Ever see Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs wearing a Rolex these days? If you pay attention when these guys speak, you'll notice they all wear smart watches. More and more CEOs are ditching their fancy watches for smart watches.
Now, before I begin telling you a story with a powerful lesson, I want you to know that Fitbit did not pay me to write this. I do not know a single Fitbit employee or spokesperson. This article is not an advertisement but it is a 100 percent full endorsement.
I love a company who under-promises and over-delivers. It's extremely rare to find that these days.
Matter of fact, most of us are so used to being let down, that when something highly exceeds our expectations, we become raving fans. I'm writing this as a raving fan of Fitbit.
Last year, on my 37th birthday, my wife bought me a Fitbit Alta. It's a smaller version of the original Fitbit. I was gaining a little weight and I wanted to track my daily footsteps so I could make sure I was moving around enough each day. At the time, I worked from home so besides my workouts, I didn't have far to walk. From the kitchen to the study is about 40 steps in my house.
I put the Alta on, read the instructions and got it in sync with my iPhone. On the instructions, it said something about it not being water-resistant and to keep it dry other than sweat. The Alta is so light that I would forget I had it on while I was taking a shower. I swim laps at my local gym and one day, I realized I had swum over 500 meters with my Alta on.
I talk with my hands a lot and I hate the way heavy watches feel on my left hand. After all, watches like Rolex and the like are nice, but they are not practical today. They are heavy and the time and date are right on the lock screen of every phone in the world. The need for a nice timepiece is outdated. I'm surprised bracelets haven't become more popular since time is not the primary reason people own a watch.
I once watched a man choose a $600 Apple Watch over a $10,000 Rolex as a gift prize.
I asked the man why he didn't take the Rolex, sell it and buy 10 Apple Watches. He said, "I already have a Rolex that I don't want, or wear, but this Apple Watch does what I need a watch to do." I'm the CEO of six different companies and his statement resonated with me, even though I choose an Alta over an Apple Watch. (I love simplicity and minimalism).
I've worked in sales my entire life. I've seen a lot of guys wear nice watches. I've been a mortgage loan officer, a real estate salesperson, a car salesman and more. Salespeople love watches. They also like to spend money on stupid stuff. As an example, the average car salesman makes $70,000 a year and they wear a $5,000+ dress watch? The math doesn't add up.
Look, I'm not here to bash nice watches. There's a lesson in this story. You just gotta drop the bias and hear me out. What I'm about to say to you is real talk, whether you want to hear it or not. Maybe you don't work in sales, maybe you're a W2 wage earner. What I'm sharing applies whether we're talking about Rolex watches, Louboutin shoes or Gucci bags.
We live in a time where celebrities march for equal rights with Louis Vuitton shoes on to prove they are better than everyone around them. It makes zero sense to pay $10,000 for a piece of metal to give you the same information you get for free on your phone. You don't even need phone service to see the time and date on any phone.
I earn multiple seven figures in gross income annually. I wear an $80 Fitbit as a watch.
My Fitbit Alta tells me calories burned, footsteps taken, miles walked, time, date, day of the week and how many minutes I was active in the last 24 hours. It looks nice; it's inconspicuous and no one is gonna rob me of my Alta on the street corner. Most people think it's just a baller band-type bracelet.
I've taken this Alta to Puerto Rico surfing, wave riding in The Dominican Republic, surfing in California, swimming in Florida, wakesurfing in Texas and longboarding in Costa Rica. I've covered it in suntan oil, dirt, mud, salt water, spilled drinks, baby throw up, and so much more. Yet it still looks as new as the day I opened the package.
I can wear a suit and speak on stage and my Alta fits right in. The same goes for when I'm wearing a t-shirt. Wear a vintage t-shirt and a Rolex, and you'll look like a fool trying to impress people with a metallic timekeeper from archaic times. Come out of the club at night and walk down the streets of some of the places I travel to with a nice watch and you're a target. You wear an Alta and no one even glances twice.
Not to mention the biggest reason I choose to wear a Fitbit over a Rolex, which is the fact that I can't afford it. Yep, that's right, I'm a multi-multi-multi-millionaire and I buy houses for cash but I can't afford a Rolex. I personally don't believe I'm prosperous enough to blow $10,000 or more on something I can only wear on special occasions, and that serves no true purpose for me or those in my alignment other than vanity.
Most of my millionaire friends wear Fitbits and Apple Watches, too. They feel the same way. When you're so rich you can throw thousands of dollars away on a piece of jewelry, you usually don't want to. Most of the people I know who own Rolexes and other expensive watches are financing them, or it's the only thing they own. I know a lot of car salesmen who own a Rolex but rent an apartment.
The cost of the watch could have been a down payment on a home—an appreciating asset.
I've been in countless board meetings and masterminds. Never once in my career have I heard a CEO or decision-maker say, "Did you see his watch? Let's do business with that guy." Never once. But I have heard: "Did you see that guy's watch? He's clearly either making too much money or he's a bad decision-maker with his finances. We should probably stay away from him."
You see, "the man" wants you to finance watches, put expensive bags on your credit cards, run up your student debts, buy bottle service at the club and all that so you'll have to keep working because you've blown all your income. Smart people like me, see through that and now, after reading this article, you get to make a choice. A choice in whether you agree with me, that nice watches are a waste and smart watches are better, or that I'm just jealous that I don't have a nice watch! Either way, you can't ignore the point I'm making here about money.
Think about all the expensive watches, shoes, clothes, purses and everything you buy and then ditch after a year or so. Imagine if you saved or invested that money over the course of 10 years. Let's say you spend only $5,000 a year on luxury items. By cutting that out, you could have compounded your annual money to around $75,000 at the end of the decade.
Would you rather have nice shoes now or $75,000 cash in 10 years?
I'll close with this. The other day I was speaking with two millionaires about investment deals. These guys have a combined net worth of almost nine figures. They were laughing about a banker they knew who had a Rolex and they both wore smart watches. They said once they saw that he had a nice watch on, they knew they could negotiate more because he was already making bad personal financial decisions, so bad decisions on behalf of the bank were inevitable. Meanwhile, I bet that banker thought his metallic time telling contraption impressed his clients.
Don't be a sucker. Spend your money wisely. AI is coming and you'll wish you had bought real estate and assets versus material things that truthfully no one but poor people even care about.