All You Need Is 2 Dollars

In this chapter, “All You Need Is 2 Dollars, Don’t Overthink Things”. The origin of this lesson I learned came from Uncle June Bug when I was in East Palo Alto, East Menlo area. This is after I went broke, and I was kind of in a situation where my mind hadn’t fully grasped the concept that I had no money. However, at the same time, I would always be trying to think that you need a lot of money to do anything.

There was one time he was telling me a story. I forgot what I did or what I had said, but it sparked him to tell me the story, so All You Need Is 2 Dollars, and then he explains the story. He said, “Man, I was down on my luck, and me and your uncle,” he’s talking about another person, “We’re walking down the street and there’s a dice game. Now, all I had was $2. I went into that dice game, I started with $2, and a lucky streak happened, and I walked away with 200,” The lesson of the story, whether that happened or whether it didn’t happen is not … It doesn’t matter. What matters is the mentality that we have when we don’t have anything or when it looks like we’re out of luck, so all you need is $2, and it can change your world. Quick, little story yesterday just to kind of get it with you. It’s not just $2, it’s you don’t need a lot of money.

Yesterday, or last Monday … Today is Thursday, so not four days ago, 10 days ago, 11 days ago, I took $200 and I turned it into 1,200,but I trapped my gains by selling an option against my option, and the market kept going in the direction of my option, so it could have turned 200 into 2,000, but, I capped my gain at like a $900 profit, so I was frustrated. Then, Wednesday came and I made bad decision. Friday came, I made another bad decision. Monday came, I made another bad decision, so I’d whittled all my profits plus a little bit more.

Yesterday, which was Wednesday, I was down on my luck. I was almost about to just throw in the towel like I’m done, I can’t, because that’s Wednesday, Friday, Monday, I only trade three times a week. That’s three times in a row, I’ve just gotten my shit handed to me, for lack of better words, but then yesterday, I saw something. The reason why the last three days I lost money, remember, the Monday I had trapped myself off, so this time I was like, “I’m not going to do it,” and then the market reversed on me on Wednesday, Friday, Monday. That’s why I lost.

Usually, I’d trapped-in gains and I’d be fine, but now, I couldn’t do it, or I didn’t do it and I lost, so my emotions were all the way against me. Well, yesterday, same scenario, but this time I was down to like my last few hundred dollars in this particular account to try this particular strategy. Then, once I blow it, just like at the casino, because this is my fun money, I’ll just stop for a while. The last couple $100. Remember, all you need is $2.

That’s the whole basis of this lesson. For $115, I bought an option. It was following the criteria that I was looking for in the market, and at the end of the day, that $115 turned into $1,100. In conjunction with this lesson, All You Need Is 2 Dollars to make something, you don’t need a lot of money to change the situation. Now, that $1,000 gain is not going to change anything in my life. However, it was a huge victory, because I was down on my luck, I was mad, and I was about to give up, but that last little $2 … I mean, it was $115, mind you, but that last $2, and my luck changed, so all you need is $2 in this world.

Now, let’s get into the lesson. All right,

Overthinking: failure to start, don’t have the money, don’t have the time, the Jordan Shoes Syndrome, if I had better shoes, or if I had better shoes, computer, phone, the fantasy land, watching and emulating characters on the media and living above your means.

failure to start. If you’re thinking it’s going to cost you a million dollars to start a YouTube channel, you’re never going to start. If you don’t care … If you understand …. Let me put this in a better way. If you understand everything started not how it is today, if you understand that updates have been happening with Microsoft Word since the first Microsoft Word, the Apple computer didn’t look like it did 20 years ago.

The iPhone, if you look at the iPhone when it first came out to now, it’s completely different phones, two different functionalities. Before, you needed an iPod. What do you need an iPod for now? You don’t, right? If you have the mentality that, “Unless it’s perfect, I’m not going to start,” or, “If I don’t have the money, I’m not going to start,” “It’s too expensive,” or whatever your excuse is, then you’re not grasping what I’ve just explained.

Every last, one of those amazing tools we use on a daily basis started off, one, as an idea, two, with a whole bunch of bugs. If you’ve ever noticed … Just think of it like this. When a new product comes out, when Apple comes out with a new product, they always have updates because they don’t know how it’s going to work. In the studio or in the engineer’s closet, wherever they are, it works perfectly, but. A million people aren’t using it at one time, so it’s a different world, so if the failure to start is the fear you don’t have the money, that doesn’t matter.

Nowadays, you can literally start anything for free. Just a piece of paper and a pencil, you can start, or your phone that you probably already have, you can record because … Yeah, I’m using my computer, which remember, laptops are relatively new. When I was younger, when I was a kid, there was not a laptop. It was the black and white little square or rectangle box, or might have been green or a little color. I remember when there was color on a computer, that was amazing. Now, I have my MacBook Air. That’s what, about a pound and a half? Right? I think my Game Boy weighed about as much as this computer back in the day, so evolution and progression comes with time. No one’s going to be perfect in the beginning, so failure to start with the money. You don’t need any money to have an idea, right? You don’t need any money to write that idea on a piece of paper, so you can start without any money.

Don’t have the time. We kind of talked about this in Walk With A Purpose. You can create as much time in a day as you want. You can create it. In Walk With A Purpose we discuss how you can create two days in one. Now, that didn’t make any sense to somebody that didn’t grasp my concept, but now, let me explain.

This is three hours, four hours later when I was working on the other project. I took a nap because I knew I was going to get tired, because waking up at 2:00 in the morning, riding a bike for 20 miles, doing a little extra workout, doing my morning routine would cause me to become tired, so I wanted to be proactive, so I went ahead and took an hour to two-hour long nap, woke back up, and now I’m ready to start my day. My body feels like I just woke up because I did just wake up. However, I’ve already had a complete day, if that makes sense, so if you don’t have time, be creative and create it.

The Jordan Shoes Syndrome, I like this one. This used to work, this used to happen to me a lot. Let’s see, best way to explain this. When you’re younger, you think that if you had $150 pair of shoes, you would jump higher and run faster. You think that if you have the latest model computer, you’ll be able to get the work done that you’ve been avoiding, or if you had that better phone, you’d be able to create projects that are just unimaginable right now. That’s what I call the Jordan Shoes Syndrome, because better shoes are not going to go to the gym for you and train to make you better.

The latest Apple computer, the newest technology, whatever it is, is not going to get you to sit down in your chair and work. It just won’t happen. It’s not made to do the work for you. You still have to do the work. Having that brand new iPhone that has all the gidgets and gasmos and the latest everything is not going to make you happier.

It’s not going to make you more productive. None of that happens by having the latest edition of something. Quick story, I happened to explain this to a protege of mine, because he’s complaining that if he had better equipment, then he could accomplish as much as I do, or … These are both the same stories so I’m going to add them together, or my brother, who’s in jail right now is saying that it’s easier for me to write than for him to write. The Jordan Shoes Syndrome. “Well, if I had what you had, I’d be able to do what you do,” which is never the case.

Having a new phone or a new computer is not going to change your work ethic, right? This is what I was trying to explain to my protege in Africa. “I could send you a new computer, but you having a new computer is not going to get you to sit down and do the work. Whether we have a new computer or an old computer, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t do the work …”

“The work’s never going to get done. You have to sit down and do the work.” Right? This is the part of the overthinking it. Overthinking, is a huge barrier. I remember for myself, I remember I had the same thing.

It was always, “If I had this, I would be able to do that.” That’s the biggest hoax there is. “If I had this next indicator, I won’t lose money on the stock market.” I’d get that indicator, and I’d lose money, so obviously, that indicator wasn’t the reason I lost money. “If I got this new iPhone, I’m going to start making videos all the time.”

Well, I got a new one iPhone. I didn’t make any more videos. Matter of fact, I already remember, this is eight years ago or whenever Google bought YouTube, because I was one of the first ones, or I can’t say I was one of the first ones, but when I was there making videos and everything, it was a pain in the ass to try to figure out how to make the YouTube videos, to get them from the camera onto YouTube because the iPhone wasn’t, you couldn’t just upload it from your phone to YouTube. That one came later. I remember the first one, they had a camera that uploaded directly to YouTube. That was interesting, but at first, it wasn’t easy, but I was like, “Oh, once they have it all together, I’m going to be the first one there.”

Yeah, that was what, 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and I’m just now coming back? You see, the Jordan Shoes Syndrome, they had the technology 10 years ago, but that didn’t change me making videos, right? I just didn’t do it. The Jordan Shoes Syndrome is always thinking, “If you have this next gadget, you’re going to feel better,” or, “If I have this new blouse or t-shirt or car, or whatever, people are going to like me.”

“If I get a Ferrari, then I’m going to have all the girls,” or, “I’m going to have all the guys.” Well, that’s not necessarily true, just because you have a car doesn’t mean that you’ve changed, so make sure you don’t fall into the trap of the Jordan Shoe Syndrome.

Fantasy land, watching and imitating characters in the media.

I love to explain to people sometimes. I don’t know if the Kardashians are popular now. That was years ago. I don’t know. I don’t watch media, and I would say, “Do you know they filmed all week for 30 minutes?”

I’m going to say that one more time. They filmed all week for a 30-minute TV show. How many hours are in a week? A lot more than 30 minutes, because one hour is more than 30 minutes, correct? If we’re watching and trying to emulate characters we see on TV, then we’re only emulating the best marketable, sellable parts of this person.

TV presents people in a perfect manner. Well, they present them however media wants to present you, because Britney Spears, when she cut her hair and everything, the media presented her as a lunatic. That doesn’t necessarily mean she was a lunatic. That’s just what the media, for that point in time, the media wanted to make her look like a lunatic, so every picture that they could find or that they use, they made it look like she was a lunatic. When we try to emulate characters on media, we’re not getting the whole story.

We’re only getting whatever the media wants to give us. Does that make sense? We’re not emulating a real person, we’re emulating a fictitious representation of entertainment. I’m going to say that again. When we’re emulating characters on media, we’re emulating a fictitious personification of a fictitious character, so we’re emulating a fictitious persona because we’re not getting the whole persona of a fictitious character, because this character is not real.

It is a made-up character that they’ve made to look a certain way. If you’re a good editor on entertainment and marketing, you can take I Have A Dream speech by Martin Luther King and turn it into a hateful speech, by taking words out and moving it around and having fun with it, or you can take that same speech and you can make it a violent speech by taking words out and moving it around, so if you can do that with speech, then you can do that with somebody’s life. If all I filmed was you when you were angry, how would the world perceive you as an angry person? However, that could be the furthest thing from the truth, so when we’re watching, we’re trying to emulate characters on media, we’re emulating a fictitious character. Well, a fictitious state, which is because these people don’t exist, or a persona because the persona that we’re trying to emulate is a fake persona, scripted by the media.

Does that make sense? I know it’s kind of difficult to understand, and a fake character because the persona and the character, as I just explained, you can create a persona and a character however which way you want to cut a video. When you live in this fantasy land, you’re not getting the whole story, and then that leaves you anxious, depressed, because you can never live up to a fictitious persona, of a fictitious character living above your means, which is another part of it, so when you’re trying to live up to a fictitious persona of a fictitious character, you’re going to live above what you personally can afford. There’s only 10% of the world that has a lot of money. I think this statistic in America is like maybe 50% of America doesn’t have $10,000 in their bank account, and it might be a lot more than that. It might be like 70%, so when you’re living in this overthinking fantasy land, you’re not thinking logically.

If 50% of America has less than 10 grand, then only a small, tiny percent of people are able to live this fantasy world that the media makes it seem, like if you spend money and you do this and you believe in this, then you can achieve greatness, but achieving greatness is a very difficult thing to do, which they don’t ever really show you the struggle. They show you the after-fact. I was watching YouTube yesterday, and living above your means is, also goes in thinking that you are already where you want to be. Jeff Bezos nowadays wakes up maybe around 9:00 in the morning, so this might get your mind thinking, “Oh, well, he’s the richest man in the world. I can wake up at 9:00 in the morning as well.”

However, that’s what he’s doing now. That’s not what he was doing 20 years ago, so you have to go back to 20 years ago, and then look what he was doing then. Don’t emulate the characters that you see now, or don’t live above your means and live in the world where he is now, even though you are below where he started. Be honest with yourself, stop overthinking things, and just live in your world. Stop living in a fantasy world.

Stop having the Jordan Shoes syndrome and get out there today and start whatever it is. Go grab a piece of paper, and a pen, and start today, right now. Go ahead, do it. Onto the next one.

All You Need Is 2 Dollars. We kind of went over it a little bit, but here’s the slow approach, invest correctly and it will grow.

Search for opportunity, not money. What you are searching for causes a big difference. The FYMM, Forever Young Making Money, the six strategies, and all you need is 10 minutes. The slow approach, invest correctly and it will grow. I hate to say this, that I did not adhere to this lesson for the majority of my life.

I invested in the wrong people. I invested in the wrong opportunities, and my investments never grew. Over the last few years now, I’ve invested correctly. I’m not trying to make a million dollars tomorrow. I’m taking the turtle and the hare approach, and I’m being the turtle.

I’m taking it slow. I’m thinking about every decision that I take. I don’t just make a decision impulsively anymore. At least I try not to. I’m not perfect, but I strive for better in my life, so it’s just like a vegetable when you’re planting a seed.

Now, you can … A perfect example, outside, I bought some lettuce and I bought a tomato from Lowe’s. It was still a little cold, in Charlotte at the time and I told myself, “Do not let the tomato plant be outside because it’s going to freeze to death.” The lettuce, it’s all right, it can get colder.

Well, I fell asleep with them outside and I forgot. Lo and behold, the tomato plant died. The lettuce prospered, so I did not invest correctly with the tomato plant because it died. I did however, invest correctly with the lettuce because it thrived. Just because the two things are vegetable investments, doesn’t necessarily mean you can treat each investment the same.

When you’re investing fast and you’re not taking the slow approach, you don’t notice the small nuances that occur, right? When you’re on the back of the little packet of any seeds, it shows you where this vegetable grows the best, so if you don’t take the slow approach and invest correctly in the correct seed for the temperature that you are in, then you’re not going to get the harvest that you want. You invested on the wrong seed, so you need to invest correctly and your vegetables are going to do what you wanted them to do, grow, just like your money. If you invest ill and you’re not paying attention, you don’t know what you’re doing, then your investments are going to wither away. However, if you invest and you do your research, then your investments will grow.

Search for opportunity, not money. What you are searching for causes a big difference. This is a big one. A lot of people think only of money, not opportunity.

What I mean by that is they start on a path for money, opposed to intellectual opportunity. What I mean by intellectual opportunity is something that stimulates them mentally and physically. An opportunity that rain or shine, sleet, snow, doesn’t matter, they still want to do it. Now, you could be paid a billion dollars a year, but if it’s picking up shit out of the bottom of a porta-potty, that’s not something you’re going to jump up for every morning, but that’s what happens when you search for money and not opportunity, so if you search for money, then you’re going to get exactly what you’re looking for, right? You’re going to get paid a lot of money, but it might not be worth the money, because if you’re so focused on money, you might not get your health in order, you might sacrifice your love life, you might sacrifice Well, I said your health, but if you’re searching for an opportunity, you can’t acquire money in the process, so what you’re searching for causes a big difference. I was reading the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad when I was younger, and it was either that one or it was Guide to Investing, another one by Robert Kiyosaki. I can’t remember exactly which book this was in. He was discussing that he and his wife were in the process of building their board game, and they didn’t work because they were focused on their board game, so they sacrificed income or something to finish the board game, and the board game made a millions of dollars or whatever, but the big takeaway that I got was this, do not work for money, work for experience. If you work for money, you’re work yourself to death.

If you work for experience, you’re going to enjoy every horrible moment. Maybe not at the time, but later, because working for experience, you’re working to better yourself. Working for money, you’re only working for money. You’re working for money so you can go spend it. When you’re working for experience, you’re going to gain exactly that experience.

You’re going to gain opportunities, so maybe this first job that you have isn’t the greatest job. It’s not something that you want. Maybe not getting the most amount of money, but you’re gaining a lot of experience, so then, when you move on, now you have a larger opportunity, right? Does that make sense? If there’s two jobs, one has a better opportunity, one pays you more money, which one should you go with?

The one that has a larger opportunity for you to enhance yourself. Maybe not even grow within that company. It’s okay. That’s fine, but if you learn a skill that can catapult you to a different opportunity, then always go opportunity over money. All right.

6 Strategies & All You Need Is10 Minutes, so both of those are books and classes that I’ve written and taught. The six strategies is how to break everything down, so if you remember just a minutes ago, we were discussing … Let’s just go back, the failure to start, don’t have the money, don’t have the time. Well, in the six strategies, you’ll learn how to take a huge goal and break it into the smallest, minute challenges that you can overcome and accomplish on a daily basis to accomplish the overall goal and be able to do it in a way that you don’t even notice that you’re doing it, so it’s tricking yourself how to accomplish larger goals. If you don’t have the money, and after the six strategies, if you just follow the steps in the six strategies, I guarantee you’ll figure out how to have that money or figure out how to have more time.

All you need is 10 minutes is based off of exercising. In the beginning of the year or January 5th, I started, because I was getting out of shape, and I wanted a change in my life, so I decided I’m going to start with 10 minutes on the treadmill. I could run, but it was a challenge, but through that time, I’ve stuck with 10 minutes, and then consistently grown over time, like increasing the amount of time I’m on the treadmill over time. Now, I’m riding the bike for 20 miles in the morning, and I’m running for 30 minutes in the afternoon, right? It shows you the natural progression, from 10 minutes to 30 minutes. If you need help on either one of those, those are great resources for you to go look into. Other than that, the next one we will be discussing a man can’t be a man without a plan. Until next time.

All You Need Is 2 Dollars

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