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Alex mason

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I recently watched a video published by MJ on YouTube called "How to go from flat-broke to filthy-rich". It was a very practical video and I was just wondering how to apply this to my own life. I'm a 18 year old guy from Sweden and I'm just about to finish high-school. Since I still live with my parents and have basic needs such as food, shelter and so on covered by them, should I start at learning a specialised skill or start from step one ? ( which would be a basic job for those of you who haven't watched the video )

Also I'm thinking about joining the military for a couple of years and have been training hard to meet the requirements for a SF unit. But afterwards, I am considering college. College is free here in Sweden, but is it worth it? And what should I study as an aspiring entrepreneur? I'm thinking about studying computer science or business laws since both of these could be useful later on when building my fastlane business.

Thanks for any answers or advice! Would be super helpful
 
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Raoul Duke

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You put your right foot in

You take your right foot out

You put your right foot in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your left foot in

You take your left foot out

You put your left foot in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your right hand in

You take your right hand out

You put your right hand in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your left hand in

You take your left hand out

You put your left hand in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your whole self in

You take your whole self out

You put your whole self in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about
 

lowtek

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I like the idea of doing the military, but it's hard to recommend given the potential for conflict in the coming years.

It won't help with entrepreneurship directly, but it should built the ability to see through difficult tasks.

I wouldn't do college and military. I would do one or the other.

Don't bother with business law. It's easier to hire a lawyer. Comp sci is a good choice, but you don't need a degree for that. There's an open source computer science degree (it's basically a curriculum) that I'm aware of. Follow that and find some community to join where you can learn in tandem with other people.
 

Black_Dragon43

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Hey Alex, and welcome! I know the MJ video you mentioned, it’s great! That’s the way I and a lot of other people got our start too.

A lot of your success in entrepreneurship will be down to how you navigate difficulties and challenge yourself to always be growing. Military can help with that - the military philosophy will teach you discipline and doing hard things even if you don’t like them. It will also show you how to push past suffering towards your goals. That, IMO, is a huge head start in business or in any other activity if your goal is to be a peak performer!
 
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sanadly

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I like the idea of doing the military, but it's hard to recommend given the potential for conflict in the coming years.

It won't help with entrepreneurship directly, but it should built the ability to see through difficult tasks.

I wouldn't do college and military. I would do one or the other.

Don't bother with business law. It's easier to hire a lawyer. Comp sci is a good choice, but you don't need a degree for that. There's an open source computer science degree (it's basically a curriculum) that I'm aware of. Follow that and find some community to join where you can learn in tandem with other people.
I'm in a similar situation to Alex.

@lowtek how could computer science skills will help me in my entrepreneurial journey?
 

lowtek

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I'm in a similar situation to Alex.

@lowtek how could computer science skills will help me in my entrepreneurial journey?
Comp sci has more opportunities for creating real products than something like studying a business degree or law type curriculum.
 

The-J

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(meta post) What we need, as a forum and as a community, is a guide to help people make big decisions like this.

Wait a minute... we actually totally do have that. (WOW) The Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM) is a commonly used tool that has been adapted by MJ to help people make large decisions.

So here are your choices, Alex:

  • Forego college and work a job while learning a specialized skill
  • Go to college with the intent of learning a specialized skill barred by an education requirement
  • Join the military (SF i assume means special forces)
First, list the pros and cons of each decision. This is a simple thing aimed to establish what you think you know about each path. Do research to inform those pros and cons.

Then, come up with what I like to call "lifestyle criteria". These are things you care about that would be different if you decided to take one path versus another.

Some sample criteria: expected cost, proximity to family, expected salary, opportunity to travel, expected fulfillment, ability to build a business while doing it, expected likelihood of failure (lower number = higher likelihood), access to women to meet.

Ultimately you're going to want to come up with these criteria on your own. Come up with LOTS of them, the more the better.

From there, you rate each decision with respect to each criteria on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, add up all of the numbers. The one with the highest score wins, even if it's by a slim margin.

This exercise will take several hours if done thoughtfully.

But that's not the end. The last thing you're going to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen to your gut feeling. Does your gut feeling match the score? If so, congrats: you've chosen a path for the next 4-6 years.

If not, then get out of your chair and do something else for a bit to take your mind off the decision. Then come back to it. If your gut feeling hasn't changed, then let your gut decide. If it has, then let the highest number go.

"But two of my decisions have the same score!"

Add more criteria as a tie breaker.

Now, OP, are you going to ask Internet strangers to help decide your life's trajectory for you, or are you going to use this very powerful tool that's in the damn book in order to blaze your own path?
 
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Alex mason

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Feb 22, 2021
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(meta post) What we need, as a forum and as a community, is a guide to help people make big decisions like this.

Wait a minute... we actually totally do have that. (WOW) The Weighted Average Decision Matrix (WADM) is a commonly used tool that has been adapted by MJ to help people make large decisions.

So here are your choices, Alex:

  • Forego college and work a job while learning a specialized skill
  • Go to college with the intent of learning a specialized skill barred by an education requirement
  • Join the military (SF i assume means special forces)
First, list the pros and cons of each decision. This is a simple thing aimed to establish what you think you know about each path. Do research to inform those pros and cons.

Then, come up with what I like to call "lifestyle criteria". These are things you care about that would be different if you decided to take one path versus another.

Some sample criteria: expected cost, proximity to family, expected salary, opportunity to travel, expected fulfillment, ability to build a business while doing it, expected likelihood of failure (lower number = higher likelihood), access to women to meet.

Ultimately you're going to want to come up with these criteria on your own. Come up with LOTS of them, the more the better.

From there, you rate each decision with respect to each criteria on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, add up all of the numbers. The one with the highest score wins, even if it's by a slim margin.

This exercise will take several hours if done thoughtfully.

But that's not the end. The last thing you're going to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen to your gut feeling. Does your gut feeling match the score? If so, congrats: you've chosen a path for the next 4-6 years.

If not, then get out of your chair and do something else for a bit to take your mind off the decision. Then come back to it. If your gut feeling hasn't changed, then let your gut decide. If it has, then let the highest number go.

"But two of my decisions have the same score!"

Add more criteria as a tie breaker.

Now, OP, are you going to ask Internet strangers to help decide your life's trajectory for you, or are you going to use this very powerful tool that's in the damn book in order to blaze your own path?
Thanks alot for the advice, read about the method in TMF but didn't think it was appropriate for this question but maybe I'm wrong. I will try out for the special forces unit very soon and will know for sure what to do by then. I was more wondering if college is even worth it in the first place or if I will be wasting my time. Would I be better of learning a specialised skill such as Web design or programming on my own by using udemy or codeacademy? My goal is to become financially independent before 30 so I would like to know how to spend my time in the most effective way. I hope I don't sound ignorant but I'm having a difficult time deciding. And my parents are would get so upset if I didn't go to college.
 

The-J

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Thanks alot for the advice, read about the method in TMF but didn't think it was appropriate for this question but maybe I'm wrong. I will try out for the special forces unit very soon and will know for sure what to do by then. I was more wondering if college is even worth it in the first place or if I will be wasting my time. Would I be better of learning a specialised skill such as Web design or programming on my own by using udemy or codeacademy? My goal is to become financially independent before 30 so I would like to know how to spend my time in the most effective way. I hope I don't sound ignorant but I'm having a difficult time deciding. And my parents are would get so upset if I didn't go to college.

If you analyze this post you can find criteria in it that you can use to help make your decision.

Read "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and look deeper on this forum for 10/5/1. Those will help you further.
 
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DeniseChiara

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May 12, 2021
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I recently watched a video published by MJ on YouTube called "How to go from flat-broke to filthy-rich". It was a very practical video and I was just wondering how to apply this to my own life. I'm a 18 year old guy from Sweden and I'm just about to finish high-school. Since I still live with my parents and have basic needs such as food, shelter and so on covered by them, should I start at learning a specialised skill or start from step one ? ( which would be a basic job for those of you who haven't watched the video )

Also I'm thinking about joining the military for a couple of years and have been training hard to meet the requirements for a SF unit. But afterwards, I am considering college. College is free here in Sweden, but is it worth it? And what should I study as an aspiring entrepreneur? I'm thinking about studying computer science or business laws since both of these could be useful later on when building my fastlane business.

Thanks for any answers or advice! Would be super helpful

You should focus on challenge-based learning to understand the complexity of real problems. It is important to detach yourself from the idea of learning one block of topics after another as it is taught in school. Of course, this is an easy way out, but in reality, everything is much more complex and half of what you learnt in university will not be needed when you start your own business. That's why it's important to always acquire specific skills and knowledge in a practice-oriented way because it's learned in the long term and you can save yourself a lot of time.

I also had some struggles to learn about entrepreneurship in a practice-oriented way. I studied business administration for 3 years and also had several courses in entrepreneurship. But I don't have the feeling that I have really learned the aspects that are important for the actual founding process.
Currently, I am working on my business idea. I had the impression that I am lacking some knowledge in specific areas, therefore I searched for a platform to learn more about entrepreneurship. I became aware of EWOR and use their learning map for two months now. Take a look at it if you feel like it - this platform helped me very much in understanding which steps I need to tackle to set up my company.
 

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