaccessible, the dream does not disappear. The vehicle changes. The new middle class stability might come from long-term rentals with secure tenure and wealth built through other assets instead of home equity.

For 70 years, we mistook the vehicle for the destination. The American Dream was never the house. It was the stability and wealth the house made possible.

Now we need to find another way to get there as we probably have to rent our white picket fence.

If you liked this post, you’ll like this one too:

What Goldman Sachs Taught Me About Practice.

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:30:27 GMT

Last week I posted a video about 10 lessons from Goldman Sachs.

The video is cooking.

When I watched it again, I realized I left out the most important lesson.

The lesson is this: I used to think I was good at pitching when I really just showed up and winged it.

Most salespeople operate the same way.

They believe being good with people means they can walk into a room and figure it out in real time. That works until the deal matters, and then they lose to someone who practiced.

Here’s why winging it fails: when something unexpected happens (and it always does), you have no mental space left to handle it. Your brain is too busy trying to remember what comes next, how to transition smoothly, or what your opening was supposed to be. So when the client randomly interrupts you and asks about fees, it’s easy to fumble.

What rehearsal actually looked like at Goldman

My first pitch at Goldman started multiple days before the client showed up.

My managing partner and I rehearsed the entire meeting three times over several days. We did not practice the morning of the meeting or two hours before the client walked in. We practiced for multiple days.

In fact, we worked on these specific parts:

We decided who would speak first and what exact words we would use to position ourselves
We scripted the exact sentence that would transition us from conversation to presentation
We divided the content so he would explain market context and I would explain deal structure
We wrote the exact sentence bridges we would use to connect each page to the next

Then we walked into the room.

As you can imagine, just 4 minutes in, the CFO stopped us with a question about our fees. This happened way earlier than we expected. However, since everything else was practiced to the point of automation, I could stop, answer his concern without fumbling, and bring us back to the agenda we had planned.

The meeting went almost exactly as we practiced. This happened not because clients are predictable, but because we had rehearsed the highest probability path to winning.

If you’re reading this and thinking “I can’t rehearse every meeting, I have too many,” you’re right.

You can’t rehearse every meeting. You rehearse the ones that matter, like the big deal, the quarterly review with your board, or the pitch to a partner who could change your business.

But then the right question to ask is: what exactly do you practice?

The three things I practice before anything important

I have done over 100 investments, had 5 exits, built 2 billion dollar companies, and bought more than 3,500 units of real estate. Today we manage a portfolio of businesses that bring in over $250M in revenue.

When we meet with top executives or pitch potential partners, we role play every single time.

Here’s the process:

1. Act like you have zero natural ability

You need to practice like this is a completely foreign skill and you cannot trust your instincts.

For example: Write out your first 90 seconds word for word. Say it out loud three times before the meeting. Say it out loud, not in your head. If you skip this step, you will start the meeting searching for the right words instead of listening to what the other person actually cares about.

Also, rehearse your transitions. Know the exact sentence that shifts you from small talk to the pitch. Know the exact sentence that takes you from slide 3 to slide 4. If you don’t script these transitions, you will fill them with filler words and feel sloppy.

2. Write down every question they might ask, then answer the scariest ones before they bring them up

Before every meeting, write 8 to 10 questions the other person might ask. Do not try to answer all of them in your presentation.

For example: Turn 2 or 3 of the most likely questions into rhetorical questions you pose and answer during your pitch. “Can we actually handle the workload if you sign today? We can, and here’s why.” When you answer before they ask, you look prepared instead of defensive.

Keep the rest of the questions in your head so you are ready when they come up.

If someone asks about pricing and you have already thought through three different ways to answer depending on their tone, you will sound confident, which in essence gives them safety. If you haven’t thought it through, you will sound like you are making it up (because you probably are).

3. What are the three biggest objections, and what proof are you bringing?

If you had to bet money, what are the three biggest objections or questions? For those three, do not just prepare answers. Bring proof.

For example:

If you know they will ask about your track record with companies their size, bring a one page case study.
If you know they will ask whether your team can handle the workload, bring a capacity chart.
If you know they will question your pricing, bring a comparison model that shows where you land relative to alternatives.

The proof matters more than the answer.

When you show up with a document that proves you saw their concern coming and did the work, it tells them something about how you operate. It separates you from everyone else who just talks.

The single biggest lessons I learned through this process

There is no such thing as natural ability in high stakes conversations.

Every conversation that looks natural was practiced until it became automatic. The person across from you cannot tell the difference between someone who is naturally smooth and someone who rehearsed 47 times because they only see the outcome.

Wild, right?

That’s why practice is the entire game.
Everyone else is winging it and hoping their charisma carries them, which means you can win by just showing up a little bit more prepared.
Because how you prepare shows just how much you care.

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The Uncomfortable Truth About Growth

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 16:37:16 GMT

When everything in your business feels smooth and chill, most leaders think that’s a good sign.

It means the systems are working.
The team knows what to do.
Everything is running without friction.

Newsflash: That’s not a good sign.
That’s actually the beginning of the end.

Not because smooth operations are bad, but because growth and smooth operations don’t go together. We’ve been taught to think friction is bad, so we try to remove it. But if nothing feels broken, you’re not actually growing.

Growth requires breaking things.

You have to break old systems.
You have to break comfortable working relationships.
You have to break routines that felt safe.

And just because you’re better at your job now doesn’t mean the things that worked before will work for what comes next.

Why Breaking Things Is Part of Building Things

Growth is like being in a gym.

You have to learn new movements that feel awkward at first. You have to use muscles you forgot you had. You have to rebuild strength in parts of your body that haven’t worked hard in a while.

It’s uncomfortable.

It reminds you of how much it hurt the first time. And even though you think you’re stronger now, the process of getting even stronger still hurts.

Here’s how it works in a business:
When you grow, you need new systems. That means building new infrastructure, which feels slow and frustrating. It means building new technology, which everyone thinks can happen overnight but actually takes months to build something useful.

Plus, new systems require new relationships.

You have to work with people you don’t know yet. Sometimes you don’t even know who those people are. Sometimes you’re too polite and you don’t want to bother them, so you try to figure it out alone when you should just ask.

Also, new relationships require uncomfortable reaching out.

You have to build trust from scratch. You have to explain the full story again. You have to figure out who does what, who owns what, and who to talk to when something breaks.

Let’s not forget that different seasons mean different priorities.

When you’re growing fast, one team might be critical. When you’re stabilizing, a different team becomes the focus. What felt urgent last quarter might not matter this quarter. That means you have to reset expectations over and over.

That takes a lot of emotional strength.

My Top 3 Recommendations During Messy Growth Times

To have a breakthrough, break something. You can’t optimize your way into a new capability. You have to build it, and building it will mess up things that already work. That’s normal. That’s what growth is all about.
Invest in relationships. When things are breaking, the people who trust you will help you rebuild faster than people who barely know you. Collaboration makes hard things easier, but collaboration only works when you’ve already built the relationship.
Over-communicate. When things feel uncertain, when you’re growing fast, or when nobody’s sure what’s happening next, tell everyone what you know. Then tell them again. Then tell them you’re going to keep telling them. If you feel like it’s too much, it’s probably the right amount. People can handle change when they know what’s changing and why.

Growth isn’t supposed to feel smooth. It’s supposed to feel like lifting something heavier than you lifted last time.

To have a breakthrough, you must break something.

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Is Passive Income a Lie?

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:34:31 GMT

When I was a banker at Goldman Sachs, I saw the portfolios of some of the wealthiest people in the world.

Here’s what shocked me: they weren’t chasing exotic investments or secret strategies. They owned boring things like bonds, dividend-paying stocks, REITS and apartment buildings.

Just to be clear, this was not because they lacked access to complex deal flow but more because they understood something most people miss…

Passive income is just pre-funded income.

What the heck is pre-funded income?

You have to fund passive income before it pays you.

You fund it with effort or you fund it with capital. There’s no third option that I know of (yet).

Here is a real story:

My friend was an early engineer at Broadcom. He got stock options and cashed them out when the company went public. That stock has gone up 10,000% since the IPO. He has over $35 million now, but he still lives in his same house and drives his same car.

All he has is a simple dividend portfolio at Vanguard. Meaning, he owns stocks in companies that pay him a portion of their profits every three months. That income funds his lifestyle, and he hasn’t worked a day for the last 8 years.

He doesn’t have complicated tax strategies, vacation rental properties, oil investments, private equity funds, hedge funds, or currency trading accounts. Just boring stocks that pay him every quarter.

That’s what I mean by pre-funded income. He put money in once, and it pays him repeatedly.

The gurus sell you a different story. They tell you passive income is about finding the secret strategy, the hidden loophole, the exotic investment nobody else knows about.

That’s not how it works for people with real money.

Five Principles My Clients Actually Followed

After advising clients for years, these patterns showed up over and over again. Call me a nerd, but I tracked this stuff obsessively.

1. If it’s passive for you, it’s active for someone else

Dividend stocks pay you because companies are actively running businesses. Real estate investment trusts pay you because property managers are actively managing buildings. Bonds pay you because borrowers are actively making payments.

Passive income doesn’t mean nobody’s working. It means you’re not the one doing the work.

2. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is

My clients avoided anything that promised huge returns with no clear explanation of where the money comes from.

No crypto schemes promising 40% yearly gains. No currency trading systems. No obscure energy partnerships sold as insider deals. They optimized for safety on their “safe portfolio”… what a concept.

3. Start building it long before you need it

Pre-funding takes a hot minute.

You can’t manufacture passive income the month you decide you want it. The clients I advised didn’t wait until they were retired to build income streams. They built them while they were working so the pre-funded passive income would be there when their active income started slowing down

4. Pick reliable and boring sources

This is what actually every single one of the portfolios I worked on: bonds that pay interest, stocks from mature companies that pay dividends, REITs that distribute income, and apartment buildings that collect rent checks.

It is not exciting because its meant to not be exciting.

5. Stack sources instead of chasing one big win

My clients didn’t put everything into one investment.

They layered income streams: Like bonds for steady interest, dividend stocks for growth and income, and REITs for steady real estate income. Each source solved a different problem, and together they created a system that worked when (sometimes the) individual pieces didn’t.

I don’t have some kind of fancy closing paragraph for you, but there are 3 things you should remember:

Passive income = pre-funded income
You can pre-fund it with effort (where you get paid later) or capital (where you also get paid later).
And if it’s passive for you, it must be active for someone else.

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The $100K Question

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:25:27 GMT

Mike Tyson made over $300 million as a boxer.

He bought mansions, luxury cars, jewelry, and freaking bengal tigers. He also filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and owed $23 million to the IRS.

He never figured out what the money was supposed to do for him beyond buying the next thing. He had money. He didn’t have an outcome.

This is not an isolated incident.

Research shows 70% of lottery winners file for bankruptcy within a few years. The NFL says 78% of retired players are in financial distress within two years of retiring.

Insane, right?

So what’s the real problem?

You don’t want the money.

You want the outcome.

Meaning, you want the thing that money can buy… hopefully to improve the quality of your life in some way.

Money doesn’t create outcomes. It often accelerates them.

You’re not struggling because you don’t earn enough. You’re probably struggling because you may have forgotten exactly what you want your money to buy for you.

Let me show you how to fix it.

How do you figure out what you actually want?

Imagine someone hands you $100,000 today. You have to spend it to make your life better.

What do you actually do with it?

When people answer honestly, the truth comes out.

“You’d hire someone to handle your schedule and emails.”

Translation: You’re spending 10 hours a week on work that drains you.

“You’d pay $40K so you never have to do sales calls again.”

Translation: You’ve been forcing yourself to do work you hate instead of hiring someone good at it.

“You’d take two months off.”

Translation: You’re burned out and more hours aren’t producing better results.

“You’d hire a team to build your brand.”

Translation: You know this matters but you keep putting it off.

Every answer reveals a problem that money didn’t create.

But you don’t have $100K right now

You don’t want the $100K. I mean, of course you do.

You want what it can buy.

Once you name what you want, you can start moving toward it today.

You don’t need $100K to improve your health.

Change what you eat.
Block 30 minutes to move.
Go to bed an hour earlier.

You don’t need $100K to get help.

Hire a part time assistant for 10 hours a week.
Delegate one task that drains you.

You don’t need $100K to build your brand.

Write one post this week.
Reach out to one person in your industry.

The full version costs money. The first version costs a quick decision.

Does this only apply to individuals?

Of course not.

Companies make this mistake too.

CEOs may say “Once we’re profitable, we’ll fix the culture.” They mean: “We’re avoiding hard conversations.”
Founders may say “Once we raise the next round, we’ll hire the team.” They mean: “We don’t trust anyone else.”

Money isn’t the problem. Not knowing what to buy with the money is the problem.

If your business had all the revenue it needed tomorrow, what would you change right away?

That answer tells you what’s actually broken now.

What should you do right now?

Name the specific outcome you want.

Not “more freedom.” What does that look like? Three day weekends? No meetings before 10am?
Not “better health.” What does that mean? Running without getting tired? Sleeping through the night?
Not “less stress.” Where is it coming from? Your inbox? Cash flow? Work you should have delegated?

Once you name it, ask: If you had $100K right now, what’s the smallest version of this you could buy today?
Then go do that.

If you can’t name what you’d spend $100K or even $1 million on to improve your life right now, you have a bigger problem than money. Spending the next 5-10 years earning it won’t fix what’s actually broken.

If you liked this post, then you’ll like this one too:

How to Actually Build Wealth and Retire Early (Explained in 6 Minutes)

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:30:36 GMT

I started investing 20+ years ago with $1,000 while I was still in school.

That portfolio now makes enough money for me to live off.

I’ve watched people make huge returns during this time. I’ve also watched people lose everything.

This isn’t a get rich quick guide. It’s how to build wealth safely over the long term.
A quick note: All the numbers and returns in this article are general assumptions based on historical averages. Your actual results will vary. This isn’t financial advice, just what I’ve learned and what has worked for me.

The Most Important Thing That You Need to Understand

You cannot get rich on a salary alone.

It doesn’t matter if you make $50,000 or $500,000 per year because trading your time for money has a limit.

Wealth comes from owning things that make money while you sleep. The best option is owning a business you control, where you make the decisions, hire the team, keep all the profits, and build something worth millions over time. The second option is owning businesses that other people run, where you don’t pick the strategy or manage the team but you own a piece of the profits.

Most people will never start or buy a business, but you can still become an owner by owning small pieces of many businesses instead of one big piece of one business. This is what the stock market actually is. When you buy an index fund, you own tiny pieces of thousands of companies.

The strategy is simple: become an owner, spread your money across many companies so you can’t pick wrong, and wait long enough for your ownership to grow in value.

Before we go further: If you already have another vehicle that gives you ownership, liquidity, growth, and diversification based on a proven financial system like index funds, then you probably don’t need this guide. If you’re running your own business, investing in private equity, or you’re a real estate mogul with lots of access to capital, then more power to you. This guide is for everyone else who needs a simple, reliable path to financial freedom.

1. Why Owning Beats Working

Most people work hard, get a raise, save some money, and put it in a savings account, then retire at 65 with maybe $500,000 if they’re lucky. Owners buy pieces of businesses that grow over time, which means the value of their ownership grows too, and they retire at 50 with $3 million.

The difference isn’t how hard they worked but whether they owned assets that grew.

Say you earn $100,000 per year and save 20%, which means you’re putting away $20,000 per year. After 30 years, you have $600,000 saved.

Now take that same $20,000 per year and buy ownership in businesses that grow at 8% every year. After 30 years you have $2.4 million because owners capture growth while workers capture wages, and growth builds on itself while wages don’t.

2. How to Become an Owner Without Starting a Business

The easiest way to become an owner is buying index funds, which are collections of many companies packaged together.

For first-time investors who want broad diversification, a good option is an all-world fund, where one purchase gives you ownership in the whole global stock market including Apple, Microsoft, Toyota, Samsung, and 3,000 other companies.

When you own as many businesses as possible, you capture the growth of the whole economy, which means when any company wins, you win.

Here’s what I actually do: I use only two vehicles for investing. About 80% of my money buys the broad market through S&P 500 ETFs like VOO and SPY, and the other 20% goes into specific sectors I believe will do really well over the long term like technology, healthcare, and financials through ETFs like XLK, XLV, and XLF.

I don’t pick individual stocks and I don’t use complicated strategies.

I watched three friends try to pick winning stocks in 2021, and all three are down 40% or more while my boring index fund approach that owns everything is up 65%.

Professional investors with billion dollar budgets can’t beat the market, and fewer than 10% do it over 20 years. What I am trying to say is that the odds are you are not going to beat the market by trading hot stocks.

Even if you could pick winners, taxes would destroy your gains because every time you sell a stock, you pay taxes. When you buy and hold for decades, you delay paying taxes and your money grows faster because the government isn’t taking a cut every year.

Remember, trying to pick stocks and trading them a lot will cost you 20% to 37% of your gains in taxes every single year… and as you may have guessed, taxes are the biggest drag on wealth creation.

3. Why Time Matters More Than Timing

An 8% return every year doesn’t sound impressive until you understand how it builds on itself.

The money you make starts making money, then the money that money made starts making money, and this cycle repeats for decades. Your money roughly doubles every 10 years at 8% returns.

Say you put in $10,000 at age 25 and you’ll have $217,000 at age 65 without adding another dollar. If you wait until age 35 to start, you only get $100,000. Waiting one decade costs you $117,000.

Start at 25, invest $500 per month:

Age 65: $1,590,000

Start at 35, invest $500 per month:

Age 65: $745,000

Same monthly amount and same discipline, but the difference in when you started costs you $845,000.

Start at 25, invest $1,000 per month:

Age 65: $3,180,000

When you double your monthly investment, you more than double the result because time does most of the work.

4. Why You Should Start Today?

Start now and don’t wait for the perfect time because your goal is to own businesses for as long as possible.

A study looked at four different investors over 20 years:

Investor 1: Had perfect timing and only bought at the absolute lowest point each year
Investor 2: Had the worst timing and only bought at the absolute highest point each year
Investor 3: Invested immediately and put in all their money on January 1st each year
Investor 4: Stayed in cash and kept their money in savings waiting for the right time

After 20 years, the perfect timer made the most money, but the worst timer and the immediate investor were only 5% behind. All three crushed the person who sat in cash, who had 60% less money than even the worst timer.

The 10 best trading days account for most of the gains in any given year. If you’re sitting in cash trying to time your entry, you’ll probably miss these days. Research shows that missing just the 10 best days over 20 years cuts your returns in half, and missing the 20 best days cuts your returns by 75%. You can’t predict when these days will happen because they often come right after the worst days when everyone is scared.

People who waited from January 2020 until things calmed down missed a 60% gain. History shows that almost every previous all-time high looks ultra-cheap years later.

I bought my first index fund the week I got my first real paycheck, not because prices looked good (I had no idea about anything, I just bought the market) but because waiting for the right time is how you end up 55 years old with nothing.

5. What Else Should You Own?

Here is my simple take when you are starting out: Index funds should be 70% to 80% of your money at minimum.

My friend put 60% of his money into rental properties in 2019, and he spent 200 hours dealing with tenants last year while his return was 4%.

My index funds returned 12% and took zero phone calls.

Crypto makes little sense for most people, with Bitcoin being the only exception. Buy small. If you don’t know anything about crypto and want some exposure, you can use my strategy of keeping it to 2% to 4% of your portfolio once you have real money invested. But if you know a lot about crypto and you’re actively involved, then maybe you could take a bigger sized bet.

I bought some Bitcoin for each of my kids, not as a main part of my plan but as a lottery ticket. If Bitcoin explodes, my kids win, and if it doesn’t, we’re not counting on that money anyway.

Real estate is complicated and depends on where you live. I only started becoming a real estate investor in the last 15 years, and real estate is now my number one asset class where I own more than 3,500 units.

But all the money I made before real estate is what allowed me to buy real estate in the first place.

Buying property makes sense when you already have a large portfolio and want to spread your money around more, or when you’re willing to spend a lot of time and really understand your local market or the asset class. Otherwise you won’t beat stock market returns and you’ll have much more work.

My allocation guideline:

This is just what I’ve seen and learned from different friends. You’re welcome to play around with it or use this as a starting point.

Under $100,000: 100% index funds (start with something simple like VOO)
$100,000 to $500,000: 75% broad market index funds, 20% sector ETFs if you want, 5% Bitcoin if you want
Over $500,000: 70% index funds, spread the rest based on your situation

I prefer to spend my time working on things that I can control so I try and keep my investing world as simple and efficient as possible. Spreading your money around costs time and makes things complicated, so it only helps when you have a lot of money.

6. When Can You Stop Working?

If there was any question that most people start thinking about as they get older it is, “When can I stop working?”

I wish there was a required course about this in high school or college but instead you have to read my post about this!

In an nutshell, returns don’t shake out evenly every year, which means market crashes force you to sell more ownership to pay the same bills. Over time this can shrink your portfolio even if your average return stays at 8%.

The 4% rule solves this problem. Meaning, you can take out roughly 4% of your portfolio each year with a high chance of never running out of money.

To calculate this number, just take your monthly expenses and multiply it by 300 to figure out how much you need.

Retirement targets:

$5,000 per month: Need $1.5 million
$8,000 per month: Need $2.4 million
$10,000 per month: Need $3 million

Pretty nifty.

Then just work backwards from there.

If you need $1.5 million and you’re 25 years old, putting in $1,000 per month at 8% gets you to $3.5 million in 40 years, while putting in $500 per month gets you to $1.75 million. If you’re 35 and need $1.5 million in 30 years, you need to invest $1,100 per month to hit that number.

Starting as early as possible matters more than any other decision because even small amounts make a huge difference over decades due to the power of compounding.

Bottom line:

Own your own business (or)
Own a piece of someone else’s business (stocks or private equity)

If you liked this post, then you’ll like this one too:

The 8th Lesson I Left Out

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 16:20:36 GMT

My YouTube video on the 7 lessons I learned from the top 0.01% just took off.

Here are the 7 lessons:

Lesson one from my parents on the only thing you can control
Lesson two from Dave Matthews on why the rules don’t work
Lesson three from Elon Musk on the Stanford question
Lesson four from Issy Sharp on one simple word
Lesson five from Goldman Sachs on the magic cocktail
Lesson six from a billionaire on the $100 million realization
Lesson seven from Alex and Leila Hormozi on money

But there’s an 8th lesson I wish I’d included.

It explains why all the other lessons work. It separates people who talk about greatness from people who achieve it.

That lesson is preparation.

Most people don’t know what that actually means.

They think it’s just showing up early or reading a few notes. Let me show you what real preparation looks like and give you a way to use it in your own life.

Work Hard vs. Work Smart. Meh.

You’ve heard it a million times: Work hard and work smart.

Preparation is working smart.

You do the thinking, the research, and the practice before the moment arrives. When everyone else figures things out in real time, you already know what to do.

Let me give you some real life examples.

Kobe Bryant

During Team USA training camp, Kobe called a trainer around 4:30 in the morning. He did conditioning drills until 6. Then he lifted weights until 7. Then he shot baskets in the gym until he made 800 of them.

All of this happened before the team’s official practice started.
Freaking savage.

By the time his teammates showed up for the first drill, Kobe had already done more work than most players did in a full day. That’s the Mamba Mentality everyone talks about. He won games because he prepared at a level that made the game itself feel easy.

But, it’s not just in sports….

Warren Buffett

When students would ask the legendary Warren Buffett about how to prepare for a career in investing, he’d always answer it the same way…

He would hold up a stack of annual reports and say, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”

Most people look for hot tips and the easy button while Buffett goes to the office and reads until he knows more than everyone else.

Decades of reading gave him better judgment than his competitors.

Here’s the weird part: nobody thinks reading is sexy. It’s boring. It’s slow. But Buffett turned the most boring activity into his biggest advantage.

The difference is important to know…

Squeezing In More

The best work earlier, longer, and more deliberately than everyone else.

Kobe designed his schedule to fit three training blocks into a day because most pros only managed two.
Buffett has read vastly more than the average investor for decades.

While a little talent is definitely helpful, the unfair advantage is how much of your life you turn into preparation that nobody else sees.

My Weekly System

I have a ritual I call “review-preview.”

Every week, I review the past week, then I preview my next two weeks. I go through every appointment on my calendar and ask two questions:

What can I do to prepare for this meeting?
If I had to replace this meeting with a memo, what would I write?

Then I write at least one page of notes or bullet points for each meeting. Sometimes it’s an agenda. Sometimes it’s the key points I need to cover. Sometimes it’s just my thinking on paper.

I store it in the calendar entry. When the meeting starts, I open it and it makes me feel ultra-prepared. Most importantly, it helps me to contribute in a way that makes everyone’s time useful.

I’d love for you to try it…

Pick one meeting this week.
Over prepare for it.
Show up with more research, more notes, more clarity than anyone else in the room.

Because…how you prepare shows how much you care.

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Who Wants to Spend a Dollar to Save 35 Cents?

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:35:16 GMT

Spending a dollar to save 35 cents is just losing 65 cents with extra steps.

But every December, business owners do this.

They scramble to buy things before year-end because their accountant says they’ll owe taxes. They prepay software they don’t need yet. They upgrade equipment that works fine. They buy things they wouldn’t touch at full price, but a 35% discount makes it feel smart.

For example: You spend $10,000 on something your business doesn’t need. You save $3,500 in taxes. You’re still out $6,500 in cash, plus implementation costs, plus the distraction of rolling out a tool your team isn’t ready for, plus a cash flow crunch in Q1.

A simple little strategy

Before you buy anything, ask one question: Would I buy this if it weren’t deductible?

If no, don’t buy it. If yes, buy it because the business needs it, not because it saves taxes.

Meaning, don’t let the tax tail wag the business dog.

Here are seven reasons why this works:

1. A deduction lowers your cost. It doesn’t eliminate it.

Most people think a write-off makes something free.

They hear “just write it off” and think the government pays them back. That’s not how it works. If you’re in a 35% tax bracket and spend $10,000, you save $3,500 in taxes. You’re still out $6,500.

2. Your accountant’s job is to minimizes taxes. If they are good.

If you have an exceptional accountant, he or she will scour to find you deductions.

They don’t question whether you should spend the money in the first place. When they say “buy X for the write-off,” they’re actually saying “spend 65 cents to save 35 cents” and they assume that you know what you are doing.

3. A discount on something you don’t need is still waste.

Here is a crude example: You wouldn’t spend $1,000 on a massage chair at full price, but you’ll spend it for a “tax write-off” even though It’s the same chair and the same money. You just tell yourself a different story.

A 35% discount on something you don’t need is 100% waste.

4. Spending for tax strategy feels smart, but it’s still just spending.

After thinking about why I used to do this, I came to this conclusion:

Spending money feels bad.
Spending for a “tax strategy” feels smart.

But then as I thought about it more, I realized that it’s the same spending with a different story.

The tax code gives you permission to spend. You mistake that permission for a recommendation.

5. December 31st is not a deadline to spend money.

If you are trying to do something on the last day of the year, there is a good chance you didn’t need to do it.

The year-end rush feels strategic because its an annual ritual. But in all fairness it is insanely emotional. You’re making rushed decisions to hit a deadline. Rushed decisions are bad decisions.

6. The order matters.

Try this sequence on for size…

Step one is decide if the business needs it.
Step two is buy it.
Step three is deduct it.

Never reverse the order. If you start with the deduction, you’re optimizing for the wrong thing.

7. You get rich by what you keep, not by what you spend.

Taxes are the biggest drag on wealth creation, but you don’t build wealth by finding ways to spend money before year-end.

You build it by keeping money and investing it back into the business or into a higher return vehicle.

Remember, don’t let the “tax tail” wag the “business dog”.

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How to Delete Your To-Do List and Still Get Everything Done

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 16:30:38 GMT

Most productivity tips tell you what to do at the exact time when you cannot do them.

I know this because (it feels like) I tried everything.

I bought fancy notebooks and filled them with ideas. I made giant lists where I wrote down every single thing in my head. I drew charts with boxes and arrows connecting my tasks. I even created point systems where I gave each task a number to figure out what mattered most.

Sometimes these things helped me feel better for a day or two, but then I woke up and felt just as stuck as I did the week before.

I don’t do those things anymore because I realized that having a plan is useful, but most planning methods ask you to do hard work at the worst possible time. When you feel buried and behind, most advice tells you to sit down and write everything out. This feels good while you are doing it because you think you are making progress. But you are really just writing down all your problems instead of solving them.

When you finish, the things stressing you out are still there waiting for you, and you just spent an hour describing them in more detail.

Here is what is crazier: Most experts say to dump everything from your brain onto paper and then score each item.

This gives you something to do and makes you feel busy, but it does not give you the one thing that actually makes you feel better, which is a next action that you can do right now to fix something.

I recommend stopping the habit of writing things down when you feel overwhelmed.

You do not need more homework when you are already drowning. When your mind is racing, your brain moves faster than your hand can write, and your fingers cannot keep up. That notebook you bought to help you actually becomes one more thing you have to deal with, which is the opposite of helpful.

Now that I am done bashing everything that doesn’t work, it’s only fair to tell you what I think does work.

I have found that two simple things work well when you feel buried. The first thing is moving your body a little bit, which calms you down and helps you think clearly. The second thing is talking out loud without anyone judging what you say, which lets you get thoughts out as fast as they come into your head. Now we can add something new, which is talking to an AI using voice mode on your phone. Think of it like having a smart assistant who works only for you and listens to everything without interrupting. You walk and talk while the AI listens to everything, organizes what you said, and then gives you back a short plan you can actually do.

One of the most difficult parts is sorting through the priorities of the projects on hand. Mainly because your mind pushes away tasks when it cannot figure out how long they will take. Tasks that feel too big and too vague make you want to avoid them, and big scary tasks never get done.

So instead of ranking which tasks matter most or deciding which ones are urgent, I suggest using one simple rule based on time. Every single thing you need to do should fit into one of three boxes, which are 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or 90 minutes.

If something does not fit into one of these three boxes, you can ask the AI to recommend a way to break it into smaller pieces so that it does fit. You should not have to figure this out yourself because if you could, you probably would have done it already. Let the AI do this work for you so that you always know whether something takes 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or 90 minutes.

Also, the reason I use 5 minutes as the shortest time box is because most of us are really good at underestimating how much time things actually take. It takes a minute to open your email, another minute to find the right address, a minute to write the message, a minute to proofread it, and a minute to send it correctly. I give myself enough time to do things right instead of rushing through them. When I spend 5 minutes on a short task, I take the time to do it correctly so there are no errors at all.

Also, lists can be never-ending… especially if you have a fancy task manager like Asana, Trello or Monday.

I originally started off with numerous lists like this week, next week, someday, on vacation, and on weekends. Then I realized that having so many lists was unhelpful and made me feel more stressed. I simplified my life to just two lists, and I want to recommend that you do the same, especially when you feel overwhelmed.

Here are the two lists: things to do next and things to do later. Every task goes into one of those two buckets. When a task involves another person, you can turn it into a 5-minute action where you send the email, make the call, or ask the question. Once you send that message, you are done with your part and you do not need to track whether they responded because you already closed your side of the loop.

So let’s bring this to life.

I suggest putting on your headphones and opening the AI voice app on your phone. Start walking for 20 minutes.
Before you start, tell the AI exactly what you need using these words:

Act like my assistant. I feel overwhelmed and I am going on a 20-minute walk. I am going to talk and you will write down everything without judging me.

Here are the rules:

1. Do not ask me to write anything down. I will not write, make charts, or create lists.
2. Put everything into only two lists: Do Next and Do Later.
3. Every item gets a time label: 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or 90 minutes.
4. If something does not fit these times, recommend a way to break it down until it does fit. Do not ask me to figure this out. You figure it out for me.
5. Anything involving another person becomes a 5-minute task: send the message, make the ask, or hand it off. After I do that, it is handled.
6. At the end, build my First 90 plan using items from Do Next. The plan must add up to exactly 90 minutes. You can use one 90-minute task, three 30-minute tasks, or a mix of 30-minute and 5-minute tasks that add up to 90 minutes. Then tell me the very first thing to do when I get home.

Start by asking me: what is weighing on me most right now.

Then start walking and start talking.

The AI will ask simple questions to help you figure out what to do. It will ask what the next actual thing you need to do is, whether you can do it in 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or 90 minutes, and if not, it will recommend a way to make it small enough to fit in one of those boxes.

If the task involves someone else, the AI will ask what the 5-minute message you need to send is.

The AI asks one question for each task without making you score things, rank your life, or answer deep questions about what matters because it just helps you turn stress into action.

When you finish your walk, the AI reads back two lists and one plan.

Do Next shows every item with a time label and a clear action you can take.
Do Later shows the same thing for tasks you will handle after today.
First 90 shows a 90-minute plan built from your Do Next list.
Then the AI asks one last question, which is what is the first action you will do when you get home. This question matters because it turns clear thinking into actual behavior instead of leaving you with just ideas.

While this may sound a little futuristic, you have to understand that Ai excels in tasks like this.

You do not have to sit at a desk and force yourself to think harder. You do not need a three-hour planning session. You do not have to play games with scores and points. You walk, you talk, you let it all out free.

The AI takes your jumbled thoughts and turns them into a short plan you can start doing today.

I encourage you to go take a walk and talk out loud about what is bothering you. When you get home, try doing one 5-minute action immediately. The weight will lift much faster than you think.

If you want to start right now, copy and paste the prompt from this article into your AI voice app and have it build a plan for you as your coach.

It’s pretty badass.

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What I Learned About Decisions Playing Tennis With Richard Branson

Sharran Srivatsaa — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:30:38 GMT

When I was living in the Caribbean teaching tennis, I got to play with Richard Branson on Necker Island.

This was right after we sold our first company. I took five years off to teach tennis in the Caribbean, Dubai, and Maui. That weekend with Branson stands out for two reasons: he was way better at tennis than I expected, and he had a story for everything.

He didn’t care about pithy definitions of words or perfect social media soundbytes that the modern TikTok-addicted world salivates over. He had this endless repository of stories to help you see the world differently without making you feel like an idiot.

Back to tennis… we’d just finished two sets of doubles. I’d been rehearsing a question for two hours. As he was taking a sip of his carrot juice, I finally asked him how he thought about making decisions.

Of course, he answered with a story. But that story came with a good point. He explained that every person makes decisions differently but the biggest mistake is not knowing your own process for making decisions.

As you can imagine, he was too much of a gentleman to put me on the spot and ask me for my decision making process, as clearly the reason I asked the question showed that I didn’t have one.

I spent the next year deconstructing how I make decisions in conversations, in meetings, or anytime the answer is not pre-made, like your favorite ice cream flavor.

Here is mine:

Understand the context
Isolate the issue
Accept the risk
Map the decision

While this is mostly self-explanatory, let me explain a few of the nuances for you.

First, amateurs just jump to attacking the issue while the pros know there are a lot of nuances at play.

You will see the best of the best zoom out and ask contextual questions to orient themselves with the overall situation. In fact, I like forcing myself to ask a context revealing question just to ensure I am tracking the situation well.

Then comes the skill of isolating the issue, which is also known as the constraint, that needs to be resolved.

This takes practice, reps and the development of the analytical eye, as this is extremely nuanced. And the more context you have, the less you hallucinate about the constraint.

The third component is where most people miss the beat and that is protecting the downside.

After working on wall street and running a public company, risk management gets drilled into your operating DNA. The untrained eye calls this judgment but in all practical respects this is understanding what the tradeoffs are and where things can go wrong, and then you accept it. Otherwise you get stuck in an eternal loop of second guessing yourself on whether you made a good decision.

And finally the job is to map the decision.

What did we actually decide? What are the next steps? If you can’t answer both clearly, you haven’t finished the decision.

If you hang with me, you will see that this is kinda hard-coded into how I think, work and communicate as it provides a starting point to make decent decisions.

Maybe you can use this framework. Maybe you have your own.

But I would take Branson’s advice and understand that the biggest mistake that you can make is not knowing your own process for making decisions.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, of course I let Branson win!

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Why Your Team Isn't Winning (And How to Fix It)

Sharran Srivatsaa — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 16:30:51 GMT

If you walked into the New England Patriots facility during Bill Belichick’s coaching tenure, you would see three words posted at the entrance: Do Your Job.

Just to be clear, I am not a New England Patriots fan.

But Belichick built a dynasty around that phrase. He won six Super Bowl titles, posted 14 straight winning seasons, and made 12 playoff appearances.

That’s pretty remarkable. And annoying if you are not a patriot’s fan.

Here is how he did it: He taught his team how to do their jobs.
Meaning, he told his quarterback exactly how long to stay in the pocket, where to look first, and who to throw to based on what the defense showed. He told his linebacker exactly when to blitz based on how the offense lined up.

Every player knew exactly what to do in every situation before the ball was snapped.

What is the business lesson here?

Most leaders do the opposite.

They hire people, give them vague instructions, and hope they figure it out.

Let’s say you tell an employee: “You need to be more visible because you are a leader in the company.”

They now have to guess what visible behavior looks like:

Should they speak up more in meetings?
Should they post on Slack?
Should they send more emails?

They do not know, so they try random things and hope you notice.

Spoiler: you don’t.

Six months later, you are frustrated because they still do not seem “visible” enough. They are frustrated because they tried and got no feedback. The relationship breaks down because neither of you explicitly discussed what success looked like.

No bueno.

That conversation should have sounded like this:

“I know your goal is to become a C-level leader in the next few years. For that, you have to learn to be visible. Let me tie this to your goal so you can see why this matters.

You are already managing client communications well. I have seen you coach your team in 1-1s. If you did these three things this quarter, I think it will get you to C-level faster:

First, show up on Slack. Use it as an internal platform to share your thoughts about the company weekly or recognize key individuals. Right now, the leadership team does not see your thinking. Slack is how you make your thinking visible to the people who will promote you.

Second, when there are group client calls and you are in charge, take control of the meeting up front. Introduce your team and make them feel like rock stars. Do not just say “here is Jenny, she will run finance for the project” and move on. Explain to the group why they are lucky to have Jenny. This shows the client you trust your team and it builds your team’s confidence at the same time.

Third, when big projects are done, write a summary of what happened. Use it as an opportunity to teach the company how the business works. If James stepped up by building a detailed flowchart that solved three weeks of work, explain what happened so people know you recognize and reward that behavior. This builds your reputation as a leader who develops people.”

The employee now knows exactly what to do, why its important, and how to win.

Isn’t that what we all want?

That conversation took five minutes. Now compare that to the six months you just lost hoping they would figure it out on their own.

Remember, you hired them so you could stop answering the same questions every week and start working on what only you can do. If you are always watching them, answering their questions, and fixing their mistakes, you are just adding more work to your plate.

Now, you are frustrated.

And they are more frustrated.

In fact, this is ultra-important because you are not just teaching this to one person. You are helping them learn a skill that they will carry into the organization.

Here’s what happens: when you give instructions this clear, you teach the next group of leaders to do the same for their teams.

Meaning, when you promote Sarah to become a VP, the first thing she does is write a three-page memo to her team on exactly what “owning a client relationship” means.

She modeled exactly what you showed her.

She did her job.

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