hahaha not sure if serious. We’ll give you three. 1) hire an accountant who has worked for the IRS before for a long time, 2) get a new passport and 3) always put everything under various companies – unlikely much under your own personal name.
New passport as in 2nd citizenship, right? I’d imagine so if you want to be a true sovereign man.
passports.io looks like a solid knowledge base
yes
*Corrected post here* What do you guys think about leaving IB after my 1st year bonus to work in venture capital? I’m solidly ranked in the middle of my class (good political positioning, but average work product).
My interest/motivation is decreasingly significantly due to my lack of interest in the sector and IB in general. Have a much stronger interest in startups/tech (I’ve angel invested, done numerous side projects, etc.).
If you get the position go for it, won’t change earnings much anyway
You’ve left a fairly good base of information when it comes to Affiliate Marketing and the truth about Cloaking in Efficiency; however, trying to find information online about it, you can easily get sucked into lots of different scummy affiliate marketers and their traps.
How do you navigate first starting out and figure what is good information and what is trash?
We gave all the tools to start. There is no “source” of info because it is all a scam as we explained. You do it the legit way as outlined and then decide yourself if you want to do the cloaking route. As usual, never buy anything it’s all a fraud.
I’d be interested in hearing your comprehensive advice on skincare.
In particular, I get razor bumps on my neck and nothing I’ve tried so far works at getting rid of them.
Ha! We’ve never had that issue before so we can’t help. Probably best to see a doctor or a professional not random dudes on the internet who focus on $$$!
Me too. Try a depilatory cream.
Also use lots of warm water on your face, a shave butter and shave with the grain, its a pain on the neck due to the swirls.
You happen to have curly hair? Use an electric razor. Then use tea-tree oil diluted with water to clean up & any moisturiser of your choice.
@whoknows
Mike cernovich has some good stuff on skincare as does some of his friends he collabs with.
Thanks for the QnA.
I am not sure if you have gone through this phase, so I will ask the same question in different formats:
When things start to pick up, how do you deal with self-doubt / or that things start to get too good to be true / or with the fact that you are not working as many hours as you used to and might end up becoming complacent and someone else take everything away from you?
I hope the above is not too chaotic, but if it is, please feel free to ignore the question.
Thanks!
Never had this problem so… not sure what the problem is. No one can “take” it from you unless you do something incredibly dumb
Hi WSP, 1st year student here
I have an upcoming job interview (round 2) for a part-time position in an investment advising firm. VPs, senior analysts, and possibly the CEO will be interviewing. Since this is a part-time job, is it anything different from your IB interviewing guide? Anything else I should be prepared for? I’m also debating whether or not to wear a suit (they seem to dress business casual).
Also, when starting a side-business how careful would you be with using your real name? Do I mention it in future job interviews? How should I respond if they ask me about xxx business they found while googling my name?
Thanks
No change and your question is quite literally covered in the book… so we’re going to skip.
Greetings WSP!
Thank you so much for the awesome content you’ve been putting out there!
It would be great if you can answer the following question. Please be as detailed as possible.
How do I date fashion runway models? I’m not talking about club girls, actresses, strippers, etc. I specifically mean the fashion runway, catwalk models (where to find them, how to join their social circles, specifics of the game, best cities to game them, some other info you find useful based on your knowledge and experience, etc). How do you date only and only them = How to create a pipeline of those girls. Where do they hang out? What’s the best strategy to put myself in constant proximity to those girls?
Thank you in advance for your response.
Lol! nice troll.
I am serious.
So are we. You’ll get it by the end of the day!
Stack cash
If you have value (well connected in city, have wealth, give them experience) then you will have a reocurring fashion model date.
Otherwise they will thank hyou for a good time and move on. They have plenty of sugar daddies. You don’t want to play the beta bucks game.
Be a fashion photographer
Quick back story:
I’m 25 years old. Full time job has been working as an electrician. Started in residential, but since then I got into the local union, and now spend most of my time doing industrial.
Currently a 5th term apprentice. Need 1200 hours more to get my full licence 7.5 months + have to write my final exam.
In the mean time I’ve built a decent real estate portfolio of 4 properties, which cash flow an easy 4k per month NET.
Over the past month a business connect has given me an offer to work full time for him finding real estate deals, and wholesaling them. We’ve locked down 2 deals in the past 2 months, and I stand to make 15k from these 2 deals alone. Also as part of the agreement any deals I find that I want for my self I can do.
I’ve taken some time off electrical work while still being signed to my electrical employer, which I had done before to complete flip projects. However now my employer is giving me an ultimatum. They are saying because I’m still only an apprentice I have to either go back to work, or resign from the union.
Problem: If I resign from that employer it would be VERY difficult for me to find another employer that pays even close to as well, and most likely I won’t get around to finishing my electrical apprenticeship.
However my friend has big plans, and my main goal would be to build my real estate portfolio, and scale real estate as a business. Obviously it’s more efficient to work full time in the real estate industry vs. being tied to a construction site for the purpose of building the investment portfolio, and scaling a business.
Question: Am I at the point where I should leave the job?
I feel the real estate path is more inline with your advice. It’s a sales position, as well as gives me the ability to find better investment opportunities.
However I’m only a year away from my licence. Once I get my licence I’ll be able to work double time weekend shifts, or manufacturing plan shut downs, and make 100$ an hour while spending all the rest of my time working on my real estate biz.
No way we are reading this. Three sentences summary please.
Get the license, you’ll need the journeymans license for future work and its a great thing to fall back on. You’ll be able to find another job flipping.
What are the best ways to obtain traffic for a crypto related product?
With facebook banning fb ads and google doing the same, what other avenues can you use?
Thanks
Terrible situation for that one, coin market cap, conferences is all we can think of.
I’m struggling with this big time man. Started a crypto store months ago and Google banned my account, many of my Facebook ads get banned. Bing has really low traffic for crypto. I’ve tried a few other ad channels but nothing is working unfortunately.
Yeah it won’t work it’s instant ban for crypto on Facebook
You guys have mentioned investing in the gaming industry because its set to explode with all the tech on the horizon.
What are some ways to invest in that niche other than the stocks of gaming/gaming tech companies?
All of the other items that will prop up from ads being places at gaming venues to competitive eSports etc. Millions of ideas, at the end of the day investing in anything related to future of sales in the “space” in general is likely going to work
Considering side business while working on Wall Street, as in Efficiency, do you guys know if it’s possible to do it as a developer?
We do not know as we never did that so it would be bad info.
I got this, yes, it’s very possible. It’s actually easier. There’s no way you are coding all day for 8 hours a day. If you are half decent and top 5% as an engineer, you can get things done in 4 hours max. The rest, pick a side business.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot.
Thoughts on viability of crowdfunded investment platforms as a *business model* (e.g. realty shares, lending club, peer street) taking a % of each transaction?
Yes it works, you have to run in the red for along time though. Need deep pockets.
Could you write a future post about your travels and pick some of your favourite countries/cities for longer stays, goals, activites in South-America, Asia, Europe, etc?
You guys always say international travel is important, so why not write a detailed post.
We have already done several of those posts, eventually you find a few cities you like and stick to those. If we do a big trip worth writing about we’ll do it
Thanks for your posts, books and Q&A sessions. Truly amazing information.
Question: Is it normal to feel alone on the journey to become a successful man who achieves the goals you’ve talked about and that real progress seemingly takes a very long time to build any noticeable momentum? It’s hard to reconcile my progress with the lives and apparent happiness of those around me.
Context: I was late to your blog (26-27) but I’ve fully adopted the advice in almost all respects since the end of last year. I look at friends and colleagues and even though a number of them have not ‘woken up’ to all the advice that you’ve talked about (at least that’s my impression from chats with them), they seem so much happier, more content, have better sex lives (active dating life or relationships so it’s an assumption), social lives etc. than I do. I’m just laying low, working hard, eating well, saving and going to the gym. While in decent shape and have hobbies and social skills (working to further improve all), average people seems to be better off!
Not saying that I’m down and out since it’s early and it’s a snowball effect, progress isn’t linear etc. but I feel so far behind schedule to be at the goals by 30-35 and all these people seem to be so calm, relaxed and leading full lives!
Sounds like you’re not going out enough. Go out at least 2x a week. Generally, women are the ones who suffer from loneliness. As a guy it’s pretty easy, simply go out a couple times and you’re good to go. Don’t need to commit to anyone new.
Thank you. Makes sense. To clarify you mean both to bars and other activities (sports leagues, museum groups, etc.) or more the former? I live in NYC so obviously there’s a ton of options but trying to think about it efficiently. Is there a good way to think about it/ approach building that as part of a sustainable lifestyle?
Both and build it how you wish we don’t know your personality so it’s your call
Hey thanks for doing this!
Currently finishing up my junior year in college. You mentioned about Wall Street Careers and that we should go for M&A Advisory if possible.
What are your thoughts on going into a physical commodity trading shop (nat gas/power) as a trader? I’m aware that you made a post but it hasn’t been mentioned in a while. I think its a lot easier to exit out of IB and since this role is much more niche, I’m worried I’ll be stuck in a narrow path (if I end up sucking at trading).
I think it’ll also be difficult to find time to work on your business while working these type of careers so my plan is to push really hard to get my business running next year. Before joining back for full time and maybe I won’t even need to if it goes well =)
If you’re doing it for a short time sure. End of the day its going to be eaten alive by electronics and algorithms.
What do you guys think of keeping a LinkedIn profile after going fulltime online biz? If so, what did you put as your current job when you run an online sales business?
I like to know what college people and former colleagues are up to, so I still have one active even though I don’t need it to network there or for recruiters to find me.
Since I’m very concerned about privacy and I don’t want anyone finding out what I’m really doing / selling, not knowing my domains etc., I created a fake company in LinkedIn with website and fake employees just so it looks legitimate. I actually kept it empty after I quit my fulltime job for over a year but a lot of people were thinking I was unemployed when I met them so I changed this recently. I use this as a cover when people ask me what I’m doing since I don’t want to reveal the real business (just downside if people know the domains, can estimate revenues, can report you for tax audit if jealous, and I have a lot of friends at the big tech companies who could access my advertising accounts with the domain). I guess that’s too excessive?
Completely Unnecessary.
If your company gets big enough then you do the standard corporate one and use it to hire people. You’re rich by then though!
I’m currently studying for a degree in mathematics at a top university, but want to get a job in M&A or PE. What are my chances like at getting such a job compared to finance majors, is there anything you can recommend I do to be more competitive in landing one of these jobs? I hate quant/tech work but unsure of the direction to go in landing a high paying and high status job like M&A.
We have answered this question 1,000 times on the blog we’re not doing it again.
For online sales/biz, is intellectual property ever an issue?
Are patent/trademark lawsuits a thing you need to worry about?
It is a massive issue. Most won’t even tell you how they get their traffic due to IP as well. (that’s a hint btw).
As long as you’re not doing anything illegal unlikely an issue for you. More likely in the future people try to steal from you
use something called whatrunswhere
I am in college right now, what part-time job should I get in order to get a job after university as an SDR?
Part time jobs don’t matter at least in the USA. It is all about the junior internship. Make sure you get an internship in the field and all your part time jobs should be in the same sector.
In college and working as an SDR right now. In less than a month, was able to get several offers in town. They’re not going to list the jobs–you need to contact the sales managers/Directors of Business Development and sell them on yourself. If you can provide value, they will gladly take you on.
Do you think trying to start a dropshipping business is a good place to start when trying to create a solid secondary income?
No not at all. Our recommendation is in efficiency.
Thanks.
Since everyone else here seems to be asking multiple questions… what’s your career advice for a 26 year old neuroscience graduate?
I’m hoping to start a side business, but need a career in the meantime. Unfortunately, I don’t have an ‘extroverted A-type personality’ and worry I would just crash and burn in a sales role.
Any advice is appreciated.
We don’t know as we never majored in that. As usual, we don’t answer if we don’t know.
What is your opinion on bitcoin. So you believe it can become the next “gold” in a sence just how regular gold has now and in the past, or do you believe it can become obsolete by new altcoins with better design and capabilities?
Covered in book.
What is the best source for a line of credit with best interest rate possible?
I’ve heard that smaller banks/credit unions are better than Wells Fargo, Chase, BOA etc.
Do you have any specific recommendations? (i.e. name of bank/company) FYI I went the real estate investing route – not the online route.
I do want to get the online sales going though so I can work from anywhere.
Yes you go to smaller less known banks not the major ones. You want to go and find people who have been doing these for years and profit off volume of sales and less on the rate. Your best bet is finding a local guy when you go look at properties. They’ll pitch you!
36S12185D07793024
Any advice for getting a line of credit for online business?
Sure don’t do it! Hahaha. You shouldn’t need it seriously, the rates will kill you.
I calculated my yearly returns on capital buying inventory in the triple digits, have taken a couple of loans with around 20% APRs and my biggest bottleneck is lack of available funds, if I could take out 500k even at 20% I could turn that into 500k net profit by the end of the year.
Interesting, then you should go put up all the assets you have as collateral, go to friends and family, go to venture funds and even aggressive loan shark type places.
Just remember you better be 100% sure you won’t mess it up.
Thoughts on the biggest crypto tax loophole? Neither pawn shops nor big gold buyers connect to any central database to report you for selling them even huge numbers of $1350 American Eagle coins. They only take ID for their internal records in case of reported theft or fake gold. The IRS lets you sell any amount of these specific and anonymous un-serialized coins with no reporting requirement by the dealer. The same dealers have online shopping carts for Bitcoin and some even Monero. Self-reporting requirement remains though since buying gold with Bitcoin is not an in-kind exchange but again there’s no reporting requirement yet for buying gold coins with crypto so dealers list $150K as a limit instead of the usual $10K reporting limit with a structuring trigger too. So if a crypto millionaire bought mail order American Eagle coins and sold them to myriad buyers all over a big city, how is this as a cash out strategy invisible to the IRS? The shopping carts now use Bitpay which can grab your IP address and may reject known anonymous VPN use, but otherwise do not require a verified Bitpay account. Public WiFi affords a VPN alternative. Gold dealers in general are privacy hawks, dealing with libertarian leaning clients, so minus a crackdown on crypto, this two steps to cash seems like a tax loophole.
This loophole seems like a way that Republicans have effectively lowered taxes on investors. Original Obamacare briefly closed the loophole by adding reporting requirements for any $600+ gold sale by investors.
That’s easy, Singapore and Japan. Zero tax.
Which of the three career paths recommended in Efficiency is best suited for an individual with higher verbal intelligence & IQ, but lower numeric & EQ?
I’ve tried my hand at tech sales for a few years, however I seem to be lacking the EQ requisite to be a top performer. People have told me I’d be good at law and can get into the T14 schools, but I understand it isn’t the best field in terms of ROI. Thanks!
This is literally in the book as well. Since it’s a one word answer: sales
If you had to guess, would you say the technology/industry for hardware related to cryptocurrencies will evolve (GPUs, cold storage, etc)?
If so, what’s a good way to be financially exposed to this development?
It’s unclear how it will evolve so we’d say the best play is to invest in companies that lease space. So you get the money without risk to crypto price movements
Followed ur advice.. from email q & a regarding fitness companies, selling diet pills, online coaching and starting a facility/gym…. currently at 11k revenue since January.. how do u scale a fitness empire & avoid fame. Seems almost impossible or to do without gaining so much attention on social media. Thanks
Dope! That’s a tough one, you can pay for people to be the face of the franchise. Think of companies like Nike, everyone knows the players people wouldn’t know the face of the CFO
I’ve taken your advice on not focusing only on investing but also on building a business again. I’ve already let Upwork guys build a website to start selling digital courses.
Just wanted to know what you think will happen in terms of selling education courses in 2018-2020, what are the trends? What should I focus on?
I was thinking of advertising on Youtube and Facebook (videos) showing my villa and exotic cars and testing various styles until I get max ROI.
We don’t know anything about that market but your strategy is sound. Facebook/google is the way to go, good luck!
Very grateful for the advice you guys have been putting out.
I am about to graduate from a solid state university on scholarship and am very interested in following a finance/synthesis career track. Unfortunately, my major is unrelated and I lack the brand-name university and internship credentials to get into a traditional high-finance firm.
After a lot of networking/applying I received an offer to pursue a Masters of Finance at a certain top-20 business school and think this may be a great opportunity to network, get some stronger internship experience, and a good brand name on my resume. What are your thoughts on Masters of Finance programs, and is it still feasible/worthwhile to use such a program to pursue a finance/synthesis career track?
Lastly, RE investing is well covered on this site, but what about Real Estate Finance careers? From what I gather, its more relationship-driven (vs. quant focused), and easier to break into (vs. ‘high finance), and there are obvious investing/entrepreneurial opportunities the career track offers. Would you recommend this as a career path for someone in my position?
Thanks for your time.
Come on man… one question three sentences we don’t need life stories. Not being rude, being realistic here.
What are your thoughts on Masters of Finance Programs? What are your thoughts on the Real Estate sector of Finance (career-wise)?
Masters are not useful, you don’t need them. The second one is covered in the book and on this blog.
Look for all posts with real estate in the title. Also covered in triangle investing.
What is your thought on copying existing ideas from other people and make it different. Thought about using my software developer skills copying exisiting ideas like yellowpages, whitepages where you basically selling information but selling the information specifically to niched target markets. Problem currently experience is doing market research and make sure I don’t develop unwanted features that have no market needs. Thanks.
Yes that works, welcome to Asia! That’s their entire model
Current job is fine, trading time for money, but it’s putting me in position to be the lead on a start-up (production of actual good, niche market, decent margins). Along with that my other side gig (agriculture) will be tripling in size this year. There’s the potential of a cheap forclosure that could be a relatively straightforward flip or potential rental.
When do you know you’ve potentially taken on more than you can chew?
When your body can’t take it anymore and your performance becomes disoriented
Will pay you for a longer answer if you email me.
Early thirties, I’ve been doing affiliate marketing/SEO since 2011 and have built up a mini-empire in a UK related niche. We do USD approx $700k a year sales with $500k+ profit. I have about a dozen websites and two really large ones that pull in 80% of the revenue.
Basically, I enjoy the success of the business but hate the mechanics and am outsourcing as much as I can (content to agency) and a full-time subcontractor updating the websites for me as a lot of the information needs to be updated and kept current/offers and promotions changing, both costing me a total of about $100k a year.
My question is, I hate it but the money is too good. I tried to sell the website to various companies for $2m but no one would buy it so I keeping running it. I have $800k house paid off with no mortgage, $150k in my pension and tax efficient investments and about $500k cash sitting around. What is my best strategy from this point to get approx a $50k a year net passive income with no work?
Should I keep running the websites and funnel $2-300k a year into ETFs? Should I try and sell the websites then put all the cash $1.5m-$2m straight into ETFs within my company wrapper? I’m worried about the market being at high multiples as well.
My goal is have passive income to not work, take a few years out and start a family.
You won’t like this answer… Tough it out and buy a bunch of rental properties, dividend stocks and bonds.
That’s really it, selling won’t make sense becuase you’ll get a terrible multiple for something you have control over. Better to suck it up, you’re early 30s so… working to 35-37 isn’t that bad. You’ll be set by then
From a current valuation standpoint, would you think dollar cost averaging into say dividend ETFs at $200k a year, keeping say $500k+ cash, to deploy higher amounts when the market drops is a good strategy?
Or do you think I should just invest as much cash as possible as soon as I get it?
Totally fine. Just get real estate if you want cash flow. Done ina few years easily.
I work in finance and the past 6 months I have just been feeling burnt out/ depressed. Can’t even work out, and doctors just give me anti-depressants that don’t work. I’ve seen endocrinologists and have had many tests done and everything comes back normal. Only thing that works is long weekends, rest, and herbs. I don’t know what caused this. It could be the stress from work (sometimes I feel like I’m not built for this), or it could be genetics. I’m 24 btw.
I’m currently at a cross-path with what to do, and have three options:
1. I could go on leave and seeing how I feel, but I might get depressed with nothing to do though.
2. working part-time (FMLA allows for that)
3. Quit, take a vacation, come back. My family offered me a loan, and I can take that and buy an apartment complex that generates a yearly net income of $131.2K. My family has a real estate development business, so I would have them as advisers (which is both a good thing and bad thing). If I go down this path I could save some cash and eventually buy another building as well. However, I would have a lot of free time that I wouldn’t even know what to do. I might become a real estate broker to fill in some time. I feel there isn’t much prestige in this… There is a wow-factor every time I tell people what I currently do. Lastly, if I go down this path, I would probably be shutting the door on finance because it might be hard to come back. However, I am highly considering this.
There is no question here… choose the path and move on my man. This isn’t a good place for psychological help (close to worst place on the internet as a whole). The job is easy (finance, we know we did it). So it’s up to you, play the game smart to make the hours easy, or bolt to your second option. Both will work
The job is easy (finance, we know we did it).
Its easy, but I feel burned out. Did you guys ever feel burned out? If so what did you do to recover?
Not really, just kept working on business on side then got out.
Burned out isn’t real at age 24 let’s be honest here, just means not interested in being successful
There are literally billions of people who would trade places with you and work 40x as hard. There are also millions of people who did the same thing in the past. So there is just no excuse
Anon – It’s obvious your finance job does not make you happy but rather depressed so consider this:
1. While WSPs might be highly motivated by money and gets their joy from the challenge of making it maybe you get your joy from other things so having the free time to find that joy is 10x better than mentally suffering at a place you’re at just for the “prestige” which comes form insecurity in the 1st place….F prestige and build an awesome lifestyle.
2. If having excess free time is your only complaint about the real estate gig then life is great, go do what you want and enjoy it.
I am starting my own nootropic. I’ve set an initial budget of $5000 to get the ball rolling, but my gut tells me I am going to need more money over time to make this take off.
Do you think it’s feasible to get a decent product fully available with that amount? Or would you recommend that I sell someone else’s product (nootropic) on Amazon and Shopify first for experience?
For context, I have never sold anything online before besides one-off items on Craigslist.
Thanks for your time and the knowledge you have made available. Reading your blog and both books is like having cheat codes to life.
Unfortunately we think this is an awful idea. $500 is not enough. We would go into affiliate marketing first since craigslist is not a skill.
Thanks for everything you do and this q&a.
I will begin college next year (graduating in 2022) will be gunning for an m&a job. However, given your prediction of a recession within 3 years, is this still a smart choice? Will positions be cut so hard by the time I graduate that I should just completely pivot to aiming for tech/SV(since itll keep growing)?
Easy you’ll be fine with either path
I realize that banks probably won’t fail(such as in the GFC) in this upcoming recession, but will m&a still have a lot of job cuts as a result of it?
Everything gets cut in a recession, thinking about just a year is a bit stupid since you’ll be working for at least 5 or so
What is your opinion in how important is waking up early even if you dont have to, “to get an early start” on your day?
Do you believe if we are self employed and can work whenever, that waking up early (say any time from 6am-9am) and going to sleep around 10pm-12am is beneficial for maximum efficiency/growth/discipline? Or is that just an individual by individual case basis and that waking up at say 2pm and sleeping at 5-6am still the same? The hours awake are still the same. Just the time/schedule is different.
Asking because I’ve been waking up later in the day and sleeping in the early hours of the morning and it feels like the day feels shorter, more prone to wanting to drink at night even though only been awake for ~6 hours, not getting much done etc and it’s depressing.
Easy it’s irrelevant.
That said, most “studies” show waking up earlier correlated to more money. But that’s just a general item
Do you think going to b-school at age 30 — getting out at 32/33 is too late? Would only go to top b-schools.
Currently working self employed, making good money (200k+), want to network with other ambitious/well connected/intelligent people and potentially explore other options for a career. Currently age 29, maybe want to get into tech in a business/sales type role, have no coding/programming background.
Total waste of time. Unless paid for don’t go ever.
Lol love the honesty. Just out of curiosity — why do you say this?
Is it due to my age or is it really just irrelevant? I feel an MBA from a top school would open the door to the top companies in most fields. I know in actual learning content would be a bit of a lol fest but the networking and potential doors to “getting an in” would be worth it, especially since I don’t come from a well connected background.
Thx
BTW – to expand on my reply, when I say an mba from a top school might “be an in” i mean to places like hedge funds, or top firms like Goldman/etc, or start ups // top tier tech companies. I just dont see myself being able to even get through to getting an interview with my current credentials.
Granted I would probably stay in the business I’m in since the money is fairly good, but not sure how sustainable it can be in the long run.
What are your thoughts on retail investors (ie every day people who may have a background on the markets/finance, but have no significant advantage data wise or insider info etc) on day trading? Futures? FX? Penny stocks? What is the best to give smaller individuals a real shot at making real money?
People are flaunting their “knowledge” on the markets today and claiming they can make 500k-1mm+ in 2-3 years from penny stocks (ie tim sykes and his “students”), or FX, or futures trading, or any thing else you can recommend?
What in your opinion is the best one to pursue if at all? Possibly start with an account size of $30k-$50k for a day trading type venture like this. Looking to make potential returns that will dwarf the SP500 (ie turn 30k into 300k, to 3 mill, etc). Even 50% return on 50k is 25k and that won’t get anyone rich unless it’s for the long haul.
Thanks.
Triangle investing, please don’t waste our time with crap like penny stocks you know better than that
Out of personal curiosity, I was wondering what part of Wall Street you guys focused on before you left. Was it M&A, PE, Equity Research, Hedge Funds, etc…
IB
Currently 6 months into management consulting (big, non MBB) straight out of school. Working around 70hrs/week plus travel. To do well it seems you really have to network internally and attend events which take up a lot of time. Everyone at the firm seems to dedicate a lot of time to their job and and is content with that.
I’m working on affiliate marketing campaigns during any free time with the help of someone well known in the industry and want to do this full-time.
My question is how do you manage office politics/internal activities with building a business on the side when it seems like you have to choose one or the other? Considering leaving after a year for an SDR role.
Read all of our posts on office politics. We don’t know your space but it all works the same. Get the highest person possible to love you and you wont have to go to any of those mixers. As a hint, unless someone two ranks above you will be there it’s not worth your time. Networking with people your own age for example is not profitable at all.
After that your time frees up and you’ll be quitting within 3 years is our guess.
Fyi…I got triangle investing for free since I paid for the tier 1 questions.
What are your thoughts on getting a rich mentor or joining an investment club to help you become wealthy more rapidly? Thank you
Ha easy one waste of time.
What kind of artificial intelligence software do you recommend for internet sales business?
Easy one the ads. In fact advertisements are being taken out by AI as we speak. “Digital marketing” jobs.
I realize this is a long shot but any advice for shipping clothes in bulk from Europe for an online clothing boutique? UPS’s online calculator said it would cost $1000 for a 100lb package.
Don’t operate in retail clothing so don’t know
What’s the best option to work your side biz during down time while at your 9-5 without getting caught?
Key thing here is to be discreet so would it be one of the following:
1) Small iPad w/ roll up keyboard.
2) Remote access a personal laptop through your own smartphone* your recommendation. But it’s pretty hard to work off a iPhone screen. 3) Get a laptop that looks exactly like their company one and swap it out when people check out of the office at 5.
Just do it there and get fast at windows + D
Fill in the blank: My definition of success is __________________.
Healthy, happy, wealthy.
You’ve mentioned something along the lines of, “It’s ok to spend all of passive income, no point in saving a lot to barely increase cash flow”.
I can see this applying to cash flow from ETFs, bonds, maybe even RE.
But what about passive income from internet properties, small business, etc? I’m saving 1/3 of my business profit and diversifying into RE and ETFs. Does that sound right?
All of those items are active so hey don’t count. Opinion though.
Question: How much has the “smile, nod and agree” approach helped you achieve success? Do you think you’d be where you are today by using another way of dealing with people?
No way to know but has saved an ungodly amount of time from being wasted
whats the number 1 book for selling? I see its Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale in approved product but isn’t that dated and not suitable for this new environment (where people can access more information on the internet)
Books like SOAR selling or new solution selling seems to be more updated?
All we know is if you’re 1/2 as good as zig ziglar books (all of them) you’ll be set.
Haven’t read anything else since then
Hi, first of all thank you very much for all your posts. In uncertain times, they have really help me concentrate and focus on my goals.
Question: What are your current thoughts on obtaining the CFA title?
I have seen that you wrote some posts about it but these go back to 2014. Has your opinion changed?
Nope no change at all
Will help a bit but as usual only get it if the company pays. Won’t make you any real money long-term, just easier to get a foot in the door to middle level positions. You could have an online business running in the same amount of time: more money, less risk, more upside. Not even close to debatable
What’s yours opinion on investing in real estate crowdfunding such as Realtyshares instead of owning physical rental properties for cash flow? Thanks
In one of the post of yours you mentioned how fast you wrote it. I just got the book you recommend for content creation. Any (other) tips for writing efficiently? It takes quite a bit of time for me. (Mostly content, emails but copy as well)
What are your top 20 tax efficiency tips
hahaha not sure if serious. We’ll give you three. 1) hire an accountant who has worked for the IRS before for a long time, 2) get a new passport and 3) always put everything under various companies – unlikely much under your own personal name.
New passport as in 2nd citizenship, right? I’d imagine so if you want to be a true sovereign man.
passports.io looks like a solid knowledge base
yes
*Corrected post here* What do you guys think about leaving IB after my 1st year bonus to work in venture capital? I’m solidly ranked in the middle of my class (good political positioning, but average work product).
My interest/motivation is decreasingly significantly due to my lack of interest in the sector and IB in general. Have a much stronger interest in startups/tech (I’ve angel invested, done numerous side projects, etc.).
If you get the position go for it, won’t change earnings much anyway
You’ve left a fairly good base of information when it comes to Affiliate Marketing and the truth about Cloaking in Efficiency; however, trying to find information online about it, you can easily get sucked into lots of different scummy affiliate marketers and their traps.
How do you navigate first starting out and figure what is good information and what is trash?
We gave all the tools to start. There is no “source” of info because it is all a scam as we explained. You do it the legit way as outlined and then decide yourself if you want to do the cloaking route. As usual, never buy anything it’s all a fraud.
I’d be interested in hearing your comprehensive advice on skincare.
In particular, I get razor bumps on my neck and nothing I’ve tried so far works at getting rid of them.
Ha! We’ve never had that issue before so we can’t help. Probably best to see a doctor or a professional not random dudes on the internet who focus on $$$!
Me too. Try a depilatory cream.
Also use lots of warm water on your face, a shave butter and shave with the grain, its a pain on the neck due to the swirls.
You happen to have curly hair? Use an electric razor. Then use tea-tree oil diluted with water to clean up & any moisturiser of your choice.
@whoknows
Mike cernovich has some good stuff on skincare as does some of his friends he collabs with.
Thanks for the QnA.
I am not sure if you have gone through this phase, so I will ask the same question in different formats:
When things start to pick up, how do you deal with self-doubt / or that things start to get too good to be true / or with the fact that you are not working as many hours as you used to and might end up becoming complacent and someone else take everything away from you?
I hope the above is not too chaotic, but if it is, please feel free to ignore the question.
Thanks!
Never had this problem so… not sure what the problem is. No one can “take” it from you unless you do something incredibly dumb
Hi WSP, 1st year student here
I have an upcoming job interview (round 2) for a part-time position in an investment advising firm. VPs, senior analysts, and possibly the CEO will be interviewing. Since this is a part-time job, is it anything different from your IB interviewing guide? Anything else I should be prepared for? I’m also debating whether or not to wear a suit (they seem to dress business casual).
Also, when starting a side-business how careful would you be with using your real name? Do I mention it in future job interviews? How should I respond if they ask me about xxx business they found while googling my name?
Thanks
No change and your question is quite literally covered in the book… so we’re going to skip.
Greetings WSP!
Thank you so much for the awesome content you’ve been putting out there!
It would be great if you can answer the following question. Please be as detailed as possible.
How do I date fashion runway models? I’m not talking about club girls, actresses, strippers, etc. I specifically mean the fashion runway, catwalk models (where to find them, how to join their social circles, specifics of the game, best cities to game them, some other info you find useful based on your knowledge and experience, etc). How do you date only and only them = How to create a pipeline of those girls. Where do they hang out? What’s the best strategy to put myself in constant proximity to those girls?
Thank you in advance for your response.
Lol! nice troll.
I am serious.
So are we. You’ll get it by the end of the day!
Stack cash
If you have value (well connected in city, have wealth, give them experience) then you will have a reocurring fashion model date.
Otherwise they will thank hyou for a good time and move on. They have plenty of sugar daddies. You don’t want to play the beta bucks game.
Be a fashion photographer
Quick back story:
I’m 25 years old. Full time job has been working as an electrician. Started in residential, but since then I got into the local union, and now spend most of my time doing industrial.
Currently a 5th term apprentice. Need 1200 hours more to get my full licence 7.5 months + have to write my final exam.
In the mean time I’ve built a decent real estate portfolio of 4 properties, which cash flow an easy 4k per month NET.
Over the past month a business connect has given me an offer to work full time for him finding real estate deals, and wholesaling them. We’ve locked down 2 deals in the past 2 months, and I stand to make 15k from these 2 deals alone. Also as part of the agreement any deals I find that I want for my self I can do.
I’ve taken some time off electrical work while still being signed to my electrical employer, which I had done before to complete flip projects. However now my employer is giving me an ultimatum. They are saying because I’m still only an apprentice I have to either go back to work, or resign from the union.
Problem: If I resign from that employer it would be VERY difficult for me to find another employer that pays even close to as well, and most likely I won’t get around to finishing my electrical apprenticeship.
However my friend has big plans, and my main goal would be to build my real estate portfolio, and scale real estate as a business. Obviously it’s more efficient to work full time in the real estate industry vs. being tied to a construction site for the purpose of building the investment portfolio, and scaling a business.
Question: Am I at the point where I should leave the job?
I feel the real estate path is more inline with your advice. It’s a sales position, as well as gives me the ability to find better investment opportunities.
However I’m only a year away from my licence. Once I get my licence I’ll be able to work double time weekend shifts, or manufacturing plan shut downs, and make 100$ an hour while spending all the rest of my time working on my real estate biz.
No way we are reading this. Three sentences summary please.
Get the license, you’ll need the journeymans license for future work and its a great thing to fall back on. You’ll be able to find another job flipping.
What are the best ways to obtain traffic for a crypto related product?
With facebook banning fb ads and google doing the same, what other avenues can you use?
Thanks
Terrible situation for that one, coin market cap, conferences is all we can think of.
I’m struggling with this big time man. Started a crypto store months ago and Google banned my account, many of my Facebook ads get banned. Bing has really low traffic for crypto. I’ve tried a few other ad channels but nothing is working unfortunately.
Yeah it won’t work it’s instant ban for crypto on Facebook
You guys have mentioned investing in the gaming industry because its set to explode with all the tech on the horizon.
What are some ways to invest in that niche other than the stocks of gaming/gaming tech companies?
All of the other items that will prop up from ads being places at gaming venues to competitive eSports etc. Millions of ideas, at the end of the day investing in anything related to future of sales in the “space” in general is likely going to work
Considering side business while working on Wall Street, as in Efficiency, do you guys know if it’s possible to do it as a developer?
We do not know as we never did that so it would be bad info.
I got this, yes, it’s very possible. It’s actually easier. There’s no way you are coding all day for 8 hours a day. If you are half decent and top 5% as an engineer, you can get things done in 4 hours max. The rest, pick a side business.
Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot.
Thoughts on viability of crowdfunded investment platforms as a *business model* (e.g. realty shares, lending club, peer street) taking a % of each transaction?
Yes it works, you have to run in the red for along time though. Need deep pockets.
Could you write a future post about your travels and pick some of your favourite countries/cities for longer stays, goals, activites in South-America, Asia, Europe, etc?
You guys always say international travel is important, so why not write a detailed post.
We have already done several of those posts, eventually you find a few cities you like and stick to those. If we do a big trip worth writing about we’ll do it
Thanks for your posts, books and Q&A sessions. Truly amazing information.
Question: Is it normal to feel alone on the journey to become a successful man who achieves the goals you’ve talked about and that real progress seemingly takes a very long time to build any noticeable momentum? It’s hard to reconcile my progress with the lives and apparent happiness of those around me.
Context: I was late to your blog (26-27) but I’ve fully adopted the advice in almost all respects since the end of last year. I look at friends and colleagues and even though a number of them have not ‘woken up’ to all the advice that you’ve talked about (at least that’s my impression from chats with them), they seem so much happier, more content, have better sex lives (active dating life or relationships so it’s an assumption), social lives etc. than I do. I’m just laying low, working hard, eating well, saving and going to the gym. While in decent shape and have hobbies and social skills (working to further improve all), average people seems to be better off!
Not saying that I’m down and out since it’s early and it’s a snowball effect, progress isn’t linear etc. but I feel so far behind schedule to be at the goals by 30-35 and all these people seem to be so calm, relaxed and leading full lives!
Sounds like you’re not going out enough. Go out at least 2x a week. Generally, women are the ones who suffer from loneliness. As a guy it’s pretty easy, simply go out a couple times and you’re good to go. Don’t need to commit to anyone new.
Thank you. Makes sense. To clarify you mean both to bars and other activities (sports leagues, museum groups, etc.) or more the former? I live in NYC so obviously there’s a ton of options but trying to think about it efficiently. Is there a good way to think about it/ approach building that as part of a sustainable lifestyle?
Both and build it how you wish we don’t know your personality so it’s your call
Hey thanks for doing this!
Currently finishing up my junior year in college. You mentioned about Wall Street Careers and that we should go for M&A Advisory if possible.
What are your thoughts on going into a physical commodity trading shop (nat gas/power) as a trader? I’m aware that you made a post but it hasn’t been mentioned in a while. I think its a lot easier to exit out of IB and since this role is much more niche, I’m worried I’ll be stuck in a narrow path (if I end up sucking at trading).
I think it’ll also be difficult to find time to work on your business while working these type of careers so my plan is to push really hard to get my business running next year. Before joining back for full time and maybe I won’t even need to if it goes well =)
If you’re doing it for a short time sure. End of the day its going to be eaten alive by electronics and algorithms.
What do you guys think of keeping a LinkedIn profile after going fulltime online biz? If so, what did you put as your current job when you run an online sales business?
I like to know what college people and former colleagues are up to, so I still have one active even though I don’t need it to network there or for recruiters to find me.
Since I’m very concerned about privacy and I don’t want anyone finding out what I’m really doing / selling, not knowing my domains etc., I created a fake company in LinkedIn with website and fake employees just so it looks legitimate. I actually kept it empty after I quit my fulltime job for over a year but a lot of people were thinking I was unemployed when I met them so I changed this recently. I use this as a cover when people ask me what I’m doing since I don’t want to reveal the real business (just downside if people know the domains, can estimate revenues, can report you for tax audit if jealous, and I have a lot of friends at the big tech companies who could access my advertising accounts with the domain). I guess that’s too excessive?
Completely Unnecessary.
If your company gets big enough then you do the standard corporate one and use it to hire people. You’re rich by then though!
I’m currently studying for a degree in mathematics at a top university, but want to get a job in M&A or PE. What are my chances like at getting such a job compared to finance majors, is there anything you can recommend I do to be more competitive in landing one of these jobs? I hate quant/tech work but unsure of the direction to go in landing a high paying and high status job like M&A.
We have answered this question 1,000 times on the blog we’re not doing it again.
For online sales/biz, is intellectual property ever an issue?
Are patent/trademark lawsuits a thing you need to worry about?
It is a massive issue. Most won’t even tell you how they get their traffic due to IP as well. (that’s a hint btw).
As long as you’re not doing anything illegal unlikely an issue for you. More likely in the future people try to steal from you
use something called whatrunswhere
I am in college right now, what part-time job should I get in order to get a job after university as an SDR?
Part time jobs don’t matter at least in the USA. It is all about the junior internship. Make sure you get an internship in the field and all your part time jobs should be in the same sector.
In college and working as an SDR right now. In less than a month, was able to get several offers in town. They’re not going to list the jobs–you need to contact the sales managers/Directors of Business Development and sell them on yourself. If you can provide value, they will gladly take you on.
Do you think trying to start a dropshipping business is a good place to start when trying to create a solid secondary income?
No not at all. Our recommendation is in efficiency.
Thanks.
Since everyone else here seems to be asking multiple questions… what’s your career advice for a 26 year old neuroscience graduate?
I’m hoping to start a side business, but need a career in the meantime. Unfortunately, I don’t have an ‘extroverted A-type personality’ and worry I would just crash and burn in a sales role.
Any advice is appreciated.
We don’t know as we never majored in that. As usual, we don’t answer if we don’t know.
What is your opinion on bitcoin. So you believe it can become the next “gold” in a sence just how regular gold has now and in the past, or do you believe it can become obsolete by new altcoins with better design and capabilities?
Covered in book.
What is the best source for a line of credit with best interest rate possible?
I’ve heard that smaller banks/credit unions are better than Wells Fargo, Chase, BOA etc.
Do you have any specific recommendations? (i.e. name of bank/company) FYI I went the real estate investing route – not the online route.
I do want to get the online sales going though so I can work from anywhere.
Yes you go to smaller less known banks not the major ones. You want to go and find people who have been doing these for years and profit off volume of sales and less on the rate. Your best bet is finding a local guy when you go look at properties. They’ll pitch you!
36S12185D07793024
Any advice for getting a line of credit for online business?
Sure don’t do it! Hahaha. You shouldn’t need it seriously, the rates will kill you.
I calculated my yearly returns on capital buying inventory in the triple digits, have taken a couple of loans with around 20% APRs and my biggest bottleneck is lack of available funds, if I could take out 500k even at 20% I could turn that into 500k net profit by the end of the year.
Interesting, then you should go put up all the assets you have as collateral, go to friends and family, go to venture funds and even aggressive loan shark type places.
Just remember you better be 100% sure you won’t mess it up.
Thoughts on the biggest crypto tax loophole? Neither pawn shops nor big gold buyers connect to any central database to report you for selling them even huge numbers of $1350 American Eagle coins. They only take ID for their internal records in case of reported theft or fake gold. The IRS lets you sell any amount of these specific and anonymous un-serialized coins with no reporting requirement by the dealer. The same dealers have online shopping carts for Bitcoin and some even Monero. Self-reporting requirement remains though since buying gold with Bitcoin is not an in-kind exchange but again there’s no reporting requirement yet for buying gold coins with crypto so dealers list $150K as a limit instead of the usual $10K reporting limit with a structuring trigger too. So if a crypto millionaire bought mail order American Eagle coins and sold them to myriad buyers all over a big city, how is this as a cash out strategy invisible to the IRS? The shopping carts now use Bitpay which can grab your IP address and may reject known anonymous VPN use, but otherwise do not require a verified Bitpay account. Public WiFi affords a VPN alternative. Gold dealers in general are privacy hawks, dealing with libertarian leaning clients, so minus a crackdown on crypto, this two steps to cash seems like a tax loophole.
This loophole seems like a way that Republicans have effectively lowered taxes on investors. Original Obamacare briefly closed the loophole by adding reporting requirements for any $600+ gold sale by investors.
That’s easy, Singapore and Japan. Zero tax.
Which of the three career paths recommended in Efficiency is best suited for an individual with higher verbal intelligence & IQ, but lower numeric & EQ?
I’ve tried my hand at tech sales for a few years, however I seem to be lacking the EQ requisite to be a top performer. People have told me I’d be good at law and can get into the T14 schools, but I understand it isn’t the best field in terms of ROI. Thanks!
This is literally in the book as well. Since it’s a one word answer: sales
If you had to guess, would you say the technology/industry for hardware related to cryptocurrencies will evolve (GPUs, cold storage, etc)?
If so, what’s a good way to be financially exposed to this development?
It’s unclear how it will evolve so we’d say the best play is to invest in companies that lease space. So you get the money without risk to crypto price movements
Followed ur advice.. from email q & a regarding fitness companies, selling diet pills, online coaching and starting a facility/gym…. currently at 11k revenue since January.. how do u scale a fitness empire & avoid fame. Seems almost impossible or to do without gaining so much attention on social media. Thanks
Dope! That’s a tough one, you can pay for people to be the face of the franchise. Think of companies like Nike, everyone knows the players people wouldn’t know the face of the CFO
I’ve taken your advice on not focusing only on investing but also on building a business again. I’ve already let Upwork guys build a website to start selling digital courses.
Just wanted to know what you think will happen in terms of selling education courses in 2018-2020, what are the trends? What should I focus on?
I was thinking of advertising on Youtube and Facebook (videos) showing my villa and exotic cars and testing various styles until I get max ROI.
We don’t know anything about that market but your strategy is sound. Facebook/google is the way to go, good luck!
Very grateful for the advice you guys have been putting out.
I am about to graduate from a solid state university on scholarship and am very interested in following a finance/synthesis career track. Unfortunately, my major is unrelated and I lack the brand-name university and internship credentials to get into a traditional high-finance firm.
After a lot of networking/applying I received an offer to pursue a Masters of Finance at a certain top-20 business school and think this may be a great opportunity to network, get some stronger internship experience, and a good brand name on my resume. What are your thoughts on Masters of Finance programs, and is it still feasible/worthwhile to use such a program to pursue a finance/synthesis career track?
Lastly, RE investing is well covered on this site, but what about Real Estate Finance careers? From what I gather, its more relationship-driven (vs. quant focused), and easier to break into (vs. ‘high finance), and there are obvious investing/entrepreneurial opportunities the career track offers. Would you recommend this as a career path for someone in my position?
Thanks for your time.
Come on man… one question three sentences we don’t need life stories. Not being rude, being realistic here.
What are your thoughts on Masters of Finance Programs? What are your thoughts on the Real Estate sector of Finance (career-wise)?
Masters are not useful, you don’t need them. The second one is covered in the book and on this blog.
Look for all posts with real estate in the title. Also covered in triangle investing.
What is your thought on copying existing ideas from other people and make it different. Thought about using my software developer skills copying exisiting ideas like yellowpages, whitepages where you basically selling information but selling the information specifically to niched target markets. Problem currently experience is doing market research and make sure I don’t develop unwanted features that have no market needs. Thanks.
Yes that works, welcome to Asia! That’s their entire model
Current job is fine, trading time for money, but it’s putting me in position to be the lead on a start-up (production of actual good, niche market, decent margins). Along with that my other side gig (agriculture) will be tripling in size this year. There’s the potential of a cheap forclosure that could be a relatively straightforward flip or potential rental.
When do you know you’ve potentially taken on more than you can chew?
When your body can’t take it anymore and your performance becomes disoriented
Will pay you for a longer answer if you email me.
Early thirties, I’ve been doing affiliate marketing/SEO since 2011 and have built up a mini-empire in a UK related niche. We do USD approx $700k a year sales with $500k+ profit. I have about a dozen websites and two really large ones that pull in 80% of the revenue.
Basically, I enjoy the success of the business but hate the mechanics and am outsourcing as much as I can (content to agency) and a full-time subcontractor updating the websites for me as a lot of the information needs to be updated and kept current/offers and promotions changing, both costing me a total of about $100k a year.
My question is, I hate it but the money is too good. I tried to sell the website to various companies for $2m but no one would buy it so I keeping running it. I have $800k house paid off with no mortgage, $150k in my pension and tax efficient investments and about $500k cash sitting around. What is my best strategy from this point to get approx a $50k a year net passive income with no work?
Should I keep running the websites and funnel $2-300k a year into ETFs? Should I try and sell the websites then put all the cash $1.5m-$2m straight into ETFs within my company wrapper? I’m worried about the market being at high multiples as well.
My goal is have passive income to not work, take a few years out and start a family.
You won’t like this answer… Tough it out and buy a bunch of rental properties, dividend stocks and bonds.
That’s really it, selling won’t make sense becuase you’ll get a terrible multiple for something you have control over. Better to suck it up, you’re early 30s so… working to 35-37 isn’t that bad. You’ll be set by then
From a current valuation standpoint, would you think dollar cost averaging into say dividend ETFs at $200k a year, keeping say $500k+ cash, to deploy higher amounts when the market drops is a good strategy?
Or do you think I should just invest as much cash as possible as soon as I get it?
Totally fine. Just get real estate if you want cash flow. Done ina few years easily.
I work in finance and the past 6 months I have just been feeling burnt out/ depressed. Can’t even work out, and doctors just give me anti-depressants that don’t work. I’ve seen endocrinologists and have had many tests done and everything comes back normal. Only thing that works is long weekends, rest, and herbs. I don’t know what caused this. It could be the stress from work (sometimes I feel like I’m not built for this), or it could be genetics. I’m 24 btw.
I’m currently at a cross-path with what to do, and have three options:
1. I could go on leave and seeing how I feel, but I might get depressed with nothing to do though.
2. working part-time (FMLA allows for that)
3. Quit, take a vacation, come back. My family offered me a loan, and I can take that and buy an apartment complex that generates a yearly net income of $131.2K. My family has a real estate development business, so I would have them as advisers (which is both a good thing and bad thing). If I go down this path I could save some cash and eventually buy another building as well. However, I would have a lot of free time that I wouldn’t even know what to do. I might become a real estate broker to fill in some time. I feel there isn’t much prestige in this… There is a wow-factor every time I tell people what I currently do. Lastly, if I go down this path, I would probably be shutting the door on finance because it might be hard to come back. However, I am highly considering this.
There is no question here… choose the path and move on my man. This isn’t a good place for psychological help (close to worst place on the internet as a whole). The job is easy (finance, we know we did it). So it’s up to you, play the game smart to make the hours easy, or bolt to your second option. Both will work
The job is easy (finance, we know we did it).
Its easy, but I feel burned out. Did you guys ever feel burned out? If so what did you do to recover?
Not really, just kept working on business on side then got out.
Burned out isn’t real at age 24 let’s be honest here, just means not interested in being successful
There are literally billions of people who would trade places with you and work 40x as hard. There are also millions of people who did the same thing in the past. So there is just no excuse
Anon – It’s obvious your finance job does not make you happy but rather depressed so consider this:
1. While WSPs might be highly motivated by money and gets their joy from the challenge of making it maybe you get your joy from other things so having the free time to find that joy is 10x better than mentally suffering at a place you’re at just for the “prestige” which comes form insecurity in the 1st place….F prestige and build an awesome lifestyle.
2. If having excess free time is your only complaint about the real estate gig then life is great, go do what you want and enjoy it.
I am starting my own nootropic. I’ve set an initial budget of $5000 to get the ball rolling, but my gut tells me I am going to need more money over time to make this take off.
Do you think it’s feasible to get a decent product fully available with that amount? Or would you recommend that I sell someone else’s product (nootropic) on Amazon and Shopify first for experience?
For context, I have never sold anything online before besides one-off items on Craigslist.
Thanks for your time and the knowledge you have made available. Reading your blog and both books is like having cheat codes to life.
Unfortunately we think this is an awful idea. $500 is not enough. We would go into affiliate marketing first since craigslist is not a skill.
Thanks for everything you do and this q&a.
I will begin college next year (graduating in 2022) will be gunning for an m&a job. However, given your prediction of a recession within 3 years, is this still a smart choice? Will positions be cut so hard by the time I graduate that I should just completely pivot to aiming for tech/SV(since itll keep growing)?
Easy you’ll be fine with either path
I realize that banks probably won’t fail(such as in the GFC) in this upcoming recession, but will m&a still have a lot of job cuts as a result of it?
Everything gets cut in a recession, thinking about just a year is a bit stupid since you’ll be working for at least 5 or so
What is your opinion in how important is waking up early even if you dont have to, “to get an early start” on your day?
Do you believe if we are self employed and can work whenever, that waking up early (say any time from 6am-9am) and going to sleep around 10pm-12am is beneficial for maximum efficiency/growth/discipline? Or is that just an individual by individual case basis and that waking up at say 2pm and sleeping at 5-6am still the same? The hours awake are still the same. Just the time/schedule is different.
Asking because I’ve been waking up later in the day and sleeping in the early hours of the morning and it feels like the day feels shorter, more prone to wanting to drink at night even though only been awake for ~6 hours, not getting much done etc and it’s depressing.
Easy it’s irrelevant.
That said, most “studies” show waking up earlier correlated to more money. But that’s just a general item
Do you think going to b-school at age 30 — getting out at 32/33 is too late? Would only go to top b-schools.
Currently working self employed, making good money (200k+), want to network with other ambitious/well connected/intelligent people and potentially explore other options for a career. Currently age 29, maybe want to get into tech in a business/sales type role, have no coding/programming background.
Total waste of time. Unless paid for don’t go ever.
Lol love the honesty. Just out of curiosity — why do you say this?
Is it due to my age or is it really just irrelevant? I feel an MBA from a top school would open the door to the top companies in most fields. I know in actual learning content would be a bit of a lol fest but the networking and potential doors to “getting an in” would be worth it, especially since I don’t come from a well connected background.
Thx
BTW – to expand on my reply, when I say an mba from a top school might “be an in” i mean to places like hedge funds, or top firms like Goldman/etc, or start ups // top tier tech companies. I just dont see myself being able to even get through to getting an interview with my current credentials.
Granted I would probably stay in the business I’m in since the money is fairly good, but not sure how sustainable it can be in the long run.
What are your thoughts on retail investors (ie every day people who may have a background on the markets/finance, but have no significant advantage data wise or insider info etc) on day trading? Futures? FX? Penny stocks? What is the best to give smaller individuals a real shot at making real money?
People are flaunting their “knowledge” on the markets today and claiming they can make 500k-1mm+ in 2-3 years from penny stocks (ie tim sykes and his “students”), or FX, or futures trading, or any thing else you can recommend?
What in your opinion is the best one to pursue if at all? Possibly start with an account size of $30k-$50k for a day trading type venture like this. Looking to make potential returns that will dwarf the SP500 (ie turn 30k into 300k, to 3 mill, etc). Even 50% return on 50k is 25k and that won’t get anyone rich unless it’s for the long haul.
Thanks.
Triangle investing, please don’t waste our time with crap like penny stocks you know better than that
Out of personal curiosity, I was wondering what part of Wall Street you guys focused on before you left. Was it M&A, PE, Equity Research, Hedge Funds, etc…
IB
Currently 6 months into management consulting (big, non MBB) straight out of school. Working around 70hrs/week plus travel. To do well it seems you really have to network internally and attend events which take up a lot of time. Everyone at the firm seems to dedicate a lot of time to their job and and is content with that.
I’m working on affiliate marketing campaigns during any free time with the help of someone well known in the industry and want to do this full-time.
My question is how do you manage office politics/internal activities with building a business on the side when it seems like you have to choose one or the other? Considering leaving after a year for an SDR role.
Read all of our posts on office politics. We don’t know your space but it all works the same. Get the highest person possible to love you and you wont have to go to any of those mixers. As a hint, unless someone two ranks above you will be there it’s not worth your time. Networking with people your own age for example is not profitable at all.
After that your time frees up and you’ll be quitting within 3 years is our guess.
Fyi…I got triangle investing for free since I paid for the tier 1 questions.
What are your thoughts on getting a rich mentor or joining an investment club to help you become wealthy more rapidly? Thank you
Ha easy one waste of time.
What kind of artificial intelligence software do you recommend for internet sales business?
Easy one the ads. In fact advertisements are being taken out by AI as we speak. “Digital marketing” jobs.
I realize this is a long shot but any advice for shipping clothes in bulk from Europe for an online clothing boutique? UPS’s online calculator said it would cost $1000 for a 100lb package.
Don’t operate in retail clothing so don’t know
What’s the best option to work your side biz during down time while at your 9-5 without getting caught?
Key thing here is to be discreet so would it be one of the following:
1) Small iPad w/ roll up keyboard.
2) Remote access a personal laptop through your own smartphone* your recommendation. But it’s pretty hard to work off a iPhone screen. 3) Get a laptop that looks exactly like their company one and swap it out when people check out of the office at 5.
Just do it there and get fast at windows + D
Fill in the blank: My definition of success is __________________.
Healthy, happy, wealthy.
You’ve mentioned something along the lines of, “It’s ok to spend all of passive income, no point in saving a lot to barely increase cash flow”.
I can see this applying to cash flow from ETFs, bonds, maybe even RE.
But what about passive income from internet properties, small business, etc? I’m saving 1/3 of my business profit and diversifying into RE and ETFs. Does that sound right?
All of those items are active so hey don’t count. Opinion though.
Question: How much has the “smile, nod and agree” approach helped you achieve success? Do you think you’d be where you are today by using another way of dealing with people?
No way to know but has saved an ungodly amount of time from being wasted
whats the number 1 book for selling? I see its Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale in approved product but isn’t that dated and not suitable for this new environment (where people can access more information on the internet)
Books like SOAR selling or new solution selling seems to be more updated?
All we know is if you’re 1/2 as good as zig ziglar books (all of them) you’ll be set.
Haven’t read anything else since then
Hi, first of all thank you very much for all your posts. In uncertain times, they have really help me concentrate and focus on my goals.
Question: What are your current thoughts on obtaining the CFA title?
I have seen that you wrote some posts about it but these go back to 2014. Has your opinion changed?
Nope no change at all
Will help a bit but as usual only get it if the company pays. Won’t make you any real money long-term, just easier to get a foot in the door to middle level positions. You could have an online business running in the same amount of time: more money, less risk, more upside. Not even close to debatable
What’s yours opinion on investing in real estate crowdfunding such as Realtyshares instead of owning physical rental properties for cash flow? Thanks
In one of the post of yours you mentioned how fast you wrote it. I just got the book you recommend for content creation. Any (other) tips for writing efficiently? It takes quite a bit of time for me. (Mostly content, emails but copy as well)