What do you want?

It’s the most basic of questions, underlying the motivations behind everything we do in life and business. What’s it all for? Why are we striving to make our businesses successful? What’s the point of profit?

For all of us, the money isn’t the answer. It’s the means to achieve the answer.

That said, we shouldn’t abandon all thoughts of quantifying our personal definition of success. No, money can’t buy happiness. But it can give you the freedom and resources to do whatever it is that does make you happy. That’s a quantity worth calculating. How much money, exactly, do you need to live the life you want?

Do you want to travel? Support a family? Drive your dream car? Order the appetizer? Whatever it is, there’s a number attached to it. The life of your choosing can’t be defined by money, but it can be enabled by a concrete number.

On today’s podcast, Omar introduces a life/business planning exercise by which you can nail down your personal number. Using this simple but thoughtful process, you can legitimately determine what the life you want will cost— and start moving towards it.

This isn’t about dreaming. This exercise is an act of doing.

By quantifying the key to your goals, you enable yourself to take concrete steps towards attaining them. In fact, after you do the math, you may find that your goals aren’t as far off as you think!

Too many people define their life goals to broadly, carrying nebulous ideas of how much money they need. Yes, we all want to be “wealthy” or even just “comfortable.” But we can do better than that. We can define what specifically we want, and work out a realistic price tag.

Doing this exercise can radically alter your approach to business. By defining your personal goals in terms of exact numbers, you can focus your business goals on achieving those numbers. The number is a bridge between your dreams and your reality. By seeing your business is the means to cross it, your focus intensifies.

It’s not about making the most money; it’s about making the right amount. By plotting an actionable path to your goals, you can achieve what too many people in business forget about: working to live, instead of living to work. Find out how.

Special thanks to all our listeners as we celebrate this, our 900th episode! It’s a good one: Click play at the top of the page!

I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi