This will be a mixed post but good timing. Some of the questions we are getting continue to have some of the same answers so in the next Q&A we’ll (try) to remember to link to this article. Also, it has been fun to see that the economy is doing so well that no one seems to be worried about “getting a career” or “getting a job” and the majority of the questions have morphed into Option A vs. Option B type situations.
Motivation! We continue to get these questions and there is never going to be an answer form us. Our opinion is not “fun” and is not for people who will never make it anyway. In our world view, you either want to be successful or you don’t. It just doesn’t make sense to waste life trying to do the “minimum” since the path of least resistance never works for anyone. Even billionaires will admit to awful hours at some point in their life where they work until their hands can barely move. For the people who started a Company and succeeded (or those crazy guys still in banking) you can remember the time you were staring at your screen and you quite literally lost control of your eyes (left eye looking different direction as right eye) causing you to give up and sleep.
No the above is not meant to say “work till you can’t function” the point is that working in general is just like any other muscle. While one person can produce tons of value in just an hour, this is likely because he used to take 10+ hours to produce the same amount. He got better. Exact same thing as any sport… If you train every day, you get faster. Making money is not different. Our only point from the paragraph above is that you eventually have to “find out” how much your body can take. Also, please spare us the “oh my god your health is ruined” comments. People who make it always look younger than their age by the time they are 40 because… they didn’t have to work long hours anymore! Funny how that works, it is almost as if you get rewarded for making mature decisions in life.
To conclude this topic, we will never have an answer for motivation. You either want something or you don’t. There is no secret here. There is no Tony Robbins seminar or $100 online course that fixes you… it is simply up to you. If our readers want to know why we continued to push when things weren’t going well it is simply because we couldn’t look in the mirror. How can anyone wake up in the morning at 6am or 10am… and feel good looking in the mirror with a $10,000 bank account while working 25-30 hours a week? We couldn’t do it and that’s a personality trait. If someone is broke and only has $10,000 but they worked like a dog trying to get ahead (say 60-80 hours) it is actually *EASY* to look in the mirror. You can wake up look at yourself and say “look I am not there now but I sure am doing everything I possibly can to get there”. Everyone else wakes up after watching Netflix and lies to themselves “I did everything I could”… simply a lie.
Increasing Productivity: Thisis similar to motivation but we’ll go ahead and assume it was a legitimate question. If you’re struggling to increase productivity we’ll give out a few that have worked for us. We’ve made some changes so we’ll do them in steps.
The first step is to find something to *complete* before moving onto your major task. In general, we used to put the first major task up front and never move on until it was done. Instead… we made a slight change. Now you find one *easy* task that absolutely needs to be done during the day. After that task is complete you move onto the most important task of the day. We’re not sure why it works but it does. You feel more energized when you close the book on one of the tasks and get to move onto the next. Ever notice that when you’re extremely busy that you get the most work done? This is probably some sort of human programming.
A good second step for productivity… delete all access to social media. We are either using it or are off of it. This is a strange way to operate in the world we live in. That said, we try to do it like this so you are forced to avoid it until you’re done with the most important tasks. Similarly, it becomes more of a “hobby” versus an addiction. It is so easy to wake up and look at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. Instead you should wake up, get ready, then go do that first easy task. After the first easy task is done you’ll forget that you even had social media and get the major item done. Once complete… you’ll feel even better and may take a break to look at entertainment options
The third step is to decide if you’re a morning or night person. At this point in our lives we realized this is a real phenomenon. Decide if you’re more creative at night or if you’re more creative in the morning. This also explains why some people wake up extremely early and others are up extremely late. It’s a legitimate body composition issue. We can’t prove it with “facts” all we have is decades of experience watching this. So. Figure this out and push all your creative outlets into the night time or in the morning. This causes extreme growth in your ability to make better and better products. Of the three above this is probably the most underrated. As a bonus tip, if you’re in tune with your body, ramp up the air conditioning before you do any creative work. For some reason being cooler helps (not sure why).
“Option A or Option B”: These questions are starting to get redundant. Only you can answer them because we follow the exact same process regardless of who is asking. First question: do you want to be rich? Most say yes otherwise we have absolutely no idea why they would read this blog. Let’s assume you say yes. The second question is “How rich?” If the answer is $5M+ in net worth, you must choose the option that allows the most time to start a business and if the answer is “$1-2M” you choose the one with higher earnings potential over 10-20 years.
Before any “clarifying” questions come in, please don’t nit-pick. If you are choosing between investment banking and enterprise sales… then the answer is simply “do the one you’ll be best at”… Again one we cannot answer. Same with “M&A or Tech Software Coder”… The answer is always “which one will you actually be good at”. While it is true that you may make more in one versus the other in year 1-3… BUT and this is a big BUT…. You don’t make real money until you’re 5-7 years in. So… Always choose the one you’re best at if you’re choosing between one of the three careers we recommend.
The exceptions: The only time we really have exceptions is based on older people 30-35 and up or people with no degrees. In that case you’re probably best off learning a trade related to real estate and then moving into flipping homes. Significantly better. To close this out… if you don’t care about being rich then our advice isn’t really going to help at all. To really kill this topic…. 1) will you be good at it, 2) choose that one, 3) if you’re unsure choose the one with lower hours and 4) all of it is absolutely meaningless compared to equity in your own venture – you will absolutely out earn your peers who stay in careers (if your business succeeds of course!)
Investing/Trading Ideas: This is becoming funnier and funnier as we get older. It shows that most people who say they earn a lot of money… really don’t. Why? No one needs to trade around all the time if they are rich. It’s actually an obvious tell that someone is *not* rich. They probably hand out on Wall Street Bets on Reddit… making ridiculous trades and losing it all eventually.
Our view on investing is still the same. Read triangle investing and the way to diversify is by moving *cash flow* to another asset class. This seems ridiculous but is 100% possible if you’re actually making a lot of money. Unless you’re worth $10M+ you can move your exposure by several hundred basis points by simply buying a different asset class. The math works this way and you can see it below.
Assume you’re “Joe” the successful 30-year old affiliate marketer. You have a net worth of $2.5 million dollars. Well to get to $2.5M the chances are you were making at least $300K after taxes (keeping it simple and that is likely low). If you really believe that real estate or stocks are going down… do you need to sell? NO. All you do is take that $300K and you invest it into something else entirely, even cash. If you do that now your cash just increased by $300K. $300K/$2.8M… that’s 10.7%. This is exactly how we operate. If we think a certain asset class is “heated” we stop buying it and but the other one. This also allows you to never sell. Even if you’re 40 years old and your portfolio goes down 40%… by the time you’re 55 you’ll be worth significantly more as recessions/downturns rarely last more than a year or two. Hey… Even in the wild wild west of crypto currencies, a year was all it took.
Unfortunately, we realize this type of thinking isn’t applicable to everyone. So what is the solution? The solution goes back to the same thing we put in Efficiency. Spend all your time earning and creating cash flow streams until the above paragraph makes sense. Why would you burn your valuable time “trading” a $500,000 trading account when you could build a cash flow machine that generates $500,000… per *year*. You’d need a 100% return just to keep up which is unlikely doable on a consistent basis year after year. To conclude here… If you’re really worth $20M+ or some other huge number, you’re not stressed about money in the first place… that’s why we know it is all nonsense and lies
Finding Suppliers and Demand: This has been covered so many times and maybe we’ll add it to the FAQ. Two things: 1) before making any product you test demand with a check out screen that says “out of stock” and 2) you get manufacturing information by going to conventions in your market. Both of these things are not difficult concepts and highlights that most people really do not even try. Why would anyone mass produce something without knowing if there is demand? The cost of doing this would be tens of thousands and the cost of testing demand would be a couple of thousand (just buy traffic)
The second point is even more obvious. If you plan on selling canned beverages, wouldn’t you attend a beverage conference? At a beverage conference the entire supply chain would be present from people who are selling the beverages to people who are helping make them and market them. These two questions are probably the most frustrating as it shows that people don’t take success seriously. If someone thinks they are going to make a product by “happenstance” with no connections or fame or build in customer base… it just won’t work
On that note, the internet has certainly made it possible to get rich quicker. The one thing people ignore now (this is a 2019 comment) is that every single smart person knows this as well. The competition is going *UP* and is only going to go *UP*. Since everyone has access to the same resources. A smart person will track down the right software tools and will find every angle to test demand before going into mass production. The rich get richer… this will continue.
