What would you recommend a student to do with his/her free time?

[speedbird]

Hello! I'm a 17 years old boy who just got to know about The Millionaire Fastlane thanks to James Jani (on Youtube)! I've always been eager to work on a project but I never got it right.
I've been programming since 12 and always thought that I was going to make it as a game developer, someday. However, one of the greatest mistakes I'd ever made was that I never really finished off with what I started. I always gave up to quickly. Always thinking that xyz will not succeed or xyz will not help. I didn't knew what persistency was at that time. A few years ago, I made my way into the cybersecurity space. It was until then when I actually learned how to be persistent and achieve what I needed to achieve. But, even when getting all these rewards in a short amount of time, I knew I was doing something wrong. When I got into cybersecurity, a lot of people advised me to not focus on the money/rewards and that persistency pays off. I never understood the first part (not focussing on the money). But, thanks to the TMF , I got an idea of what people meant by that. It turned out that I also didn't realize that I was trading my time for money. Luckily, a big change is coming into that and will solve this issue (automation). I'm currently going to set some goals for myself for this year. I'm really thankful that I got to stop wasting my time and do what I needed to do at a fairly young age and also thankful for coming accross the TMF . I currently have some problem-solution idea's that I will be working on in the coming days so I can't wait to start on that!
Why am I posting this message? First of all, I want to put this message here to let myself know that I got a task to finish, and second thing, I was hoping for some advice from some experienced people on this forum that could not only help me, but others as well ;-) !
Like, what would you do if you are still a student? What piece of advice would you give to your younger you?

Thanks a lot for reading this far! I'll update this message in the near-feature hopefully!

 

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[Jobless]

I was also into games development, 'cyber security' and automation as a teenager.

My advice is that you read as much as possible (books, forums, whatever) but with your current problems in mind. When you encounter an issue, research it and learn from the mistakes of others. This then leads to your own creative solutions.

Try to develop a competitive streak. School is not as competitive as reality. To make money in the long run, it's good to be an expert at whatever you do, but of higher importance is that you are better than the competition. Being perceived as smart is not the same as making smart decisions.

Lastly, keep learning about automation. When you explore different fields and find a problem in IT, manufacturing or anything, make a simple solution and see how it could be improved through an iterative process (input-output, feedback loop). Do not create 'projects' for yourself, where you have to spend 100's or even 1000's of hours before you receive any feedback.

These three (learn from mistakes, be competitive, work iteratively) will make you persistent. You don't need external motivation, such a quick $ or validation from others, if you have this form of positive feedback loop. It can make you too persistent, with more focus on process for its own sake, rather than the initial goal. This however is in line with execution skills being more important than a specific business idea.

 

[Sega Saph]

Good luck with it buddy! It would be worse if you join this community latly (for exfmple at 40). You have a good chances to improve yourself to be better! Just don't waste your time for parasitic nature (TV, games, blogs, posts, youtube, sport events etc.) And you gonna be happy and rich. And remember about 3 things wich is a real Richness! Peace!

 

[speedbird]

I was also into games development, 'cyber security' and automation as a teenager.

My advice is that you read as much as possible (books, forums, whatever) but with your current problems in mind. When you encounter an issue, research it and learn from the mistakes of others. This then leads to your own creative solutions.

Try to develop a competitive streak. School is not as competitive as reality. To make money in the long run, it's good to be an expert at whatever you do, but of higher importance is that you are better than the competition. Being perceived as smart is not the same as making smart decisions.

Lastly, keep learning about automation. When you explore different fields and find a problem in IT, manufacturing or anything, make a simple solution and see how it could be improved through an iterative process (input-output, feedback loop). Do not create 'projects' for yourself, where you have to spend 100's or even 1000's of hours before you receive any feedback.

These three (learn from mistakes, be competitive, work iteratively) will make you persistent. You don't need external motivation, such a quick $ or validation from others, if you have this form of positive feedback loop. It can make you too persistent, with more focus on process for its own sake, rather than the initial goal. This however is in line with execution skills being more important than a specific business idea.

Thanks a lot for your input!

I just realized a few days ago that automation is very important, just like you said. The thing is, even after being in cyber security for a while, I was always thinking that I should start automating all my work untill I got x years of experience. This to not make common mistakes and/or forgetting about stuff. (So yes, I got it wrong here too.)
But as you pointed out, automation through a feedback loop would work well in this situation. So I will mainly focus on that in the coming weeks.

And yes, you're so right about reading materials and learning from others! This has helped me numerous amounts of time and I always spend a few hours in a week just reading whatever I see is helpful and can contribute to my work!

Thanks a lot for the advice mate! I will implement these 3 rules and go after my next goal!

 

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[speedbird]

Good luck with it buddy! It would be worse if you join this community latly (for exfmple at 40). You have a good chances to improve yourself to be better! Just don't waste your time for parasitic nature (TV, games, blogs, posts, youtube, sport events etc.) And you gonna be happy and rich. And remember about 3 things wich is a real Richness! Peace!

Thanks for your answer mate!
Yeah, I'm lucky to have came across this forum and the book now than at a later age !
And for sure! I tried to remove everything that would waste lots of time (such as some games, social media, worthless video's, etc.)!

Thanks!