Thread: Advice to a younger person

Im more of a lurker than a poster but being not much holder than you (22), and a life long entrepreneur, I'll share my advice.

I believe you already feel this way since you are posting here, but you are different then everybody else. There is nothing wrong with planning for your future -- Its good to do. When I was your age my friends played mainstream video games and I was busy maximizing my tax revenue in Simcity.

My advice, get your failures out of the way. Your parents give you a roof, and food. Spend every dollar you can on small businesses you can run, mowing lawns, pedaling candy at school, etc. If you're parents are like mine they'll tell you, you are wasting money, but the reality is you're learning a lot that will benefit your business career down the road.

As far as college, I'd recommend going for an accounting degree. Just an associates (2yr). This will give you some skills to manage your funds effectively and a decent fallback if you ever get into a tight spot and need to work a job. I would also recommend dual enrollment or some integrated high school/community college. You might be able to get your associates at the same time you graduate high school.

This guy started before you did: Thomas Suarez: A 12-year-old app developer | Video on TED.com

There is another kid named Mat Carpenter in Australia that made a few hundred thousand dollars ($700k if I remember correctly) selling imitation iPods on eBay when he was 17. I can't find the link to that one though. Start now!

Originally Posted by collegeweb

As far as college, I'd recommend going for an accounting degree. Just an associates (2yr).

Nobody can answer this question but you. You'll get 20 different answers from 20 different people.

What I recommend: (My personal opinion, if you don't like it, well who cares )
Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune.
Your taught in school to be an employee. Those who cannot do, teach.

-18 years old, been in business for 5 years. Dropped out at age 15 and considered successful by today's standards.


-This is only my personal opinion, do not drop out foolishly thinking it's easy.




P.S.

Originally Posted by wilson.patrick

Your SO cool aren't you??? stupid motherfucker think you can just laugh in my face and get away with it? i dont put up with stupid people like you. I have entreprenual skills that amount to the same skills that you have! yeah i may be young and you might have more money then i do but by reading some of your posts on her you dont seem to be a very successful person. just sayin'

Look at what you just wrote in 3 years, you'll wonder who that guy is.

Your taught in school to be an employee. Those who cannot do, teach.

Some do it to give value back. They want to teach people coming up what they have learned. If this is through formal education or not should not matter much. MJ teaches too, in his fastlane book. If he would give a workshop or a class at school, would u not attend just because it's 'formal education?

I am not really sure how I feel about your first statement. I don't even think you get to learn how to be an employer through school. Stuff you 'have to' learn, is most of the time not something u can use at the working place. All school does is giving you a diploma so you can prove you have a certain degree of thinking ability. Do you need an education to become rich? No. Obviously not.
But isn't it nice to have a back up plan? If you are working on your own business, would u rather have a salary of 3k-10k a month while working on your business, or 2k or less? I don't know what you earn at burger king but it's probably not much.

Reality is that if you want to have a good salary the company will ask you for your diplomas. Do you think thats how it works? Wouldn't it be better to have a back up plan? What if that back up plan isn't even that bad?

Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune.

Nice quote

Originally Posted by Skys

Some do it to give value back. They want to teach people coming up what they have learned.

Yep, I do like to help the kids.

Originally Posted by Skys

Some do it to give value back. They want to teach people coming up what they have learned. If this is through formal education or not should not matter much. MJ teaches too, in his fastlane book. If he would give a workshop or a class at school, would u not attend just because it's 'formal education?

I am not really sure how I feel about your first statement. I don't even think you get to learn how to be an employer through school. Stuff you 'have to' learn, is most of the time not something u can use at the working place. All school does is giving you a diploma so you can prove you have a certain degree of thinking ability. Do you need an education to become rich? No. Obviously not.
But isn't it nice to have a back up plan? If you are working on your own business, would u rather have a salary of 3k-10k a month while working on your business, or 2k or less? I don't know what you earn at burger king but it's probably not much.

Reality is that if you want to have a good salary the company will ask you for your diplomas. Do you think thats how it works? Wouldn't it be better to have a back up plan? What if that back up plan isn't even that bad?



Nice quote

There is always an exception to the rule, and there are some great teachers out there that have made billions and give back. However, that's the exception.

As far as having a back up plan, having a plan b is preparing for plan A to fail. Not saying it's not going to fail but I can never work for someone else. I tried it for 2 days and felt trapped, just wanted to see what it was like.

& what % of graduates actually get a job that they were "supposed" to get after college? Making 3-5k a month is really simple if you just buy low, sell high and work your ass off.

-It's all my personal opinion though

Hey Patrick, welcome aboard. I would make a list of the best entrepenuers in your area and CALL them, introduce yourself just as you did above and say something along the lines of: would it be possible during two months of the summer that I shadow you at your job and be your errand boy? I can make copies, fetch things and so on, but what I really want to do is learn things they are not teaching in schools on how to start businesses, and manage small teams. I will conduct myself in a professional manner at all times, and would like to have the experience of seeing how it works.

See if that can get you anywhere, just one yes from one of these guys will be worth more than a couple of years at college.

If I was you I wouldn't get too caught up in planning yet. You are only 15 and haven't even finished school. Don't plan your entire future yet; because you will quickly realise that life changes.

My suggestion is you try as many things as you can. Do volunteering in your spare time if you have to. And always push yourself out of your comfort zone and never feel afraid to fail. Never.

For now just start to think about little ventures that can make you money and start putting them into practise.

As you gain more experience with people/school/jobs you will find out yourself what you want to do and where you want to go.

And lastly don't get in with the wrong crowd. Most kids are short sighted. They follow their friends through school, to the same university and just don't think. You don't need to go to university to be successful. You will learn a lot more by getting out into the real world early.

Hee Patrick, welcome! I am just 20 years olds myself, but I can relate to your post, because I've been having the same sort of ideas at your age. Back then, I did not get any advice because I didn't talk about it with other people, I wish I had. Luckily I changed over time. I can give you some advice on what I learned in the five years that have passed since I was 15, hopefully it will help you some.

Try, try and try again and let nobody ever stop you! There are going to be people, especially at your age, who are going to say you are too young, too unexperienced and your goals are unrealistic. If you follow their advice, you will most probably end up just like them! Don't let them demotivate you! Believe in yourself! Dream big, take the first step and be excited! You will fail a lot! You will fall flat on your face(multiple times :P). and people will tell you: you see I was right? told you it was not going to last! But you will learn from those mistakes, and that will get you ONE step closer to succes. Keep going!

Be inspired. The idea of healthstatus is a very good one! You will learn things you won't learn in years on school. Next to that, read books, listen audio tapes, watch seminars, watch speeches. Like Anthony Robbins says 'succes leaves clues'. You won't get the good stuff on tv, everyone watches tv, then all people would be succesful. You have to feed your mind and get inspired. These forums are a good source of information too! Learn from the mistakes of others, ask for their advice. But I see you are already good at asking for advice good thing!

Do what you love. If someone would have told me this when I was 15, honestly I wouldn't give a shit! I just wanted to make money and buy a ferari and a big house in new york. Passion? Dont gimme that BS! But I learned growing up from 15 to 20 years old that the money is not going to make you feel amazing, it is about what you do, that makes you feel good. Find your passion, do what you like, get momentum and build on it. It will pull you to your goals! I don't know how much you like to study for mathematics on school for example, but I actually skipped the classes because I hated them. I had to push real hard to study for the exams. However, when I was getting up 6 am to train(track and field), I was ready to go! I was excited! because that was what I absolutely loved. I would be disappointed if I accidently woke up at 8 am and missed the opportunity to train!
I believe the same is true for your business. It is hard work, but if you absolutely love it, you can achieve anything.
EDIT: I'm aware of what is said about that you should not follow your passion but chase Needs. However you can ofcourse chase those needs in a field you like and that gets you excited.

Nice having you here hope some of it made sense to you.

Originally Posted by 1PercentStreet

What I recommend: (My personal opinion, if you don't like it, well who cares )
Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune.
Your taught in school to be an employee. Those who cannot do, teach.

-18 years old, been in business for 5 years. Dropped out at age 15 and considered successful by today's standards.


-This is only my personal opinion, do not drop out foolishly thinking it's easy.




P.S.


Look at what you just wrote in 3 years, you'll wonder who that guy is.

ikr? thanks for the comment tho

#Some do it to give value back. They want to teach people coming up what they have learned.

I do it to impact the future, intent on changing a generation, changing a culture.

And to add my two cents worth; and solidify this (My advice, get your failures out of the way.) by @collegeweb, your mistakes will help you learn about yourself, learn about people (you are going to need this knowledge if you are ever going to be fastlane millionaire) and how this universe opperates from day to day, year to year and from generation to generation.

Above all, make a conscious choice to do no wrong in your business dealings.

Do right by yourself and by those you do business with even when it costs you.

You cannot cut corners, cheat or conive and succeed for very long -- the world will adjust and equalize after not too long so save yourself the pain of universe-adjustment.

Finally, have a plan to give back and help those in need.

You will always have them around, those who refuse to change lanes and instead choose to stay in their slow lane and live on the edge from check to check.

Don't hate them; be kind to them -- they are generally very loyal consumers who will go into deaper debt just to afford what you create if it is worthy. They will aid your bottom line. Respect them, speak well of and to them... there is more but I will save those for the book

Originally Posted by healthstatus

Hey Patrick, welcome aboard. I would make a list of the best entrepenuers in your area and CALL them, introduce yourself just as you did above and say something along the lines of: would it be possible during two months of the summer that I shadow you at your job and be your errand boy? I can make copies, fetch things and so on, but what I really want to do is learn things they are not teaching in schools on how to start businesses, and manage small teams. I will conduct myself in a professional manner at all times, and would like to have the experience of seeing how it works.

See if that can get you anywhere, just one yes from one of these guys will be worth more than a couple of years at college.

This.

I worked volunteer with a bunch of friends at the martial arts school that I trained at. The grandmaster, the proprietor, was a millionaire. An immigrant from South Korea, he started with a single one-room school in Oklahoma and eventually spread into Delaware and Maryland. He bought school after school, leaving one of his black-belt students in charge of it, until he built his martial arts franchise. Seven locations in three states, starting in the mid 80s.

I learned a lot from the guy, even though he never paid me.

To make money, I instead fixed computers and mowed lawns for people in my neighborhood. Decent money; I ended up spending it on a vacation at the end of senior year.