What would you do to become "rich"?

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7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: What would you do to become "rich"?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Sclass wrote:@7W just had a day to think about your book business. You are doing a lot more than moving books from one market to another. You’re reprocessing the product by filtering it and organizing it. Then you’re adding efficiency to an inefficient market. I guess what posts here are referring to as increasing liquidity.
Very true. I used to work for the company that invented the first computerized book inventory system in the 1970s. My DD briefly worked for a contract subsidiary of Google involved in scanning world library contents into digital form. In the years in between, my DD and I both worked at contributing to Amazon's digital cataloging system through the intermediary of my book business. So, there is the information, the information about the information, and the information about the information about the information...

This is a common expanding pattern.

JCD
Posts: 139
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2019 9:12 am

Re: What would you do to become "rich"?

Post by JCD »

It seems there are a variety of ways, depending on how sure you want to make the life-bet. Here is a rough list of ways you might approach it:

- Leverage
- Gambling
- Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs guy) style work
- Doctor/Lawyer
- Engineer
- Business Man
- Influence Peddler
- Relationships (Marriage, Parents)
- Luck

The only ones not really discussed previously are dirty jobs and influence peddler. So I will try to expand on those ideas.

I think an influence peddler is a bit like the so called Sociopath in The Gervais Principle (well worth a read as it is related to the topic). The fact that you have to be willing to sell your soul for money wouldn't bother a sociopath given that they don't believe there is a purpose to life and reject the middle class losers style life. I knew one guy at a previous work place who part time did influence peddling at the lowest levels but he was a true believer. The problem was, he wasn't hungry, he was principled and that seemed to limit his reach. I suspect you have to be hungry and lack principles to move up in this sort of marketing of ideas approach.

Regarding dirty jobs, all I can say is Mike Rowe talked about how many of the people he worked with were millionaires because they not only found a business they could use to generate additional cash but because they had a sort of moat because the job was too dirty for most people to want to do. He notes these folks don't follow their passions, they follow the money and go home at night to have a life then. I don't know if this scales up to the 10s of millions, but it might.

Then there are two ideas Scott Adams has suggested which I think are both useful, but not direct answers:
- Be around rich people
- Make many small bets where you can scale cheaply

Adams said he tried about 30 different ideas in 20 years and only 2 or maybe 3 ideas actually worked. I don't know if Adams is in the 1% but it seems like lots of inventors and business folks have had a string of failures before they become an 'overnight' success. I suppose the last related point is to get good at the fail->recover->try new idea life cycle.

Adams also seemed to suggest that at least one friend of his tried being around the rich and found he too became rich. While that isn't much of a data point, there is something to the idea of being in a community gives you access to that communities social capital and given that they also have a great deal of capital too might mean they are more willing to share that with you (e.g. "Invest in you"). I don't have more to say on that topic as it is not a strategy I have tried.

To sum it all up, I suspect you don't just adopt one thing (e.g. take a million bucks and put it on black) but synthesize a system with multiple of these elements. One example is two doctors married together, each making 200k a year, investing 200k of that in cash and another 50k in tax advantaged accounts. Assuming they own their own practice, that 250k will grow as they add employees, maybe 50k a year in growth and here is what 4 years looks like: 250k + 300k + 350k + 400k = 1.3 million after tax. Add in investments and probably a ton of leverage and you could easily get to 10 million in 1 to 2 decades. I suspect it isn't just one element that gets you to 10 million, particularly if you want to get there under 60-70.

JackMoore1965
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:13 am
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Re: What would you do to become "rich"?

Post by JackMoore1965 »

There are many different jobs, the problem in TM is that most people are doing similar things, so the pay is difficult, not high enough, you need to look for your niche

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: What would you do to become "rich"?

Post by Campitor »

JCD wrote:
Sat Aug 15, 2020 6:59 pm
Adams said he tried about 30 different ideas in 20 years and only 2 or maybe 3 ideas actually worked. I don't know if Adams is in the 1% but it seems like lots of inventors and business folks have had a string of failures before they become an 'overnight' success. I suppose the last related point is to get good at the fail->recover->try new idea life cycle.

Adams also seemed to suggest that at least one friend of his tried being around the rich and found he too became rich. While that isn't much of a data point, there is something to the idea of being in a community gives you access to that communities social capital and given that they also have a great deal of capital too might mean they are more willing to share that with you (e.g. "Invest in you"). I don't have more to say on that topic as it is not a strategy I have tried.
I believe Scott Adam said his failures provided him with valuable lessons and skills. Despite a string of bad outcomes, he was able to synergize these skills and lessons to create something successful. By his own admission, he's neither an exceptional artist or comedian but he was able to combine these skills to create a very successful comic strip.

After a success or failure it's important to perform an after action report to catalog the good and bad outcomes so you have a better roadmap on the next project. This is what Scott Adams does and recommends.

In regards to hanging out with rich people, they tend to talk about their successes. During these talks you will pick up the occasional nugget. I once spoke to a nice gentleman who owned 30+ Dairy Queens. He admitted struggling with his franchise early in his career because he didn't own the land where he operated. He only started making significant profits after purchasing the property. This allowed him to control a large business expense - rent. Take away - don't open a franchise if you can't purchase the property it operates on. I believe this is a requirement for McDonald's franchises.

Rich people will give away all types of business advice if they're social which many are in my experience. Hanging out with people who are successful in an area of interest seems to be a given strategy for optimizing success. And one of them could become a mentor/patron if they're so inclined.

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