If you like the TV Show “Billions,” you’ll love the book “Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue” by Ryan Holiday.
Seriously, this is a great book and it highlights the secret strategies Peter Thiel used to take down Gawker. The book is really a course on strategy, patience and perseverance.
To summarize, Peter Thiel is a billionaire. Back in 2007, a Gawker-owned website wrote an article calling out Thiel for being gay. Thiel was so upset for his loss of privacy that he vowed to take down Gawker. He spent the next few years thinking about the best way to extract revenge and in 2012 finally took action. He assembled a small legal team that he directed to find a legal opening he could secretly use to sue Gawker.
As luck would have it, Gawker soon published a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with his friends’ wife. Gawker didn’t have Hogan’s permission to publish the video. Gawker also didn’t own the video and didn’t have the copyright on the video.
Thiel’s team funded a massive lawsuit for Hogan to sue Gawker. When the dust settled Hogan won a $141 million dollar judgment, which forced Gawker into bankruptcy.
The book includes so many valuable ideas for us to consider. One of the most important ideas is the commitment Thiel displayed toward his goal to shut down Gawker:
- All combined, Thiel devoted almost 10 years toward his goal to get revenge on Gawker. 10 YEARS!
- He invested approximately $10 million to fund his mission. In fact, he “spared no expense” in this quest.
- He was very strategic and calculated with everything he did. He didn’t wing anything. His plan was executed brilliantly. Thiel is estimated to be worth $2 billion, and the book easily demonstrates why he’s a billionaire. You aren’t going to become a billionaire without the skills that Theil demonstrated with this one goal.
Compare just what I’ve shared about Theil to how the average person operates. The average person can’t even consistently save for retirement. Just look at the retirement savings statistics for the average adult and you’ll be shocked.
The average person doesn’t have any major goals they’re working towards.
If the average person actually does have a goal, they don’t stay committed toward this goal for long. They typically quit at the first sign of trouble. How long does the average person keep working on their New Years Resolutions?
The average person wants everything right now. They have zero patience. Thiel thought, planned and schemed for YEARS
Our Cashflownaire Plan has three sequential steps. These steps are:
- Create a minimum monthly positive cashflow equal to double your monthly living expenses.
- Use 50% of your positive cashflow to pay off ALL of your debt.
- Once you’re debt free, use 50% of your cashflow to build financial fortress for your family.
This isn’t extremely complicated, but it does require a Thiel-like mindset. It does require that you set three big goals. It does require strategy, planning and execution. It also requires a great deal of patience, discipline and resourcefulness.
However, not too many people have the capability to handle any of these steps. They simply give up without much of a fight allowing their excuses to rule their world.
The crazy part about all of this is that Thiel’s mission didn’t really improve the quality of his life. Sure, it made him feel better and had a positive impact on how the media operates, but his day-to-day life remained the exact same after accomplishing this one goal.
My Cashflownaire Plan WILL dramatically improve the quality of your life because you’ll find yourself in the glorious Position of F#@k You. The good news is… you don’t have to operate in complete secrecy like Theil did unless you want to! You don’t need to hire a team of lawyers. You don’t need to invest $10 million like Thiel did, and you may be able to accomplish all three Cashflownaire steps in the next seven to ten years.
Here’s an awesome quote from Holiday’s book:
“It is always revealing to see how a person responds to those situations where he’s told: “There’s nothing you can do about it. This is the way of the world.”
Peter Thiel’s friend, the mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, has a category of individual he defines as “high agency person.”
How do you respond when told something is impossible? Is that the end of the conversation or the start of one? What’s the reaction to being told you can’t – that no one can?
One type accepts it, wallows it in even. The other questions it, fights it, rejects it. The choice defines us.”
As Cashflownaires, we MUST be high-agency people. We must thrive when we’re told something can’t be done. We do not allow ourselves to quit, and we won’t settle accepting excuses for not doing what we said we were going to do.
When I tell you to get off the couch and go create $10,000 to $20,000 of monthly cashflow, don’t say to yourself “that’s impossible, Rob! It can’t be done here.” B.S. It certainly can be done. You just won’t do it.
When I ask you to pay off all of your debt, do not allow yourself to think, “I’ll never be debt-free, Rob!” It’s not possible. B.S. It certainly can be done. You just won’t do it.
Anytime you start to have doubts, think about Peter Thiel.
Think about the commitment he made to a non-life changing goal. If he can do that, you can certainly fight your way into the Glorious Position of F#@k You.
I can tell you, without a shadow of doubt, that you can become a Cashflownaire. In order to become a Cashflownaire, you will have to reject any and all limitations in your life. This will include rejecting all either/or choices. You can always have BOTH choices.
Starting back in 2007, Thiel started talking privately to close friends, sharing that he wanted to fight back. Everyone he talked to told him that Gawker was bulletproof. That it would be impossible to fight Gawker because they could simply print whatever they wanted on their website, inflicting further damage to him.
Thiel basically said, “B.S. I Won’t Agree To That Limitation” and proceeded to destroy Gawker when everyone else said it couldn’t be done.
Back to the Holiday’s book…
“Our tendency to shy away from the truth creates a profound ignorance of how things really work, and what it means to be strategic, to be powerful, and to try and shape events rather than simply be shaped by them…. Conspiracy entails determined, coordinated action, done in secret – always in secret – that aims to disrupt the status quo or accomplish some aim.”
The conspiracy we work is to disrupt the status quo of our lives. To stop being average. To stop trading our lives away for money. To design our lives to be exactly how we want them to be.
Oddly enough, Thiel’s plan was to invest into Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit. As the case moved forward, he realized this was a very profitable investment opportunity and ended up creating “Legalist,” a company dedicated to bankrolling lawsuits with a high probability of winning. In other words, he found financial opportunity in adversity!
