Hey everyone! Today's post is a little different from my usual ones. I'm going to talk about my background and journey as an entrepreneur up to this point. I hope you all enjoy and can learn something from my experience and I hope to also show you that the beaten path isn't always the right path. Just because someone is older than you, doesn't mean they know what's best for you. Make your own decisions and sleep in your own bed that you make. The biggest regret you'll have in life is the regret of not having tried something.
My Background
To start this little story off, I'll talk about how I got to where I am right now. I've never been much of a "school person" - I always had bad grades and it wasn't because I wasn't good at school or because I wasn't "smart enough" it was because I hated the idea of doing what I'm told and following the beaten path. I started to develop this mentality in middle school (right around the age of 10) and have carried it ever since. I always put school in the background and ventured off the beaten path towards my interests.
Throughout high school I dabbled with different projects and little entrepreneurial endeavors and I was always in search of a way to make some money doing something that was interesting to me. Because of all the time I put into these endeavors, I skipped a lot of school, got a lot of bad grades, sat in a lot of detention and dealt with a lot of shit from my parents.
Now is the fun part of the story. These are some of the various "businesses" I tried to make money from over the years. Each one had a particular learning experience that was unique and essential to getting me to where I am today. If you look closely, you can see that each one carried some fundamental skills that created "jumping-off points" for the next endeavor:
- Custom Gaming PCs (I was around 14 years old and built my first PC for myself and had a lot of fun, so I posted some online ads and tried to find some buyers, but never ended up getting any takers. I did learn a lot about online marketing and trying to put myself out there though. Nothing is a wasted effort if you learn!)
- Online Poker (I was 14 and tried to make a living playing online poker. I actually made a little money and had a good time, but it turned out to be unpredictable and I decided to punt it in search of a "better living")
- Trading Stocks (I was still 14 at the time and investments started to peak my interest. I took online courses, read tons of books on investing and got a $1,000 loan from my parents to try and make some money. I ended up making a little money in a few tech stocks, but then I learned about options trading).
- Options Trading (I was 15 and my stock market investing bled into the world of options. Options seemed really fast-paced and really really interesting to me so I spent every second I could learning about every type of spread and strategy I could. After a month or so of research, I decided to jump in head first. I placed my first trade for a contract and decided that it was a good idea to put all ~$1500 I had into it. The trade turned out to be unsuccessful and the contract expired after 8 days resulting in me losing all $1500 I had. I then spent a couple more months researching, but not trading (because I had no money to trade with) and once I felt I had learned from my mistakes and learned more about how the market worked, I went back to my parents for another $1000. They were, for some reason, generous enough to give me another $1k to attempt to make this mad obsession turn into a profitable endeavor. I ended up putting 50/50 into 2 different contracts and I doubled my money. My strategy was re-developed and I began only trading puts and calls against the SPY. By focusing on such a fundamental and basic strategy, I made a pretty sizable amount of money, especially for a 16-year-old. I traded options for several years and still continue to dabble in my off-time. Throughout the time from when I was 16-18 years-old I averaged about $15k per year).
- Online "Fitness Expert" (I was 17 and still trading options, but I wanted to do something more tangible with my time. I spent a ridiculous amount of time learning how to build websites and then finally completed my first WordPress site and tried to sell online fitness coaching - I was, and still am a major fitness nut. This business did not take off and I finally learned the lesson of "Just because you build it, doesn't mean people will come and buy it.")
- Marketing Consultant (I was still 17 and after learning the aforementioned lesson, I realized that I should learn more about online marketing. This was yet another rabbit hole obsession that lasted for years. I ended up starting a small marketing consulting business and sold my services to a few clients over Instagram as well as through local businesses. This was my second "hit" and I managed to make a stable income from it for the next 2 years).
- Real Estate and Cryptocurrency (At 19 years old, I started my second year of college and was beginning to learn about real estate. Real estate is in my blood and my family has been in the business for decades. At the same time, I was taking the money I earned from marketing and options trading and I was pouring it into cryptocurrencies. I was absolutely obsessed with Bitcoin and then I discovered Ethereum and damn-near lost my mind going down that rabbit hole (the argument can be made that I did lose my mind during this time, because all my friends and family still say that I have an unhealthy obsession with crypto). But anyways, I earned roughly a 6x return on my first investments into crypto and left a significant amount of money in, but I also have a diversification mindset, so I decided to take a portion of my crypto earnings and start my first 2 real estate projects).
Fast forward to the present and here I am. 20 years old, a college dropout and living off of the income from real estate, cryptocurrencies and equities. I haven't ever really mentioned my age because I don't think its all that relevant, but a few people have asked, so this may or may not be a surprise to you. Being 20 and trying to make a name for myself in the real estate and business worlds has been a tough journey. I'm not always taken seriously when I walk into a negotiation, but people usually warm up after hearing a bit about my past.
I also discovered Steemit and STEEM right around August of 2017. I was really curious about the platform and developed an uncontrollable obsession for it. Since then, I've learned a lot about myself through writing and interacting with all of you and meeting new people. Steem has since become my biggest crypto investment in terms of money, time, energy, focus and emotions. Second only to real estate, Steem has become my biggest focus in life and has completely changed my life and view of the world.
I talk a lot about my shorter-term goals in my regular post about my "Journey to 100k Steem Power" but I don't really mention my long-term, more ambitious goals. I may make a separate post about them, but for now I'll tell you that I want to make a huge difference in the world. There are a few areas that I plan to focus on:
- Poverty
- Multi-Planetary Colonization/Space Exploration
- Energy
- Human Longevity (increasing our life-span and decreasing our likelihood to develop debilitating diseases)
I know these are ambitious goals and I constantly get weird looks from people when I get asked the hilarious question of "what do you want to be in life".
Long story longer, I've lived my life by moving quickly and making a lot of mistakes. I'm not afraid to fail and I'm especially not afraid to fail publicly. I love hearing people say that I can't do things because it drives me to work harder to make my dreams a reality. I've heard the nay-sayers my entire life and I will continue to hear them for the rest of my life as I work hard to make these abundance-focused goals a reality, but I also know that even attempting to achieve them will result in a positive impact on the world, and that's all I can really ask for in life.
I hope this was kind of interesting for some of you. I know it's a little out of the ordinary compared to my usual posts, but I have been getting a lot more questions about myself as of late and I decided to make this short bio to refer to in the future.
I appreciate your support and I look forward to creating an abundant future together!
Question of the Day: What's 1 "endeavor" that you've attempted that you didn't succeed at, but couldn't be who you are today if you hadn't pursued it?
Thanks for reading! I'll see you in the comments!