[SlowHabit]

When I was in high school, I planned on graduating college, find a decent job, save enough money, and voila “do my own thing.”

I found hold ‘em during my sophomore year in college. I was still going to graduate college but I wasn’t looking for a decent job anymore. As I accumulated more cash and cash, I quickly realized “doing my own thing” isn’t as easy as it seems when you start doing it. I get on tilt nowadays whenever I hear my friends or high school students wanting to “do their own thing” after a decent job. I mean, wtf is “doing your own thing” anyway?

I learned that creating a business is hard as hell. You can’t just have money and think that somehow, “your money will be working for you.” Even worse, those that got through high school and college easily tend to think that if they try “extra hard and care a little,” they’re going to achieve greatness. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Just because you try hard doesn’t mean your business will profit. It has a higher chance of surviving but there's no guarantee.

Then of course, I found stocks. OMG! I’ve always wanted to trade but due to lack of capital, I didn’t start until near the end of college. It was going to be a piece of care. Buy high sell low. Well, the market told me to go [censored] myself. So I started reading about the market. I put down the investment book after five minutes because I didn’t know wtf Benjamin Graham was talking about in the “Intelligent Investor.” But I knew I don’t want to bet/fold/raise all my life so I forced myself to start all over again. I went out and buy books and books for stocks. But unlike the first time, I learned what all the fancy vocabularies meant. Then it didn’t seem like I was chewing glass anymore. Needless to say, I read more in 6 months about stocks than my whole education combined. And I actually went back and read on sessions I didn’t understand [which unfortunately was far too many times].

Then everything started to make sense. Buy when the market sells below the business’s value. Why didn’t I think of that? I am young and dangerous now. Well, I learned that I was young but I was as dangerous as low-stakes grinders at live games. I read more and learned that I didn’t know anything.

During this time, I got into real estate investing. Wow, I love America. Buy a house and let others pay off your mortgages. Or buy foreclosure properties and fix it up …???? … profits. What I neglected when those thoughts ran through my head was who can I trust in this business? How do I price these properties, especially in the current real estate market? Why are there so many freaking papers to sign? And why the hell California’s prices so out of wack?

Ok, I’ll sum it up. Here’s what I learned. Work with people you trust and who opinion you respect [Buffett]. Write down an idea that you think might make you moneys. Then write a business plan and see how far you’ll go. If you actually complete the business plan, find out how you are going to start it and if you need any partner or not? If you need a partner, where are you going to find one? And during any of the downtime, will you think, “this shiet isn’t worth it. Set mining and stacking others are more fun and profitable than this.”

And oh, I learned that I love stocks [not because I ran great but because it's the only way for me to become wealthy without getting involved in politics or run businesses or working with others]. I used to think I enjoy working with others but what I really meant was I enjoy working with one or two persons. I also learned that I was born in the wrong decade because if I was born a decade earlier, I would be chilling with the dotcom boom, the real estate boom, the poker boom, the web2.0 boom, and the foreclosure boom. The only thing that I have going for me is the SlowHabit boom. Hopefully, you'll be hearing from my friends [and virtual buddies] how they managed to miss out on that.