TheVelleman

Hi everyone. Welcome to TheVelleman; my name is Patrick and you have arrived at your go-to spot where you can hear first hand how to develop the behavioral characteristics to facilitate material and mental wealth creation. Episode number 3! I am testing out a new microphone I got which initially didn’t work but turns out to work no problem. I also have asked for some feedback from friends and have added a bit more structure to the entire setup, explaining the context of my podcast as well as adding some clear breakpoints as well as some auditory breaks in between sentences. My goal is for someday to make this podcast interactive as there are a billion people out there with interesting perspectives and clear thoughts on the topics I discuss. For now, you will have to do with my monologues which I hope to offer value somewhere along the way. I have a passion for both material and mental wealth creation and believe to a large extent that both material and mental wealth go hand in hand, a balance that can be maintained but which can be distorted too. They are both hard to attain. That’s the throughline of all my podcasts. This specific podcast revolves all about the questions I asked at the end of episode 2. “what do you enjoy and what are you good at?”. We look at why they aren’t as straightforward as you may think and what you can do to actually answer them, to the best of your conscious ability Would be great to hear feedback but especially additional thoughts on the topic, so feel free to leave me a voice message. You can do so by clicking on the link in the description. I hope last week’s exercise went well. And I would like to reflect on that a little bit before we get into this week’s topic. This very very simple exercise was the following. Ask yourself, what do you enjoy and what are you good at?. This may come across as a very simplistic approach to some of you. However, I am sure there is a majority of people out there who simply don’t dare to admit to themselves what they enjoy or simply don’t know what they are good at. That combination can cause incremental amounts of discontent. You could be a lawyer getting paid top dollar who actually prefers to make cupcakes You could be a procrastinating writer who never finishes one story but always works overtime at your call center job. The question remains that if we know what it is we enjoy doing, what is holding us back from pursuing it? and why would we deny ourselves enjoyment? Now that ladies and gentlemen is a complicated topic with all kinds of psychological incentives, motivations, and other reasons. --------- I am writing this episode in a google doc, which I can sync over all my devices, Afterwards, I am going to record using a free app, to productive myself (as Naval puts so eloquently), at reasonably low effort. Obviously I am using a skill I have spent many years developing, which is writing. You will have a skill of your own. You can use gazillion tools, to manage time, learn languages, learn to code, or build an online or physical business. All I am trying to indicate is there are endless possibilities to reframe your current work/life/Zumba balance. If you think about it long and hard enough you will find away. Again, you will have to put in all the work. If you would like some specific tips as to how to literally work smarter, let me know so I can jot some down for you. I believe a lot in self-discovery and learning through self as the most long-lasting and deep founded method of learning. If I felt unoriginal I would say something like “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. So the question itself, “How do I work smarter?” should pose enough internal ruckus to learn from and to start a small self-discovery journey. Doing what you love is not only reserved for the privileged; if you search long enough. leverage doesn’t discriminate.

TL;DL - Get Rich Quick belongs to a land of fairytales. Generally, it would be fair to assume that we are lazy by nature and if we could get access to lots of assets and wealth using an extremely low amount of effort, we would rather do that. Not because we don’t want to put in the effort. We are just so preprogrammed for failure that we rather make a half-assed calculated bet and feel semi-ok about failure that we anticipated than go all-in on 1000 percent and “fail miserably”, truly expecting the jackpot. -------------------------------------- Hi everyone, Welcome to episode number 2. My name is Patrick, creator of TheVelleman where we discuss wealth and wealth creation in the broadest sense but most definitely related to the required behavior to attain it. In no particular order, I will discuss topics revolving around improvement of self, which isn’t in any way guidelines for self-improvement. A rule I live by is “listen to everyone and ignore everyone”. So the same goes for my own content. I love taking in all kinds of content from all kinds of people and sources to let that sit for a while, mingle to then form some of my own clear thoughts. Feel free to do the same with my content. As you can see the title of this episode is Get rich quick: a how-to guide. I need to apologize in advance as this served the sole purpose of luring you in. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you knew it was bullshit beforehand, and you just wanted to listen to what he BS was about. But for those who truly thought they were going to hear some audio gold which makes all of your problems disappear by magic, this clickbait title shows how a lot of all that content out there which promises you eternal riches and passive income only works because it lures you in under a false pretense and sells you BS. This may seem obvious but we all fall victim to lazy plans, so to speak. Lazy plans which elicit lazy action. We want the reward, but we generally don’t want to put in the work. We choose the easy way out because you know, failure, self-esteem, procrastination and every other psychological excuse we make up or our minds make up for us. Buying a lottery ticket is the laziest get rich quick scheme of all. But we still buy one, I have bought one many times. As with my writing, I love living by “less is more”, keep it simple stupid and writing in an overall concise tone and structure. The more you practice simplicity, the better you become at keeping it simple. In return, you get a lot of inspiration and valuable content to work with. So I’ll leave you with a very simple exercise. Ask yourself, what do you enjoy and what are you good at? Reflect on it. Write it on a (digital) note. Set a daily reminder in your Todoist list or Google Keep. Just having these two questions roam around your mind is enough to reflect at a moment when you have some peace and quiet. It’s an active process so you will need to approach it actively. After all, we all know by now, that anything passive more often than not, leads to absolutely nothing. And getting rich quick is the last thing you will ever do. In my work today I am still earning with my time and even though I know that renting out my time will not generate infinite wealth, I do have an exponentially larger amount of mental wealth. I have made an enormous leap in my level of wealth freedom, I determine my rate, my time, my pace; I have gotten more autonomy in return. Thanks for listening to episode number 2! Feel free to leave any feedback or any thoughts as to your perspective on wealth (both material and mental) creation.  You can find me on https://twitter.com/patrickvelleman. I will be doing these micro snippets more frequently. If you enjoyed this podcast, I hope you will stick around for episode 3 which will be all about working smarter, not harder .

TL;DL - A short introduction to who I am and what I intend to share with you guys and Girls. On why I intend to do micro podcasts and why I have a healthy fascination for Naval Ravikant (who you can follow https://nav.al/). A short elaboration on how my fascination with the concept of working independently of location has led me to where I want to be! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- So a little backstory. Ever since I have been living in Greece, which is a little over 5 years now, I have become ever more fascinated with the concept of working independently of location, independent of the social climate. Not being dependant on the next best idiotic legislation and simultaneously enjoying accountability. For the simple reason that this allows for a lot of freedom to do what I want and when I want. That’s how I define wealth, not through riches, even though I really would like some material stuff, but as a means to an end to be free of someone else’s tyranny. that may sound dramatic but sometimes working for an employer can feel that way. Until the point, you drug yourself with that monthly income and tell yourself it “ain’t all that bad”. Obviously this transition into a life less limited hasn’t come instantly. As the cliche goes I had to eat shit for a considerable amount of time and try my luck at a few things which I might have known beforehand wouldn’t be successful. There are many reasons why this attempt at becoming reliant on no one else but self becomes very successful in the end, as long as you are patient enough. I learned the hard way, but this way has also proven to be most fruitful, by trial and error. Funnily enough, I didn’t get a real confirmation of the fact I was headed in the right direction. My real confirmation came from listening to Naval Ravikant, who for those who don’t know, is a self-made billionaire who offers incredible insights into wealth creation and developing the mindset and behavioral characteristics of someone who can keep that wealth; in the material and metaphysical sense. Which is rare as he seems to have mastered the best of two worlds, that of wealth and that of mental health. Which is that real good-good wealth of course. Anyway. Whilst listening to naval I realized I was already or had already put his observations into practice. I will put his blog, which includes a transcript of all of his podcasts in the description. Because more people should and could use a little reaffirmation as to what they are doing on a developmental level, I thought it would be a good idea to create this podcast and eternalize my thoughts, or slightly more modest, possibly help someone out. My main focus, for now, will be “dissecting Naval”; not per se because his topics need a whole load of explaining. However, it does deserve it. But predominantly because Naval covers topics that need to be researched if you have any desire for combining accountability with self-reliance. And in doing so you might have a mild desire to explore what is really being said when Naval states: Earn with your mind, not your time”. One doesn’t simply get so-called Fuck you money, one accumulates it slowly through a set of character traits that everyone wants but most of us seem to lack. Of all things we can master on this planet for our own good, behavioral change is not one that comes easily. Actually it comes as one of the hardest. For a million psychological and existential reasons.  Thanks for listening to episode number 1! Feel free to leave any feedback or any thoughts as to your perspective on wealth (both material and mental) creation.  You can find me on https://twitter.com/patrickvelleman. I will be doing these micro snippets more frequently.