The elephant in the room

[trenton]

I am doing my best to learn more about money, business, marketing, and financial literacy. I would like to continue learning more, but my inner voice has a lot of objections before I continue. If I keep reading about these things, then it might cause more harm than good given my current attitude.

In the self help field there seems to be a lot of talk about money and psychology. To some extent it is true if you spend everything you have, don't spend at all, or make a foolish investment and lock yourself in wage slavery forever. For most of my life, I have been very stingy and I am trying to learn what to do with the money I have. I am trying to invest it in personal development, books, seminars, and maybe something else that actually makes me money. I don't want to buy things that give no value.

That said, I am skeptical of the emphasis on money psychology. It's because I am looking at how people ultimately make money rather than how they think about it. Although the psychological aspects seem deep and profound in conjunction with the law of attraction, it does not seem to add up.

At the end of the day, many self help authors started buying and selling real estate. Sometimes they made tens of thousands in a matter of hours. It looks like they learned some marketing techniques, figured out how to raise the value of land and then this ultimately made millions. It seems to me that the most effective way to make money is learn the marketing techniques and then just do it. If I don't know the business techniques, then what does psychology do for me in the end?

Why is there so much emphasis on psychology when so few people are taught financial literacy given the current educational system? It looks like the real problem is that so many people are simply never taught how to make money, so of course they fail. If they are ambitious and start a business anyway, then had of businesses fail within 5 years. These are not promising statistics. So much of business requires insider information that most people don't have access to whether it is legal insider trading or otherwise. Maybe the problem is not psychology, but the fact that so few people access good information.

There are people who exploit disaster capitalism for hundreds of millions. It seems that I could treat business in a very cutthroat way and through low consciousness I could throw out psychology and be a corporate sociopath. All this talk about deep psychology and the law of attraction do not seem to add up when so much money is made through unethical exploitation. The reason I am not interested in doing this is because I want to make good money and impact the world in a positive way. Maybe this is the real lesson in money psychology rather than how money is actually made.

Before I continue with self help on this topic, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. Why is there so much deep talk about psychology, yet self help authors buy land, increase the value, and sell it after attending seminars and chatting with rich friends to learn the necessary techniques? It seems that if I had the techniques and applied them properly, then I could make the same money as they did. I did notice a couple of signs up for land I could buy. There probably is a way to profit off of it, but I don't know the techniques to make the entirety of my self worth in a matter of hours by selling a house, nor do I know how to develop the empty land. I need to figure that out.

What is the flaw in my thinking? I don't want to frustrate myself more and take the advice the wrong way and be destructive about it. Why not learn the marketing techniques and just do it? Is this not as effective if not more effective at making money then all this talk about psychology?

Sorry if I come off as foolish or arrogant. I don't mean to, but I need to express these doubts as soon as possible so that I can grow and move on with a healthier attitude toward money and self help.

Thank you for any thoughts.

[Thought Art]

@trenton I've read a number of self help books this year on personal finance. There are simply different types of books, from different types of writers for different types of readers. Learning about psychology of money is important because so many decisions from spending and saving habits, to stock markets, and industry is highly influenced by human psychology and understanding this helps you to begin making better decisions. 

These self help books also talked about foundational financial principles that go into wealth building... even for normal people working a standard 50-75$ a year job need to embody healthy financial principles and psychology to build wealth, invest, and live a good life.

What does it matter how someone makes their money? If they are buying and selling land or whatever what has that to do with your questioning the importance of psychology in finance? Not all these financial self help gurus I've read made money the same way. I've read a few this year and each has a unique history.

Is your goal right not to get rich and escape wage slavery and you wanna make sure you are getting the right information on how to do that?

Also, it may help us to know what books you are reading?

Edited November 4, 2022 by Thought Art

[trenton]

@Thought Art thank you for the post. I could sense that my thoughts were misguided.

My goal in this post is to get out of a meaningless job. What I really want is to make money doing something I enjoy, but if I can't have that, then I want to make money and get of working. I would enjoy a job in which I am constantly learning, growing, and sharing what I learn for the benefit of others, but it seems like I can't do it. In this frustration I am looking to just get money and get out of working. For example opportunities for teaching chess are very limited, so I turned to other fields like maybe sharing research on politics or something else but I found nothing. Maybe going to college again would make me a journalist.

In this sense How the money is made matters because I don't get anywhere following my passion. I don't trust get rich quick schemes because they look like scams. I started with rich dad poor dad. The author recommended another book that I was going to check out, but I needed to express my likely untrue emotional thoughts before reading to ensure I don't take what lies ahead the wrong way. Sometimes I feel trapped and I know deep down more money will not solve the core problem of how I am living and for what purpose. I should probably mention that suicidal thoughts occasionally come up around this topic of meaninglessness, dead end jobs, lack of passion, and so on. Being rich is meaningless in terms of how I want to impact the world, but if I am otherwise stuck, then maybe it would help me find something I love. 

Maybe they made money on other ways aside from buying and selling land. I remember reading how to get rich a while back as well. The author was very diversified in how he made money. Maybe if I look again at what he did it would help. I can't look with a misguided attitude and expect good results though.

There is actually a deep emotional and existential issue surrounding this topic of money, work, and so on. I see how psychology impacts this attitude and I should probably learn more about this one.

[trenton]

I should add that I took the life purpose course and felt that it only helped a little in terms of values of strengths. Basically, I need to figure out how to run a business, but I don't know how to do that. If I can't figure out how to make a business for a purpose I enjoy, then I could pursue money for money sake. I would not enjoy that, but the emphasis on starting a business makes me think in this direction when it also seems hard. I have a few ideas for business ideas I enjoy like writing books, but the money will likely be very limited. Once I start making it about money I feel like passion in everything dies very quickly. I know money does not solve the problem because what I want is sustained passion.

[flowboy]

51 minutes ago, trenton said:

If I can't figure out how to make a business for a purpose I enjoy, then I could pursue money for money sake.

Bad idea if you want sustained passion. That's not to say that real estate can not turn into a passion, I'm sure Grant Cardone really enjoys spotting good opportunities in real estate, making calculations, negotiations and deals. But that's not the same as chasing money for money's sake (anymore). Also, without sustained passion, you won't be successful anyways, because learning to be successful in business is a b**h of a journey that will annihilate your ego and make you cry in desperation many times.

Why don't you figure out how to make a business for a purpose you enjoy?

You're too easily giving up on this.

Brainstorm more.

Make more small bets and see them through for a longer time.

What have you already tried and how much effort have you put in?

I recently attended a talk by a successful entrepreneur who started a company educating corporations and their employees about the climate and how to be more climate conscious. I would imagine that to be very unprofitable, yet somehow he's making it work, selling training programs. If he can make that profitable, you can make your passion profitable man.

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by flowboy

[Thought Art]

@trenton man, there are online courses out there that teach you how to sell what you know online and make a lot of money doing it. There’s so many courses out there right now. Just persist. You can probably create a chess course that goes about 3 months long and change 1-2k for it. High ticket courses for niche subjects are a real thing.

I know a guy make 15,000 pounds a month teaching rockabilly guitar. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Thought Art

[trenton]

8 hours ago, flowboy said:

Why don't you figure out how to make a business for a purpose you enjoy?

You're too easily giving up on this.

Brainstorm more.

Maybe your right and I can keep trying.

8 hours ago, flowboy said:

What have you already tried and how much effort have you put in?

First I tried following my passion in chess. I clearly have the potential to be a master level player because I defeated multiple candidate masters and drew some master level players. I ran into several problems with this.

One problem is that I had to go to college, but there was nothing I wanted to do that requires a degree. I could do writing or chess without it. I practiced everyday until I got out of college. I bought a ton of courses and books and studied them so strongly that sometimes I didn't notice I was hungry. Once I got out of college, I performed well in two tournaments before COVID not and all the tournaments shut down.

My success in chess includes becoming the best player in the history of my high school and training the first chess team. I even can link you to a game in which I defeated an international master. I played with black.

https://lichess.org/guK01WfB/black

Eventually, the tournaments opened again. I won a medal in the INDY 5000. I played four candidate masters with 3 draws and 1 win. I didn't get to play the grandmaster in this tournament, but if I keep playing then eventually I will get the opportunity.

The second problem came with my job. I spoke with a grandmaster who told me that holding down a full time job kills the idea of being a globe trotting professional player. Furthermore, tournaments became a hassle to organize with my work schedule and I need to pay rent. Hotels can be expensive. What I enjoy in chess is not the money, but the inner peace when nothing else in the universe bothers me and being focused to the point of flow. Once money starts to interfere with this, I get very frustrated.

I looked for jobs that I could take related to chess. There are not as many opportunities as I would like because many of them are out of the state. I will always be required to hold a second job to pay for the house. 

I have been a successful chess teacher before and I enjoy the job, but chess in schools and kidchess are both located out of the state. In order for me to do something like that, I need to build something similar in this state near where I live. The question becomes how to do it. I probably could do that somehow.

I start getting frustrated when all of it seems like a net negative in terms of how much money I put into it and I feel pressure from my family telling me to track the expenses of the tournaments I need to become an official master player. Moving out seems like it would make it harder as I would have to pay even more for rent.

My second try has been unrelated to chess and it is my current attempt. I will expand on this later if you want.

8 hours ago, flowboy said:

I recently attended a talk by a successful entrepreneur who started a company educating corporations and their employees about the climate and how to be more climate conscious. I would imagine that to be very unprofitable, yet somehow he's making it work, selling training programs. If he can make that profitable, you can make your passion profitable man.

That is a good story and it gives me more hope. Thank you for showing me this is possible. I'm glad I posted all of this.

[trenton]

24 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@trenton man, there are online courses out there that teach you how to sell what you know online and make a lot of money doing it. There’s so many courses out there right now. Just persist. You can probably create a chess course that goes about 3 months long and change 1-2k for it. High ticket courses for niche subjects are a real thing.

I know a guy make 15,000 pounds a month teaching rockabilly guitar. 

@Thought Art I will definitely look into that. Thanks for giving me hope.

[trenton]

@Thought Art actually if I made a chess course, then I could seriously start by finishing the mark to a life master and then include limiting beliefs as a section in the course. A lot of players get stuck around 1600-1800, just under a candidate master even though they showed promising results as a child. This looks doable if I set up an easier way with work to get to tournaments. I tried before, but sometimes it is inconvenient because I have to say I am available on Saturday and Sunday.

One idea is to get a second job as a tournament director. This requires availability on weekends, but not all weekends. Maybe this is the push I need to claim unavailable on weekends for sure.

[flowboy]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

I have been a successful chess teacher before and I enjoy the job, but chess in schools and kidchess are both located out of the state. In order for me to do something like that, I need to build something similar in this state near where I live. The question becomes how to do it. I probably could do that somehow.

@trenton There you go. Create and own a chess education company, not just have a job at one.

Read 'Blue Ocean Strategy' for some ideas on how to give a unique twist to something so you get less competition and can charge more money while putting your unique spin on it.

[Thought Art]

@trenton Basically how a lot of these online courses work is..

1. You do basic market research, create a before and after grid, your avatar, then create a webinar, with some ads... then you start marketing either through paid or organic marketing online...

2. You provide a lot of value in the free webinar. Then, you speak to the person on a sales call. You learn about their problems and see if you can help and if you are a fit.

3. When you get your first client you then go about creating video modules for them to watch. Then, you meet with them for an hour or 2 per week for the remainder of the coaching program. The only work you have to do is: creating next weeks coaching material, bringing on more clients, and having your meetings throughout the week. Once you have 5 or 6 clients then you start doing group calls and only have 1 or 2 a week. Thats right, you only work with your clients for and hour or 2 a week. This way you no longer work for spending time for money but you earn money per person you bring into your program and there is no limit.

You don't start making the course really until you sell the course.

People are pretty serious about Chess and would love to get really good at it. 

Start with a high ticket offer: 1000$ per person. Is the course selling really well? Getting 7 yes out of 10 tries? Double the price. 

Soon, the course is polished and you can even turn it into an ever green course for say, 500$ or something and you don't even need to show up. Just run the ads, and if they work you just collect the monies. 

Do research, but there are courses out there and books and stuff to teach you this. It won't happen overnight but you can build it. I am in a program right now and see people having success with this model.

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Thought Art