Decades, not days

October 12th, 2025

Billionaires think in decades. You think in days. That's the gap.

It's not about intelligence or work ethic. It's about time horizon. When Bezos started Amazon, he wasn't optimising for next quarter's profits. He was building infrastructure that would dominate for the next 20 years. When Musk invested in SpaceX, he wasn't looking for a quick exit. He was betting on a future where humans are multiplanetary.

Meanwhile, most people are checking their portfolio every hour, panicking over 10% drawdowns, celebrating 2x gains like they've made it. The timeframe is completely wrong.

The problem with instant gratification:

Our generation has a serious problem with delayed gratification. We've been conditioned for instant everything. Instant replies. Instant delivery. Instant dopamine. You post something on social media and get feedback within minutes. You order food and it arrives in 30 minutes. You swipe right and match instantly.

This has completely destroyed our ability to wait, to be patient, to stick with something when there's no immediate payoff. And nowhere is this more obvious than in how people approach wealth.

Everyone wants to get rich, but nobody wants to wait 10 years. They want it now, this year, this month, preferably by the end of the week. So they chase shortcuts, look for hacks, gamble on lottery tickets disguised as investments.

And sometimes, especially in crypto, it works. Someone throws $1,000 into a memecoin and walks away with $100,000. Suddenly they think they've figured it out, that this is sustainable, that they're a genius.

Then they give it all back, because fast money leaves just as quickly as it arrives.

James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits. He uses the example of the British cycling team. In 2003, they'd won just one gold medal in 100 years. Then they hired Dave Brailsford, who implemented a philosophy of "aggregation of marginal gains". Instead of looking for one big breakthrough, he focused on improving every tiny detail by 1%. Better bike seats. Better tyres. Better nutrition. Better sleep. Better hand washing to reduce illness.

Nobody cared. It looked boring. It looked slow. But five years later, the British cycling team dominated the 2008 Olympics. Then they won the Tour de France in 2012. Then they kept winning. Not because of one big change, but because hundreds of tiny 1% improvements compounded over time.

That's the power of focusing on the system, not the goal. Most people set goals ("I want to make $1 million") and then get disappointed when it doesn't happen overnight. But people who build systems ("I will invest 20% of every paycheck, no matter what") end up hitting their goals without even thinking about them, because they're not chasing outcomes, they're following a process.

Crypto's trap:

Crypto is particularly brutal because it gives you a taste of wealth before you're ready for it. A 20-year-old can turn $5,000 into $500,000 in a single bull run. That's life-changing money. That's what their parents took 30 years to save. And they did it in six months.

But here's the problem: making money fast doesn't teach you how to keep it. It teaches you the opposite. It teaches you that money comes easily, that you can always make it back, that the next trade will be just as good as the last one.

So you don't take profits, you don't derisk, you keep swinging because you think you're invincible. Then the market turns. The memecoin you're holding drops 90%. The altcoin you were convinced would flip Bitcoin goes to zero. And suddenly that $500,000 is back to $50,000, or worse $5,000, or worse nothing.

I've seen this cycle play out dozens of times with smart people and talented traders. They make insane money in the bull market, then lose it all because they can't shift their mindset. They're still thinking in days and weeks when they should be thinking in years and decades.

Short-term thinking vs long-term wealth:

Here's the difference. Short-term thinkers optimise for the next hit, chasing the next 10x, the next narrative, the next rotation. They're constantly active, constantly trading, constantly trying to time everything perfectly. And sometimes it works, for a while.

Long-term thinkers optimise for survival first, then growth. They take profits, derisk, build positions they can hold through volatility. They're not trying to catch every move. They're trying to still be in the game five years from now.

The irony is that long-term thinking often makes you more money, because you're not giving back your gains, you're not getting liquidated, you're not panic selling at the bottom because you're overleveraged. You're compounding slowly and steadily whilst everyone else is on the emotional rollercoaster of boom and bust.

How to actually get rich:

Getting rich isn't about finding the perfect trade. It's about not losing. It's about staying in the game long enough for compounding to work. Because compounding is the most powerful force in wealth creation, but it requires time. And most people don't give it time.

Let's say you start with $10,000 or $100,000. If you can consistently grow that at 30% per year (which is very achievable in crypto if you're not gambling), here's what happens:

Year $10,000 $100,000 $250,000
Year 1 $13,000 $130,000 $325,000
Year 2 $16,900 $169,000 $422,500
Year 3 $21,970 $219,700 $549,250
Year 5 $37,129 $371,293 $928,232
Year 7 $62,748 $627,484 $1,568,710
Year 10 $137,858 $1,378,585 $3,446,462
Year 15 $510,136 $5,101,364 $12,753,410
Year 20 $1,890,335 $18,903,349 $47,258,372
Year 25 $7,002,275 $70,022,749 $175,056,872
Year 30 $25,951,896 $259,518,956 $648,797,391

Based on 30% annual compound growth. This isn't hitting one 100x memecoin. Not timing the exact bottom and top. Just consistent, patient growth.

Compound Growth Calculator:

That's the power of compounding. But nobody wants to hear that. Because it's boring. Because it takes time. Because it doesn't make for a good Twitter thread.

But you know what's more boring? Being broke in 30 years because you gambled everything on short-term plays and lost it all.

The billionaire mindset:

Billionaires aren't smarter than you, they just think differently. They're playing a different game. When you're thinking about what to buy this week, they're thinking about what industries will dominate in 2035. When you're worried about this quarter's returns, they're building infrastructure that will compound for decades.

Warren Buffett's net worth at age 50 was $376 million. At age 60, it was $3.6 billion. At age 90, it was over $100 billion. Most of his wealth was created after he turned 60. Because that's how compounding works. It's slow at first, then it explodes. But only if you give it time.

The same principle applies in crypto. The people who got genuinely wealthy from Bitcoin weren't the ones trading it every week. They were the ones who bought it, held it, and didn't touch it for years. They weren't smarter. They were just more patient.

Breaking the cycle:

So how do you break out of short-term thinking? How do you train yourself to think in decades when everything around you is screaming for immediate action?

First, you have to recognise that the game you're playing is rigged against patience. Social media rewards hot takes. Markets reward activity (through fees and spreads, not performance). Your brain rewards instant dopamine. Everything is pushing you towards short-term thinking.

Second, you have to deliberately build systems that force long-term behaviour. Take profits and move them off exchange. Set rules for position sizing that prevent you from going all-in on any single trade. Create automatic rebalancing that forces you to sell winners and buy losers. Make it harder to trade on impulse.

Third, you have to change your reference points. Stop comparing yourself to the person who made $1 million in a week. Compare yourself to the person who's still in the game after 10 years. Stop celebrating 10x gains if you're going to give them back. Celebrate the gains you actually keep.

Fourth, zoom out. Look at charts on the monthly timeframe, not the 15-minute. Think about where you want to be in 2030, not next month. Ask yourself: "Will this decision matter in five years?" If the answer is no, it's probably not worth the stress.

The brutal truth:

Most people won't do this. Most people will keep chasing short-term dopamine hits, gambling on memecoins, overleveraging, giving back their gains. And in 10 years, they'll be exactly where they are now, or worse.

Because the uncomfortable truth is that getting rich slowly is the only reliable way to get rich at all. The fast path is a lottery ticket. Sometimes you win, most of the time you lose. And even when you win, you usually lose it all because you don't know how to keep it.

The people who actually make it and build lasting wealth aren't the ones making the flashiest plays. They're the boring ones, the patient ones, the ones thinking in decades whilst everyone else is thinking in days.

Final thoughts:

Crypto introduces you to more money faster than almost any other market in history. You can go from $1,000 to $100,000 in months. That's the opportunity. But it's also the trap. Because fast money tricks you into thinking wealth is easy. It's not. Wealth is simple (buy, hold, compound) but it's not easy (because it requires patience).

The question isn't whether you can make money. In a bull market, everyone makes money. The question is whether you can keep it, whether you can resist the urge to keep gambling, whether you can shift from short-term thinking to long-term wealth building.

Billionaires think in decades. If you want to build real wealth, you need to do the same. Not because it's exciting or makes for good content, but because it's the only thing that actually works.

Related:

↩ Back to Blog