This is really the end goal of the blog. Since we do not cater to the masses, we know that the remaining people have a shot at success. A balanced life is a healthy and happy one and we believe it is obtainable if you play the game of life looking at it from a long-term perspective. With this in mind… we’re going to break down a balanced life into sections. If you have no interest in a piece, do not read it.
1) Financial Success
2) Sex/Dating/Relationships
3) Common Sense vs. Thinking Differently
4) Hobbies and Interests
5) Brain plasticity
We’ll start with financial success since that is where the vast majority of the questions come from and move down to what we believe are two largely ignored topics: Hobbies and Brain Plasticity.
1) Financial Success:
If you found this blog, you’re ahead of your peers. This is not meant to be an ego boosting type comment. What does it mean? You are being honest with yourself. You want to be rich. Most people won’t admit this. Instead they make ridiculous comments about how rich people are “unhappy”. Entirely false and you know this already. In fact… if someone is angry about another person’s success/happiness, this is a dead giveaway that they are broke/unsuccessful.
As we have mentioned many times in the past, most people harbor deep seeded negative beliefs about money. They think that it takes too much work to become rich (everything good takes work). They think it will make them lose “friends” (most people have a poverty mindset so you should drop these friends). They think that it will make them worse off as a “person” (whatever that means!). As you can see, regular people don’t even know how to think.
With the backdrop out of the way, how do you become financially successful without becoming a boring type A person with no personality? The answer is simple. Kill yourself while you’re young. Until you associate with motivational speakers (not the mediocre people in the crowd) you’re not working anywhere near hard enough.
We get it.
Kill yourself is not a good explanation. So here is a quick outline of tangible things to do.
Develop an On Off Switch: This is incredibly important. You need to develop this skill when you are young. You are smarter than your peers. You know that money will come first and your social life will come second. Develop that on/off switch because the people you meet when you’re out partying will 99⁄100 times be regular people. Law of large numbers.
On Switch: Your on switch is intense. When you are on, you focus and pour everything you have into the task. You continue to push, push, push until your brain gets tired. Your judgement gets cloudy. You have exhausted all of your brain cells when you find yourself becoming forgetful. For anyone who has actually worked hard (see any successful person) they will know exactly what the term forgetful means. You will literally forget where you put your keys, your items will become disorganized and you will start putting items in places where they shouldn’t be. You’re discombobulated. You’ve pushed far enough. Time to rest.
Off Switch: Your on switch is dead now. Time to run game or pick up a new hobby. Running game can be at a night club, during the day, or while doing a hobby (more on hobbies later). Most people will have a hard time switching to off mode, off mode means that you are living entirely in the present moment. Off mode means that you are not thinking about your business or your career, you are focused on enjoying life. This means you do not complain about problems in your personal life. You simply leave all of your items behind you and go out to have fun.
Note: As you get older the on and off switch will blur. The people you associate with will be both fun and successful. There are not many of them. There are even fewer when you’re young so wait it out and you’ll eventually connect with them later in life. Usually around age 25-27.
Tangible Daily Schedule: We’re going to assume you’re in your twenties and work already. We’ve outlined the basic rules for getting money 1) you need to start a business or 2) at minimum get into a career that generates revenue (or an event). There are no exceptions to those two items. If someone argues with you they simply lack common sense. No one is going to pay you a lot of money unless you make them a lot of money and ownership is the largest form of leverage (eg: business).
Any other form of high income for no actual revenue generation is likely a “hot market” which will eventually be saturated in the future. Besides, the faster you learn to produce the faster you’ll get rich and the faster you’ll see your income rise.
Naturally, starting a business is the most lucrative (higher risk, higher reward – unlimited upside). While getting a career is a great hedge (lower risk, lower reward – 7 figure net worth by early 30s) if you do not have any products/ideas.
Typical Weekday: Your typical weekday is going to consist of 14 hours of actual work. If you already work in investment banking as an analyst, you’re not going to be a fool and stare at your computer screen during downtime (30% of the time you are there). Here is what you do:
Part 1) Do all of the tasks you need to do for your career. You need to keep your performance in the top tier. You play the politics game intelligently. You’re working slightly less than you should, yet are ranked at the top. Use that extra time. If you do this correctly ~1⁄3 of your time will be free while others simply stare at their computer. Move on to part 2.
Part 2) You should learn how to sell online. It is as simple as that. Our suggestion is to start with copywriting. Why would you learn this? Simple, if you can sell online you can transfer this skill to selling a product later. If you don’t know where to start, simply purchase a book on basic copywriting and read it at work. PDF the book and send it to yourself. Press windows + D and you can minimize the screen at any time.
Part 3) Temporary vs. recurring revenue, you have to choose one. If you’re good at online sales you’ll work in either A) traffic arbitrage or B) micro-continuity. If you work in traffic arbitrage you’re going to be making money as an affiliate marketer. If you’re going to go down the micro-contiuity route, you’re going to need a couple of intelligent friends to work with. It is a lot of work up front and you won’t be able to do this yourself while juggling a career. If you can? Even better. You’ll get rich even faster.
Part 4) Wash rinse and repeat the above process. Particularly step two which is by far the hardest. No one is going to hold your hand through the sales process. It is up to you to learn how to connect with your audience. There are not many people who are good at sales and sales will always be in demand. People who believe sales is a “joke” or that sales will “go away” are all fools. Houses will be sold, real estate agents will make some sort of commission. Companies will be sold, investment bankers will make a fee every time if they are good negotiators. Companies need to raise money, if you have good contacts… You’re quite clearly good at sales. Finally, you can always improve your salesmanship.
Concluding Remarks: If you don’t want to read the above, here is the summary. If you’re young and don’t have any business ideas, get a real career. You will have downtime. During the downtime you can learn to do online sales. This can be done anywhere in the world. Once you are good at selling online you can eventually own the product. The skills are fully transferable. Once the product idea is good to go, you use your aforementioned sales skills and sell. If the product is legitimate you’ll have recurring customers.
2) Sex Dating and Relationships:
Finance questions are first, dating comes in a close second. Notably, we do not believe in doing any sort of line for line approach system. This would turn you into a robot who is simply a smaller version of the person you learned from. If person A is teaching you how to pick up women and you copy everything he does, you’re just going to be a lesser version of person A. You are not developing on a personal basis. You are a shadow of a different man.
Instead the basic premise is the following:
Part 1) You are going to become more attractive to women over time. Girls take you much less seriously in your 20s versus your 30s. You will simply have an easier time picking up women as you get older since men look better in their 30s versus their 20s. Knowing that this dynamic is going to help you over the next decade you should simply learn the basics of “game”. We are not saying that you should shelve all of your social skills. You simply go out twice a week (Thursday/Saturday) and those two days will compound to immense results over a decade. You also chat up anyone you see during your day to day activities.
Part 2) You open women up with an unoffensive assumption or question. You can read 700 pick up books and it will be the same. The opening is always one of the two. An assumption or a question. It can be as simple as a comment on something she is wearing. If you are not socially aware enough to do this you’ve got a long way to go. This will work with both day and night game.
Part 3) We are in the smartphone generation. You can either complain about smartphones or use smartphones to your advantage. We suggest the latter. One thing is for sure, you are not going to rid the world of smartphones. They will eventually penetrate every corner of the earth because they are great products.
In addition, if you live a fun life, you’re not going to complain about smartphones. If you are dealing with attractive girls (you should) they will likely be on SnapChat. Instead of wasting time sending text messages, send over a few cool photos of things you are doing. Videos work as well. In an ideal world you are sending a photo/video related to something you already discussed in the past.
Part 4) Until you are in your 30s, you are not ready for a serious relationship. Period. We don’t believe in them in general. But. If you want to go down this route, you need to be in your 30s. When you are no where near your 30s, you don’t have enough life experience both with women and life overall. Again, we do not believe in them in general, but if you really want to go down this route consider it during your 30s.
With the basic premise out of the way… you see that the real goal is to strike balance in your life over the next decade. Is your sex life going to be better at 31 versus 21? Yes. But. This does not mean you have no sex life. It simply means that you are prioritizing your life correctly. It also means that you do learn the basics of game. People who believe that you cannot have both money and a good sex life are simply haters or idiots. That is all there is to it. Will it be easy? No.
Concluding Remarks: This blog will have the same rough balance going forward (most readers are in their 20s). About 80-85% of your time should be focused on money and health. While the other 15-20% will be focused on “game”. That is how your life should look in your 20s. When you hit your 30s, you’re going to flip more towards dating since you won’t be worried about money anymore.
To reiterate. Game versus money debates are stupid. Get both. From experience, getting money is significantly harder than getting women so we suggest more effort on money in your 20s. If you don’t believe that money is harder to obtain than women, you likely have a personality disorder (asperger syndrome).
Ask any normal person the following question. If your life is on the line and you have one year to accumulate $1 million dollars or one year to have sex with a “7” every rational person is going to choose the “7” challenge. Please do not waste our time with “what about an 8″ it means you are missing the point. Achievement with money is much harder than achievement with women.
3) Common Sense vs. Thinking Differently
This is a bit more complex than the two items above. Based on questions we are now receiving we see that some people have a hard time differentiating the two (not the majority but some). Perhaps our post on doing the opposite made people go a little bit crazy.
Instead of trying to outline the nitty gritty on how to see the difference we believe this is best served in examples.
Common Sense Example 1) This one is full idiocy: “I am going to put my life on pause to hit on women and improve my social skills”. This clearly lacks common sense. The only time this is a good idea is if you are financially independent. Improvement is not going to be linear and if you simply put in hundreds of approaches in any environment you are going to get better. By putting your life on hold just to meet women you are by definition putting women on a pedestal. You are saying the following to the world: “instead of improving myself I would rather live my life for women”. If you still have to work for a living… Do not do this. If you are financially independent. Carry on! Read the game posts we have here, go read other pick up forums and have a blast. You’ll get the hang of it.
Common Sense Example 2) This one screams personal finance disaster: “I am going to take on debt for the same position at the same firm.” This is a foolish move in-line with our FAQ page. While there is certainly merit to attending prestigious schools there is also a line. Learn the difference. A good target school is a good target school. Period.
In addition, the world is not a meritocracy. We alluded to this in our post on office politics. If you are going to be in the exact same position at the exact same firm you’d be crazy to rack up debt for no reason. People who do not understand this do not have any work experience beyond a couple of years and have no idea how real businesses work.
Thinking Differently Example 1) If something has mass influence it means that it caters to mediocre people. This a good example of thinking differently. By definition (again using common sense) if something is extremely popular across the USA it means the average bloke likes it. Average people want to be entertained so you know that popular items are for entertainment. Keep this in mind before you buy something. Ask yourself at least 10 times. Is this going to help me? If not, don’t buy it.
If you cannot answer that question clearly? You are buying it based on how you “feel” and based on your “emotions”. You don’t want to have either when making a purchase. There is a reason that the superbowl charges a lot for advertising. They know that that it will grab the attention of regular folk in a heightened emotional state.
Thinking Differently Example 2) There is no set path for anyone. This even applies to Wall Street as well. We get a lot of emails about how you should go to IBD then go to PE/HFs and that’s it. It is laughable. This means that the person has literally no work experience beyond the associate level. Simply switching from one industry to the next does not mean you made the right decision. Combining common sense with numbers lets take a look.
Person A – Simply goes straight to the next job offer and ignores his current position. He gets a bump in base salary to $150K and clears $300K his first associate year. Year 2 he clears $350K and is forced to go to business school ($200K post tax gone). You will not get financial aid.
Person B – Notices that someone very high up the chain is pulling for him. Say the head of the entire division has a liking for him. He runs the math. The economy has gotten better… He probably has a shot at getting into a revenue generation role. He “only” makes $250K then $300K… But? They have a sit down conversation and the group has decided he has the skills to make VP. No graduate degree needed and he’ll make $350K+ (no post tax money ever paid).
Take a guess who makes more money? Much more likely person B. Why? This is against the “track”. No… It is not. If you have a strong connection with someone with extreme power (the head of the entire division is pulling down multi-seven figures)… Then who is going to take you under their wing?
Well… if he is willing to give you a few hours of your time that is worth Significantly more than the near term pain of $40-60K.
Concluding Remarks: We realize that we cannot tell anyone how to think. Instead we have given some clear examples of common sense and thinking differently. The key is to make sure you draw on logic and common sense before you simply follow advice. This applies to this blog as well. If it is not going to hurt you go ahead and try it out immediately to see if it works. If you see that it works then you should go with it.
Remember. Don’t follow the path that your peers are following for no reason. Your peers are just as lost as you are. Again, ask someone older and see what they say. Don’t network at your level.
*Note: for long time readers we refuse to answer questions we do not know. That is exactly why we talk bluntly and to the point. Your time should be just as valuable as ours.
4) Hobbies and Interests
Most people are boring. Most people that make it onto the Street or other high paying professions are not fun. They are passive aggressive and try to cut you down. The good news is that people who back stab others have two things happen to them: 1) they become boring stressed out people and 2) they don’t last very long in the profession.
If they do make it through the cracks by cutting people down, you can still sleep well at night knowing they are stressed out all of the time. How can you not be after making so many enemies.
Notably, this is another reason for creating the blog. We don’t want anyone who reads it to become boring. You at least have some sense of humor if you’re reading a blog with an aggressive name such as Wall Street Playboys right? Right.
So lets go through some ideas to keep you from becoming a boring person.
Idea 1 – Performing Arts: This is a catch all topic. We do not care what it is. Learn to play music, to sing, to dance, to do stand up comedy to do funny impersonations… It does not matter. As we stated above regular people want to be entertained and women want to be entertained even more. You should be competent with at least one of these skills. It will pay dividends for years to come. In order to become good at it, you will need to practice for a few hours a week for at least a year.
Do you know anyone who is boring that is good at one or even two performing arts? Neither do we. Just don’t expect to get rich off of it unless you’re incredibly elite.
Idea 2 – Languages: You need to learn languages. Again we do not care what it is. But. You should choose one that fills a void for you. Lets say you do a lot of business in Taiwan. Well you should probably learn Mandarin to a point of competency.
Alternatively, lets say all of your work is domestic and you like Russian women (who doesn’t) then you should probably learn Russian. Again you do not need to obsess over the topic. Thirty minutes a day while in transit or sitting at the airport and you’ll be competent in a year.
Idea 3 – One Team Sport: You should be athletic. While most blogs focus solely on body building, we suggest you become competent at one sport (minimum). This will prevent you from becoming an enormous guy who is un-athletic. Anyone can eventually squat 2x their weight, it is not that impressive. It is a completely different animal to have coordination, strength, speed and endurance all in one person. Again this is our opinion. If you want to focus solely on aesthetics that is your call but this is what we recommend.
Finally, if you do take this advice and become good at a particular team sport… You will always have a set of good male friends. This is exactly why you should do it. Weight lifting is an individual sport and team sports will give you a chance to meet new people. Besides, if you meet a guy who is good at XYZ sport, he is probably good at other things.
Why? To become good at anything you need a baseline of hard work. You already have something in common.
Concluding Remarks: There you have it. We have three clear and broad ideas for you to consider. If you already speak a couple of languages, are a part time stand up comedian and can play doubles tennis with college athletes… You’re simply nodding your head in agreement. No one can possibly live a boring life with at least three clear interests in those areas. Finally, try to mix it up if you get bored of one of them.
**5) Brain Plasticity
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You’re likely in your 20s. You do not give two shits about brain plasticity. We’ll keep it brief.
This is an important topic. As the younger readers reap the rewards of the advice here they will eventually ask about this.
Brain plasticity refers to changes in the brain from: emotion, environment, behavior, etc.
To cut to the chase… You will see that as your life changes the way you think also changes.
As you execute on the four inital items listed above, you’re going to recognize major changes in how you think and what you deem to be stressful/important/un-important.
Hopefully you have a journal. Take out a pen. Sign and date the page.
1) What is a lot of money?
2) How stressed are you from 1 to 10? Why?
3) How much time should men spend approaching women?
4) What are you insecure about? Be honest, no one will read it anyway.
5) Do you believe everyone is angling for something? If so why? If not why not?
That is it. Five simple questions to write down and review one year later. We’ll give you one quick hint… If your answer to at least one question did not drastically change (180 degrees) your life is not moving in the right direction.
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