Average Investor

Why not just try to move closer to the area you work in now? Maybe I missed that if you mentioned it. If the cost seems more expensive add up the wear and tear to the vehicle, gas, and time cost.

Keep consistent towards what you want. Yes, you have to pay bills now. But the reason most cannot escape is they are not actively working towards it. If you think it is hard now try adding a house payment, children, spouse, etc. Take your time to invest in business education and stay on track. You will make it out if that is truly what you want. I know you want it bad enough. Keep honing your skills in your profession and you won't have an issue at all. I probably sound like a broken record, but I believe in you man. Do the work now with as much presence as you can too. The more you build the idea of shitty job in your mind it will just make you sad for no reason. Enjoy this beautiful experience as much as you can. Stop looking ahead at where you want to be. But focus in on what is right in front of you.

@DreamScape Thanks for giving it a read!

@LoveandPurpose The values would be 10. Yes Continue doing the course and you will work that out. Good luck!

I have a back to heal now as well, so my rate of recovery has been quite slow. None the less I am still being active, but nothing extreme. I am thankful that I am not even more limited that I am currently. I enjoy being able to do all of that stuff that I can do. Won my 3rd award in a row for best impromptu speech in toast masters that one of my toast masters does, so that was pretty cool. I think I found my mentor in that group too if he is willing to do it. He is over 70 and his speaking skills are incredible. Definitely a really cool guy that is happy an cheerful. I think so far he would be well worth working with. I am progressing really well. I am going to become a member in both groups as well. So I will be giving the same longer speeches twice in each group. This is really going to start ramping up my speaking skills. I really like that this group in particular likes hearing about self help stuff. They were all interested in my speech about Earl Nightingale. Going to start working on a more organized schedule for myself. I am going to start getting up even earlier I think. I really don't do a whole lot in the evening anymore and by getting up earlier I just leave less time that is distracted to get stuff done for my day. I am doing really good at adding and keeping habits. But I have worked really hard at it for a good length of time. I am starting to dive deeper into learning about OCD. I find it interesting that I have helped myself with this as much as I have without a lot of significant research. But a lot of the methods so far it seems like stuff that I just intuitively did to try to help myself. Granted I want to take it to the next level. Same with all other aspects of "defects" that I have. I want to gain as much knowledge on them as I can and I think this will boost me even further in life. Today I am thankful for Healing Not giving up Feeling passionate about the work I do My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Productivity Adventure Fun Connection Contribution Creativity

I suggest getting the extra recommended content on that lesson and retaking what you did several times. You should look at them and get a bit of reflection to yourself. Although, some may not be as apparent.

Get some stability with your other work, then start working on this if it is what you really find fulfilling. You can also do one on one voice lessons, or teach classes around that too for money as well. I know that people pay a lot of money for a voice instructor. So while you are building up your skills you can teach to make it profitable. I know this is profitable for a fact because I just bought a book on improving my speaking voice. Lots of options to work off of with voice acting and you can use the skills of it to generate money too. Which thing would you do if you were already rich?

Yeah, it is quite hard to make something profitable and hit the level of impact that you want. It takes a lot of extra effort and thought than just making up some garbage that contributes to a lot of the low conscious stuff out there. It can be really hard to decide if you want the profit or to make a change. But I will say that there is a lot of rewards that come from really helping people and adding contribution. The illusion of money keeps so many running on the treadmill for it their whole life. Society likes to make it seem as if money is what a successful person has, but really it is just the result of success. I would rather have a bit of impact changing the lives of a few, than destroying the lives of many for a big profit. Finding a good balance to get there is good though. I maintain myself by selling stuff on eBay and while I know that is not quite the contribution I want it really is not causing harm. I think there is some items that are really low conscious. But there is some good stuff too and general things that people need. Every business I have made has gradually got more and more towards making more of an impact. I quickly realized that selling some stuff was not really going to do that. But it does sustain me to explore more ventures. So if you find it now or later it is okay. The sheer fact that you are aware of this will make changes in your businesses as you evolve.

@Patt Great, keep working at it! Don't worry if you find something else that is giving you some spark too. Find a way for your music to change the world in a positive way! It will give it so much meaning and value to you. But be sure that it really puts you in your element while you are doing it. I get there is days that are not that great and things just go by. But make sure it really gives you the fire. It might even be a certain gene of music you have not explored, instrument, or creation style will do it.

Grading is total bullshit and not a real reflection of someones intelligence or value. I would not worry so much about that. Do you have a good habit of eating clean and I mean really clean? Mediation? Exercise? This stuff will help your cognition greatly. I have found the nootropic lion's mane to be extremely helpful with memory for myself as well.

I found it helpful to dabble in various classes in college. I had the opportunity to go to community college for a year without getting any debt and honestly I thought that it was worth it. You will reach a level or probably already have where you can see negative things in this culture and things like group think etc. So I would not worry a lot about that since you are aware of the limitations of college. It sounds like you are doing really well in school and might gain a lot of benefits from it. Especially from the fact that you will not have to worry about debt. That is the main reason I think college is not worth it is really the debt for most. I think there is a lot of great opportunities. It also depends a lot on the field you decide to go with though too. But I think it will really boil down to what you decide to do. I can't really sit here and say that investing this portion of your life is going to be worth it or not. I think your gap year sounds great. I think it would be well worth it honestly. It sounds like you have a good financial cushion and really supportive parents that want you to do well in life. You are at an age where what you want to do is likely going to fluctuate for awhile, but even the fact that you are in this work and have done the life purpose course you are much better off than most. Also, a lot of the time most people are not even going to have those opportunities at all. Think about that you don't have work, family, etc. So really this is a pretty opportune time for you to dive deep and explore. I mean alternatively you can see what $4,000 would grow to compounding it 8% yearly, but I have to admit there are a lot of things in life that experience will be worth any amount of money you can pay. I am taking a month off this summer for the first time in probably 8 years or so and traveling the US by car. Granted I am going to do some work with videos and stuff, but it sounds like an exciting adventure. What are you doing in your spare time? I find a big thing with purpose is really knowing that you are making a difference. I am still forming mine too and I have to admit it bugs me with all of the garbage food. I kind of have a good general idea of where I am heading. I want to find some uncharted territory I think though.

Had a pretty big insight yesterday that I think is going to help me move forward. I think I can change a lot of my behaviors and I have already been quite successful in improving them already. But I want to take it to the next level and really research them and get down to the core. I don't want little issues to follow me around for my whole life, when I could just figure out how to solve them by doing research and finding techniques. Just about finished with another book. I should be done in a couple of days. Really thinking about diving into this big steve jobs biography, but I really hope that it can sustain my attention for that long. I had hard time with he 48 laws of power and that was not nearly as big, but I also think a lot of the stories were not quite as interesting. So hopefully this is a really worthwhile read. I think he seems like someone well worth researching. I was watching his presentation of the first iphone awhile ago and it was awesome. It was worth watching the whole thing for that. Crazy how much this stuff has changed the lives around the world. Going to come back and finish this later. Was a pretty good day overall today. I expend a lot of time on things that are not really what I want to be doing right now, but it is not bad. I did actually get to read quite a bit today too and maybe only have 20 pages of this book left. Need to heal and rest my back a bit now unfortunately. I would like to still run the marathon coming up if I can, but I am not going to destroy my body to do it. There is going to be plenty more, but this would be an awesome thing to kick off my bucket list. Today I am thankful for Relaxation Hunt for items Good book My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Fun Honesty Productivity Creativity Connection Contribution Adventure

What subjects are you trying to teach? You could try to teach them in some other type of setting if it does not work. There is a lot of options these days from things like youtube to one on one teaching. There is likely good pay where you are at for tutoring as well. You could even start your own business in that. That might be something to hold you by while you try again or you might find these other avenues more appealing since they would have less formal structure. I did not like the school system much in the first place, so I could not imagine enjoying working it. I do hope that you find a solution. There are plenty of other things you can do besides teaching as well. Not saying you have to stop following that, but just know that it won't be the end of the world.

In my experience if you feel the need for a relationship heavily, then I would not get into one. It sounds like you are dealing with loneliness. Since you mentioned the issue of wanting to find friends as well. I have found it really helpful to try to work through these things. It is still good to have contact with people though, so I am not saying for you to just remove everyone. But I was in a similar situation to yourself removing friends and a girlfriend about a year ago and it was totally worth it. I would suggest getting yourself to the point you can work through this issue because no matter how much you cover it up it will be there. As you age it will only get harder to not be lonely. So the sooner that you start to work through the issue the better. Take good care of yourself though. Keep your hygiene up, exercise, eat well, etc. Believe it or not you will actually reach a point where you can handle it. Getting there is not pleasant in my experience. Now I am not telling you to go to a point where you are majorly depressed or something. If you need some interaction try posting here, join a club, etc.

Going to start looking into effective ways to express emotions more healthy. I don't really convey a lot of emotions all that often. I just let them build up over time. I think a lot of that has to to with my upbringing and the fact that I could not really express myself or be authentic. I was always in a more defensive and protective mode to keep myself from any harm. I do remember having a lot of anger though as a kid at certain points. I imagine all I did was distract myself if I could from it. So I will try to research more of what I can do. I think this will be fairly significant for me in journey. Setting a more well rounded schedule for myself and going to make sure that I am not overworking myself. I am going to dedicate certain days of the week to really maximizing on single task. I think is going to help me keep things fresh and help me to not let things slide past me. I need to make sure I am focusing enough on my reselling business too. I did actually manage to save up $400 from selling my wheels of the car I am going to part out, so that was good. But I have been cutting it close with bills by spending so much time working on the life purpose stuff. I notice I have a lot of women interested in me. Just in one of my toast masters club two of them are showing interest in me. I am getting pretty good at picking up on that. Although, I am pretty slow to it sometimes lol. I feel like I am in a place where being in a relationship would just limit my growth. A lot of it sounds fun and stuff, but even sex really does not sound super exciting. Of course my brain is wired to want it, but I have other stuff going on that keeps me focused. I might consider it eventually, but I feel like I have so little time doing the tasks I do not that I don't really want to do that. I want to be more independent before really considering that. Today I am thankful for Mediation Walking Sun My top 9 values are Personal development Knowledge Honesty Fun Adventure Connection Creativity Contribution Productivity

It really depends on the employer. I have had a boss that was laughing and sharing about someones mental illness to others. Not trying to discourage you just saying that some people really don't care. Possibly instead of coming to them and saying "I have depression" just make a list of things that are effecting you and see if you can come to a solution with them on how to solve them. That is probably one of the better ways to phrase it. I think that you should especially if you plan to continue working there for a extended amount of time.

Glad to see you still doing well with your schooling. When we talked it sounded like you were really set on exploring this education. I think it is a massive opportunity for you. But you are really going to have to decide what you think is the best for your well being. Are you getting enough exercise in? Eating well? Regular mediation? These should help curb some of that depression, but to be fair a lot of teens face depression these days. I did myself and you will get through it. Just make sure you take care of yourself and you have a vast amount of resources out there to help you. You can totally come back if you decide to later. Just make sure you really get control over what you would study etc. Really spend the time in these next few years exploring your options. But maybe you have decided stuff to major in?

@Gili Trawangan Glad that I could help you out!

Had a guy I do business with totally take advantage of me. Maybe it was a mistake, but I would not assume so. Thankfully the product I gave him was pure profit, but when I say a price that is lowest I can take and you give me half of that and say any more is "tight" and take 3 months to sort through product our relationship is done. It's possible he might have forgot or something like that, but I will not tolerate that type of business. I am sure he will need the product bad after not having my service. I can get more money than he paid multiple other ways, so I do not need him. I personally would not forget a price set with someone or an agreement. Sure no contract, but there should not have been. It should not have taken 3 months in the first place. I didn't do anything about it because there was really no way for me to haul all of that stuff out of his store otherwise. I didn't mention what he agreed to, but I don't need to. Just going to end it there and sell my products elsewhere. Going to do some exercise today. No running or probably walking though. The injured muscle hurt still at weird angles yesterday and I just don't want to keep re injuring this. I want to be back and able to jog fully again. I am not really sure what I want to do with it. I just have to let it heal I suppose. But I will go on walks again soon. Going to do some work today. I think I took enough time off this week and it has been really good for me. I never fully recovered from being sick, but oh well. I am not super sick really, but I don't feel excellent. I am going to work on doing a detox sometime soon probably too. Today I am thankful for Feeling better Time to work Meditation My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honest Productivity Connection Contribution Creativity Fun Adventure

The first thing I want to suggest is for you to really run the numbers for driving with uber. It is a possibility that you are losing money or making less than minimum wage. You have to really consider all expenses like car depreciation, maintenance etc. There are things similar to therapy you can do without a degree that are very similar. You can also start various non profits that could generate money for similar activities to therapy from grant money. You can also be self taught and teach and help online, in this age it almost seems more viable. However, the traditional route can still make money. I would just see if you can aim to doing it on your own terms by running your own business. I mean doing both of those things at the same time is pretty hard. Especially if you are constantly working. I can see at least with uber you do have your own hours. Are you wanting to pursue education? I would suggest focusing in on one thing. If you reach that deep in spirituality you might consider other career options possibly too. You can totally do both, but I would put something as a top priority. What is your expenses like? Are you savy in budgeting? Those things can be a start, but making more money is always ideal. The thing with working a job is the fact you are always limited by how many hours you can physically work. The key is finding how to make money while you sleep. Finding ways to leverage your money and time is essential. Do you have any hobbies? Any particular skills?

Really allowing myself to take this break and heal. I did feel a good urge to go out and exercise today, but that is alright. I am going to start up again tomorrow and take it easy. I will go my long distance, but not going to jog yet because I know that will risk it irritating the injurt. Hopefully this sickness goes away soon, but it has not really been that bad. It has been really nice to take some time off and focus in on stuff. It is kind of hard for me to get myself to not really do a lot of work. I am working on bringing more awareness into my life and working through that. I do really enjoy my work though. I just can't pressure myself to do that max all of the time. I know that is not going to get me the results that I really want. I need to be able to sustain what I do. Doing a lot of research on heavy metal detoxing today and I have found some really good stuff. I am also looking into a different blend that will create a vacuum seal. This should allow my smoothies to hold more of the nutrients. But I should double check that factually before I do something different. But from my research I have gathered so far today this seems to be well worth it. I have a good portion of my nutrition comes from smoothies every day, so I think insuring it optimal is well worth the money. Things seem to be going quite well for me lately. I did really good at toast masters last night. For some reason I had a big peak of anxiety, which normally really does not happen anymore. I just tried to focus in on my breathing and awareness. I was able to go up and produce my longest impromptu speech at 1:59, which is about 30 seconds longer than my highest. Granted with this one I had more of a heads up than normal on the topic, but the anxiety at the time caused me to probably lose that lol. I would take a guess that it came from just skipping exercise for a few days, but I am not really sure. I think detoxing soon might really be a huge help to prevent this. I made it a whole month without music! Was really worth it. I deleted all of my old music and I will decide new positive messages to put into my mind. I noticed that I had an addiction to music as well. Today I am thankful for Rest Healing Research My top 9 values are Personal Development Knowledge Honesty Fun Connection Creativity Contribution Productivity Adventure

Good share, that guy really knows his stuff. I have been nerding out on health stuff today, so this came just in time.

Experience is key in my opinion. If you make one thing and it takes off well, then great. But a lot of the time most businesses require a year or so to really become profitable. I think anyone could become an expert in their industry within 5 years of dedication. If they really dive deep into it. I think one of the biggest mistake I see people make is just leaving the business as an idea and not going further. You have to be willing to put in some risk to get reward out of it. I will say I have learned some of the most valuable lessons and many skills over the years. So what if it does not work out in 5 years or 7 years. A lot of businesses fail in the first 5 years and even more of those in 10 years. So it is really important that you love the industry you are in. You will get weeded out fast if you are not passionate about it. Following trends is also a waste of your time. You can find some valuable things sometimes in them, but rarely are you ever going to come out successful going into a trend. A lot of them are going to disappear as fast as they sprouted up. Look at the bulk of vape shops coming in and disappearing now depending on your location. It is not sustainable and most people race to the bottom for pricing. Not only that it was not really regulated much, which was a coming sooner or later. Now at your age it is going to be tempting to switch stuff around a lot. I know I have done that myself quite a bit. Try to get that out while you are in college with your electives and just sample things. Try to stick to a business for 6-12 months before you decide to change anything. I have had it myself where I get a big fire to do something new and go all into it. Which I show some traits of the "obsessive" if you have read the book mastery. I go all out and learn all about my industry. I teach people eBay stuff all the time just for fun because I know so much about it. I have not even been full time on it for a year, but have experience built up over some years on items. But I realize that this is one of my top strengths is to collect this type of information in my mind and use it when it becomes valuable. I know so much about random items, shipping practices, etc. When I go shopping for items I can see around me I typically have a much superior knowledge of items compared to the people around me. But I like to help them learn if they are willing. So I am starting to really hone in on this skill I have an apply it to other areas. All of my business adventures have added immense knowledge to me about myself and so many various things that help me sustain income in business. So if I had something that failed or work really well it has always been good. Think long term and how learning these skills is going to benefit you. I have reached a point in my life where I will never have to work a job again. I would be able to sustain myself just by buying and selling items if I have to. I have experience in buying cars cheap, which is very valuable to me. I can also fix cars pretty well and detail them really well. So I won't ever be short a ride and could make some profit there if I see the opportunity. I have all sorts of knowledge around making products and customer relations. Keeping long term clients etc. I have worked a lot on my communication skills. Even though I am transition into teaching personal development stuff my life benefits immensely from these things I have learned. My ability to find deals for items and essentials dramatically cuts my expenses and opens me up to new opportunities with business gear. Imagine your life at 65 looking back on what route you decided to take. Do you think that a failure into business in your 20s will matter that much?

I would focus in on the creation aspect of it mostly. I know it feels good to gain appreciation and such. But if you can work on honing your skills, when people do find you they will much more likely stick around. I will say though that just sharing your stuff around in general is good. Facebook groups for music, Reddit is amazing for sharing content, and building up a network of social media for your branding is good. You could buy ads if you really want it out there, but I would wait on that. I would have to say that social media is probably the most powerful for traffic though. If you can find something to produce off stuff you enjoy or something creative and share it on various platforms it would be good for your presence. If you just share your songs for example on those platforms, then it will be really hard for you to grow. One thing you can really consider doing is making some how to tutorials for music creation on your channel. Almost no one is going to search your song name, but I guarantee many are looking for how to make the song too. You can use those types of things on social media and share them into music making groups to generate more traffic since a lot of those people in there are looking for that stuff. But by doing that your music itself becomes more visible and suggested. There is a lot for you to work with here. I am no expert on it either. But consistency is key.

Not sure if you have anything similar where you live, but I am in a similar situation and I go to two groups for toast masters each week. It is a public speaking group. I have meet some pretty cool people. All of them are typically older than me, but I don't really connect with many around my age typically anyway. I have found it to be good for social connection. Isolation is pretty good as well though, but depends on your needs.