Tl;dr

Context: Online courses, trading crypto, buying real estate - my experience with this

1. Before you buy anything (online course, crypto etc. → anything that’s supposed to teach you how to “get rich”) ask yourself what value you’re going to get out of it?

   • Are you going to learn a new skill?
   • Are you going to be doing something you love?

   If you’ve answered no to the two questions above, don’t buy it.

2. Educate yourself on a topic before making a move

   • If you don’t know something, go learn it. There are endless resources online to learn for free, so you don’t need to spend a dollar to learn but you may need to spend a dollar to practice what you learn.

3. Think about the EXTRA long term before you make any big financial decision

   • Before making any big financial decision, ask yourself if you’re able to stick with that purchase or decision for an extended period of time. If not, don’t do it.
   • Ask yourself about the opportunity cost of making the big financial decision - what are you missing out by making this purchase?

I fell into a content trap this week with a lot of my recommendations on YouTube coming from these “lifestyle” YouTubers who promote their content, lifestyle, self-improvement tips, etc. All with the main goal of getting you to buy their course. Truth is, these courses are the way that people make money and for the average person it’s never going to work and you’ll end up spending money on something that won’t move the needle for you at all. Let me give you some examples.

Jumpcut - Online Course

Years ago (in first year of university) I purchased this course called Jumpcut which was supposed to teach you how to be an influencer on YouTube. I spent over $1000 CAD on this course and tbh it was a complete waste of money. Now, it’s true I didn’t do the work and it was stated in Jumpcut (and all these other online courses) that you need to do the work and that you needed to hustle in order to crack the code … and that’s true you need to. But like anything in life if you keep giving it your all eventually - you’ll crack the code or you’ll quite literally die. First takeaway:

<aside> 💡 If you’re going to build something to escape your 9-5, make sure you love what you’re going to do. If you don’t I guarantee you’re going to get trapped in your same 9-5 hell or you’ll give up before you see success.

</aside>

Crypto Scams

If you haven’t done any research on blockchain and you have no sense of financials or have never invested before - don’t get into crypto trading, don’t buy into the hype. I’ve lost a lot of money in the early crypto days buying crypto that I should have never got into and I paid the consequence for it. Years later, I kept putting a minimal $100 per month into Ethereum (heavy bias cause their founder is a University of Waterloo alumni) and that’s paid off but I put the money in with the intention that I would lose everything. So … do your damn research first, learn some basic investing principles like dollar cost averaging, and be prepared to lose everything. Second takeaway: