I recently pulled out a journal I kept from three years ago. On the very first page, I had written in large, cursive writing the following lyrics from a song:
Death is easy, life is hard
Every second is a path
Every moment, piece of art
I’m the dopest, shooting star
As someone who had grown up in an immigrant household from what was at the time still a “third-world country”, these lyrics really resonated with me because it reminded me of the confidence I lacked for so long but ultimately acquired for good towards the later stages of high school and early phase of college. In my case, my parents weren’t always poor. They were doing quite well when it came to income and living standards in their country of origin, but after moving to the United States the discrepancy in economic development between their new country and old country moved them from the upper-middle-income bracket to the lower-middle-income bracket overnight. Yes, that might not qualify me as growing up poor or destitute, but I don’t feel that using “broke” to describe my family’s financial situation at the time would be inaccurate in any way. In this blog, myself and my partners have repeatedly categorized gross annual incomes of under $100K as broke. This makes sense as once you deduct taxes paid, monthly rent in a major city, living expenses, and so on, you won’t be left with much. You aren’t making respectable income until you exceed the $200K mark, but even at that level you cannot afford to splurge yet.
There is a lot of value to writing down noteworthy memories, experiences, and observations. As I read through my journal from three years back, I realized how much I had forgotten about in this short time frame since Covid first erupted. I still had most of my journals dating back to when I was ten years old intact, stored away in a waterproof military storage trunk that has followed me across three countries, five cities, four jobs and two colleges (I transferred in my sophomore year). After I finished flipping through the pages, I pulled out another journal, and then another. Four hours later, I had powered through the contents of the entire box. I refilled the contents of the box back to the brim, got dressed, and went out for a long drive in the car. As I sped through the relatively empty motorway, I thought about all the life lessons I had learned growing up in an environment where I was always on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder.
The First Choice – Acceptance or Obsession: When you have little money, you face the choice of either accepting mediocrity or changing your circumstances by amassing wealth and building new skills. This obsession will cause you to shift away from others as you zero-in on your goal. You will lose friends and others will judge you and even vilify you. The path will feel incredibly lonely and at times it will seem like you are making no progress and that there is no end in sight. But if you are really obsessed enough about getting out of your shitty and unfulfilling circumstances, you will be able to come to accept all this. Don’t allow any of the average people to tell you otherwise. They have chosen the path of acceptance and would rather live a life of emotional comfort and immediate gratification. The single greatest difference between the mindset of an average person and that of the determined person is the awareness of the reality. The reality is that you can tremendously change your life for the better but the only person who can get you there is yourself. No one else will help you.
Proper Repetition is Critical: You can’t win in anything worthwhile without the necessary level of confidence, which can only be acquired through repetition. Having said that, if you aren’t simultaneously also working smart then you are wasting your time. Either practice correctly or don’t bother practicing at all. Imperfect repetition is incredibly taxing on your energy levels and won’t do anything to move you forward. You won’t become a better shooter by shooting thousands of three pointers every week with an inconsistent form. Similarly, you won’t be a better guitarist just because you practice the same elementary songs over and over again. Do your best to follow the right form and methodology with each repetition, and integrate the feedback/lessons from your failed attempts into further repetitions for the greatest effect.
Knowledge & Real Experiences > Entertainment: The greater your ambitions and goals, the greater the opportunity cost of your decisions. As Marty Byrde said in his opening monologue in the show Ozark:
“Money- That which separates the haves from the have-nots. But what is money? It’s everything if you don’t have it, right? Is it simply an agreed upon unit of exchange for goods and services? $3.70 for a gallon of milk? $30 to cut your grass? Or, is it an intangible? Security, happiness, peace of mind? Let me propose a third option… Money as a measuring device. You see, the hard reality is that how much money we accumulate in life is not a function of who’s president, or the economy, or bubbles bursting, bad breaks, or bosses. It’s about work ethic. It’s about deciding to miss the ball game, the play, the concert, because you’ve resolved to work and invest in your family’s future and taking responsibility for the consequences of those actions. Patience, frugality and sacrifice. When you boil it down, what do those three things have in common? Those are choices. Money is not peace of mind. Money is not happiness. Money is, at its essence, that measure of a man’s choices.”
If you are broke but want to become filthy rich, then you don’t deserve to watch Netflix, drink six-packs, or do anything that is keeping you stagnant or weakening your health/mind/bank account balance. No hedonism is allowed until after you have made it.
Reliability & Responsibility: Always ask yourself the following when something goes awfully wrong: “Am I making excuses when I should hold myself accountable for my own problems?”
The same can also apply to smaller frustrations or negative thoughts that come up:
- Does money really not bring happiness or do I just want to justify my desire to not work hard?
- Do I really deserve to earn more money when I currently can’t even generate enough revenue to break even?
- Do I deserve to succeed when I am drinking a six pack every evening and watching Netflix?
Ready For That Perfect Opportunity: We want to first point out that there is no truly perfect opportunity. Every time you see an opening to obtain something that you highly desire, there will always be at least one major hurdle in your way. This rule will never change since anything you highly desire will never be something you deserve to have with little to no effort, because if you could obtain it so easily you wouldn’t desire it in the first place.
With that said, you can be far better prepared for every single potential opportunity by constantly working to better yourself. This means going to the weight room as frequently as possible to get into great physical shape, learning new skills that will increase your income down the road, getting up two hours earlier every morning for over a year to work on building up your side business, etc. Next time you befriend someone with money and connections you will already have a business that is functioning and operational and ready to take a large order. Next time you come across a pretty Argentinian girl you will be ready because you have already put in 500-600+ hours of Spanish study over the past year. Next time someone challenges you to run a marathon you will be ready because you have already run this distance countless times in the dark while everyone else was sleeping.
Similarly, all the work you put in will build up and create new opportunities for you that might otherwise not exist. Next time an attractive girl winks at you, it could be because you are a naturally tall and attractive guy, but it could also come down to the fact that you have built up a nice physique over the past six months that you previously didn’t have. Likewise, next time you receive a job offer with a huge pay rise despite not possessing much of the required experience it could be because you just “got lucky”, or because you self-studied the hiring manager’s native language and conversed with him in it during the interview. By consistently working on self-improvement over the course of years you will experience these opportunities over and over again.
Successful People Recognize Ambition: Rather than get theoretical I will just give a personal anecdote to illustrate this point. When I was younger, I struggled to find a part-time job. At the time, I was still in high school and the meager pocket money my parents gave me was barely enough to pay for lunch in the school canteen. Most small businesses in my area preferred to hire the numerous college students who were also job-hunting and presumably had more people skills that would immediately translate on the job. Since I couldn’t find a job, I decided to create one for myself. I went online and watched videos on ideas for different types of hustles, and one really stood out to me. The next day, I made the hour-long trip by bus from my neighborhood to an affluent area in the suburbs. Then I went door by door and asked the inhabitants if they would like me to wash their cars for free. I received plenty of confused looks. “It’s totally free? What’s the catch?” “There’s no catch. I will wash your car free of charge and if you want to you can leave me a tip, but you really don’t need to.” After an entire afternoon of washing cars in the hot summer sun, I had racked up plenty of tips and made far more money than I would have washing the same number of cars for a fixed price per car. One particular experience stood out: One guy trusted me, still a 16 year-old kid, to wash his Ferrari and gave me a $100 tip afterwards. Then he told me that if I keep working hard I will get very far in life and left me his business card. I kept in touch with him quarterly, sending him the standard Christmas/New Year/Easter greetings by text. Eight years later when I started my first successful business he became my very first customer.
Always Track Demand: I learned this through personal experience in my formative years. Why are poor people poor? They are poor either because they lack the skills and capabilities that are in demand, or because they are working a job or operating a business that there is not enough demand for (or because they are lazy – but that is too controversial of a point to bring up these days). Whenever you decide to pursue a new opportunity, whether it be a job or business opportunity in a certain niche or industry, always do your research beforehand to ensure there is sufficient demand and no oversupply.
Sometimes You Just Never Know: The only person you can always depend on is yourself. Beyond this there are simply too many variables that are out of your control which you shouldn’t waste any time worrying about. You could be the most talented and successful person in the world with a great personality and top-notch social skills, but your girlfriend could still break up with you tomorrow. You might be running a high-performing company with strong business fundamentals and then have your revenue wiped out by sudden new developments in geopolitics. You might be crossing the road and suddenly a car comes out of nowhere and kills you. All these are things you can’t control even if you take the most stringent precautions. Don’t worry about them and just enjoy life.
There is also more to this point in a social context, which is that you never know who you are speaking to (unless the guy is extremely disheveled) so you want to be sure to maintain a respectful disposition towards every stranger that you encounter. It goes without saying but avoid any emotional outbursts towards strangers even if they invade your personal space or do something extremely annoying/inconsiderate, as this can really backfire particularly if they are someone influential within your industry. Once you have actually had the opportunity to properly evaluate someone and determine that he/she is a leech, feel free to cut the person out. But before then, treat every single person with the necessary respect and be willing to invest a bit of time to help them out. As an example, I once offered to help spot a middle-aged guy in the gym. We eventually became lifting partners and two years on he is one of my key clients.
Conclusion: All of the above lessons were learned through first-hand experience, but retained through journal entries. This emphasizes the importance of writing down your thoughts, ideas and experiences every day. Yes, nobody else around you does this because it is boring and feels like a waste of time, but if fewer than 1% of people are doing it and it’s not against the law, then it’s probably the right thing to do if you want to improve your life.