I failed a lot in college, I went to the wrong degree and failed hard... and even in the right degree, which I'm doing the Master's right now while working full time, I still fail or am slow in doing...
That is because I hate being forced to study, and I hate the way that the school system works! I feel trapped in the topics that the college wants to teach me, I feel like I would rather be learning another topic, or be doing another project, I feel my creative potential is shackled... and I especially hate exams, which I have to study for days under the pressure of having a time limit for things that I'll soon forget 馃槗
I hate it! I love learning, I could spend hours and hours working my full-time job, I sometimes even work after hours, but I hated and still hate college, and thus I failed a lot...
Because of this, whenever I speak about investments and money, people don't take me seriously... They saw me fail, and now they think I'm a failure at everything. But what they fail to realize is that whenever I really like something I'm an unstoppable research machine.
I first did it with bodybuilding and supplements. I spent months and months researching it, going through research papers, seeing what was the most optimal way to workout, what supplements are actually good, and what supplements are a waste of money. What companies actually have what they say they have, and what companies are just a waste of money that could do more harm to my body than actual benefit.
People also didn't take me seriously when I first started working out, but I kept going and going, and by the end of it, I was in the best shape of my life, could outlift most gym goers, could design well-balanced nutrition plans and could spot where the supposed "nutritionists" were making mistakes.
By the end of it, I had people come to me and ask about bodybuilding, health, ways of working out, supplements, where the hell I got my ridiculous strength... even asking me if I could make them a nutrition and workout plan and that they would pay.
People never take me seriously when I start, but by the end they always do...
The same thing is happening in investments. I'm still learning a lot, and still don't feel I'm at my peak, I actually think the market changes and evolves so much that I probably will never reach the top of what I have to learn! But I still know more than the average guy about most things related to investments, money, and finance.
But still, whenever I start speaking about investing, ETFs, Stocks, Value Investing, FIRE, Taxation, Revenue, Net Income, CAGR, EBITDA, Inflation, Bonds, the best exchanges, crypto, Stores of Value, they don't take me seriously...
They always laugh and ask me "What, you think you can get rich investing? You will probably lose it all... You are just gambling! You don't have a degree in finance or economics"...
But I know if I really wanted it would be easy to make them take me seriously.
Just like I did with bodybuilding, I would just have to do one thing to make everyone and their mothers take me seriously and actually listen to what I have to say!
I would just have to show them my portfolio's value.
Showing the results you are having is a sure way to make people change their minds...So far I only did this 2 or 3 times with really close friends and really close family, and instantly the person took a different stance and asked me questions.
Last time I did this was with a friend on holidays, she started talking about inflation, and that it was really high... Normally I say "Yeah, it's hard..." but since she is one of my closest friends, and has been for years, and I know she is really smart, I unleashed the full speech about what is inflation, what is happening, how to combat it, about bonds, ETFs, etc... she didn't take me very seriously, she said she doubted that it all worked as I said it worked.... So I showed her my portfolio.
As I showed her my portfolio she realized that the guy she saw failing in college, the guy who finished his bachelor's 4 years after she did even though he started it 3 years before her, the guy who had just started working, had more money saved up than she did in 5 years of working, and it would take her around 30 years of saving up and working and struggling to reach that portfolio's value... that's when she took everything I said seriously.
By the end of it, she started sending me print screens of treasury bonds and specific ETFs asking what I thought about it.
I once saw Tim Draper say something like, you have to win 3 times before people start taking you seriously. First, they ridicule you, then they say it was just a fluke and you can't do it again, then they start taking you a little seriously, but after the third, they take everything you say seriously.
I won't do it with crypto though... for my own safety, I don't like to disclose my wins irl, I would much rather people think I'm failing, that I'm struggling, or that I'm completely oblivious about it.
In crypto, being anonymous is the best choice and defense! Maybe one day once I shift from crypto to ETFs, I will have the safety of not being my own custodian and I can share my wins more... until then? No flexing my wins, or someone might flex his gun on my head.
