so far I have read and listened to approximately over 350 self-improvement books initially my motivation for reading was all about money the goal was to earn ten thousand dollars a month books that I read helped me tremendously to reach that goal and taught me life-changing lessons in this video I will share 10 of those lessons with you number one don't live below your means expand your means I believe I got this advice from Robert kiyosaki's book called second chance Kiyosaki says if you go to a financial planner he will tell you to save money and
cut expenses so you will stop buying the things you enjoy such as dinner in your favorite restaurant he says why don't we look at the other side of the equation why don't we find ways to earn more money so that the price of Dinner becomes irrelevant cutting expenses is a passion killer nobody wakes up excited in the morning and says I'm going to cut costs here and there so that I have a few extra dollars cutting costs isn't motivating always focus on earning more and instead of saying I can't afford it say how can I
afford it from early on this advice made so much sense to me for two main reasons number one I realized that cutting costs has a limit there are only a limited amount of costs you can actually cut on number two I realized that my main currency is my energy and time I can use one hour of my energy to cut let's say ten dollars or use the same energy to earn a hundred dollars I know people who keep an Excel file and write down every single thing they buy during the day constantly search for ways
to cut expenses go from shop to shop to save a few dollars and spend their limited willpower so that they don't buy five dollar things that they love all these require so much energy and I think you have a much better return if you invest that energy into earning more money earning more isn't that scary earning more simply means solving more problems the more problems you solve the more you earn the path to making more money and solving problems looks something like this first you start solving small problems these are usually problems on a personal
level such as a lack of knowledge on certain topics or a lack of self-confidence then you move on to more complex ones every time you solve a problem you move to another level where there is another problem waiting for you to be solved the more money problems you solve the smarter you get and the more you earn it also works the opposite the more money problems you ignore the poorer you get number two what's the worst that can happen this lesson doesn't come from a finance book but a personal development book called How to stop
worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie however it has been extremely useful to me in investing and business overall as you've probably noticed the majority of our worries and stress are related to money for example what if I invest in this business idea but it doesn't succeed what if I invest in this company but lose everything what if I borrow money but can't pay it off whenever I felt fear and worry before making a financial decision I always asked this question what is the worst that can happen if I do this according to Carnegie things
that we believe are really bad are not as bad as we think in reality I completely agree with this opinion and have witnessed it many times in my own life this question calms you down immediately and helps you see that even the worst scenario is not as bad as you think very often you realize that even if the worst case happened you can easily live with it here's how you can apply this to your own life step one analyze the situation honestly and figure out what is the worst that can happen step two After figuring
out what the worst is that can possibly happen accept it accept it as it has already happened step three once you accept the worst outcome calmly devote your time and energy to working on the problem acceptance of what has happened is the first step in overcoming the consequences of any Misfortune one of the worst features of worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate when we worry our minds jump here and there acceptance calms us down and lets us focus on the solution number three the wrong mountain and the sunk cost fallacy imagine you
are climbing a mountain and when you are halfway there you look around and see that you have climbed the wrong Mountain the mountain you had to climb is just right next to you but you made a mistake to climb the right Mountain you have to go down rest a bit do some planning and start all over again now what do you do if you are like most people you're not going down even though you know that that is the right thing to do you're going to say what the hell it sucks to be on the
wrong Mountain but I am not going down I have worked so hard to climb this far I can't throw away all of my hard work plus the view is not that bad so I'm gonna stay the reason most of us refuse to go down the wrong mountain is because of his psychological phenomenon called sunk cost fallacy it's the tendency to Value the energy we've already invested or the money we've already spent and ignore the energy or money we'll lose in the future in other words we keep our focus on the past instead of on the
future maybe you are watching this video now and saying well if I was on that mountain I would go down and start again well let me ask you this your parents wanted you to become a doctor engineer or lawyer so you did as they wanted now you're halfway through your studies and already know that this is the wrong Mountain but you still keep going why is that you work in a job that you hate but you still keep doing it and will probably do it for the rest of your life why is that you are
in a relationship that you know that is not going to work but you still keep going you quit smoking and promise not to smoke again instead of throwing away the last package you're hiding it somewhere in your room you already get my point right the sunk cost fallacy is one of the most common and dangerous cognitive biases we fall victim to understanding it has improved my life a lot it's pretty hard but I do my best to ignore the price I've paid or the time and the energy I've spent and remind myself that the past
is the past and it is irrelevant when it comes to the future success of something I ask myself this question starting from today knowing what I know now what I continue investing in this business or relationship does it make sense to stick with this decision starting from today or not if the answer is no I stop it honestly every single time it was painful to stop it was painful to throw away all that work and money but in the long term it was worth it for example at the University I worked on a diploma thesis
for one and a half semesters and completed over 45 percent of the work but then realized that I was on the wrong Mountain I extended my studies threw away all my work and started from zero now looking back it was definitely worth it if I didn't do it you wouldn't be watching this video right now because my new diploma thesis was about the creation of this YouTube channel which has been translated into over 10 languages and has close to 4 million subscribers combined it was a business case type of thesis where I researched how I
could create this YouTube channel from scratch and turn it into a profitable business I enjoyed every minute of work I put into that thesis because I knew that I would implement it in real life I got a D as a final grade for my thesis but I felt like I got an A please don't get me wrong I'm not trying to brag or anything I only tried to give you a real life example and show you the beautiful things that can happen if you ignore the cost you have incurred and decide to climb a new
Mountain number four the difference between an asset and a liability as many beginning readers do one of the first few Finance books I read was Rich Dad Poor Dad the most important lesson that stuck with me was the difference between an asset and a liability Rich Dad defined an asset as something that puts money in your pocket and the liability as something that takes money out of your pocket this lesson is extremely simple but hard to apply in real life Rich Dad said that getting rich is easy you only need to do one thing buy
more assets that is it if you do that you will be rich after reading the book I became conscious of every single purchase I was making and focused on buying more assets one of the assets I bought was a real estate property that was generating around forty dollars in positive cash flow at that time I was new to YouTube but already had a few successful videos and was earning money from the channel one day I was looking at my earnings and saw that one of the videos had been making around forty dollars per month consistently
this was a wake-up moment for me because it made me realize that every single video I'm creating is an asset it is a digital real estate that produces positive cash flow every month both the real estate property and that video produced on average forty dollars every month but I spent several months on purchasing the real estate and it cost me twelve thousand dollars in just a down payment on the other hand producing that video was just a few hundred dollars plus I loved every single moment of creating it this was the moment I started to
take YouTube seriously and treat every single video as digital real estate this of course led to creating more and more videos and channels in different languages number five when it comes to money it is stupid to rely on Willpower automate instead a few years ago I was meeting with my manager at the bank to get a credit card if you're using a credit card then you probably know that interest rates are pretty high on credit cards as long as you pay back within a certain period there is no interest charged but if you missed the
free period you will be charged pretty high interest so my manager warned me about this he said look you have two options to pay back the money first and the cheapest option is to just set a notification on your calendar for the exact day of every month and manually pay you'll only press one button and the money will be transferred it's so easy you don't even need to fill in the account number just set a button on your calendar and press the one button the second option is to pick a date and the money will
be automatically deducted however this automatic system will cost you around three dollars every month he said that in my opinion the best option is the first option it is free of charge plus very easy to do it doesn't make sense to pay for it just set a reminder on your calendar for the same date of every month and simply click one button on your mobile app so I agreed and did as he recommended thinking that paying three dollars per month is unnecessary when I can do it for free guess what happened to next on the
following six-month period I forgot to press that one simple button and paid interest twice once for fifty dollars and the second for sixty dollars although I had a calendar notification and the easiness of payment I still forgot to do it for example once when the notification came I was in the middle of something important and said to myself that I would do it later and that later never came after the second interest payment I emailed the guy and asked him to make it automatic he once again warned me about the three dollar fee but I
already learned my lesson and it's this when it comes to your money whether it is investing saving for a vacation paying off debt or whatever it is if you don't make it automatic it's simply not gonna happen I don't care how strong your willpower is or how disciplined you are you will fail this lesson always stayed with me and now I do my best to just make things automatic not just with Finance but with other areas as well because I know that relying on Willpower is never going to work when it comes to money probably
over ninety percent of the job is psychology and emotions the beauty of automation is that it eliminates most of the emotional and psychological resistance you said it once and forget about it so do a favor to your future self and make things automatic number six the cost of earning more money everything has a price but not all prices appear on labels now I understand that you want to earn a lot of money Be Your Own Boss and have a successful business one day which is completely okay but what is not okay is to want all
of these and jump into doing it without understanding the price you have to pay here's what I mean imagine I come to you and ask if you would like to be a professional MMA fighter and fight in the UFC you'd probably think that it would be amazing to have fighting skills like those guys and be in great physical shape however after giving it some thought you're highly likely to decline my offer the reason is that you understand that it will require a tremendous amount of hard work time and probably several serious injuries just to become
average let alone to become a professional you would decline it because you don't want to spend five to six hours a day in a gym every day sometimes twice a day you don't want to be dieting and eating tasteless food for most of your life you don't want to have arguments with your partner for not spending enough time with him or her you simply don't want to make all these sacrifices the price to become an MMA fighter is too high and you don't want to pay it no one would call you crazy or a coward
for declining this offer because most people understand that the cost is too high this example that I just gave applies to becoming a business owner and earning a lot of money it has a high cost becoming a successful business owner is like becoming a great boxer writer singer or doctor most of us understand that it will take years of hard work in studying just to become an average doctor but we don't apply the same logic to earning more money we expect it to be quick and easy we expect it to be painless for example you
wouldn't expect a fat guy with no boxing experience to win a fight against an experienced boxer but that is what most of us do when it comes to starting a business most of us have never started a business or learned about it in school most of us come from families who have very poor financial and business skills we are like that fat guy yet we expect to start the fight throw a few punches and knock out the experienced opponent this is why most people start a business and then after a few failures give up blaming
the economy or the competition the truth is that they didn't understand the cost and were not willing to pay for it if you want to start something first find out what the cost is and if you are truly willing to pay for it understanding the cost helped me to not give up very fast and be comfortable with slow progress when you know that what you are doing has a high cost you don't give up after a few failures when you understand the cost you realize that you have to create imbalance in your life and sacrifice
family friends and fun time in order to pay that price number seven Get Rich Young you might have already seen this picture this is an old couple on vacation Unfortunately they are so tired they can't even enjoy their boat tour don't get me wrong I'm not making fun of this couple I'm showing it because their picture served as an important reminder for me throughout the years here's what I mean when I started to read personal finance and investing books I kept getting this advice you save a small amount such as five dollars a day and
invest it over the long term you will have over 1 million dollars in 40 years which is true and absolutely makes sense but I remember having this strange and conflicting feeling whenever I read such advice first I would get excited about the possibility of investing a small amount and having a million dollars but I remember after the brief moment of excitement I would get upset I would say to myself okay yes I will have a million dollars but I will be old do I want to be wealthy when I'm in a wheelchair do I want
to go on vacation but have no energy and fall asleep I wanted the million dollars but not when I was 70. I wanted a nice car but not when I was old and required physical assistance just to sit in that car finally one day I came across this book called The Millionaire fast lane written by MJ DeMarco and it completely changed my life this book is about getting rich quickly and retiring early by creating a business inventing something or simply creating things that can bring you a lot of money when you are young I know
when you hear get rich quick it sounds scammy but when the author talks about getting rich quick he doesn't mean getting rich in just a few weeks or months for example if you create a business you might work on it for five or ten years but once you succeed you never have to work again in your life this is what he calls get rich quick and if you look at it 10 years is quick compared to investing for 40 years even though this is one of my favorite books and I always recommend it one thing
I don't like about it is that it kind of makes fun of long-term investing as I said earlier creating a business has its cost and some people are completely happy with their job and don't want the stress and the responsibility of having something big for these people having an average salary and investing five dollars a day for 40 years might be a good option I personally do it as well but I don't rely on it to make me Rich one day I guess it all depends on what you truly want if you want to retire
early and never work in your life again then check this book out on the other hand if you are happy with your job and long-term investment then stay where you are but also keep in mind that compound interest does its magic at the end of the period for example ninety percent of Warren Buffett's wealth was accumulated after the age of 50. Warren Buffett's skill is investing but his secret is time he's been investing since he was just a boy number eight think big when I was in university I had a classmate who always talked about
the importance of being realistic in life when he saw someone taking a big action or dreaming about some big goals he would remind them to come back to reality for example when some of our classmates talked about going to the United States and studying there he would quickly say come on be realistic you're broke and you can't even introduce yourself in English how are you going to study there it wasn't just with others he was like that with himself as well for example he would say things like I know that I will never drive an
expensive Mercedes and have a million dollars in my bank account don't get me wrong he wasn't a bad guy or anything quite the opposite he was nice and a reliable friend he was the type of friend that you would go to to borrow money on bad days or borrow his jacket for a special event the only problem was that he was a small thinker he didn't even allow himself to dream about big things David Schwartz the author of the book The Magic of thinking big says that the big thinkers see what is possible what can
be done with their life not just what their life is at this moment on the other hand small thinkers see only what is currently in front of them and nothing else a small thinker will look at an old house and say this is an old house in very bad condition so it will only sell for fifty thousand dollars on the other hand big thinkers will look at the same house and say yes this is an old house but I can plant trees around the house clean up the yard and do renovation and sell it for
a hundred thousand dollars simply put one sees what is and another sees what is possible most people can't think big they don't even let themselves dream about big things I'm not saying that think big and everything will be great not at all thinking big is just the first step and there are probably a hundred more steps after that for example let's say you're now making a thousand dollars a month and you start setting big goals so your first Big Goal is making ten thousand dollars a month as soon as you set the goal and start
thinking big it will start guiding you to your destination like a GPS soon your behavior will change and you will start doing things differently you will start reading different books you will start watching different videos and you will start saying no to certain friends thinking big will lead to doing big things and doing big things leads to having big things first you become the big person you want to become then you do the things the big person does and only then will you have the things the big person has most people believe the opposite is
true they say first give me the ten thousand dollars a month then I will start doing the things that the person with ten thousand dollars a month income would do and only then I can become that person it doesn't work like that you have to become the person first and only then the rest will come and this can't happen if you don't allow yourself to think big I have personally learned two important lessons about thinking big number one I found out that many of the big goals are easier to achieve than the small goals because
when you set big goals you realize you can't achieve them by yourself so you have to involve others you have to use other people's knowledge and expertise which makes things much easier to achieve on the other hand when you set small goals you're only thinking about what you can do yourself number two I realized that the goals I thought were big weren't that big and the problems I thought were big were not big I was just too small number nine money equals Life Energy Vicky Robbins the author of the book your money or your life
says that most of us believe that our job is supporting our life but in reality the job becomes our entire life itself most of us spend much more than 40 hours a week working to earn money for example we must take time to dress for our jobs commute to our jobs and think about our jobs at work and home we must spend our evenings and weekends in Mindless entertainment to forget about our jobs and relax almost our entire life is designed around our work and the reason we work is to earn money when you look
at it this way you quickly realize that you are selling your life for money money equals Life Energy when I started to look at money as my life energy I started to become more aware of how I spent it every time I wanted to buy something I had to ask if it is worth My Life Energy I started seeing prices not in dollars or Euros but in hours or weeks of my life for example the new phone I wanted to buy was no longer eight hundred dollars but one month of my life spent working in
a job that I didn't like and I know what you're thinking you're thinking that this is just forcing yourself to feel guilty about every purchase so that you don't make that purchase but that's not true when you see your money as your life energy you suddenly value it more and when you value it more you start spending it on the things that you truly want instead of spending it on a second pair of shoes that you'll probably wear only once here's a question for you what is the price of Your Life Energy how much is
your every hour truly worth the traditional way to calculate this is simply to take the amount of your net pay and divide it by the number of hours you have to work for example if you work 160 hours per month and your net monthly salary is five hundred dollars then we need to divide 500 by 160 and that equals three dollars and twelve and a half cents per hour however it's not that simple to calculate your real hourly wage you need to take into account other factors such as the time and money you use for
everything related to your work think of all the money you must spend to keep your job such as transport costs the costs of eating outside the cost of living in an expensive city because that is where your job is and medical costs because of work related stress you need to deduct all those job-related expenses this is how you'll know what you earn for each hour of your life's energy number 10. create your own luck the more time passes the less and less I believe in the power of luck in business very often the thing people
call luck is just the result of taking many actions for example let's say you and I are looking for an investment property to buy I go and check 10 Flats but you check a hundred who do you think is going to be lucky of course you will be luckier but from outside it will look like you just came across a great property and bought it the more actions you take the better your chances of getting lucky people who take action get luckier because they create their own luck this lesson encouraged me to try many things
and also be comfortable with most of them not working out I learned that you can be wrong most of the time and still be very successful for example Warren Buffett admitted that he has owned shares in more than 400 different companies in his lifetime the most significant gains came from only 10 of them many large companies understand this reality as well for example if you review all the series that Netflix has produced you'll see that only a few of them have had significant success when you realize this you can accept that it is normal for
many things to fail or go wrong sometimes all you need is just one idea one book one sentence one person or one video to change your life others looking from outside will think that you just got lucky and met that one person who helped you succeed but what they don't know is that you contacted probably over 50 people in order to come across that one person you created your own luck this was the last lesson but I have one more bonus lesson as a conclusion to everything we talked about in this video at the beginning
of the video I said that I started reading because I wanted to earn more money but once I started the journey I realized that this has very little to do with money it goes way way way way way deeper than that for example once you start working 15 hours a day to earn more money you soon realize that you're sitting in your room the whole day and your body and brain are weakening so you start exercising regularly and once you start exercising you realize that you must also fix your diet and sleep you can't eat
junk food all the time and go to bed late and at the same time keep working 15 hours a day one day you come home from the gym and look at your room and say I can't believe I live and work in this mess so you start keeping the room clean and organized things start to improve but for some reason you're still negative and unhappy this is the moment you start paying more attention to the voice in your head that never shuts up so you start learning about meditation and controlling that crazy roommate that lives
in your head you used to make fun of people who talk about spirituality and meditation but now you meditate yourself you learn how to control yourself and your emotions you used to get angry and pissed over every single someone says or does but now you just let it go you acquire new habits and quit the bad ones like smoking now that you no longer smoke you can also stop hanging out with certain friends pretty soon you start to walk and talk differently you become more self-confident and stop wearing unfitting large t-shirts and jeans like an
11 year old teenager you start dressing well because you understand how important the first impression is in communication when meeting new business partners years past and you keep improving and one day you turn back and see that you have achieved your financial goal but the person who is standing over the finish line is no longer the same you have become a different person both mentally and physically you've gone through a complete personal transformation this is the moment you realize that what you have achieved is much more important than money and has very little to do
with money this is it for this video if you're new to books and personal development then check out the two playlists you see on your screen the summary of the books I mentioned in this video is on the left side of your screen and the summary of all the books I've summarized is on the right side I hope this was a useful video thanks for watching
