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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

There Is No Monopoly On Being Rich: Adopt A Wealth Mindset

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Oakland Bay Bridge Sunset

To get rich, you need to adopt an abundance mindset. There is no monopoly on being rich!

I’d like to think most of you come here because you have a desire to improve your finances, hang out and connect with like-minded folks, and get entertained. Despite some rather highly opinionated posts, there’s not a lot of nasty comments at all.

I am a perennial optimist. Sprained ankle? Thank goodness it’s not broken! Ever since I was about 12 years old, I knew I did not want to be poor. Seeing ubiquitous poverty growing up in third world countries makes me appreciate how lucky we are to live in America.

It was in the 9th grade when a senior told me to stop messing around if I wanted to have a better life. And it was the first month of work that I told myself if I could just survive these brutal 5:30am-7:30pm+ workdays for the next 10 years, that I would be rich.

Thirteen years later, work is but an option. The biggest irony is that in order to stop caring about money, you first have to care a great deal about money. I could have worked for many more years and saved many more dollars, but money is no longer a driving force. I’d much rather have the freedom to do what I want.

It’s been three and a half years since I first started this blog and I’ve encountered a plethora of different attitudes about wealth. Some people believe it’s their destiny to remain poor while others have an unwavering desire to make it big beyond their wildest dreams. If you believe you will always be poor, then that is what you will be. If you believe you deserve to be wealthy, you have an infinitely higher chance of succeeding.

There is no monopoly on being rich. You don’t have to be angry at others who have more. You’ve just got to be confident that you belong and survive long enough to succeed.

“Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not all right, then it is not yet the end.” – Unknown

Related Posts:

Abolish Welfare Mentality Today

A Day Job Is So Much Easier Than Entrepreneurship

I’m Not Supposed To Be Here… 

Photo: Bay Bridge Sunset, SD.

Overcoming The Price Hurdle To Find Value And Succeed

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Priceless Crowns At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen

To find value, you need to overcome the price hurdle. Don’t let a pice hurdle not let you see the value of certain thhings.

We all know that it takes money to make money. If you want $10,000 a year in passive interest income at a rate of 2%, you’ll need $500,000 in capital to get there. If you’ve only got $25,000 in capital, well then here’s $500 a year, just enough to buy yourself a round-trip ticket to Hawaii. Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound too bad!

I’ve been highly anticipating the response to my introductory $980 Get On The Map (GOTM) service where I help bloggers and small businesses get noticed on the web.

There’s a lot of art behind the science of pricing. Price too low, and you might be signaling an inferior product or fend off too much demand. Price too high, and you might not get any clients. Finding the intersection between marginal utility and marginal cost is a journey that changes over time.

Going about pricing a product out of the necessity of money vs. the necessity for fulfillment is quite different. I get fulfillment out of helping others by providing more value than the price I charge. That’s what keeps me excited. If I had to sell something to put nutritious McDouble cheeseburgers on the table for five children everyday, I’d feel the heat, underprice and likely provide poor value.

THE VALUE OF TIME IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE



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Zynga Rejected My Application So I Unleashed The FURY!

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One thing I plan on doing in retirement is find a potential encore career.  As a computer and internet junky who has built up a reasonable size blog, a foray into the social media sector seems like a natural extension.  I want to make sure that I exhaust all options before I really kick back and harass my father on the golf course a couple times a week.

Applying to positions is so easy now thanks to the internet and LinkedIn.  It takes around five minutes per online application and you will get an e-mail confirmation immediately after pressing send.  For those who don’t know, Zynga is an online social game maker of Farmville, Words With Friends, and other names that rely predominantly on Facebook’s user platform to make money via ads and virtual goods.

Given I’ve been reminded about Zynga with Mark Pincus’ handsome face all smiling down below in my post, “How The Rich And Powerful Become More Rich And Powerful,” I figured why not shoot them an application despite their horrendous reputation for long work hours and ruthless management..  I didn’t talk to Mark at Marissa’s party, but I did swing by their sweet offices once in the SF Design District.

For most of June and July, Zynga’s stock hovered around $5 a share, a 65% decline from its recent March 2012 high of $14.20.  I figured in my ever optimistic self that it was better to get options at $5 than all the poor folks who joined earlier in the year at much higher levels.

And so, between scrubbing my chiseled pecs during bath time earlier this month, I submitted my application.  A couple weeks later I got this rejection letter:

TIME TO UNLEASH THE FIST OF FURY!

I started crying my eyes out when I got the e-mail.  How could they reject someone like me!  I’m a hard working, loyal soldier, who plays Words With Friends for free, and partied with the big boss, Mark Pincus!  Come on now!  Don’t they know who I am?

Like a Prom Queen scorned by a fickle King, I decided that if I can’t have Zynga, NOBODY CAN!  I went into the deepest cracks of my cobwebbed mind to conjure up the most potent of spells. After 20 seconds of practice, I chanted:

“Ommm, howwwww, could, youuu, wrooong, meee ZyngaaaaaaaH.  Youuuuu, muuuust, paaaaaaaay, for this dishonorrrrrr.  Saaay gooodbyeeee to youur leeetle foooze ball tabullll and shittttttay gamezzzzz!”

After the close on Wed, July 25, just days after the spell was cast, Zynga shit the bed and slashed 2012 forecasts by 70%.  The stock tumbled 40% to $3 a share.

Oops, wrong spell!  I meant to just give the recruiter a little morning diarrhea, not blow up the entire company!

Zynga Is Imploding

LESSONS LEARNED

* Don’t make me mad because I have spellz.

* Watch what insiders do.  They sold $500 million worth of stock at $12 in April, 2012.

* Winds change, trends change, tastes change.

* Not all startups will make you rich.  In fact, many start ups will make you poor by wasting your time and underpaying you.

* There are blessings in disguise all the time.  Be optimistic.

* Don’t be overly reliant on one source of traffic (FB).

* When in motion, objects tend to stay in motion.

* Not everything is as it seems.

* You can talk the talk, but bullshit walks.  Numbers are what matters for public companies.

* Don’t be naive.

* There will be casualties of war.

* Don’t take things personally.

* It’s only money.

* Companies are allowed to lie,  “As you know, we are growing rapidly!” Uh, I don’t think so!

Readers, would you work at Zynga?  Do you think there will now be a mass exodus of employees at Zynga, thereby increasing my chances of working there?  Do you think insiders new about the bad trend in April?  Will Zynga survive as a public company a year from now?

Oh, and don’t feel sorry for Zynga executives and major shareholders.  Here’s what they got when they sold in April:

  • Marc Pincus, Zynga’s CEO, sold 16.5 million shares for $200 million
  • Institutional Venture Partners, a Zynga investor, sold 5.8 million shares for $70 million
  • Union Square Ventures, a Zynga investor, sold 5.2 million shares for $62 million
  • Google, a Zynga investor, sold 4 million shares for $48 million
  • SilverLake Partners, a Zynga investor, sold 4 million shares for $48 million
  • Reid Hoffman, a Zynga investor, sold 688,000 shares for $8.2 million
  • David Wehner, Zynga’s CFO, sold 386,000 shares for $4.6 million
  • John Schappert, Zynga’s COO, sold 322,000 shares for $3.9 million
  • Reginald Davis, Zynga’s General Counsel, sold 315,000 shares for $3.8 million
Photo: Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury 2, PD.
 
Update 2020: Zynga is still in the dumps. They can’t innovate or create cool new games on their own.

 

Learn How To Negotiate A Severance Package

 

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So You Want To Be Rich Eh?

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So you want to be rich? Glad you’re here. Financial Samurai is focused on getting rich and staying rich.

If you want to get rich, you must practice predicting the future.

If you want to stay rich, you must continuously invest in real assets that hold its value.

Finally, if you want to live freely, you must build a large passive income portfolio to pay for your desired living expenses.

So You Want To Be Rich

In “How Do You Become Rich?“, Finance Fox pens a 1,200 word post on what it takes to reach the promised land.  I immediately checked out the post because I’m always fascinated about how others define rich and how others plan to get rich.

 Eddie’s definition of rich is “having a fortune over $1 million bucks.”  $1 million bucks is a good amount of money, but at what age? At 35, that’s pretty darn rich. At 70, not so much. Getting rich is relative.

Eddie then goes on to ask what is the secret of successful rich people?  My answer is almost always, PERSEVERANCE. The ability to solider on and not give up even in the worst moments.  

Every single wealthy person I know has had some tremendous disappointments in their lives, but they don’t stop trying.

The more critics there are, the greater the wealthy person’s fire is to succeed.



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What I Learned While On Sabbatical

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Baker Beach San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge

Just like that, 30 days have gone by and my sabbatical is over. I truly enjoyed my time off and have learned a number of things I’d like to share with those who are thinking of taking a sabbatical or are just curious in general.

I haven’t taken more than two consecutive weeks off since the summer after college and I highly encourage everyone to take a sabbatical if they’ve been working for at least five years.

What I Learned While On Sabbatical

* Free time is joy.  The best feeling of being on sabbatical is knowing that nobody is there to tell you what to do.  You don’t have to set an alarm clock and you are free to plan your day and week as you see fit.

* There are plenty of people wandering around during the day.  It didn’t matter when I went out to do errands, play tennis, go on a hike, or whatever between 7am-5pm, it was always crowded!  A bullish sign for the economy no doubt as you read on.



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The Ideal Body Weight: Finally Losing The Last 10 Pounds

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Financial Samurai Weight - the ideal body weight

The ideal body weight is hard to achieve in America. With so much wealth and unhealthy foods, it’s so easy to gain weight! Unfortunately, with the pandemic raging on and second child to take care of, I’ve gained more weight.

I originally wrote this post on May 21, 2012 when I was 35 and I’m revisiting it again at the end of November 2020. I’m currently back up to around 172 pounds and I want to get back to the ideal body weight again.

If there’s one thing we should all do, it is to eat right, exercise more, and lose weight! The coronavirus is really hurting people more who are obese.

The Ideal Body Weight Struggle

At the beginning of the year, I discovered that I was not in ideal weight and it pissed me off. At 167-169 pounds, I thought I was doing pretty good for a middle-aged guy standing 5′ 10″ until spending a couple hours of research online for the post. It turns out that based on the majority of reports, I was actually about ~10 pounds overweight, which is a lot since I don’t weight that much to begin with.

With tennis season just three months away at the time, I didn’t want to be out of shape. My teammates were counting on me. In competitive sports there’s the triumvirate mind, body, and skills for winning.

The body is the EASIEST thing to optimize, which means during competition against high caliber opponents, they are all in great shape. Having an ideal body weight is standard (ever see an overweight professional tennis player?), and therefore one is able to focus their energy on mental strength and specific skills.

For well over a decade, I had an enormous mental block that I had to overcome. I told myself it was IMPOSSIBLE to get under 160 pounds. This was even though I was a lean 155 pounds in college. I kept saying there was no way I could break 160 because of work and a slower metabolism. I accepted weight creep and the ideology that people automatically gain 10 pounds every decade.

So Many Excuses Not To Lose Weight



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Is The Top 1% Better Than The 99% At Raising A Family?

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Back on April 20, 2012, I had just negotiated a severance from my banking job. My next thoughts were one whether to start a family. So I had a thought: Is the top 1% better than the 99% at raising a family? Let’s discuss!

The Top 1% And Raising A Family

I stumbled across a very crafty Twitter feed called “GS Elevator Gossip” @GSElevator the other day. The idea behind the Twitter feed is to share with the public random elevator gossip from one of the most hallowed, and vilified investment banks in the world.  

Given the average compensation for Goldman Sachs employees runs around $300,000-$500,000 a year, it’s safe to say that Goldman Sachs has its fair share of 1 percenters.

Some of the Tweets are quite witty.  And others are downright offensive.  The key to all good snark is to be witty, a little offensive, and contain a good dose of truth.  One of the Tweets that piqued my interest is this one:

“I’m in the top 1% because I want the best for my family. What does that say about the 99%?”

ZING!  Let’s discuss the merits of this statement, shall we?  I’m assuming that most parents in the 99% won’t be in agreement with the statement.  We’ll also touch upon why the 99% is better than the top 1% as well.



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The Psychology of Wealth Book Review And Giveaway

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The Psychology Of Wealth Book CoverSince the very beginning of Financial Samurai, I’ve sought to delve into the psychology of wealth by focusing on stories about wealth and moving beyond numbers.  My favorite is, “The Curse Of Making Too Much Money And Not Pursuing Your Dreams“.  It’s infinitely more interesting to learn about what makes people happy, and what wealth means to everyone.

Most of us are born into relative wealth given America, Australia, and the United Kingdom, are where most of you readers hail from.  There are hundreds of millions more people born into relative poverty and can’t get out.  Go anywhere in India for a couple weeks and it will change your appreciation of what you have, forever.  You’ll probably no longer complain about why you don’t make X, and you’ll likely lose some weight as well upon realization of so much waste.

The psychology of wealth is more than just having a net worth of $1 million dollars by the time you retire.  That’s pretty straight forward if you have your head on straight the day you graduate from college.  The psychology of wealth is about being wealthy, no matter how much money you have.  It’s about “understanding your relationship with money and achieving prosperity,” as Dr. Richards writes.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WEALTH REVIEW

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What Is The Real Meaning Of Wealth?

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The following is a guest post from Steve the Money Infant. There he blogs daily about money; how to save it, make more and avoid wasting it. He asks what is the real meaning of wealth?

Do you think you are wealthy? In fact, what is wealth really? The Free Dictionary defines wealth as follows:

  1. An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources; riches. The state of being rich; affluence.
  2. All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use.
  3. A great amount; a profusion: a wealth of advice.

Most Common Meaning Of Wealth

I think that many and possibly most people focus on the 1st meaning of wealth. We are so concerned with material wealth while there are many other kinds of wealth that we should be striving for. It hasn’t always been this way though. The word “wealth” actually comes from two Old English words; “weal” (meaning well-being) and “th” (meaning condition of) which when combined means “the condition of well-being”. That is significantly different when compared with the common usage of the word wealth these days.

While I certainly wouldn’t try to denigrate the usefulness of material wealth, in many ways my life has become a striving for wealth in the Old English sense of the world. I do not claim to have a great deal of wealth. Much of what I owned was sold before our move to Thailand.

My investments are sorely lacking. And my income, while sufficient to satisfy our meager needs, is certainly not that of what you would consider a wealthy person. What I do have on most days though is what I would call inner wealth; a great sense of well being or inner peace.



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Wake Up Young People, Nobody Is Going To Save You

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The older I get, the more I realize how necessary it is for people first starting out to find a mentor.  A mentor is there to guide you through all the landmines in a career or start-up venture.  In fact, I encourage everyone to get a mentor with every serious endeavor they are about to undertake.

“You are special.  You deserve the world and can do anything.”  These words do more damage to young people than any insult.  If all you hear growing up is how special you are, you’re going to develop the biggest entitlement attitude ever!  You’re going to think you walk on water and your shit don’t stink.

Is there any wonder why the most typical complaint by the 99% protest movement is not getting a dream job after going tens of thousands of dollars in debt?  What is wrong with picking crops and making hamburgers? College graduates are told to go to school, don’t be afraid to take out massive debt because their lives will be great since they are so special.  As a result, they aren’t willing to put in the hours to get straight A’s, work unpaid internships every summer to gain experience, and develop technical skills beyond the classroom.  Being told they are special DOOMS them.

This is why growing up in a free and developed country like the United States is pretty easy, ironically.  If you don’t have the “I’m special” attitude, then you will never be delusional.  And since so many of your peers think they are special, they aren’t willing to put the extra time and effort into whatever they are doing.  Just realizing you are just another nobody will put you far ahead in this world.

Related: Are You Smart Enough To Act Dumb Enough To Get Ahead?

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Updated for 2018 and beyond.