After thinking about this for quite sometime, a review of a journal started over 20 years ago was pulled out from underneath my desk and I decided to review the biggest life lessons I learned while growing up poor.
Acceptance or Obsession: When you’re broke, you decide to either accept mediocrity or become obsessed with the accumulation of wealth. Obsession is a virtue not a vice and don’t let average people tell you otherwise. They are not ambitious because they would rather live in a bubble of self-reassurance and comfort. The difference between a complacent mindset and an ambitious one is the acceptance of the truth. The truth is that you can fix your life but the only one who will help you is yourself. No one is coming to the rescue.
Successful People Respect Ambition: This was a startling discovery at age 13. Everyday I was told that rich/successful people have no interest in helping people. Lies. Rich people have no interest in helping people who are unwilling to help themselves. There is nothing more depressing to successful people than seeing wasted talent. This lesson was learned when I decided to start taking athletics more seriously. Instead of playing within my age group I decided to show up at 5 in the morning to parks and recreation centers to play against the older men as the outcast young guy. A year later I was able to attend multiple high end training camps for free as the older crew would allow me to play for their league.
Perfect Repetition is Key: If you’re not working smart you’re not working at all. This is the impact of imperfect practice. As you go through life you’ll find less and less people making money by grinding out long taxing hours, but you’ll find many rich people grinding out and failing while giving themselves the highest percentage chance of success. The best examples include memorizing a slew of Jeopardy facts (the internet has been invented) or shooting thousands of free throws with improper form. Practice correctly or don’t practice at all.
Information Over Entertainment: If you want to become rich, you don’t deserve to watch TV, hang out with broke people, or do anything that is not moving you forward in the game of life. In today’s world you’re spiraling up or you’re spiraling down, you simply cannot accept stagnation. When you no longer have to work for a living, feel free to live a life of hedonism. You earned it.
Accountability: Another way to say this is “no excuses”. But the reality is the meaning of the phrase no excuses is misunderstood. What it really means is “Am I making an excuse when I should be accountable for my own life problems?”
1) Are rich people arrogant or am I just making myself feel better?
2) Are rich people really unhappy or is this yet another excuse to avoid hard work?
3) Do I really deserve to make more money or deserve a promotion?
4) Are rich people really stealing from people or am I just thinking like the 99%?
5) Do I deserve to succeed or am I taking no actions like an average loser?
You Never Know: This one still kills me. I still struggle with it. You never know who you are speaking to so you must maintain a respectful demeanor for every stranger you encounter. If you peg the person as a leech after spending time getting to know them, cut them off, but you must treat every new encounter as one of value. As an example the biggest change in my life occurred when I helped an older man fix his form on a shoulder press machine, we became lifting buddies once a week, 6 months later I am working for his team with a 40% pay raise.
There is a reason why we’ve named this website WallStreetPlayboys, if you’re unwilling to read the content and must judge immediately by a title or first impression, your gut reaction will be incorrect.
Conclusion: Finally, to wrap up the point of this article it should be noted that these lessons were learned because of a journal. Every man and woman should take the time to write down his or her thoughts and feelings every day. Yes this is “lame” and everyone else will find this task to be stupid and a waste of time. Then you look around and realize, if everyone else is not doing it… It’s probably the right move.
