I’ve made well into eight figures by taking almost the opposite approach. As a kid, all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of my unsafe neighborhood and never go back. When I was young I read a lot of biographies of successful people. What I got out of it was that they just worked a lot harder than most, and failed more than most.
Later I observed that there were people dumber than I was with better jobs than I had, and I took that as a positive sign. It meant that just by working hard, I could get those jobs too.
And one thing reading all those biographies told me was that many of these ultra-accomplished people paid a heavy price, usually in their personal lives. I decided I would rather be a happy millionaire with a family than an unhappy billionaire with two or three ex-wives.
I taught myself how to program, took some writing classes in a junior college, and taught myself business and investing by doing dry runs on paper. The kinds of programming I did were fairly challenging, because as a person without a degree I knew I would have to work harder than people who had one. I also stuck to programming that I liked, but that also had a likely long commercial future.
Eventually I was able to parlay all of this into what this website calls a “lifestyle business“, one that has let me stay home and raise children while still earning a great living over the last few decades. I have hit a fair number of singles and doubles, plus a triple or two. At my age now I’m not going to make a billion, But I own a couple of houses outright, have a retirement fund that can help support very high medical bills for medically fragile family members, and I can take care of my handicapped kid until I die.
All of this came from keeping my expectations lower than the author’s. I was thinking not in terms of what I “should“ be able to accomplish, but what I could accomplish if I worked hard and smart.
I have a similar background, but right now I'm just taking a salary as a software engineer and looking to expand that. Have you written more about your path so someone like me could learn from it?
I almost wrote this same comment. At this point, I'm probably going to be soft-retired in 4-5 years anyway. But once I know I won't die homeless, I'm excited to get started with this capitalism thing.
Later I observed that there were people dumber than I was with better jobs than I had, and I took that as a positive sign. It meant that just by working hard, I could get those jobs too.
And one thing reading all those biographies told me was that many of these ultra-accomplished people paid a heavy price, usually in their personal lives. I decided I would rather be a happy millionaire with a family than an unhappy billionaire with two or three ex-wives.
I taught myself how to program, took some writing classes in a junior college, and taught myself business and investing by doing dry runs on paper. The kinds of programming I did were fairly challenging, because as a person without a degree I knew I would have to work harder than people who had one. I also stuck to programming that I liked, but that also had a likely long commercial future.
Eventually I was able to parlay all of this into what this website calls a “lifestyle business“, one that has let me stay home and raise children while still earning a great living over the last few decades. I have hit a fair number of singles and doubles, plus a triple or two. At my age now I’m not going to make a billion, But I own a couple of houses outright, have a retirement fund that can help support very high medical bills for medically fragile family members, and I can take care of my handicapped kid until I die.
All of this came from keeping my expectations lower than the author’s. I was thinking not in terms of what I “should“ be able to accomplish, but what I could accomplish if I worked hard and smart.