31. The 2,156 Day Problem

If I told you there was a way you could add six more years to your life, and I had other people that lined up and said, Yes, I did that. I did that. A lot of people proved that it was true. Would that interest you? Six years is about a little under 2,156 Fridays. Now, when I talk to people about working a four day work week, and how important that is, and what a big difference it can make in their life, very often there's this sense of, Well, wait, maybe someday I'll get there. There's this lack of a sense of urgency. I want to point out something to you that I hope you get. If you understand this, it'll put you in the class of those people who really are urgently looking to make a four day work week happen or a similar lifestyle. And until you get that sense of urgency, it's not going to happen. So this is a really critical piece to understand. I'm going to suggest there's at least a 2,156 day problem or opportunity, depending on how you look at things. I'm going to show you some average numbers for the United States.

The average US worker works 49 work weeks per year. 49 out of 52 weeks, they're working per year. That's 15 paid vacation and or sick days that they're doing. So most of the time, most weeks, they're working. And if I start at 18, which is the average working age in the United States, and retire at age 62, the average retirement age, that would be 44 years that I would have worked in my life. And if every one of those 49 weeks, there was a Friday that I worked, or perhaps didn't work, that would be 2,156 Fridays. Now, if you take 2,156 and divide it by 365, you'll reach this number here, which is just about six years worth of life. That's not six years worth of Fridays, that's six years worth of life, six extra years on the planet. Now, don't get me wrong, I like my work. I think work is noble. I think work is awesome. I think work is necessary. Unlike many people, I don't think people should ever fully retire because it isn't really natural. Turtles don't stop totaling. Dogs don't stop dogging or whatever word you want to put on that.

Animals do their thing and they keep being animals. They keep living until the day they die. The average male in the United States who retires is dead within two years. I didn't make that up. That's what's up. So the idea of the stopping of work is really not something that's really natural for us. And yet, all of the 44 years that we're going to work, or more, who says we have to be working every single day? Where's this magic number other than in history where we went from 60 hours to then 40 hours, and now some countries do 34 hours, 32 hours. If you look at some of the countries like Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, where they're working maybe 32, 34 hours a week, taking a lot more vacation and averaging higher average incomes than countries like the United States, we say it's not about the quantity of work, it's about the quality. Think about what could you or what will you do with 49 more Fridays every year with another six years of your life? This is not requiring you to eat tofu. If you don't like tofu, I happen to be a vegetarian, so I don't mind tofu.

But it doesn't require you to do some new exercise routine. It doesn't require you to do anything else. Here's the really cool part. These years are not added on to the end of your life when you're... I don't want to throw out a number there because who knows how long we're going to live? But when you're less healthy, this is all throughout your life, from 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. There's more to life. So if you can have more free time, more Fridays, there's more you can be doing, more you can be enjoying. But if you can't conceive of what you could be doing on those Fridays, if you can't think that, Wow, there's something that could be more for me, then you're not going to try. And if you're not going to try to get to a four day work week, it's not going to just happen. So I want you to just consider, what could you be doing if you had so much more time, even the extra day per week, just to relax and enjoy things? Because until you get excited about it, until you get charged about it, it's not going to happen.

But once you get charged about it and you're ready to take action, go to 4day gameplan. Com and I'll share with you for free a training video series and tools to teach you how to create your 4 day work week game plan. You've got to have some strategy to make this happen. Unless you're very fortunate or unless you're like a very small percentage of people, this is not going to happen automatically. You're going to have to intentionally choose this, you're going to have to make it happen. Here's the good news. You chose to get a job. You chose to perhaps make more money. You chose to study. You chose to finish school, whatever it might be. This is just something else to add of something I'm going to choose and I'm going to pursue. And if I do that, there's a good chance I'm going to succeed at it. I hope you find this helpful. If you have any questions on this, please let me know. As always, I look forward to helping you make more money in less time doing what you do best. Thank you.