Average Investor

You might find A New Earth to be a good read by Eckhart. I understand though that you may not want anymore theory, but there is some good practices in there that you may find helpful for your current work situation. Maybe I could help you pick out some actions to take and help hold you accountable?

I just joined one of my toast master groups. In two weeks I will do my first 5-7 minute speech. It will just be about me, so not really going to be a big challenge in that regard. But I am excited to push my limits a bit more from the usually 1-2 minute speech that I have been doing for about the past month or so. I am excited to keep progressing in this skill. I want to find some other ways to improve it though besides the groups, but so far this is definitely helping me. I have been a little off on my routine a bit and I did wake up a late a couple times. I am working on not being hard on myself for any of that. I am trying to add more time to just relax in, because really it seems like I am always doing some besides, when I am meditating really. I want to be able to give myself good times to reset and come back in full force. I suppose a little part of me is worried about slipping into older habits, or something. I feel like I am really moving about that stuff pretty far though as I have been into this work for a few years now and have been making good progress and keeping it. I am really putting in a lot of time into photoshop right now. Just this week I invested almost 5 hours of learning into it. I am really liking it. It feels cool to be able to think of how I want something to look and be able to make that. It is an interesting form of expression. I thought about trying to just do some painting or something just for fun. I always spot some cheap painting or drawing sets for really cheap, so I think I should just pick one of them up and do that a bit. Not really wanting to pursue it. But just more of something to do to work on my creativity a bit with stuff. Today I am thankful for Finding much needed specific inventory Toast masters Taking it easy My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Creativity Connection Contribution Productivity Fun Adventure

I think being resourceful is really helpful. Figuring out how to meet survival needs effectively. Learning things like budgeting, savings, and tracking expenses are crucial. Keeping your living expenses down will speed up the rate for you to get out. No car lease, rent, etc. Learning to get good at investing or business is pretty much essential. Both would be ideal though. You could just use a talent like singing for example to do it as well and become a "star". Also, it would be good to learn about what you are good at doing. What your skill sets can provide. Then figuring out how you can make money off of those skills. If you can't really think of any, then you will want to explore that more. Find work that you would enjoy to do as it might require you to work even harder than a job for a good amount of time to get out. If you can find your passion that is a bonus. It would be ideal to find the passion and figure out how to make that your profitable venture. You educating yourself continuously is going to put you ahead of anyone else trying to go the same route as you. Learn about the market you want to enter as much as you can. Train and hone your skills consistently. If you can read or research an hour a day that would really help you advance much more effectively. Persistence and experience is key. Stick with something long enough to make you money. Constantly switching course will keep you away from reaching success with anything. But most importantly is you need to be working towards it almost daily. I would say at least an hour a day to the new income stream minimum to get it going. If you want out faster, then you are going to have to do more than that.

@Gladius If it's what they want to do, then sure. I just imagine it would be really hard to get anywhere with the side project (unsure how important it is). But assuming they want to excel at it, then that extra time might be worthwhile invested there. If they are doing regular working hours, Ub3r, and the side project seems like way too much to get anywhere with it. But maybe I missed some information in the thread. Edit: I see they quit the job.

@Inder It's really hard to fit in a lot of things like that in my experience. What kind of side project are you working at? It might be worthwhile to drop the uber and spend the time all of the side project instead. Have you found any progress towards what you want to do? What kind of things interest you the most?

Sounds like a noble calling. Have you decided on a medium to act on this calling?

Took the day off yesterday and did some bowling, go karts, and all sorts of stuff with my little sister. It was actually a really good time. I would never really make time to do stuff like that anymore. It is strange to watch in a setting like that how much stimulation people are getting. Light flickering everywhere and all sorts of sugar, alcohol, and bad foods. But I do see most of the being happy. Especially kids in that type of environment. I would wonder what it would be like to remove most of that stuff from children up bringing though. Interesting to see things from a different perspective that I would have use to. Got some really good meditation in today. I am getting really good at doing the posture mediation. I did 20 minutes with a small reset, then 42 minutes straight. I am quite pleased with that as that has been hard to do. Especially without taking a shower first because I will get itchy from oils or whatever leftover on my skin. I did do the concentration beforehand today again too, so maybe that was a help with it. I do kind of notice I get into a meditative sate a bit faster even with just the two minutes of concentration. Granted the concentration is not that strong yet. I have actually been making repeat customers locally for my reselling business, so that is pretty awesome. I probably need to set up some social media and stuff for it as I have not really done that. I am not sure what route I really want to go. I mean I have been doing the life purpose work, but I still kind of have been debating on finishing what I started with this too. I could have this reach a level where it is working without me. But I am not sure how deep I want to go into it really. I am sure it would make me financially secure though. I will keep thinking about it. I have thought about doing other businesses as well because I do really enjoy just having a business. I think with making youtube videos and stuff I really enjoy it. If that makes me income, or not though I guess it does not matter. I could hold my own with businesses I feel like either way. Today I am thankful for Mediation Concentration Feeling refreshed from a day off My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Adventure Fun Connection Contribution Creativity Productivity

I feel like I am starting to get on top of things that I need to do more. I am going to try to not push myself so much to constantly be doing stuff either. I need to learn to relax a bit more. But I do like a lot of the work I do, so it is hard not to relax. I did skip the toast masters this morning and slept in. I don't really want to do that again, but I think some rest and reset was good for this morning. I am going to a different one Thursday too, so not the end of the world, but I do want the practice. I am going to become a member at both soon too, so I will start to practice even more and more difficult things. Not going to be able to do a whole lot of work today. I am going to be helping my little sister out for her birthday with stuff. Not ideally what I really want to be doing. But I know that she will enjoy her day at the least. I am sure I will figure out how to get some work in at least today lol. I want to get some reading done as well. I think it would be fun to do some work in Photoshop again too. I had a lot of fun learning some new stuff in it least night and I can't wait to see how I will improve more on the next imagine. It is actually enjoyable to sit there and edit stuff like that and it is crazy how much better I can make an image look. I just started doing concentration and I do think this will be really good for my meditation. It is going to take awhile to get good at it, but I am glad I had the audio for that on the podcast app and it came up yesterday. I think that will really help me get even more out of my meditation. I have not been having the best meditation, but I am okay with that. I think I will get better and better at it. I am still doing it early in the day and that causes a lot of itching and stuff. I do try for the whole hour though too. Today I am thankful for Reset day Photoshop Good friends My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Creativity Connection Contribution Adventure Fun Productivity

@fridjonk Thanks so much. I am really spending a lot of time trying to learn new skills for it. I spent a couple hours working on a thumbnail in photoshop last night and had a big improvement. Luckily I have a buddy who is helping me learn it too. I just pulled out the old green screen and all sorts of stuff.

What are your hobbies and interests? What do you usually find yourself doing or wanting to do? I have found good success with joining local clubs, but I have to admit finding anyone into this work is quite difficult locally. I have never meet someone in person really all that serious about personal development. But join ones relating to your interests and you never know. A business one could be really helpful for you to join if you are serious about joining one.

The largest set back with OCD at this point is really just obsessing over some stupid thought. It is annoying because I am already aware that this is something ridiculous to worry about, or the solution has already came to mind. I waste a lot of time thinking about something for no reason really. Although, I am not sure how long someone would think about the same thing. It could take me quite awhile depending on how severe it seems. But usually just something that is like that lasts a day, or the remaining of the day to be on my mind. I would like to figure out a solution to this because it causes me stress and pain for no reason really. While some of the stuff does have some merit of worry I would prefer to remove the worry all together. I have been listening to a lot of good stuff about it. I realize that there was a good chunk of things I did that I was not really aware of being a cause of that. I want to manage this as much as possible. Granted most of the time it is not much of a bother. I suppose if there were not thoughts of things that had upset or surprised me, then I would go a period of time without rethinking something like that. Getting my reselling business back on track. I shipped out 9 things this morning and I have been setting a schedule and goals to keep me on top of it. I have a good amount of inventory that could be moving for nearly a month that will bring in some good profits. So I just need to keep up with it and I would like to get myself back on track financially. I am still working on that balance of it and my life purpose work. Not really the easiest thing to make time for both. But really I still like both. I don't wake up disappointed to ship some stuff if that is what I have to do. I really want to ramp up sales though. I don't want to have any worry about expenses on stuff that benefits my personal growth. My running is starting to feel better. I am back to jogging about 1 of the 6 miles right now. I think my injury is just from the shoes I had going bad. I am going to try to be more mindful about that and make sure that I stretch more often. I think if I can stay on top of that I should be good. The new shows are incredible. I am glad that I did not cheap out at all. I want to invest in the best fitting ones. Although, at this rate I would be putting up to 180 miles month on the shoes, so they are going to hardly last two months most likely. Today I am thankful for Goodish weather Good sales streak Energy My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Connection Contribution Creativity Fun Adventure Productivity

@Chumbimba That might be a cool platform for you to try out! @Laurens That looks sleek. Nice work!

I found the life purpose course to be well worth the investment for entrepreneurship. Figure out what kind of business you want to have and invest a lot of time and money into learning about that specifically too. There is a massive amount of content out there to consume. I would highly recommend you invest a lot of extra money and time into learning more about your anxiety and depression too. Wipe out as much of it as possible! I am glad to hear it is going well for you though. Travel would be great in general. I would just shy away from anywhere without stability or a fair justice system myself. I am going to be traveling by car all around the US this summer and I think that will be quite an adventure. Will be tiring driving that much though lol. I don't know what experiences you have, or what country you live in, so hard to say. If you are looking for spiritual stuff from travel, then I am not sure. I have found a lot of nature to be well worth traveling to. There is some crazy experiences and sights to be seen really anywhere in the world.

If you are doing that for some big company, then you could do that kind of work independently to do that for other businesses. Since you mentioned starting a business I figured I would mention that. If you are really after the pursuit of having the time to do whatever. But I can see why you would want to just work for the big company if you were making a high enough income plus you already have the degree. If you were frugal enough it would be pretty easy to ween off of that. It all depends on the route you want to go personally though. A business like that is most likely not going to produce six figures fast, but it could produce more in the future. Your post made me think about Andrew Grove, who was able to lead Intel from making memory and switched them into processors. He had the same kind of ability as you to see what the future might hold and how the industry would be in the future. Intel would likely not be around if he were to not make that change. So like you said you could do that with any other business too. It does not have to be aligned with my first suggestion. Clearly you enjoy the data science and you have a mind geared towards that kind of stuff. I would keep focusing on that. But be open to anything else that might come your way, or other opportunities that might open up to you. It's something that I need to work on more for myself. I have a lot of stuff going on and don't really plan things out piece by piece. Granted I spend time to think about improvements and ideas to the business, but to see the forecast a bit more is nice. I am mostly on the side of just doing the stuff I do because I really like doing it right now.

Do you have anything you are already good at? Any hobbies or anything like that? If you already know what you want to do, then I would try to focus on that as much as possible.

I have bought a good amount of stuff off of fivver. Not a forum, but that is a pretty good freelance market place to condiser. I am sure you could offer to write things there for people if you want to. Granted I always bought graphics or I have purchased for people to make videos on there. That would probably be a good place to start and learn to refine your skills.

I ended up getting the TV for free. So assuming the vcr functions works, or if not I might repair it. It is a special tv that is ideal for old school gaming, but has the dvd/vcr combo, so it much more desirable. If it fully works it would be worth $400-$600 is what I would estimate based on what sold for smaller versions of it. Granted shipping eats up $100 and 15% fees etc, but still pretty good if that ends up working good. I am happy that I have knowledge on stuff like that. It is big and heavy too, but I am familiar with shipping that kind of stuff. I will see how it pans out, but that will help me get stuff going a bit I get that sold. This Steve Jobs biography is incredible. I am going to start reading more similar books. I have not decided who I want to read about yet, but I think this is some of the most fun I have had reading. I was even laughing out loud a bit reading this and I think I don't laugh enough in general, so that is good. I think I will be able to learn a lot from this. I am already almost 100 pages into it now. Sales are picking up pretty good. I am happy to be able to invest in some gear to support my ventures. Not only that just more ease of mind. I have so much stuff to sell it seems like. I really like the pace I am going at right now. Everything just feels well balanced and I enjoy the day well. I need to make sure to keep this kind of time on the weekends more available, then I have. I did manage to go bowling last night though too, which was fun. I learned how to spin the ball a bit and already started bowling better games from it. Just a light spin to the ball, but it moves the pins to the sides, when it hits them. Today I am thankful for Sales picking up Good customers stability My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Creativity Productivity Contribution Connection Fun Adventure

You could try to find some roommates. There is also housing programs out there that might be able to help, but you will have to really look into them. If you have any documented disabilities etc it would be much easier to find a program to help.

This one. I asked awhile back about if you could share it and I assume a mod deleted the reply confusing it with asking for the life purpose course or something maybe lol. (I already own that) Edit: No I mean I had a reply to your reply after that asking about the other course if you could share the link with me.

@Charlotte Not sure why my last post go removed, but if you want to share the other one I am interested.

Going to have to slow down more for a bit on taking the dog with me as it hurts my back, but it should be fine soon. I am going to spend the day mostly doing life purpose course related stuff. Probably just reading mostly. This Steve Jobs biography is incredible. It is kind of strange how similar I was to him, when I was younger, but in my case no one actually nurtured my intelligence. I was actually assumed to be slow because they thought I could not read, but I actually did not want to. After being held back in first grade they found out I had 4th grade reading level. I pretty much went through all of my schooling figuring out how to cause trouble and not do any of the work as a result. I never enjoyed it much because there was never a challenge and the topics never interested me. Kind of unfortunate, but really the only time I took any schooling seriously was when I was in college for a year. To be fair if I had got really sucked into the school system things would probably be really different. I am not so sure that would be a good thing either. I enjoy where I am at right now. Doing more of my reselling work right now to help stack up some money. I have about 2000 dvds in my car and so much stuff around that I need to work through. I am actually getting stuff listing more online and finding it more enjoyable than I use to. It does not really feel like some daunting task anymore. I am becoming really efficient. Considering the actual amount of time I put in it is going really well. I seem to have good ideas on how to sell stuff more efficiently. I am not sure how soon I can hire still. I honestly probably don't really need it right now seeing as how I am efficiently moving stuff and listing it. But if I could hire soon it would really boost up the amount of time I could spend doing other stuff. I think that is really where I am at with it right now. It blows my mind how much I still learn with this. I missed out on it most likely, but there was a tv for free locally that I could have tossed onto ebay and got $300 off it. It is an older tv, but I can ship that kind of stuff cheap enough. I am not even sure the person getting it would be aware of how much that is actually worth. Funny how things work like that. I don't mind missing it or anything really there is always more out there. Focusing a lot on learning about OCD right now. I think this is one of the more important things for me to focus on and I would enjoy to help some others with it too. I think this is something that caused me a lot of issues through my whole life and I never had any help with it. I recall a lot of things that I did compulsively and how much needless harm to myself it caused. I don't really feels as if it caused me that much problems right now. I still have issues with it daily, but nothing really that major. I mostly revolves around washing my hands and stuff. I have been doing a lot of awareness work on it though and I even caught myself today in the middle of a compulsion. I basically just stroke my hair in the shower and will have like really intensive thoughts about something I am really focused or interested in. I will almost forget to breath in a sense and my heart rate climbs up a bit. It does not really hurt me, but if I could stop doing that I would feel better. I have moved past a lot of the more damaging stuff of it seems like. I really want to experiment more with the shrooms and it because there is definitely something there to help it. I seemed to have cut out one of the more anxiety causing compulsions from the last trip. I just allowed myself to fully dive into the compulsion while tripping and almost all of the need to do it anymore seemed to just disappear after a couple hours of it and then continuing after the trip for months. I still have not really had any issues with it. Today I am thankful for Waking up early Steve jobs biography book Actually taking the the day off My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Productivity Creativity Connection Contribution Adventure Fun

I have seen some stuff like that on yotuube and I know there is TV shows on it relating to it. A few months back there was a guy on JRE who had been on a show that had some awesome stories about it. I wish I could recall his name, but maybe that would inspire you a bit if you found it. He still lives like that and had been for 20 years or so I believe. Coming to society yearly to recoup some supplies, but usually getting it delivered. It would be worthwhile to give it a shot. I have not tried that yet myself, abut I have wanted to. Would be a good budget way to just do a solo retreat in general too.

Most stuff is really not going to be as passive as you think it would be. But with enough money you can get stuff to become pretty passive. Any business could become passive really. You could create something that contributes to the world in a good way, then build a system around it to make it continue working while you are not. There is a lot of ways to do that and leveraging your time with anything is going to make the income greater for the amount of work. Build a system that effectively makes everything you do more efficient. Find ways to have your action replicated without you being there. Like an employee or make something that lasts. The best investors are the ones who create investments themselves, look at any of the richest people in the world and almost all of them did that. If you are wanting to just outright invest into a company, then you are not going to have much of a choice for most of the top performers. But there is some alternatives out there. I would not invest into something solely because it is more ethical. Unfortunately, that does not always mean the best returns. While I think we are moving close to an era that has higher values, it could still be awhile before you see major companies that are highly ethical. Most of the most profitable things revolve around exploiting the earth and the people on it. But I have found some cryptocurrency to be great in regards to ethics and stuff, but most will not produce anything passively. Although, there is a few that do actually accumulate more from "proof of stake" type models. While I cannot really directly advise any sort of investment, I think it is best for you to research what you think contributes the most and figure out how to do that thing more ethically. Then figure out how that could be made the most profitable.

Got busy and forgot to post here yesterday. I had a bit of stuff going on. I had an awesome impromptu toast masters speech that everyone seemed to really get into. I am starting to get better and better each time. I really like getting the practice in and it shows the more that I do it. It is enjoyable learning to master something like this because it really puts me out of my comfort zone and it is really rewarding. Starting to find a good balance between my reselling business and what I am doing for life purpose work. I am just going at a good steady pace that keeps everything fresh. I still really like reselling, so it is not like I don't want to do that too. But I really have to make sure I do enough because that is what pays the bills right now. I have set up to a point where I am way more effective at doing it now though too, so I really don't have to spend as much time doing it. This weather has been incredible. I am not sure why it feels like this, but I feel similar to how I did after my mushroom trip just looking at stuff. Which the trip was months ago at this point and that feeling only stuck for a brief amount of time. I am not sure, but there is some extra sparkle in all of the stuff that I am looking at, when I am outside in this nice weather. It might have to do with the quality of meditation I have had recently, but I am not sure. I do want to trip again, when I get the chance. I need to find some is really the only thing stopping me. Today I am thankful for Deep mediation Motivation SUN! My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Productivity Fun Adventure Connection Contribution Creativity

@DreamScape Good for you. It can be hard to do. I have done the same with old friends and ex girlfriend now. It was a process, but totally worth it.