I moved from Medium to my own website iangreer.io
Wealth
“If we succumb to the illusion and the comfort of a paycheck, we then neglect to build up self-reliant skills and merely postpone the day of reckoning when we are forced to fend for ourselves.” — Robert Greene
Overview
Business: Write code, books, and blogs, make videos, and podcasts.
- Make a personal brand on YouTube and Twitter to sell your products.
Investment: Invest in tech stocks, cryptocurrency, and venture capital.
- Invest in the top 0.01% of businesses/assets. Research Bitcoin and Tesla.
- Dollar cost average, buy more when the price is low, buy less when the price is high, and hold for 5 to 10+ years.
- No options trading. No IPOs.
Knowledge: Read books and study various disciplines.
- Develop reading, writing, and speaking skills every day.
- Creativity = sciences + humanities
Business
Make a YouTube channel that teaches people something.
Automate YouTube
- Make a new YouTube channel and create content for a year
- Make a product or course to sell with your YouTube channel
- Buy YouTube ads to increase views and consumer traffic
- After 1 year, stop making new content and automate YouTube uploads (re-upload old content) with Python
- Repeat 1–4. Over time, each channel should get around 100–200k subscribers and each make $50k+/year
- Live on minimum expenses and invest the remaining money on growth stocks, cryptocurrency, and business (social media marketing/iterating course or product)
Automate Twitter
Make timeless Twitter posts for a year (notes, quotes, ideas) and copy all of them into a text file that you will later give to Python to auto-post randomly over the course of a year, every year. Manually add posts that are in response to current events to make it seem more personal and less like a bot.
The Viability of YouTube
YouTube is simply a marketing platform. Once you have subscribers on YouTube, you can make any business (within reason) and develop a product until consumers want to buy it.
For example, if you make a soap business and sell 5000 bars a month for $5 each to your YouTube subscribers, you make $25,000/mo gross. Let’s say you make $10,000/mo net (after tax and expenses). That’s $120,000 in income a year — not including ad revenue or sponsors, which can make another $50k+/year.
In short, business ideas don’t matter — you can make 6 figures or more with mundane ideas if you have the attention of consumers.
- Sell digital products rather than physical products.
- Alternatively, you could make a product and then pay a YouTuber to promote it.
- The best businesses sell products to affluent consumers, not other businesses.
Must read books:
- Traffic Secrets by Russell Brunson
- The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ Demarco
Investments
Investments to look into:
Stocks
- TSLA
Cryptocurrency
- BTC
- ETH
- SOL
The Viability of Cryptocurrency
US dollars are inflationary because the Fed can print money. Bitcoin is deflationary because there will always be a fixed finite supply (21 million total BTC). Holding USD loses you money. Hodling Bitcoin makes you money.
A financial bubble is formed when the short-term investors outnumber the long-term investors of a particular asset or asset class. To avoid a bubble, the technology must be able to deliver on its hype within a reasonable timeframe.
Note:
- Use Cash App to buy BTC. Get a secure hardware wallet to store cryptocurrency.
- Don’t invest without researching.
Must read white papers:
Must watch YouTube channels:
- Dave Lee on Investing (Tesla)
- Invest Answers (Crypto)
Must read books:
- Common Stocks Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher
- Investing: The Last Liberal Art by Robert Hagstrom
Knowledge
Study microeconomics, psychology, persuasion, marketing, philosophy, science, math (arithmetic and stats), and computers
- Fully understanding the basics of many fields is much more important than knowing the advanced concepts.
- Reread books that are too difficult.
“We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: you have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.” — Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett
Must read books:
- Mastery by Robert Greene
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
Happiness
“A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.” — Naval Ravikant
Overview
Immediate happiness: meditation, yoga, listen to music, exercise (outside)
- Use these to instantly reduce anxiety
Long term happiness: Healthy eating, good posture, teeth health, sleep 9–10 hours, always tell the truth, be reliable, practice gratefulness
Must read books:
- A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
- The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi (Audiobook)
- Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung
- Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
Tips:
Eliminate vices. The anticipation of vices pulls us into the future — keeps us from enjoying the present moment.
- Alcohol, sugar, social media, video games, caffeine, news/politics, phone/screen time, etc.
- When life is bad, people turn to vices. Plan properly/develop good habits and you won’t need vices.
Meditation technique: Meditate for 60 minutes every morning for a minimum of 60 days. Think of it as having a mental email account filled with memories, fears, anxieties, etc. that you’ve never checked. Now you have to go through and read these emails. Over time, you will clear your inbox and you will have reduced fear, anger, anxiety. From time to time, a new email may pop up but it’s easy to “read” it by meditating. Let the memories come to you — no need to focus on the breath in this form of meditation.
“Once someone assumes the point of view that life’s difficulties must be avoided, they are inviting anxiety in, and once in, it will reinforce that point of view.” — Alfred Adler
Stay around happy people, avoid unhappy people. You are not responsible for making other people happy. If you make yourself happy, it will indirectly make them happier — no need to do more than this.
Think before you buy. No purchase will make you happy. Only spend money on the top 0.01% of investments and experiences.
Take responsibility for everything in your life. This creates meaning in your life.
“The difference between a child and an adult is that an adult is not a victim. An adult doesn’t blame others for their misfortune or ask others for help.” — Anonymous
Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.
For productivity, always ask yourself, “Does what I’m doing at this moment make me better?” If it doesn't, stop what you’re doing and read.
