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harry wilson

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Original Thread Title:
Don't take too much advice online, It's not an accurate picture

Since the age of 17 I started reading tons of success books scoring all online forums etc, there is probably no book out or success quote or video is haven't come across. I am now 24 and my mind is screwed, I tried so many things, got in a MLM and left 2 years on, from drop shipping, selling t shirts online, dropped out of university with 1 year left, moved to new york, did Real Estate, trading, now I'm a Stock Broker. Basically chasing success on F*ck all wages. I got lucky once with Crypto Currency getting on it early but then lost it all after.

So now to get to my point here, I've seen so many rich people in my day to day, as we basically search them out for our job. Most of them do not do anything that you can learn to do in a forum thread. Most require university education or to be in the right place in the right time.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of supremely wealthy people out there, in forums and places people go to seek out success, we always discuss topics like 'how to start your own marketing agency' or 'how I make 100k a year from selling tshirts to my batman fan page'. This is not how most wealthy people are made but it gets by far the most attention. Or go to youtube and you'll see a talk from a guy who founded a cliff bar or some company you see every day.

You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video.

there are so many people making huge amounts of money doing shit you never even thought of, one guy I speak to makes tens of millions a year selling fish, where the F*ck do you go to learn that? what about Real estate developers and house builders? there is nothing online about how to build housing developments. What about lawyers, there are tons of lawyers, partners at their firm, after 15/20 years and are now making 500k/1m plus a year just from being a 'slowlaner' same with doctors and engineers yet we are all told university is useless. And we all look at some guy on TV that sold his coconut water company to coca cola, or founded the app you use everyday, thinking if we can just copy their habits it will help us.

My advice is to not over read and watch all this stuff, it will F*ck you up and distract you, my original goal was to take over my dads business, it turns over 1m+ a year which is respectable by most standards, except all this bullshit made me think I'm so special and that I can make more myself, I dropped out of uni because I thought 'all the truly successful people didn't use university'. Now years later I'm 24 and financially just average and finishing my university online part-time and regretting not working with my dad and wondering if it was too late. Yeah you can get lucky, go out on your own and make a lot some ways, but it shouldnt be your main focus as if it doesnt work out, do you want to be like be, 7 years later you are still the same?
 
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there are so many people making huge amounts of money doing sh*t you never even thought of, one guy I speak to makes tens of millions a year selling fish, where the f*ck do you go to learn that? what about Real estate developers and house builders?

I agree with your rant, there is no how to step by step to success. And most success advice pushed are truisms, in other words true but useless and not very insightful.

You can make money if you understand markets well enough. And if you know how to make decisions and reason off first principles. If you are not successful, its because your insights to markets are limited. You come to million dollar insights by knowing how to reason off first principles. Ray Dalio talks about this in his book.

Here is an example:

Definition 1: Markets are any economic transactions between buyers and sellers.

Axiom 1: Human beings make buying and selling decisions in markets.
Axiom 2: Human beings behave according to predictable psychological laws.


From this a proposition or corollary arises:

Proposition 1: If we understand a market well enough we can predict buyer and seller behaviors and leverage opportunities.

Corollary 1: We can understand psychological laws by becoming more self-aware to therefore predict outcomes in markets(it can be any market).

Just a sloppy example off the top of my head but it would look something like that. Constantly be self-aware of the principles that exists in your mind. If you can't write down your principles then thats why you are stuck and lost. You need to be more self-aware.
 
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You’re 24 and sound like you are at the end of your life.

You should be asking yourself why all your efforts amounted to nothing. My hunch is it is a combination of shiny object syndrome and chasing money. You’ll get to a certain point in life when you’ll realise that the harder you chase money the quicker it runs away.

Yes there are loads of successful businesses out there that we have never heard of and also don’t rely on the web. I know millionaires in stuff as weird as fake polar bears, electronics for rail rolling stock. Perfume sales, luggage, bespoke lighting and health foods.

The one thing they all have in common is they fulfill a need and they do it well and for an acceptable price. That’s the main reason they are successful. Nothing more or less.

I’ll tell you one thing however, for all your bleating the internet has made it much, much easier to become successful. It’s cut the learning curve from years to months. It’s allowed people to start businesses with very little capital and to scale those businesses to insane levels.

It’s allowed people to reach markets that were totally unassailable in the past and for a fraction of the cost.

I would hazard a guess that this forum has created a lot of successful businesses over the years. Not all forums are the same and regardless you still need to run everything through a filter to get the most out of it.

I never take anything as gospel but this community produces more words of wisdom than any other open forum I’ve ever come across.

If you stick around you might learn something that will provide you with success. Stranger things have happened.
 
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harry wilson

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You’re 24 and sound like you are at the end of your life.

You should be asking yourself why all your efforts amounted to nothing. My hunch is it is a combination of shiny object syndrome and chasing money. You’ll get to a certain point in life when you’ll realise that the harder you chase money the quicker it runs away.

Yes there are loads of successful businesses out there that we have never heard of and also don’t rely on the web. I know millionaires in stuff as weird as fake polar bears, electronics for rail rolling stock. Perfume sales, luggage, bespoke lighting and health foods.

The one thing they all have in common is they fulfill a need and they do it well and for an acceptable price. That’s the main reason they are successful. Nothing more or less.

I’ll tell you one thing however, for all your bleating the internet has made it much, much easier to become successful. It’s cut the learning curve from years to months. It’s allowed people to start businesses with very little capital and to scale those businesses to insane levels.

It’s allowed people to reach markets that were totally unassailable in the past and for a fraction of the cost.

I would hazard a guess that this forum has created a lot of successful businesses over the years. Not all forums are the same and regardless you still need to run everything through a filter to get the most out of it.

I never take anything as gospel but this community produces more words of wisdom than any other open forum I’ve ever come across.

If you stick around you might learn something that will provide you with success. Stranger things have happened.
 

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See if you can go help out in your dad's business. He knows how to get to 1MM in revenue at least. Maybe you'll build on that foundation and make it to 2. Or 10! Plus, you'll be spending time with family :) 24 isn't old, and everyone expects you to be on a crazy adventure from 18-24 anyway. Probably why we have college in the first place... keep the kids busy ;) Good luck.
 

harry wilson

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Thanks for the replies, I used to be on this forum alot. Yes, my post is made from a bitter mindset, I'm trying to get it out of my system, it seems to be all I can think about, how much I work and think about success and I have not achieved more than if I just took the easy route. I tried alot of different things and that may be a reason, but I see it as me not choosing too many things, but me choosing too many 'wrong' things. I also realize when something is not working out and to move onto the next thing. And I did make over 20 times my net worth in 2017 thanks to an online forum, before I lost it back to initial investment as I got too greedy.

My main rant point is so much advice is actually not right for people reading it.
for example
-people using a warren buffet quote for something that is not related to value investing

-People using mark zucherberg as examples of people who dropped out, so you should too!!
(no mark zucherberg went to harvard and had a potential multi billion dollar company already running and he dropped out to persue it and give it time it needed)

-People saying you should 'Never give up no matter what, you need to be insane', well maybe it's not right for you and you would be better to cut your loss than to push through on something that isn't going to happen and cause you more stress than needed
 
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harry wilson

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See if you can go help out in your dad's business. He knows how to get to 1MM in revenue at least. Maybe you'll build on that foundation and make it to 2. Or 10! Plus, you'll be spending time with family :) 24 isn't old, and everyone expects you to be on a crazy adventure from 18-24 anyway. Probably why we have college in the first place... keep the kids busy ;) Good luck.

Thanks, Now I feel better about my age. I see it like I could of been finishing medical school or law school, or masters and getting into a high paying job, but I'm just here same old me continuing university where I left off 4 years ago because I went chasing shiny objects that seemed like good ideas but in hindsight not so much.

I just wanted to show the other side to all this motivational talk, sometimes the best quote or case study can be applied to completely the wrong person's scenario and make them worse off.

Yeah I'm trying to talk my dad around. One of the main reasons I'm going back to university is to learn more and get more qualified to give him confidence I can run it, he wants to retire soon and is deciding whether to sell or get a manager he is pretty hands off anyway but cant detatch from it (hes 69).
 

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I would have to say the younger crowd is probably oblivious to how real wealth is built, and of course growing up on the internet you were raised differently. For the older crowd we have more realistic expectations, but we still can say we there were illusions offline as well from conditioning of society. You will find illusions online or offline in certain ways.
 
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The Abundant Man

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there is nothing online about how to build housing developments.
520,000,000 results just came up on Google

ef8.jpg
 

harry wilson

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520,000,000 results just came up on Google

ef8.jpg

Yes and do any of them give you an easy step by step guide teaching you how to design a highrise, find suppliers, and give you enough prestoge that you can win over investors and anything else. My point is to do this you need many years on either the feal estate site or the investment side which you would need qualifications to get into.
 

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I imagine a tutorial on "how to build massive highrises" on the Internet would be iffy at best, it's true.

I do know a few developers by varying degrees of acquaintance, and they get started in different ways. I don't know of any that just built a highrise out of nowhere though. You start with your feet on the ground, not up in the sky.

One of my favorites started doing screened enclosures and related work on houses. He worked at it, built a stable base, and took incrementally larger jobs. I don't know all the details of his business adventure, but eventually he was building the biggest highrises in my 3 county area (some of which he was an equity owner in, I should add). Pretty cool. But I don't think he could have skipped that first part -- finding something that people needed, and that was within his abilities to do at the time. Once he had that, he had a stable base... ground to stand on. From there he started climbing higher. People typically don't levitate to the top; they get their feet under them and then figure out how to climb.

Good luck again. I hope you'll get the chance to learn from your dad, if it's what you want. I wouldn't trade the time I spent with mine for anything.
 
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Dude. When I was 24 I felt ANCIENT. It was pointless.. all of it was stupid... hated life. HATED the fact that I skipped out on a four year degree, never went into the military, and had wasted my life by being married to a guy who played video games all day.

I was wrong. TOTES WRONG. I will now shake you cuz I’m a cute girl who happens to also be a mom and I’m like, 14 years older.

*grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you

I gave up on my first business by 28, mind blown by first kid at 29, second kid by 33, parents died by 34, changed my whole life at 35 by moving across the country, started another business, got a divorce, tripled my income with NO help and now? Now I’m talking to millionaires like.. every other day!! And even though I’m a hyper scatterbrained silly ridiculous type of flighty girl they are encouraging me to learn stuff that just last year I felt was IMPOSSIBLE for me to fathom and yesterday I found out my mentor who adores me is on track towards a billion. With a B.

Things CHANGE.

I know it feels like all that stuff you’re feeling is true.. but those are just feelings. They’re important to get out. And then? Life is a GRAND adventure. There’s waaaaaaaay more for you.

Also, it’s totes ok to break down and cry like a baby. It will help. Then just do the next right thing. Ok? Good chat.
 

LiveEntrepreneur

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Since the age of 17 I started reading tons of success books scoring all online forums etc, there is probably no book out or success quote or video is haven't come across. I am now 24 and my mind is screwed, I tried so many things, got in a MLM and left 2 years on, from drop shipping, selling t shirts online, dropped out of university with 1 year left, moved to new york, did Real Estate, trading, now I'm a Stock Broker. Basically chasing success on f*ck all wages. I got lucky once with Crypto Currency getting on it early but then lost it all after.

So now to get to my point here, I've seen so many rich people in my day to day, as we basically search them out for our job. Most of them do not do anything that you can learn to do in a forum thread. Most require university education or to be in the right place in the right time.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of supremely wealthy people out there, in forums and places people go to seek out success, we always discuss topics like 'how to start your own marketing agency' or 'how I make 100k a year from selling tshirts to my batman fan page'. This is not how most wealthy people are made but it gets by far the most attention. Or go to youtube and you'll see a talk from a guy who founded a cliff bar or some company you see every day.

You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video.

there are so many people making huge amounts of money doing sh*t you never even thought of, one guy I speak to makes tens of millions a year selling fish, where the f*ck do you go to learn that? what about Real estate developers and house builders? there is nothing online about how to build housing developments. What about lawyers, there are tons of lawyers, partners at their firm, after 15/20 years and are now making 500k/1m plus a year just from being a 'slowlaner' same with doctors and engineers yet we are all told university is useless. And we all look at some guy on TV that sold his coconut water company to coca cola, or founded the app you use everyday, thinking if we can just copy their habits it will help us.

My advice is to not over read and watch all this stuff, it will f*ck you up and distract you, my original goal was to take over my dads business, it turns over 1m+ a year which is respectable by most standards, except all this bullshit made me think I'm so special and that I can make more myself, I dropped out of uni because I thought 'all the truly successful people didn't use university'. Now years later I'm 24 and financially just average and finishing my university online part-time and regretting not working with my dad and wondering if it was too late. Yeah you can get lucky, go out on your own and make a lot some ways, but it shouldnt be your main focus as if it doesnt work out, do you want to be like be, 7 years later you are still the same?

Great post man. All those things you mentioned like, "Make 100k a year doing this", "Motivational videos", all the stories how this person made X amount and how easy it is not revealing what it really took. It's all just a distraction, I think. The people who make this content their target audience is people who want to make money fast/effortlessly. And tbh these videos are quite addicting.

This part I found really interesting:

"You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video."

I have seen this a shit ton. Especially in books, all these authors say you MUST do these things to be successful. Now over the hundreds of books that I've read there is probably over 100 things that I MUST do according the the authors. To me it doesn't make sense because how the hell are you going to accomplish all this? There is just too much and just doesn't sound believable. In my opinion the author is just trying to create content and doesn't believe in what he/she says.

I hardly doubt all these "self-help gurus", visualize success everyday and do positive affirmations. They are just picking the easiest of topics to sell to people who don't want to put in the work.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that motivation is not reliable. I think if you need to keep being motivated (watching motivational videos and that sort of shit) you won't get anywhere. It's all about discipline. It's not even possible to be motivated 24/7.

With your dad's business it's not too late if he is still willing to let you take over. And if you are starting at making 1m a year, what a dream! I'd personally go for it, you already got an amazing foundation and a person who will mentor you. Easy choice imo.

Good luck!
 

harry wilson

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Dude. When I was 24 I felt ANCIENT. It was pointless.. all of it was stupid... hated life. HATED the fact that I skipped out on a four year degree, never went into the military, and had wasted my life by being married to a guy who played video games all day.

I was wrong. TOTES WRONG. I will now shake you cuz I’m a cute girl who happens to also be a mom and I’m like, 14 years older.

*grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you

I gave up on my first business by 28, mind blown by first kid at 29, second kid by 33, parents died by 34, changed my whole life at 35 by moving across the country, started another business, got a divorce, tripled my income with NO help and now? Now I’m talking to millionaires like.. every other day!! And even though I’m a hyper scatterbrained silly ridiculous type of flighty girl they are encouraging me to learn stuff that just last year I felt was IMPOSSIBLE for me to fathom and yesterday I found out my mentor who adores me is on track towards a billion. With a B.

Things CHANGE.

I know it feels like all that stuff you’re feeling is true.. but those are just feelings. They’re important to get out. And then? Life is a GRAND adventure. There’s waaaaaaaay more for you.

Also, it’s totes ok to break down and cry like a baby. It will help. Then just do the next right thing. Ok? Good chat.

Thanks, thats a great way to see things, glad to see positive motivating responses, I definitely have a lot of stress and I like to think that all my experiences will help me in the future someway, although I cant really see it. I moved to nyc from the uk as I turned 20 and feel like im an old man. Now just weighing up whether I will make money as a stock broker or whether to pack it in and move to the UK and work for my dad, even though it feels like I'm quitting, it seems like the best decision. My plan is to give it one year more in nyc and if im not making good money ill leave.
 
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Brad S

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Since the age of 17 I started reading tons of success books scoring all online forums etc, there is probably no book out or success quote or video is haven't come across. I am now 24 and my mind is screwed, I tried so many things, got in a MLM and left 2 years on, from drop shipping, selling t shirts online, dropped out of university with 1 year left, moved to new york, did Real Estate, trading, now I'm a Stock Broker. Basically chasing success on f*ck all wages. I got lucky once with Crypto Currency getting on it early but then lost it all after.

So now to get to my point here, I've seen so many rich people in my day to day, as we basically search them out for our job. Most of them do not do anything that you can learn to do in a forum thread. Most require university education or to be in the right place in the right time.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of supremely wealthy people out there, in forums and places people go to seek out success, we always discuss topics like 'how to start your own marketing agency' or 'how I make 100k a year from selling tshirts to my batman fan page'. This is not how most wealthy people are made but it gets by far the most attention. Or go to youtube and you'll see a talk from a guy who founded a cliff bar or some company you see every day.

You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video.

there are so many people making huge amounts of money doing sh*t you never even thought of, one guy I speak to makes tens of millions a year selling fish, where the f*ck do you go to learn that? what about Real estate developers and house builders? there is nothing online about how to build housing developments. What about lawyers, there are tons of lawyers, partners at their firm, after 15/20 years and are now making 500k/1m plus a year just from being a 'slowlaner' same with doctors and engineers yet we are all told university is useless. And we all look at some guy on TV that sold his coconut water company to coca cola, or founded the app you use everyday, thinking if we can just copy their habits it will help us.

My advice is to not over read and watch all this stuff, it will f*ck you up and distract you, my original goal was to take over my dads business, it turns over 1m+ a year which is respectable by most standards, except all this bullshit made me think I'm so special and that I can make more myself, I dropped out of uni because I thought 'all the truly successful people didn't use university'. Now years later I'm 24 and financially just average and finishing my university online part-time and regretting not working with my dad and wondering if it was too late. Yeah you can get lucky, go out on your own and make a lot some ways, but it shouldnt be your main focus as if it doesnt work out, do you want to be like be, 7 years later you are still the same?
This is dead accurate.

I could say alot more...

But I don't care to waste the time.

You know what's worse than not knowing what to do?

Believing a bunch of bullshit you heard or read online and being doomed to failure before you begin.

People need to realize you will NOT find the truth about getting rich ( or just about anything) online in a video, book, or article.

This forum is no exception.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

harry wilson

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Great post man. All those things you mentioned like, "Make 100k a year doing this", "Motivational videos", all the stories how this person made X amount and how easy it is not revealing what it really took. It's all just a distraction, I think. The people who make this content their target audience is people who want to make money fast/effortlessly. And tbh these videos are quite addicting.

This part I found really interesting:

"You go away thinking to be successful you have to do all these things, and most actual wealthy people do not do any of this and have never watched a youtube motivational video."

I have seen this a sh*t ton. Especially in books, all these authors say you MUST do these things to be successful. Now over the hundreds of books that I've read there is probably over 100 things that I MUST do according the the authors. To me it doesn't make sense because how the hell are you going to accomplish all this? There is just too much and just doesn't sound believable. In my opinion the author is just trying to create content and doesn't believe in what he/she says.

I hardly doubt all these "self-help gurus", visualize success everyday and do positive affirmations. They are just picking the easiest of topics to sell to people who don't want to put in the work.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that motivation is not reliable. I think if you need to keep being motivated (watching motivational videos and that sort of sh*t) you won't get anywhere. It's all about discipline. It's not even possible to be motivated 24/7.

With your dad's business it's not too late if he is still willing to let you take over. And if you are starting at making 1m a year, what a dream! I'd personally go for it, you already got an amazing foundation and a person who will mentor you. Easy choice imo.

Good luck!

Yeah completely agree, what actually triggered this post, I was bored watching this guy tell the interviewer how he does all this unnecessary stuff, writes his goals on paper everyday, keeps 3 separate daily journals, and how many days he has untill hes 70 on his hand so he can realize how many days he has on earth to make the days count.

I am In somewhat of a good position as my current job is with an established broker he makes around 30k a month and all his clients are from the uk, hence why he likes me so much, however not sure if its possible to build a book like that nowadays as hes been in the biz 10 years, so I'm in limbo between this and working with my father. Its a good position to be in however its also mental torture and stress as my dad gets older and the opportunity slowly slips away, whilst I remain in limbo untill I make money in nyc or go work with my dad.
 

LiveEntrepreneur

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Yeah completely agree, what actually triggered this post, I was bored watching this guy tell the interviewer how he does all this unnecessary stuff, writes his goals on paper everyday, keeps 3 separate daily journals, and how many days he has untill hes 70 on his hand so he can realize how many days he has on earth to make the days count.

I am In somewhat of a good position as my current job is with an established broker he makes around 30k a month and all his clients are from the uk, hence why he likes me so much, however not sure if its possible to build a book like that nowadays as hes been in the biz 10 years, so I'm in limbo between this and working with my father. Its a good position to be in however its also mental torture and stress as my dad gets older and the opportunity slowly slips away, whilst I remain in limbo untill I make money in nyc or go work with my dad.
Yeah man. I like to think of it as, "Do what you need to do to reach your goals and ignore everything else, because more than likely everything else is just noise".
 
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I don't know man. It sounds like to me you've jumped around too much too quick. From MLM to T-shirts to crypto to real estate to stock broker all in a few years. How can you expect to become good, let alone get rich, in all of these things within a few months?

You said it yourself the successful ones have been in business for YEARS. Yet here you are complaining about how you've gotten no results with your monthly shiny objects.

That guy who sells fish? He probably learned it by being involved in the industry for years. He wasn't in school or on Google. He was in the trenches learning how the fish business worked. That's how you learn.

Sam Walton was in the retail game for almost 20 years before he opened his first Walmart.
Bill Gates was coding since he was a child.
Warren Buffet was slinging Coca-Cola door to door as a child.
Henry Ford was tinkering with engines since he was a teen and wasn't successfully running his company until he turned 40.

I think you need to pick an industry and spend some time in it. You will then start to see where improvements can be made and run it yourself more profitably.
 

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I agree with your rant, there is no how to step by step to success. And most success advice pushed are truisms, in other words true but useless and not very insightful.

You can make money if you understand markets well enough. And if you know how to make decisions and reason off first principles. If you are not successful, its because your insights to markets are limited. You come to million dollar insights by knowing how to reason off first principles. Ray Dalio talks about this in his book.

Here is an example:

Definition 1: Markets are any economic transactions between buyers and sellers.

Axiom 1: Human beings make buying and selling decisions in markets.
Axiom 2: Human beings behave according to predictable psychological laws.


From this a proposition or corollary arises:

Proposition 1: If we understand a market well enough we can predict buyer and seller behaviors and leverage opportunities.

Corollary 1: We can understand psychological laws by becoming more self-aware to therefore predict outcomes in markets(it can be any market).

Just a sloppy example off the top of my head but it would look something like that. Constantly be self-aware of the principles that exists in your mind. If you can't write down your principles then thats why you are stuck and lost. You need to be more self-aware.

Which of Dalio's book are you referring too? Is it the Principles or Debt/Crisis book?
 

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I'm only a few streets away from you 10009 :)

I skimmed this thread and the main thing that jumps out at me is a fundamental flaw in your perspective on business.

Most require university education or to be in the right place in the right time.

Opportunity comes and goes...but with the wrong "lens" you wont see it...example a:

my original goal was to take over my dads business, it turns over 1m+ a year which is respectable by most standards

You're focused on chasing money (& ego), and not where you can offer value or help. Right now, you couldn't see opportunity if it was staring you in the face.

Do you think Gary V should have ignored his family business and try to sell t shirts online instead?

I'm not saying you have to work for your family, but a good place to start is focusing on where you can help closest to you.

Most of us would give up our left nut (not really) to have a father who owned a business growing up (let alone one doing 1M per year). Imagine all the things you can learn, and where could take the business. Even if you eventually ended up NOT taking it over, you'd still be 10X better than you are now.

I'd recommend reading MJ's Unscripted .
 
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Zcott

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OP is kinda right.

Successful people typically pick something and stay true to it. They work hard at it for years and eventually that hard work pays off.

I agree with OP too in that there are loads of successful people who went to university. They get a craft and sure they work for a long time but eventually they make seven to nine digits a year. Working in a proven career is no different than working on a proven business model. I did some work for a lawyer last year who decided to take a three month break so he could go chill in Mexico whilst raking in money from his firm. 'Why should I start a businesses when I can work in a proven career path which will make me rich?' Can't blame them for sticking true to it. It's no different from an entrepreneur sticking to their plans.

On a quick side note, people who think universities are useless are idiots.

Today there is so much distortion about how to be successful. There's thousands of books being published every week on it, thousands of YouTube videos, every man and his dog has a course on Udemy on how to become rich. Shopify! Fulfillment by amazon! Write a blog! Write an ebook! Trade currency! Do this! Do that! What is it going to be next week? Meanwhile the real successful people stay away from that noise because they're busy working.
 
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samuraijack

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Successful people typically pick something and stay true to it. They work hard at it for years and eventually that hard work pays off.

Too bad that's not what OP's message is:

"I am now 24 and my mind is screwed, I tried so many things, got in a MLM and left 2 years on, from drop shipping, selling t shirts online, dropped out of university with 1 year left, moved to new york, did Real Estate, trading, now I'm a Stock Broker."

Working in a proven career is no different than working on a proven business model. I did some work for a lawyer last year who decided to take a three month break so he could go chill in Mexico whilst raking in money from his firm. If you give that option to a young person with the alternative of working in an okay paying job, what do you think they're going to pick? Can't blame them for sticking true to it. It's no different from an entrepreneur sticking to their plans.

Nope. Nothing wrong with having a job that you make good money in and like. But this isn't what this forum is about. Also everyone always makes this argument for good jobs (which there's nothing wrong with but again not what this forum is about) and then mentions an example of a business owner (owning a law firm/medical practice) or an executive officer in a company. Which 99% of employees are not.
 
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ZF Lee

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Which of Dalio's book are you referring too? Is it the Principles or Debt/Crisis book?
Principles.

Debt Crisis is Dalio's take on past economic crashes and disecting the root causes of financial crisis.

That being said, Dalio does use Principles stuff throughout Debt Crisis.

I did some work for a lawyer last year who decided to take a three month break so he could go chill in Mexico whilst raking in money from his firm. 'Why should I start a businesses when I can work in a proven career path which will make me rich?' Can't blame them for sticking true to it. It's no different from an entrepreneur sticking to their plans.
If the lawyer is full partner or owns the firm, he's not very far off the mark.

He's already in business anyhow, offering services. Mad props to him.
 
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I think this is a pretty valid topic that you don't often hear and I can confirm to some extent that this notion is true. As is another MAJOR but hardly EVER discussed topic which is that many 'successful' people were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family.

The problem is that this is hardly ever discussed because 99% of the people have ego's to big to admit that they aren't as brilliant as everyone believes they are.

Just doing a background check on many successful people shows the true underlying principles at work which is often a significant headstart. I myself also know countless 'entrepreneurs' whose bills are paid by their parents or are funded to start new things.

I'm not saying it's impossible to become financially successful if you don't have these advantages, but I am saying that in our society and all the books you read these are things hardly ever discussed. People think they did it all themselves which is often a blatant lie.

Some examples of people I personally know:
- a guy who started a business that has made zero profit in the last 3 years but receive an above average salary from his parents who believe in his project, he travels frequently even though people who would not be in his lucky situation would either have to fold the company or eat noodles for three years

- a girl who's company went bust but was married into major wealth and now has a successful business coaching people on how to live their lives. her former employees were not so lucky

- a guy who had a 'small' 60k donation from his aunt and who got an apartment in the city centre of an about to be booming european city, he owns a solid business

- a guy who has inherited significant wealth, but can't divide 4 by 2 yet has played entrepreneur for the last 4 years of his life with laughable quality of skills

the list goes on and on and on..but this stuff doesn't sell.

I don't want to play a victim because I'm not. Neither is anyone who, like me had to pay for every-single-thing themselves, but the journey is significantly more rough.

Bring on the hate for dropping truth bombs.
 
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RazorCut

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As is another MAJOR but hardly EVER discussed topic which is that many 'successful' people were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family.

I don't want to play a victim because I'm not. Neither is anyone who, like me had to pay for every-single-thing themselves, but the journey is significantly more rough.

Bring on the hate for dropping truth bombs.

Not posted in hate, however you can find correlation in anything if you manipulate the data-set enough. So lets look at your truth bomb. I did some work for a foundry owner last year who lives in a mansion in the middle of several hundred acres of prime farming land in one of the most expensive areas of England. I don't know what his personal earnings from his business are but he inherited his country pile via his father who inherited it from his father who may well have inherited it from his father.

If I travelled within a 3 mile radius of that country pile I will find loads of millionaires whose wealth originated from old family money, some of them may never have worked a day in their life. Is that a realistic representative cross section of millionaire society? Hardly. It is a narrow viewed opinion derived from a skewed data-set.

Rather than complain that they have it better than we do maybe we should concentrate on being grateful for what we do have.

Most of us reading this live in a free society, have food and water available whenever we want it, have a roof over our heads and a warm bed to sleep in. Clothing, TV(s), car(s), unfettered access to the greatest knowledge base that has ever been created (the internet) etc. etc. etc.. And most of all? We have our freedom and our health.

How far up the pole do you think you are because you are way more privileged than countless 10's of millions in this world. Those born under oppression, poverty, disease and disability.

You were born with a winning lottery ticket and you want to moan because some peoples ticket was worth more than yours?

I think many people need a reality check. Maybe rethink your circumstances from a gratitude perspective.

And going back to the privileged. Many, many successful entrepreneurs in the western world have come from immigrant backgrounds. They have excelled in life because they rejoiced in the vast number of opportunities their new country had to offer them.

They haven't sat back and expected the world to provide for them (unlike many of the millennial's in the UK unfortunately). They came with next to nothing and made something of themselves while those born with those same privileges took least advantage of them.

Me? I'd rather be born smart and penniless than rich and dumb. I'm also grateful for what I have rather than bitter for what I perceive others to have.

That mindset if left unchecked with foster anger, stifle your growth and be detrimental to your relationships.
 
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biophase

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Yeah I'm trying to talk my dad around. One of the main reasons I'm going back to university is to learn more and get more qualified to give him confidence I can run it, he wants to retire soon and is deciding whether to sell or get a manager he is pretty hands off anyway but cant detatch from it (hes 69).

Why can't you just have him hire you into the company now? Why do you need school to get a job in his company? How many employees are in the company?
 

biophase

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I think this is a pretty valid topic that you don't often hear and I can confirm to some extent that this notion is true. As is another MAJOR but hardly EVER discussed topic which is that many 'successful' people were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family.

The problem is that this is hardly ever discussed because 99% of the people have ego's to big to admit that they aren't as brilliant as everyone believes they are.

Just doing a background check on many successful people shows the true underlying principles at work which is often a significant headstart. I myself also know countless 'entrepreneurs' whose bills are paid by their parents or are funded to start new things.

I'm not saying it's impossible to become financially successful if you don't have these advantages, but I am saying that in our society and all the books you read these are things hardly ever discussed. People think they did it all themselves which is often a blatant lie.

Some examples of people I personally know:
- a guy who started a business that has made zero profit in the last 3 years but receive an above average salary from his parents who believe in his project, he travels frequently even though people who would not be in his lucky situation would either have to fold the company or eat noodles for three years

- a girl who's company went bust but was married into major wealth and now has a successful business coaching people on how to live their lives. her former employees were not so lucky

- a guy who had a 'small' 60k donation from his aunt and who got an apartment in the city centre of an about to be booming european city, he owns a solid business

- a guy who has inherited significant wealth, but can't divide 4 by 2 yet has played entrepreneur for the last 4 years of his life with laughable quality of skills

the list goes on and on and on..but this stuff doesn't sell.

I don't want to play a victim because I'm not. Neither is anyone who, like me had to pay for every-single-thing themselves, but the journey is significantly more rough.

Bring on the hate for dropping truth bombs.

You know your post makes absolutely no sense at all. You just argued against yourself and contradicted your statement.

You say, "As is another MAJOR but hardly EVER discussed topic which is that many 'successful' people were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family."

But 3 of 4 people in your examples have failed in business.

So why aren't these people, who were born into privilege, took part of the family business or had significant financial support from family, "successful" in business?

Could it be that it requires something else?

Bring on the hate for dropping truth bombs.

Maybe running a successful business requires some brains?
 
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