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Haha thanks. In fact, it looks like overnight I achieved it! You guys have been sooo generous with your support for this thread that I finally achieved Gold Contributor status! I'm not sure how one gets to that level but I sure am stoked! Thanks to EVERYONE who voted for my posts with a like/thanks. In my signature I quote Jim Carey and I'd like to repeat that quote here again; "The effect we have on others is the only currency there is."
So, back in 2004 I decided to do whatever it took to get myself to a 3 day wealth education seminar being held in Fiji. The tickets cost $2,000 plus I had to fly there and pay for my room (Sheraton) so I had to raise about $4,000. I was broke, I'd just lost my job in IT and I had no idea how I was going to get there. I'd been following this guy for about 10 months and had bought his home study program (yep, I was that guy) and all I knew was that I had to get to that event because I just knew I'd be able to network with others who were similar to me.
I managed to get there but it was tight (financially speaking), so tight that I couldn't afford the $100 (for charity) final dinner party. A few hours before the doors opened I decided that I couldn't afford not to go but only had about $165 left to my name. I was in a foreign country with very little cash and I was about to blow more than half of what I had left on a $100 dinner - had I lost my mind? Of COURSE I had to go. So I went downstairs, walked up to the greeting table and asked to buy a ticket. It was sold out.
I gasped and begged and there was nothing they could do - sold out. Refusing to take no for an answer I went back upstairs and put on my best flamed hot rod shirt and shorts and decided to just stand at the doors while everyone filed past me. I instructed the staff that if anyone cancelled I wanted to buy the ticket. The room filled while I stood at the door saying Hi to people as the walked in dressed to the nines. My flamed shirt stood out (I have photos) so there was much laughter. People even started pleaded for me to be let in to the staff but nope - sold out.
Then one of the older staff ladies at the desk winked and nodded me in - for free. So cool, I was bouncing. Took a deep breath let it out slowly and walked in (hands up who loves walking into parties alone) looked around and there was only one table left but it was completely empty. Apparently a whole table had cancelled so I had a spot...by myself...at a 12 person table...lol Oh well, better than nothing and I felt good that I was making fate my bitch.
Now, at that pointed I gave more than zero F*cks what people thought of me and I knew I'd feel like a total nork just sitting at a table by myself so I had to think fast. In an instant I formulated what I thought was a perfect plan. I'd mosy on to the buffet all stylish and casual like and grab a plate buying me the time needed for some people to walk in and sit at the big empty table. I'd walk up to them, ask them if this seat was taken and presto - I'd be networking.
Well, no one did. What ended up happening was in my nerves I ended up just piling more and more onto my plate until I had a mountain of food I could barely hold up with one hand. Fortunately just at that time a couple walked in and sat at the table so cool and casual I walked over, delivered my line. They looked at me, looked at all the food on my plate, chuckled and said "sure".
The ice breaker was my telling the story of the last few hours which had us all laughing. I asked "so, what do you do?" (MJ...you'll like this); "I sell insurance on the stock market". I'd only just had an intro seminar to options so selling credit Put spreads was totally foreign to me but sounded interesting so we spoke about that and he quickly explained. Fascinating.
So, where are you guys from? I asked. Ends up we live in the same city and not 3 suburbs from each other. I love shit like that. We had a great time, ended up quite pissed at the bar by the end of the night. Totally memorable night. Changed my life. Because, he'd written and was selling an e-book on his total strategy for $97 which he said he'd send me when the got back home in a few weeks. They were going to extend their tropical island stay beyond the seminar. This was before smart phones so I said cool but honestly I was a bit miffed because I wanted to read more about this "selling insurance" lark right now - not in "a few weeks". I wanted to take action. Lots of action.
When I got back home I was on fire. I felt like a lava ball being shot out of a canon in Fiji and shooting me all the way over the ocean to my home in South Australia where I exploded in a massive fireball of enthusiasm and super fired up (as one does). But I just couldn't wait 2 weeks to find out more. I wanted to know more immediately so I justified saving on the free dinner party and spent the $97 to buy the book. In the next 2 weeks I studied the book and looked up option prices in the newspaper, used my big white board to draw out pay-off diagrams until I understood how selling "insurance" to the stock market worked and I was fascinated.
When he got back I contacted him and he invited me around to his (super nice) house for a coffee. I could feel the big wheels turning and while there I asked if it was ok to ask him a few questions about his method. I wasn't sure how much someone like him would want to share so I started by asking him if he could share his watch-list with me. I knew how credit put spreads worked but wasn't sure which of the 200 top stocks I should be watching. "Sure, I only look at 12 anyway" he said and rattled them off. Major, major leap in understanding...I was taking leaps of learning.
"Is there any chance you could show or send me a few trades you've done before so I can kind of get a feel of how you do it exactly?" I asked tentatively, not knowing how far to push it. "I was going to anyway" he said "It's easier for me to show you anyway. Not only that, I'll go you one better I'll send you my next trade so you can follow along". I was gob smacked. Who does that?
So over the next few weeks he did that. Then, just out of the blue (and because of how incredibly helpful seeing his real trades was to me) I said "you know, I reckon people would pay to watch you trade". He asked me what I meant and I wasn't sure myself so I said "I don't know, maybe to an email list or something? Maybe a forum?" I can remember it as if it was yesterday. He got a real dark look on his face and said "no F*cking way. I'm not getting involved in no forum. They always end up in shit fights - 100% not interested". Ok, a bit of a kick in the balls but I knew the power of forums. I had run a few before and was a huge fan and I knew vBulletin so I made him this proposal.
"What if I run it for ya? I'll do absolutely every single thing. I'll be the website manager in charge of everything. All I'd need from you is the trades you're doing." He paused and stared at me right in the face for at least 10 seconds (count them out) and said "ok, let's do it. I have a buddy who's into marketing, we'll go thirds in a new company, my accountant will set it up.
The next few weeks were a whirlwind of logos, trust deeds and FTP but before the month was out we were live. It was crude but it worked and people were loving it. I was catapulted into being a director of a company that was making pure profit from day one. The only hard costs we had were a dedicated server (I'm ex-IT) and some artwork and other tiny costs. Marketing was a bit of a gift because he was in good with the guy who was running the Fiji seminars and in fact was there as an affiliate teaching the other affiliates on the 4th day all about his Selling insurance method" so we had access to dozens of eager traders.
We charged $97 for the e-book then if they wanted to watch him trade it was $97 a month or 12 months for $997 (buy 10 get 2 free). We never discounted and we never gave any away. That was a great lesson in posture. Rolls Royce don't have discounts, they have waiting lists. We didn't have waiting lists but we had a Rolls Royce. At that time no one was selling signals (that I was aware of) so I felt a bit like a pioneer. From day one it was a total blast.
We were pulling in thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. They couldn't believe what was happening. Every day and often every hour I was being notified of either a new payment or another payment. We used simple Paypal subscriptions. I ran it for about 2 years and for most of that time my share after costs was regularly $20-30k per month. I even started to speak on stage myself (for the first time in my life) and I even ended up talking on the same stage in Fiji the next year. I received a standing ovation for my first public speech...ON THE WAY UP! Then another 20 seconds (at least) of loud clapping, cheering, whistling and wooting at the end and I finished on time and even won an award for "most on time speaker" because I finished almost to the second at the end of my allotted time slot (while every other speaker ran overtime). True story. The shot on my book is of me talking at that event.
So anyway after about 2 years I decided to exit. We'd given 10% share to a guy with a computer science degree to handle all the tech, some months he alone was making $10k for his share. $100k was about our biggest month. I did my sums and thought my 1/3 share was worth (little finger stuck in the corner of my mouth) $1 MILLION dollars! They laughed and they laughed and they laughed...oh how they laughed. Their estimate was about $100k (more money than I'd ever seen in my bank account) but I held on and eventually got $650,000 for my share. I have permission from them to share this when I was writing my book about what happened to me next so it's a matter of public record.
January 1st 2007 I was staring at $650,000 cash in my trust's bank account. I like writing and playing with words amuses me but it's not easy to convey how that felt. I was the class clown, the guy who would've been voted least likely to be considered for to be printed on the ballot of the list of most likely to fail. Average C grade student and my life up until then was one great big throbbing example of what happens when you don't pay attention at school and just F*ck around like it's some big joke - so off to the factory life I went. By the time I'd left the work force in 2005 I'd counted at least 65 different jobs from street sweeper, burger flipper, truck driver, welder, pushing petrol/gas into cars, unemployed many, many times. Just a general working bum.
Anyway, as interesting as that story was, it's what happened after that that's the real story here. Imagine how rich I felt. There was not a shop, department store or car yard I could walk into that sold anything I could not afford. I could buy anything for sale in my city. Even a house or two if I wanted.
The story isn't really about what I've done with the money since then as that's a million little stories but the biggest thing I discovered was that I felt like a millionaire. I felt rich, really really rich! Nothing financial bothered me. All financial stress had immediately been lifted off my shoulders. I bought a supercharged V8 car and drove around the country up and down totally lost half the time with no aims or goals other than to thrash the bejeesus out of my very powerful (ex race) car and hunt down winding roads along the eastern states of Australia. I did that until I blew the engine, rebuilt it for $20k then eventually snaked my way back home.
Over the next few months I entertained anyone who'd listen while I regaled stories of my new found "Urban Wealth" (as I'd coined it) and freedom. Then something started to raise itself in a theme in all my stories and people started to really dig my message. You just don't need to be a millionaire to feel rich or wealthy. Sure there's always room for more money but as far as how much it takes to make you feel like a rich dude or dudette it's far less and financial freedom was much closer than I'd ever imagined because even up to the point of my exit I believed that unless you're a millionaire you're not (nor should you call yourself) a millionaire and everyone knows you have to be a millionaire to be free - right. Wrong.
Anyway, over the next few years as I bumped into and spoke to more and more people about my story (not forced onto anyone - but I was asked about it a lot) people started saying "man you should write a book about this". It wasn't so much about the story of how I made the money but I'd come up with a little formula to try to explain to people how much money you needed (as a minimum) to feel wealthy. I called it "The 2X Method" (pronounced two ex - not two times) and here it is, my own little global formula for wealth.
My global and universal formula for wealth is this;
2X=F/(H+P)
Legend:
X = Essential Expenses
F = Freedom
H = Hobbies
P = Passions
Basically this...
All you need is double your essential expenses (2X) as income to feel wealthy, have the financial freedom to indulge your hobbies, pursue your passions and live an exciting, satisfying and interesting life.
It's so simple. You don't need to be a millionaire to be or feel wealthy. However if you do become a millionaire that's awesome too but just make sure you never spend more than half your income on essential expenses or you'll just feel poor again no matter how much money you're making. I call it "bouncing off broke". If you think it sucks being broke on your current income it's even worse being broke as a millionaire.
I believe (know) that wealth isn't measured by how much money you have. Wealth is measured by how far you are from financial stress. Keep that in mind as you travel down your path to wealth and you'll get there much quicker and can stay there if you like. As long as you have no financial stress you'll feel wealthy. I know this for a fact, have bounced the concept of over 1,000 active entrepreneurs and with an over 99.8% success rate of transforming and influencing people's money mindset, I know I'm onto something.
So, the book I wrote is now (self published), getting great reviews and I'm changing lives. That feels so cool. Anyway, I'm not here to sell anything because I want to actually give you guys the whole book to (hopefully) enjoy. Not only that, I recorded myself reading the book and am super proud to also offer you the audio book as well.
If you want to listen to me reading the entire book to you just click here. It's a 250mb zip file that contains the PDF and the entire audio-book as an MP3 (recorded on a Blue Yeti for audiophiles) which only takes 150 minutes to read. I call it "movie length". It's best listened to in a single sitting, without distractions, preferably staring out a window with a headset. Try not to stop and start it.
Or click here to open the PDF. I will not make any money by doing this but I don't think it fair that my marketing skills (or lack there of) to stand in the way between this important message and you. I'm guessing I'll pick it up on the karmo-go-round later
Thank you @MJ DeMarco for providing us this forum. I came across your book way after I wrote mine (it was finished in it's first form in 2010) I knew we were sympatico and that's why I hang out here. So now it's my turn, this is my gift to you all.
I'd like nothing better than discuss anything and everything so ask away - it's my most favourite thing to talk about, my aim is to speak on stages and podcasts around the world wherever active entrepreneurs gather as I really believe this message is the reason I was placed on this earth (if there is such a thing). I don't mind giving it away to you guys because I know that many of you will dig it.
Ask me anything. It's a great story with loads of great and often eye opening lessons - and I love telling it.
Thank you very much guys. Bumping this for new people to grab a copy if they haven't done so. Thank you also for the many rep$ you're all sending me. It means a lot that my story and subsequent findings are resonating with so many of you.
There is no 4X. There's only 2X because that's all you need to feel free of financial stress. The extra goes in the bank as mentioned in the chapter on the "The Three Pocket Method". As for increasing your expenses once you've increased your income that's fine as long as you're still living within 2X. If you're personal income is $10,000 a week you can spend $5,000 a week on essential expenses and still feel free of financial stress because of the other $5,000 a week you have left over for fun and luxury. It can be applied to any income level from the poorest of us to the richest of us. It works for all who actively pursue the (previously undescribed and some would say undescribable) feeling of wealth.
This isn't engineering, put your mathematical and physics hats back on the shelf and enjoy my quirky way of getting my message across in an easy to remember (many say "unforgettable") wealth "formula". This is philosophy and the formula is just a message and a way of expressing how to feel wealthy according to my personal experiences. Having said that it does make sense when you understand it. I'll summarise it again so it makes perfect sense...
Thanks! Glad you liked it and it's made an impact.
Don't forget; Tim Ferris said "excitement is the key" I added a small daily does of Excitement OR Satisfaction is the key to a great life starting today. But later (not in the book) I also added a third "shot-glass" dose to the theory and that's a daily dose of something Interesting/Fascinating. You only need one of these aspects in a small amount to have had a great day.
Absolutely not. There's no need to spend anything after you've met your essential expenses. The key to feeling financially free is to be able to spend up to double your essential expenses on fun and luxury then you save what's left over (either your second "X" or anything above "2X") you save in the bank to build up a buffer and ultimately a bank so the interest on that bank will meet your 2X. I call that "Ultimate Wealth".
Thanks Marcel and good to hear. You're proof that we can be both young and seekers of wisdom.
Awesome but please only do it personally 1 on 1 in conversation. Don't be tempted to just share the actual link to my book. Instead, share the link back to this thread so people have to come into this place to discover both this forum and my book.
Just picked up your edit ZL - thanks man, to even be on the same shelf as MJ is a huge honour. Tell me more about this opening that you see. If it involves me telling more real wealth stories I'm in!
Haha, no probs man. My rudeness meter didn't even bleep once. As a failed comedian I love that I made you laugh. These days I (sometimes jokingly) refer to myself as a "Financial Entertainer" (eye rolling assumed) but making people laugh is one of my top social priorities. Huge compliment - thanks.EDIT: How rude, I hijacked the thread without commenting on the first post! That story was really interesting and funny to read, thank you for sharing.
One can see that you enjoy writing
~ Ika
The money system aside, your story actually contains a gem...no BS networking.
You're absolutely welcome Marius. I have no doubt that from what you posted above (and our incredibly eye opening skype chat) that you totally got all my points. Your freedom number is certainly attainable and you might surprise yourself how soon it arrives when you take an ASAP approach.
You know...compliments don't come much higher for a writer than that. Thank YOU.
Let me make the calculations super easy for you. Just use your current income for "X" and start by doubling that. That'll springboard you straight to stage 1 wealth which is "financial relief" from there you'll have a much better view and with your new found clarity the path ahead should be clearer. Then just use the "Three Pocket" system" for all money that comes in from that point on. Super simple money and wealth management that they should have taught us all in school.
I wrote this book to infuse crystal clear financial clarity into every active entrepreneur. If you feel "I think you're onto something here Billy boy!" I'll have considered my job done. I look forward to your thoughts and as with everyone you're welcome to skype or PM me for private clarification if needed.
Agreed.
Thanks Dustin, you might enjoy the book where I explain there is no 3X.
Thanks man, and you're right, there was a LOT of luck involved but if we just make a small effort to put ourselves out there with total 100% belief in ourselves we just might be lucky enough to get a few breaks which we can then apply a massive amount of action to and with eyes crossed we can make some progress towards our aims.
So I did not have any useful skills for the marketplace and was earning a bit more than a minimum wage in my country. But I knew English and knew that they were paying well in IT sector. Long story short, I found a shitty corpo IT job where I was answering 5000 calls per year, improved my skills, moved to a different city and after 3 years started earning minimum wage x5 which blew my mind at the beginning. As Jim Rohn used to say, the marketplace was about the same, prices were the same, politicians were the same, taxes were the same and my negative relatives were the same but I was not the same.). We were justifying our behaviour saying that when my wife gets back to work all her salary will be something extra and we could save it/invest it or start a business which was only partially true as with the incorrect mindest we could potentially be spending both salaries in the future.
Thank you for sharing that! You're a great example of how a simple shift in mindset can make an instant impact not only on your actual situation but also how you feel and think about your situation. Sometimes just knowing where you are on the wealth line can illuminate the journey ahead because now you know exactly what you need to do to re-balance your finances and exactly how much you need to achieve that feeling of wealth or at least control.@V8Bill I would like to thank you for providing us with so much value for free. I have listened to your audiobook while working out and I loved the 2X approach. I have always felt a bit overwhelmed thinkin about "millions I need to make to feel free" but you made me realise that my goal is much closer that I have ever thought.
About 4 years ago, when I realised I would become a father, I decided that my first financial goal would be earning enough money to let my wife stay at home with our son for the first 2-3 years which are crucial in terms of child development. I had graduated from a technical university with top grades but quickly realised I did not want to be a chemician
"Minimum wage x5 ?!" Some of my friends that knew my salary thought I must have been living like a king. Nope. Now we get to the point where "basic" expenses come into action. We used to spend too much money on non-essentials and additionally had to spend quite a lot of money to help our son(he's 100% fine now) so in general I was spending all I was earning and sometimes even more! I am using an app on my phone to monitor my expenses and I could not believe how much money I spent (at least I was aware where they were going
So yes, you can earn quite decent amount of money and still have financial stress. After listening to your audiobook I and my wife had a conversation and "enough is enough" moment. We have planned our expenses for this month and we are going to spend like 80-85% of my monthly salary which already feels great.
Now it's time to set our numbers, hit 2X (which shouldn't be hard when my wife gets back to work) and then start moving towards passive 2X which is my ultimate goal.
Thank you one more time !!
Oh, of course. The prices amount of money needed to retire to financial freedom. Yes, knowing a precise number helps make it real.
)
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