A lonely journey

Marching towards financial freedom can be a rough and lonely adventure. Most people don't talk about money and at school you are not taught on how it's done.

You envision wealth and abundance but you have no plan on how to get there, wander around, take wrong directions, get stuck or face big obstacles.

If you are one of the very few who figure it out, learn the game and work hard towards the noble goal of becoming rich with a lot of focus, discipline and patience you are surrounded by the ones who don't understand you, don't believe in you and don't wan't you to succeed. Often the worst influence comes from your beloved ones, your family members and friends. The Japanese keep saying: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

Early in our lives our parents and teachers tell us that we need good grades, good and secure jobs and promotions which lead to high salaries. They will talk you out if you want to take another route, want to build your own business, be your own boss or do some risky investments. They want you to become Doctors, Lawyers, Directors...all those things they wanted to be but never did. Why should you listen to them? They did not walk the talk, they are not rich and sometimes they just want the bragging rights when comparing their child to other children of their peers. It must be a good feeling for them to say my son is a surgeon and my daughter is partner at a law company...

The harsh truth is that some or even many of these academics hate their jobs, are stressed and unhappy because they don't love what they do and the golden hamster wheel keeps them imprisoned as every opportunity becomes too expensive.

Be honest to yourself

I was quite honest to myself at an early stage. I wanted to become rich but not do much for it, which sounds like a contradiction.

You don't need to reinvent the wheel

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's days all have 24 hours too. They certainly work hard but much more than that they work smart. So there is some kind of leverage or passive income at work. They obviously make money while they sleep. You don't need to become the next Bill Gates but find some people that did what you want to do and just copy them and their strategy. Sounds simple but is not always easy.

Knowing what you want is very important

But often it is more important knowing what you don't want.

I checked the Forbes list with the richest people of the world on it and googled their jobs and cvs. Almost all of them are entrepreneurs, which means a boat load of work, responsability and risk. So building a company from scratch instantly slipped to the bottom of my wish list.

There must be another way

Luckly I met a guy in my twenties which became a good friend and had a huge infulence on me pushing me into finance related things like Stock Market investing, Forex trading, Hedge Funds...