Look back at the left side
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
Yesterday I had a meeting with Alan. He casually switched to a slide: a set of figures from The Star about retirement life after 60.
If you want RM10k a month in passive income after retiring, at a conservative 3% return you need to have made RM3.9 million. If you want RM100k a month, the number is RM39.06 million.
How much is a lot or a little differs from person to person. But Alan shared the perspective behind these numbers.
In the startup world, we're far too used to staring at the "right side". The right side is the result: the astronomical figures, the tens or hundreds of millions that send adrenaline surging. We talk about IPOs, the Fortune 500, strings of zeros too long to count. But very few people are willing to slow down and look at the "left side".
What is the left side? It's the real entry point to life, the floor price of the closed loop that leads to your ideal life.
Alan mentioned a friend of his. Worth billions, he won the money game long ago. Yet he still goes all in like crazy, and a small flicker in the market keeps him awake all night, as anxious as a new apprentice. Alan asked him what he actually wanted. He said he wanted to be stronger than the richest man.
When desire has no structure, it becomes a black hole that swallows time.
Many founders set goals with a strange kind of obsession. We treat an IPO as the finish line and the Fortune 500 as a medal, forgetting that these are only by-products of solving certain problems. If the goal is just "more", money won't solve your problems. It will bring new disasters.
Entrepreneurship itself is a kind of practice. It breaks dry business logic down into the living texture of everyday life. We sprint through it, yet often forget to ask: how much do I actually need?
Most people's pain comes from wanting the result on the right without ever working out the cost on the left.
If we can't define "enough", we can never be free. At its core, entrepreneurship should be about trading time for control over your life, not being swallowed by desire and ending up as a balance sheet full of numbers and no warmth.
Look back at the left side. See your needs clearly, so you don't lose yourself on the road to the right.