hey tech light here and welcome back to
another episode of the tech lead I'm the
tech lead it is coffee time with your
host the tech lead on the tech lead show
so good and I like my coffee black
because it tastes like success I thought
it would take a few moments of my day
today to tell you about how I personally
made a million dollars and what it felt
like for me and you may be thinking that
I'm just a disgusting guy just bragging
about myself and I couldn't agree more
with you I think it's absolutely
disgusting i disgust myself sometimes
but you know what disgusts me more
sometimes other people and especially
those people who are always funding over
money talking about bragging about
what's going to be like when they
finally reach some level of success when
they finally make their million dollars
how they're going to be acting what
they're going to be doing I think a lot
of imaginations are off a lot of it does
not reflect a true reality what money
buys you is going to be very different
as you go up that ladder of success at
first it buys you food some water some
basic shelter housing but over time it
doesn't really buy you much anymore what
it really buys you towards the end is
security financial stability flexibility
that's why when often times you hear
about the statistic that most people
they only need some basic amount of
money say 60k hundred K something like
that once they get to that level of
income additional income does not really
change their lives all that much and
that's pretty much true I'd have to
agree with that you know I made my first
meal in ten years ago and I would still
look at people around me my peers people
who have ten times less money than me a
hundred times a million times less money
than me and most people are essentially
living very similar lives it's not like
I'm going out there flying on first
class plane tickets taking luxurious
vacations staying in seven star resorts
living the Instagram lifestyle retired
working from wherever I want
you know it's not really quite like that
I'm still holding on to a normal
standard job I still go and I still eat
the same food as everybody else I still
go to McDonald's I just went through the
other day I still eat cup ramen so
drinking instant coffee today's video by
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check amount skill share so one thing I
want everybody to realize here and the
right way to think about money is to
understand that you already have access
to a million dollars probably most
likely most people do through your
friends network connections family
siblings cousins your extended family
you'll be able to come up with that
amount of money if you really need it to
and many people without even knowing it
they're already millionaires because
when their grandparents died when their
parents died all that money through the
generations
it may just end up flowing to you and
what's really going on is that a lot of
people your parents are trying to shield
you away from the lure of easy money
such that you can build up a career you
can build up something because one thing
to know is that as soon as you start
getting loads of money you lose that
motivation to work I've seen it multiple
times sometimes I'll actually be dating
somebody and then as soon as I
accidentally reveal that I've got some
money I see all the intentions of
working for this other person they just
vanish and the person just starts
imagining sitting on the beach and
that's not really the direction you want
to go because it's a short-term gain but
over the long term you don't realize
your full potential and you always want
to see how far can you really go as a
person and over a long period of time
maybe over say 10 years 20 years you may
be able to build up something more
something far more than million dollars
and there's a lot more and value to just
having money alone it's going to give
you social status help you build your
self-esteem help you become a
functioning member of society and see
where you can go from there it's a lot
of fun or I can tell you when you're
active and your other of them about
doing things that you think are
meaningful making a difference instead
of just sitting alone by yourself on the
beach drinking a mai tai
you know that's fun for only so long and
as I mentioned the lifestyle difference
between somebody who has say like a
million bucks and someone who has 100k
in the bank very very similar there's
almost no difference all men it gets you
a little bit more stability security
flexibility maybe you can get fired from
your job more easily and you would still
be okay and
really about all it does for you but
it's not like I could just go out and
become a rockstar guitarist right now
right I can't just go pursue any dream
that I want because I know that even if
I were to try and do that now or if I
want to go become a painter an artist
you know it's just not going to be a
productive use of my time you know one
thing I realized though was that it was
very difficult for me to go back to work
because I couldn't find a job that would
pay me a amount that was meaningful
enough if you've got like a million
bucks in the bank then picking up a job
that pays you say 100k salary and then
taxes take off half that gets you 50k
here it's just not worth it at that
point and so that's why I mean that
having money he motivates you it
misaligns your priorities and just
doesn't make sense to be working anymore
but that's really a short-term division
it's funny that I remember at one point
it made more sense for me to just focus
on tax optimization strategies instead
of actually working and so that's why I
did for a number of months I just
learned all about taxes business taxes
how to come up with the proper business
structure because anything else I would
do would have misaligned with the amount
of money I would be making from that but
you can see that that would not have
really built up my skills in any
meaningful way it would have just messed
me up as soon as you accumulate wealth
assets your next job is to protect those
assets and one way is through investing
perhaps through funding stocks or you
can try to grow your assets through
business ideas I find that most people
when they use money as a way to limit
their own capabilities like they'll say
I don't have enough money if only I had
enough I could start business if only I
had enough I could go do something and I
would you know use that money and become
rich you know I think most of these
plans people know it's not gonna work
out anyway it would have been a complete
waste of money that business would have
ended in disaster if it was such a good
idea then you would have no problem
finding the investors and the problem is
that most people are limiting themselves
they're thinking way too small
everybody's just thinking about how are
they going to afford some small stupid
apartment they're trying to get into how
are they going to afford concert tickets
to some event how are they going to be
able to afford dinner as a michelin-star
restaurant everybody's thinking about me
me me and their own small of the world
but if you were to expand your mind of
thought and to take a look at all the
assets are truly within your reach
within your capabilities within your
network and then come up with some
ventures some business idea that may be
worthwhile one thing to realize here is
that
I know that a million dollar sounds like
a lot to you but over time actually it's
not so much in fact I would say that
most people in their lives or accumulate
a million dollars in wealth at some
point right
in tech for example you may get 100k
salary and that's pretty standard and
over time you would actually go up to
maybe 200k 300k or higher than that and
if you were to make like 100k salary for
20 years and then tax takes off half of
that that's a million bucks right there
most people by the time they're in their
late 40s they've probably already got
million bucks saved up because they've
been working about 20 years by then so
that's a funny thing is I think the
question is not how to become a
millionaire because all of us already
are in some sense right
it's just delayed 20 years or so but in
the meanwhile if we still continue to
remain productive people thinking about
the future trying to be the best that we
can we're still going to be living a
pretty decent lifestyle still living in
lifestyle as if we had access to many
more funds so I think the real question
is how do you get to a million bucks
fast right let's say you don't want to
wait 20 years and that really has to do
with reading waves waves open up big
opportunities for anybody and it becomes
very easy to make money you don't have
to struggle so much there's just going
to be opportunity everywhere how did I
make my first million pretty simple it
was through apps and honestly it's not
very interesting story we've seen in the
past there have been a number of at
millionaires right when Facebook app
platform opened up when iPhone app
platform open up when Android app
platform opened up or when everybody was
moving to mobile there have been
hundreds if not thousands or tens of
thousands of app millionaires minted
overnight I was probably just one of the
many and if you were just in the right
place at the right time and you knew how
to code and just started making
something then you would have been in on
that too but throughout all this I think
one of the biggest surprises for me was
how much money a million dollars would
be how much money I would need to make
you know I remember there would be days
where I would be making five thousand
bucks a day on ads and that purchases
in-game purchases and I thought that was
great I thought that was a lot of money
and then I would run this for a whole
year do you know how much money that
would be after taxes and if you have a
co-founder your co-founder takes another
half you know five thousand over 365
days and then you get a quarter
that that would be just about 450 K and
that's already quite the challenge
because we know that most apps they
don't last a year right apps are kind of
a fad based business they may be
interesting popular for a few months but
having it last a whole year I think
that's really a challenge and so what
I'm saying here is that you need to
learn to charge for your work find a way
to create value and then charge for it
the real money if you really want to
make a lot of money fast if you want to
get to say the million dollar level
you're gonna need to find a way to
actually sell a real product and that's
for real money from it not just a few
cents here and there from advertising
overall though I wanted to remind you
guys that when you actually get to say
the million dollar mark nothing changes
you don't feel any different you don't
feel special it's not like in the movies
where people become a mill in there and
then they can go live in the house of
their dreams and go sit on the beach or
something like that you still continue
to work at least in Silicon Valley where
housing is very expensive so in the end
my best advice for you would be to
remain open to opportunities and learn
to charge for your work and understand
how much you need to be charging you
know you want to be looking for big
opportunities here if there's something
where it's just taking too much of your
time and you find that you're not able
to charge much for it at all maybe
you're doing stuff for free like for
awhile for example I was doing
photography and I couldn't get people to
pay me for it and it just took up so
much of my time I just stopped doing it
and that was probably the right choice
at some point when you do reach some
level of success you're going to find
that you had access to this wealth this
amount of money all along you reach like
a million bucks in wealth in your bank
account and then you go show it to your
mom and dad like I did your dad might
come and say yeah that's not too bad not
too shabby you still have a ways to go
though and then you go look at your aunt
and find that she and her husband are
out living in some three million dollar
house overlooking the bay and that's
kind of when you realize that perhaps
you were just thinking about yourself
this whole time and you weren't really
leveraging the assets within your
network within your family the
relationships that you may have and
perhaps there were some minute ease here
I would say that it would be a shame if
you limit yourself based on the amount
of money that you think you have access
to and then you start doing things that
don't build yourself up in a
professional way or personal way let me
know what your thoughts are though love
to
here in the comments if you liked the
video give a like and subscribe I'll see
you next time bye