Financial - Modern Barbarian

Just about every piece of career, business and financial advice that you have been given is either wrong or meant for times of more economic stability. The days of being able to support your family on a single income working for someone else are long sense past. Beyond that working for someone else as your sole form of income makes you incredibly vulnerable. It also practically guarantees you will never be able to get your self to a level of freedom where you can enjoy life. So what are you to do? Bend the knee and reserve your self to a below average life? No you be come a barbarian. Step out of the Empires systems and learn to make money for your self.

You’re nothing but a pawn and will remain a pawn until you play

~Mr. Freeman

Many of you reading this already understand that money is not the end goal, freedom is the end goal, money is the tool Used to achieve it. So for those that know that already this will not be news but for those that don’t you also need to understand that you have been lied to and programed for most of your life to think about money in a way that will keep you from achieving much success in acquiring it. So under this, money or wealth it self is not evil though how it is used can be. Money tends to act like a being, it tends to go where it is appreciated and loved and avoids those who misuse, mistreat and generally despise it. So value it, treat it well, and be thankful for it.

Law of abundance

The law of abundance applies to money just like it does anything else. The way money is viewed by the majority of the population is from a place of scarcity. That there is not enough to go around and that it is not acquirable. This is hard to overcome understandably for some when you are living paycheck to paycheck or worse, but if you don’t stop thinking that there is not enough money out there or that you will never be able to get any of it you will make that true. You need to stop thinking about how you have no money, and start thinking “there is so much money out there how do I get some.”

Start small, you have to crawl before you can walk

You need to learn about finances because you were not taught it in school. You need to learn about budgets, taxes,banking, business and so on. No you don’t need to go to college for any of this. College business knowledge is out of date at best or intentionally misleading at worst.

Now this part is where you learn about where and how you have to play the Empire and its governments games. No matter what you will have to interact with the Empire with certain points in life and this is one of them or increase your chances of going to prison.

Personal finances And Tax laws. Without a working knowledge of personal finances and tax laws before you get going your gonna run right into a wall. Its not going to be fun….at least not for most people but too bad. Welcome to doing stuff that is not fun in order to better your life. Learn about budgets, business banking, credit, interest rates, inflation, and the tax code. Many will just say hire a tax person or a financial manager and if you have money already thats an option but if your starting from scratch it is not. Also most people think tax person and go down to H&R block. But those are not tax people they are computer monkeys trained to punch numbers into a tax system. They are not paid enough to learn the tax code and know how to keep as much money in your own pocket as you legally can. No one is going to care more about your money and your taxes then yourself. So learn at least the basics so that you can at least check your tax persons work Until you have enough money to hire a good one

Understand opportunity cost. Learn what it is and always factor it in your decision making. In brief opportunity cost is where you have to calculate the cost of paying for something vs doing it yourself. For instance, lets say its lunch time and you need to eat. I takes you an hour to make a healthy meal for your self. Now lets say you make $60 dollars an hour doing what ever it is you do. If it cost less to buy meal prepped meals or have something delivered than it is better financial decision to pay for the meal and work for the hour it takes to get there. You then come out on top. Where as if you cooked your meal you would loose out on the $60 in income. Now in this instance you have to factor quality and healthiness of the food. Cause if all you can have delivered is fast food or cricket paste and you can make an organic grass fed steak, your probably better off cooking cause it may cost you $60 in lost money but it could make you have less chance of having to live in the medical system in your later years getting treatments for any number of things. Opportunity cost applies to any task in a business. Pay roll, packing, shipping, manufacturing etc. At some point it will be cheaper to pay someone to do it than it will be for you to do it your self. However at first get used to wearing many hats.

Research, Evaluate and Plan

Start by researching side hustles and current high in demand skills and see where the rabbit hole takes you. Take note of anything that resonates with you along the way. Side hustles that fit your personality, or skills that you already have, stuff like that.

Once you have done your research and started your foundation of knowledge you need to start evaluating. Use these to get you started.

What skills do you have? Are any of them marketable?
Do you have any hobbies? Can any of them be monetized?
What is your financial status? Whats your income and expenses?
Can you expenses be reduced? Do you have money saved?

Once you’ve done a good evaluation, you can start laying out your plan. start with what skills you have that are marketable that you could do freelance or what side hustles you would want to try. Don’t worry about narrowing it down to one, some may not work out or you might not find it as enjoyable than you thought. Once you have a game plan don’t tell anyone. Unless its a mentor that is helping you out, or a member of your family (by the Modern Barbarian definition). You have to be careful who you tell because at best most people wont understand your ambition or your goals and dreams and at worst they will discourage you or actively try and sabotage you. Even and in most case more likely you relatives.

Don’t feel guilty about blowing off clubs or parties to work on your goals, take care of your future self before Giving into your current self or acquaintances Your real friends and family will encourage you not try to drag you back down.

Now for a not strictly business related aspect but important to your financial future none the less. Marry well. This doesn’t mean marry rich, or even marry successful. It does mean find a spouse who understands you, has similar values, and is supportive. Someone who understand finances and that you are trying to sacrifice now for a better future. Some one who brings you peace and not more chaos. It is hard save money and build a business if your spouse wants to go out to dinner every night, or is constantly buying stuff. Now also make sure that you also return the favor When ever you can. This will make the long hours and tired days all the more bearable. If you cant find that right now don’t worry about it. Remember abundance, there is always another girl You will find the right one eventually.

Your Network

Your network is your net worth, A group of 5 disciplined men will out perform 100 undisciplined ones.

Now even those that don’t see networking as above, don’t know how to do it effectively. They think its going to a conference and throwing business cards at people or accumulating friends on linked in or facebook. But networks are not measured by their size but their quality and their connections. You have to actually make connections, spend time with people get to know each other. Business relationships are no different than any other relationships. This is where the true benefit of ivy league… we will call it “education” lies. Its not in the teachers or the knowledge because all the knowledge is out there in books and online As well as better more up to date information. No the true benefit and it could be argued the only benefit is the people that you gain access to.

The average person does not understand networking So trying to network with the average person will yield no results. First off those who don’t understand network or take the time or put in the effort to network say things like “He only got the job because he knows someone.” Well thats the point. It is a safer bet for anyone to do business/ hire someone that they know and have experience with than it is to gamble and someone they don’t no matter what their resume looks like. If they know the person and know that they will do the job then its higher reward to lower risk than hiring someone they don’t know who might do the job.

This is common sense and how the world works. Only recently has building human relations ships that benefit both parties become a bad thing.

Stop being lazy and bitching about it and start putting in the work and doing it.

Multiple stream of incomes

The more streams you have the better off you will be because if one fails then you have backups.

Start with what you have, your current skills or hobbies that you can monetize or free lance, you should know this from your planing phase.

If you already have some money you can look at buying or investing in already running businesses or business with some start up costs Like vending machines or ATMs stuff like that.

If you are starting from scratch and have no skills you can do what I did to start and am still doing, flipping. You can start at home with extra and unused items that can also help you adopt a more minimization or intentional life style by shedding the extra “weight”. It also allows you to work on skills that will help you every where else. Writing the ads and postings requires – sales techniques and copy writing, Making the sale may require negotiation skills etc.

Once you run out of stuff around the house you can cruise the free sections of craigslist or facebook looking for stuff that has value. Some people even turn flipping into their full time job by starting free junk collection companies. They collect the “junk” or stuff that people want gone and refurbish it and sell it.

You can flip to build capital for other ventures or simply while work on learning other skills that you can do freelance. I starting flipping to build capital to start day trading But that is not a skill for most people as a tarting point it takes a lot of time discipline and emotional control and ability to take risk. If you are not that person yet or at the level you can take some risk don’t start down that path.

Investing, asset accumulation

Once you have multiple income streams or your finances have improved in general you can start looking at investing long term, and in addition larger money generating assets Such as turn key business like car washes and laundry mats or real estate rentals etc.

Everyone is starting to see what inflation is doing so Once you start generating enough income you also want to look at hedge against inflation. These are assets that don’t typically loose value. The main stay for this through out history has been precious metals. Gold and silver being the obvious and most easily done. Bitcoin and crypto currencies are also entering into this realm but that is not my area of expertise. I wouldn’t personally hold them as inflation hedges but i have seen them work great for others in investing and trading But i have no personal experience in that matter. For precious metals you have to decide if you want to personally hold physical metals or certificates for metals on deposit. They have their pros and cons as does everything but in short. Deposited gold, or gold on trading exchanges lets you benefit from the gold but not have to secure it your self. While holding it physically means it is actually yours And you control it however you cannot hold/own physical gold in a retirement account from what i understand it has to be kept a gold depository for regulatory reasons.

Now If you have a decent paying job and it fulfills you and you enjoy it, then you are lucky most don’t have that. Nothing says that you have to leave that job to do any of this. In fact you probably shouldn’t. As long as you don’t want to jump off a bridge every time you go to work then why give up another stream of income. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t develop other businesses, assets, and investments on the side. Because one day you might get laid off, or they may make you try to do something you don’t want to do, or try to make you compromise your principles for the job. When this happens you want to be able to say Fuck You! and be able to walk away. If you don’t have anything else built than you cant do this. See this clip from the gambler for more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0

The career path

I would argue the time of careers is over and done with. The time where you can enter at the bottom and work your way up and be groomed for the top doesn’t happen anymore out side of family businesses. But if you want to go the employee route or need to in the short term here is some things that can help you as well as benefit you in your side ventures as well.

General skills

Learn project management, Everything is a project. This another skill that has a lot of information on the internet and when you have the spare change Consider investing in certification, this is a wildly applicable skill that any employer will benefit from.
Learn to compartmentalize, even at a job you love some things wont be fun, work is work some times but you have to be able to do it. Don’t let your shit work day effect your time with you family keep it separate at least until an appropriate time you can decompress and talk with the spouse or have a drink with the boys what ever your process may be.
Learn to set boundaries with your employer, Generally speaking unless your working for a small business or a family run business, they probably don’t see you as anything more than a number. If you not in an on call job like an ER nurse or Fire department, don’t work when your not on the clock. Salary pay has some gray area here but if its not specifically mentions in the job requirements do your best not to work unless you are at work. 1 you will work your self to death or to your death bed and wonder where your life went, and 2 you devalue your worth when you do. For instance
Your paid 100k year. Thats 1900 a week before taxes, and for a 40hr week that is 48 dollars an hour. But if you are constantly working an extra 2 hours a week at home, even if its just checking email, not only is that 2 hours away from your family or working on your own goals that translates to an extra 10 hours a week which drops your hourly rate to 38 dollars and hour. Your doing 25% more work for the same amount of pay.
This is the part people find hard when they are trying to climb the ladder. You want to do more to show initiative but many managers and bosses will take advantage of that so make sure you are making progress and if you are not walk away.
If you want to climb the ladder, do your best not to get trapped in specialist roles like legal, or HR. It will limit your promotional abilities to a certain level. Hard to go past Head of HR if all you can do is HR. Get as much varied experience as you can even if you are necessarily getting paid for it. You never know what you’ll need to get promoted one day or if your love of what your doing now will one day run out And you want to change things up. It will stuck starting from scratch if you didn’t branch out earlier.
Gain international experience, depending on what you want to do this may not be available or necessary but if the option presents it self and you have the ability jump on it.
If your job doesn’t offer the ability to branch out at all or gain additional experience you may consider looking for new jobs or volunteering with other organizations.

General warnings

Job titles are a trap, those titles or jobs that they represent may mean nothing in 10 years or even two. Experience is more important, “Launching an e-commerce store” or managing a team of 30 employees is vastly more impressive than “Head CD Technician”
- Don’t sacrifice your mental and physical health for a job.
  
  This means more than “do not be fat, but it also means that too. People who are overweight are paid less than those who aren’t… As for a wider definition of health, the evidence that regular physical activity improves mental and emotional performance is overwhelming. Additionally, Americans make up only 5 percent of the planets population but consume more than half of all pharmaceuticals. This rises to 80 percent when it comes to prescription painkillers. Be healthy so you do not need to be stoned at work. That alone will leapfrog you over most of the competition.
  ~Gordon White
Don’t complain about your boss to anyone, and don’t participate in office politics but understand what is going on. Don’t burn bridges unnecessarily by gossiping with everyone stay neutral until you have no other choice. If you want to complain about people, or If you need to talk about them, do it to your spouse or a therapist.

Conclusion – Finding balance

As you probably noticed some of the advice somewhat contradicts it self and thats because that is life. You have to figure out your priorities and what is important. Are you young and have no family? You can put in the extra hours If you want. Do you want to climb the ladder at a job instead of going your own thats fine then you have to play the game. Do you want to build your own empire? Then your gonna have to put in the extra hours and work, this might mean you miss out on some family events once in a while, at least at first. This is why the Empires pushes for you to waist your younger years partying And plunging your self into student debt. It wastes your younger years, when you have the energy, opportunity, and the ability to put in those extra hours, gain that experience and build the foundations for those empires. Before you do have families, and other responsibilities that you then have to juggle.