As the great Wayne Gretzky pronounced, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.
If you never attempt to try, you’re sadly guaranteed to lose. The good thing is, we regret the things we don’t do more than the things we did so go ahead and see what you’re capable of!
No one will remember if you made a fool of yourself in 7th grade anyways!
We always over-rationalize things in our heads as the main character. Start looking outwards. The best gift is giving.
Daily, I try to live by this mantra since if you aren’t failing enough, you aren’t trying hard enough. Simple as that. Of course, fail to an extent and with caution. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt and followed by moderation.
Most prefer not to make a fool of themselves and stay comfortable within their zone but at the same time complain they don’t have certain things that only come with taking more risk!
It’s important to note that succeeding all the time either isn’t healthy since you’ll surprisingly still feel empty inside. In that case, be careful what you wish for! Fail a little, succeed more, and repeat!
Finding a balance in life to enjoy its fruits and your wins is essential. Always have something to strive for besides yourself as well.
Luck, timing, connections, and the people you cherish play a major role in attaining above-average wealth in all its glorious forms! Don’t forget to thank your closest colleagues, friends, and most importantly family for getting to where you are today! You can go fast alone or farther together. For sure you didn’t get here without them!
It’s not about getting into the door first but staying in the room. Luckily, there are people and soft skills for that and research proves people with a high EQ have a happier more successful life down the road.
They still go through their struggles, challenges, sacrifices, and ugly losses but make life a bit sweeter by being able to connect with people better by learning the ropes the embarrassing, humiliating, and awkward way with actual people not over social media!
Never hurts to fine-tune your people skills on a regular basis. Doors will not only open for you that way but stay open forever!
How The Wealthiest Diversify Best & Take Calculated Risks A Certain Way
Taking risks is daunting so I suggest constructing a cost-benefit analysis for any important decision, personal, financial, or professional to ensure you don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions! Top investor trap especially in 2022! There were thousands of retail trader investment accounts closed this year due to this unhealthy short-minded thinking.
In fact, the more risk you take, the more you can lose but as a result, can earn a lot more than someone who cannot stomach anything and only sticks to allocating all their precious capital into CDs and high-yield savings.
If we’ve learned anything from fixed income’s worst year in over a few decades, it’s that high-yield savings accounts are never actually high yielding and in fact, most of the time, stay at bottom-rock levels that pay close to 0% interest that isn’t anywhere competitive to the realized interest rates recorded at the time.
We can’t rely on savings accounts or the government either to help us earn the highest yield so we must take appropriate risk as a result!
As investors get older and mature, they not only become more prudent and aware of what investing really entails which includes investing consistently via DCA regardless of the environment, but disassociate their emotions to decisions, do not time or track the markets every second, and really diversify since it’s actually the healthiest and proven way to take on more risk over time!
Diversifying everything from your income sources to connections is a hidden strategy many people don’t realize is the most basic way to increase your luck, and hopefully, net worth over time. Similar to an EFT or index fund, since it’s composed of a basket of securities if a few of your favorite FAMMGs tank, the rest of equities or other investments in that fund will balance out the red and you’ll never notice.
Compared to investing individually in stocks which is far riskier and not advised as a day trader, the one investment you bet all your chips on could soar based on a bull market, not on your genius skills, and then you’ll unexpectedly become wealthier but this is clearly not a realistic nor prudent strategy to count on.
It’s not what you earn, but how much you keep at the end of the day anyways so don’t fall into that risk trap far too many novice investors get themselves into. And for the sake of it, I’ll also mention to never confuse skills with a bull market!
Outsized/Top 10%+ Wealth Has A Lot To Do With Factors Outside of Just Skills & If Any Talent
Another lesson above-average investors follow which is categorized as having an investment income or AGI (adjusted gross income) over $200k is that they don’t selfishly believe their great skills, talent, and or looks make up all their success.
Not everyone who is a so-called genius makes it as far as we’d hope. After all, success is just a string of lucky breaks. It depends on what you do with that knowledge to propel you farther in and outside of your portfolio.
A lot of it is out of your control just know what is also in your hands such as the people you meet, how you dress, what progress you make, how you show up, and what you say!
Showing up, just like taking that first shot into the basketball hoop, is the first step towards any progress and is truly an underrated factor in anything. You never know who you’ll make an impression on, what you’ll learn or who’ll sit next to you. One person or exchange can really change your life and be the reason where you are today!
Americans who earn above ~$1m per year, a top 1% income, are in one of the highest inefficient tax brackets, and most likely earn more than half of their income through investments which of course is taxed at a much lower favorable rate than active income. Speaking of tax rates, take a look at Trump’s finally released tax returns per the NYTimes to see how much a (once) top 1%+ earner pays in taxes. If they did actually pay…
As much as we do want to thank our good looks and skills, habits play a sizable role in where we go and how much we attain. From my 21 yrs on this planet, I’ve quickly learned that habits beat talent by a long stretch. If you aren’t willing to put in the work, the work won’t work for you.
You don’t need to memorize random facts in business, you need to know how to apply them by working with people and generate that change for both sides in return! Negotiation means making sure that both parties feel they’ve got the best deal. Business is personal after all.
Being dependent on yourself no one else is by far the best strategy for the long run since consistency is truly key and surprisingly, works better than you can imagine!
Street smarts are important. Good or bad, there aren’t any instructions on “Survivor”.
Learn outside of the classroom too and don’t praise yourself too much. Wealth comes in different shapes and forms. Control your balance sheet, your health, and thank others for helping you achieve other forms of wealth in your life.
Now failure and rejection aren’t easy but that’s why they work for you in hidden ways. Since roughly 9 out of 10 startups fail, the best time to start one is when you’re younger with less to lose and more to gain!
Learning well means outside of the textbook and in the real world through sweat, tears, and learning from practical work through apprentices, co-ops, and internships. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in so many incredible opportunities since these experiences have taught me more than I could ever grasp from a self-help book.
Failing fast and forward earlier than later will save you time, money, and sanity down the road!
Wealth comes in different shapes and sizes but if there’s one mold that everyone with above-average success, luck, wealth or all the above has a piece of or fits into that they can confidently say they can retire on or feel safeguarded by it’s that they might not be a genius or top expert in the field, but they have a killer work ethic having put work behind the scenes, take calculated risks, failed well, and aren’t afraid to put in a little extra effort without any immediate reward.
What if getting ahead meant putting in only 2–5% extra effort, dedication, and patience every day for the next year?
Would you do it for the success you only dream of? I bet your bottom dollar you probably would!