Success in the United States is often associated with having a lot of money and/or being famous—the nice car and the mansion, as portrayed in the movies.
However, I disagree. To me, success is about being happy. It’s about spending time with people you enjoy and having the freedom to do what you want, when you want. In essence, success, to me, is freedom.
I don’t believe you can be truly successful if you don’t enjoy what you do. You might have a lot of money, but without happiness, it means little. Conversely, if you enjoy what you do but don’t make enough money to sustain yourself, that isn’t success either.
Ultimately, everyone has their own definition of success if they take the time to reflect on it.
Tag success
Are rich people evil?
I want to tell you a story about a young entrepreneur named Bob who just finished high school. He comes from a low-income family. However, he is good at computer programming. He creates one website in his free time, and it makes some money. He creates another, and it makes some more money.
Years go by, and he has thousands of websites and makes millions of dollars.
His friends from high school stopped hanging out with him because he didn’t share his money. He feels he doesn’t have to because while they were partying, he was working on websites. Is this person evil? No, he is not.
In the United States, a staggering 79% of millionaires are considered self-made, as revealed by a Ramsey Solutions National Study of Millionaires. This data shatters the myth that wealth is primarily inherited, highlighting that most millionaires have earned their wealth through their own efforts, not through a stroke of luck or inheritance.
Now, why does he pay his employees so little? Well, Bob has no choice in the matter. Bob’s company went public and started trading on the stock market.
Bob took the company public because he needed more money to build more websites. The cheapest way to get more money was to make the company tradable on the stock market.
When a company goes public, it has to do what is in the best interest of the stock owners.
If Bob paid the cleaning lady a million dollars, he could be sued and fired from his own company because he is not doing what is in the best interest of the stock owners. By law, he has to.
The only way for the cleaning lady to get paid more is to learn more valuable skills like programming, so Bob can then pay her fair market value for her job, meaning a little bit more or less of what the job usually pays.
The cleaning lady would rather watch TV than learn a new skill. Is Bob evil? Absolutely not.
So don’t be lazy. Be like Bob and let other people call you evil.
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Don’t be afraid to ask for advice
One thing I did good when I was young was seek out advice. Advice and being pointed in the right direction can tremendously help your life. It could make the difference between a good life and a life full of misery.
Good advice
Good advice can come from anywhere. It could be an article you read online from your bus driver, teacher, or mom. However, you must learn to check to see if the advice makes sense to you inside.
You can learn from other people’s mistakes and avoid the same pitfalls. Or learn from their realizations, insights, and experience, which will make the trip easier.
Bad advice
Like good advice can help you, bad advice can hurt you. I once listened to a friend. About money, and it screwed me up for a long time. Please read about it here. Some people want to help you, and others want to hurt you; however, they love sharing advice because it makes them feel important.
Check the source
For instance, people sometimes like to hear themselves talk. They will say anything, even if it makes no sense, and always think about the person’s reputation and also where they are in life.
Friends provide the best support, not the best advice.
Friends and family can even get jealous and try to sabotage your plan when you are seeking advice. Sometimes your relationships might split, and your friends or family may disagree with your actions. If it makes sense and feels right, then pursue them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with the right help, you can make extraordinary progress in life, so don’t be afraid to seek wisdom or advice. But you have to get good at picking which advice to take and which not to take.
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The best way is to consider the long-term and the short-term benefits and disadvantages. Also, get as many sources as possible. Buy a book on Amazon on the subject. Read reviews, and post about the issue on a discussion forum. And as the adage goes, a 10,000-mile journey begins with a single step.
The biggest life lesson I learned
The biggest life lesson I learned
Sometime after high school, my friend told me I could spend all the money I wanted because I would make it back when I was older. It sounded odd, but I believed it and took it to heart.
That was a huge mistake. Here I am at 36 with nothing to show for all my work. I started working when I was 16, so I made at least $400,000 during that time. I spent my money on books I never read, memberships I never used, and clothes I never wore.
Looking back, If I had been wiser with my money, I would have been way better off financially and personally today. I should not have listened to my friend and invested my money. I would have had more leisure time at this age and more freedom to go and buy what I wanted at this age.
I didn’t care much for money; I thought it was something you get and spend. I never realized the power of investing money and how much it can make your life by having more money to spend in the long run.
When you are young big decisions like this, impact your future significantly, and when you are young, you are slow to think about the consequences.
What you should do when you are young is save your money and invest in a well-thought, well-researched business opportunity or, better yet, real estate property which is the safest investment a young person can make. I also wish I had sought out the advice of a financial advisor and listened to his advice.
I met someone that was 50. They had saved all their money since they were ten. They owned a 20-apartment complex and were financially secure and safe for life. Saving and investing for the long term is the correct answer to what you should do with your money when you are young.
Letting it go
My martial arts instructor made me grab his wrist during our training session and told me not to let go, no matter what he did. Eventually, he would put my hand in a position where it would hurt. I would let go, and he would do it again after suffering a lot of pain in different parts of my body. He made me do this over and over again.
I finally got upset and finally asked him why he was making me do this? He said let it be a metaphor for you. The longer you hold on to things, the more they hurt you. He noticed I hung on to being hurt emotionally hurt by people and thinking about bad things people did to me. It made me realize that very moment that I cling to many things.
The best way to explain it is that I was holding on to anger about resentment, which controlled my attitude and thoughts. I would be obsessed over them to the point I would think about getting even.
For example, I recently let go of hoping I would reunite with a woman I was madly in love with. It made me realize that just because I liked her and she liked me doesn’t mean we would end up together. I was shy, and life took us in different directions. It didn’t go how I would have hoped, and we ended up not getting married or dating.
For years I hoped that she would get out of her relationship and I would have my shot, but that was silly. I was holding on to something that wasn’t realistic (she got married). I should have moved on when I realized it was doubtful we would be dating or getting together. I would have given other women a chance and been more open to relationships.
Holding on to things that are impossible or unlikely to change is me in the dojo holding on to the teacher and eventually getting hurt every time. It is no good. It is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.
The best way to let go of ideas and unrealistic expectations is to accept that things as they are not as you want them to be. If you are not going to the NFL to play football, accept it sit with it, try to feel the feelings you are feeling and nothing else, or even cry over it and move on.
Please don’t hold on to anything, including the past, because it is the past. You are not looking forward. Every time you look back, years could go by, and you wasted them by looking back. You will miss the opportunities in front of you. Let go and let the universe present you with another opportunity, and It surely will. Let go of things, and you won’t get hurt.
How to make a million dollars guaranteed
Follow your passion
You will never have a million dollars unless you follow your passion. I met a young adult who was about 18 years old. I asked him what does he want to do with his life? He said he wanted to play golf. However, his father wants him to go into the family plumbing business.
I told him he would never have a million dollars going into his family business. Sure, he might come into a substantial amount of money, but eventually, he would burn out, realize he doesn’t enjoy what he is going, quit and lose everything.
It’s hard
Since we are all unique, there that something that we enjoy doing more than anything else. It might be playing basketball or writing or whatever. That special talent is going to make you a million, nothing else.
It’s hard because we might feel the pressure of our peers to follow the status quo. To do what everyone else is doing. But only some people are following their passion. If we do what everyone else is doing, we will get the results everyone else is getting—very few people because finally independent or wealthy.
Talent
There is no particular industry or job that will get you there. It’s hard to figure out what to do when you are young. A successful pizza maker said to me once when I told him I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a living. He said to start with not doing what I don’t like. It is a simple philosophy, but it worked.
Warren Buffett said he met many people at the end of their life who said they would have followed their passion more when they were young. However, he met very few people who wished they had chased money more.
Chasing the money
If you chase the money and don’t burn out before you get to the million dollars, you will spend it on things that make you fulfilled and happy, and before you know it, the money will be gone. The only solution is to double down on your passion. Even if you do not make a million, you will still be happy at the end of the day. The greatest wealth is health.
What happened when I increased my earnings to $15,000 a month
The beginning
It was 2014, and I just turned 27. I worked for an insurance company making about $45,000 as a temporary worker. In my spare time, I would work on website ideas and try to get them programmed by programmers in India.
The company
Then I came across a database of phone numbers online and decided to make a phone book website. It took two months to create. After three months, I got many website visitors a day, and it grew fast.
I was amazed
The website made money even when I wasn’t there, and lots of it. It required very little maintenance except for the occasional person asking me to remove their information. I thought it set me up financially for life.
Silly decisions begun
I quit my regular job without two weeks’ notice. I finally moved out of my parent’s house and got an apartment as big as my parent’s house. I was a successful entrepreneur, after all.
I had an incredible time buying things I didn’t need from Amazon. I was taking trips all over the country. I even stayed in new york city at a $ 700-a-night hotel in the famous times square. I was surprised when nobody spoke English at the hotel bar.
The crash
My website crashed and got hacked. It was unexpected, event none of my previous websites got hacked. I did know what to do. IT WAS TOO LATE when I finally found a way to fix it. Google algorithms have pinged me. I was losing website traffic quickly and the earnings even quicker. Although I tried for months, I could not recover the website.
Some things I learned from it.
- Refrain from expecting the money to keep coming in. I wish I had saved and invested some of the money that I was making.
- Everyone was surprised, so every idea that I had for improving the website was a good one for family and friends.
- Before you quit your job to pursue a venture, ensure it has an immaculate success rate and has been operational for at least two years.
- Technology changes, and it changes fast. You are a winner one day and a loser the next.
The conclusion
It was a good experience. I learned a lot, and the money allowed me to do many different things; however, I wish to be more careful with my decisions and created a financial cushion before I quit my job without possibly returning.
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