Thinking about the life pattern behind money

A few days ago, I have been updating what I have seen and heard in Latin America on my social platform (Immediate/Weibo). In addition to the thoughts about the intimacy brought to me by digital nomads , this time I will Let's talk about the topic of "money".

Anyone who knows me knows that I am always talking about "adult education". If you are willing to look through the historical records, you will find that a lot of topics revolve around topics such as thinking, personal growth, intimacy, money and wealth.

"Adult education" is not a topic of vocational training and skills training here, but a simple and crude proposition about wealth, life, relationships, cognitive thinking , etc. around the individual.

My writing style is casual and serious. Whenever inspiration or new ideas collide with me, I will write it down and share it. My usual writing style is absolutely in line with my personality. direct.

The advantage is that it is easy to quickly get close to people with similar personalities and become close friends. The disadvantage is that it is easy to offend friends who are not similar and tend to be conservative.

I don't have any agency or brokerage company, only myself, my reader group is relatively small and vertical, so I am not hindered by any institution or huge user group, I can express my true thoughts freely, live out of my own life, and for me, that's enough.

Why say this?

Because my attitude towards life is positively related to my views on wealth, I will focus on the sensitive word money in the near future, and seriously talk about why it is more important to have a full understanding of money and self-awareness than to start learning how to make money. important.

(1)

Before I start talking about HOW, I want to talk to you about WHAT and WHY.

I am now a freelancer, a digital nomad. To put it simply, I carry a computer on my back, I can work online, and with a visa, I can run around the world, explore, learn, and watch the world.

Doing podcasts, writing, doing videos, consulting, coaching, investing, other business projects, etc. are all currently my job.

So why am I like this? For me at this stage, what are my goals and pursuits in life?

Some people may envy, some may disdain, each person's value orientation and life style are different, and they will also have their own interpretation of the choices of others.

For those who yearn for stability, my life pattern is to wander between wandering and death, probably with no accumulation, no title, no social background, and nothing. For those who yearn for adventure, I His life model is full of rush and uncertainty, but it is also full of fun and surprises.

Just to be clear: no one model is necessarily better than another, and no one model is necessarily easier and happier than another, figure out exactly what kind of life model you want.

What you need most to "tour the world" is not money, but courage and strategy.

Give up your familiar fields, go to unfamiliar countries and territories, accept the impact of unfamiliar languages, cultures, customs, and eating habits, and face the scrutiny of strangers. Circumstances and emergencies, etc., these things are the norm.

As for the wonderful photos and slogans of the travel website, they are only used to meet the travel needs of those tourists who may travel once or twice a year. It is different from the life you want to "travel around the world".

Even if you are rich enough, a private Mercedes-Benz will take you to various attractions, five-star luxury hotels, tasting expensive food, and taking pictures one after another that is enough to make countless people like it, but these do not mean You really "see the bigger world", because these extravagances do not constitute seeing the world itself, but only satisfy your own desires and vanity, and the chatter of social networks.

As for your brain and your heart, whether it is empty or empty, all parts of the world are just check-in points in exchange for money, not to mention that some places can only be experienced by legs, such as those hidden in the ancient Inca road that can only be encountered on foot for four or five days The natural hot springs, climbing the Andes Mountains and the Rainbow Mountain, which can only be seen at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters, against the cold and cold... And the victory mentality achieved after experiencing physical and mental training is also completely different.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this model of money traveling around the world.

So why do I use this metaphor?

Because the metaphor itself represents your thinking and attitude towards life. Almost everyone is eager to have the opportunity to "tour the world", but what kind of "around the world" do you want?

If "traveling the world" is a job, can you really handle the shocks of a changing environment?

Do you really have a strong ability to adapt to unfamiliar environments?

Can you really break yourself and go deep into the local area to understand and learn a lot of languages, cultures and the way of life of the local residents?

When these are at odds with your own culture, can you handle the discomfort and pain caused by cultural conflicts and differences of thinking? ...

But I think, no matter where you are at the moment, what work you do, or what kind of life you live, there are three factors that must be the most critical factors for you to choose your life:

Purpose, passion and belonging.

Life is very long, and these three elements of each age stage will not be iteratively changed, and all you have to do is to find your own goals, find your passion, and find a sense of belonging such as people, teams, careers, and places.

As long as you have these three, no matter where you are and what kind of work you are doing, you will ignore the evaluation of others and devote yourself to it to create your own value.

Back to myself, after trying many different career modes, I found that I still like to read a lot, meet interesting people from all over the world, experience the impact of thinking in different cultures and languages, and long to travel through the unknown world, explore and wander in it , and then gather what I have learned, seen, heard, and thought into content to form my own "education" to help more people find the life style they want.

I know that I will be stable sooner or later, just like I know that I will face death sooner or later, but it is precisely because people know this that I will cherish the precious time now.

My stability will never be now, because I still think that I am still very young, and it is worth taking the time to do what I want to learn and experience. Premature stability will definitely make me regret.

(2)

Two days ago, I wrote about the digital nomads I met in Latin America in the Moments, and shared their money-making ideas and business models with me, so I received a comment from a little girl, she left a message and asked me: "Sister, What's your specialty? You seem to have opened up circles for me that I've never been in."

I told her that I was born from a journalism background.

Her question is good: "Journalism doesn't involve business (other than economics) how did you get so much business experience?"

Just a while ago, some friends immediately raised great doubts because of the "character"'s report on the disaster accident of China Eastern Airlines, and discussed the matter of media reporters and even journalism in colleges.

I remember reading a friend’s status at that time, the general idea was: “If the family is not particularly rich, I will not persuade my nephew to read the news, because reading the news to be a media reporter, don’t expect to make much money from this.”

I don't think there is anything wrong with what the other party said. If you follow the designed game rules and scripts, study news, work in a media unit, and get a fixed salary, you won't be able to make a lot of money. Than, this is reality.

I wrote about this right now:

"My 15-year internship salary in Zhejiang newspaper was only 500 yuan, but I didn't have any news ideals, and I was not passionate about reporting, and I didn't have a sense of belonging to the newspaper. So after graduation, I switched careers and jumped to the Internet, and the Internet salary directly doubled. Some of the debates caused by this accident have also burned the profession itself, whether it is useful to study journalism, whether to make money or not, is a matter of opinion.

In fact, I have met many investors and entrepreneurs with a background in journalism. Their capture and sensitivity to the industry and information is no less than that of people from a purely financial background. For example, the professionalism and rigor of the content written by lynn released by Silicon is indeed admirable. Another example is some people around me who came out with a media background to start their own businesses, and they are actually doing pretty well.

I didn’t choose my university major by myself. I originally wanted to study finance, but the score line in finance was much higher than other majors. I had no choice but to listen to my aunt’s instructions and learned the news in a confused way, but now I am grateful.

News itself is a miscellaneous family. We need to read a lot of domestic and foreign news reports and analyze some writing techniques, and also need to appear on the camera to practice expression, etc.

In addition to this major, we also need to study Chinese literature history, foreign literature history, world history, documentary appreciation and other miscellaneous disciplines and books, and it is precisely this that the university has read many useful and useless books intentionally or unintentionally. …knowledge.

In addition, the resources of the media can indeed allow you to come into contact with some characters that are difficult for ordinary people to contact at once. After all, even if you are a follower, you can meet some characters that you can only see and hear on TV.

When you sit down to eat with them and listen to what they are talking about, your knowledge will increase along with it, and your listening ability will also be exercised at that time. And sometimes, you can get valuable interview opportunities to talk directly to people who have achieved it.

The reason why I am so fond of chasing after others to get to the bottom of things, so calmly and calmly expressing some of my own opinions, so good at searching and finding a lot of hard-to-find information, including some potential opportunities, my sense of smell can indeed be very keen, Being able to spot things that others would overlook. I think part of the above-mentioned abilities are brought to me by the training of the profession itself.

I am not an enlightened person in college. I think I am average in my professional courses, but it does not affect the subtle cultivation of skills that will shape me in the future and bring me a lot of earning ability and opportunities.

So let's go back and look at some controversies, such as: learning journalism, a major that sounds "watery", is useless/I would not recommend juniors to study journalism, unless the family has a lot of money, they can't earn it at all, etc. ...

There is nothing wrong with these ideas, but I only share my own controversial thoughts on the "professional aspect" above.

I personally think that the professional gold content of "journalism" itself can be very high.

The miscellaneous knowledge behind it, as well as a series of judgment abilities and the ability to follow clues, the ability to deal with people, the ability to express, the ability to talk to people... These are all very important skills in the future, even if you don't Being a journalist can also benefit you a lot.

I also have a little niece in my own family. Although she is interested in painting, if she is unable to take this path in the future, if the science is not very good, and she has to face the choice of major, the advice I will give her is probably to let her She studies journalism and foreign languages.

In the end, she must be exposed to majors that can see more rich materials, historical materials, and more multi-perspective content, supplemented by related skills tools.

I don't believe that she will easily lose herself, lose the ability to discern, live a narrow life without knowing it, and make no money.

Journalism is really a low barrier to entry, but the ceiling can be pulled to a profession that is higher than many industries. Of course, there are always people who learn crooked, but if you have contempt and disdain for the entire journalism profession because of this, it is really unnecessary.

As for the people who come out of this profession, how much can they earn? I think the people around me earn a lot, and most of them are humble and easy-going, with clear and powerful logical expressions. "

I think this passage explains very clearly several important factors that made me able to become a freelancer today:

1. News is miscellaneous, and a lot of useful and useless studies need to be contacted.

2. The diversity and diversity of information are extremely important to a person's cognitive composition.

3. Mining clues, cross-validating information, finding key figures, asking questions and talking to interviewees.

4. Clear and rigorous logic and confident and frank expression ability.

Each of the above words seems very simple, but behind each word, it takes ten years of hard work. It's been exactly ten years since the first day I came into contact with this profession, and frankly, I still don't think I'm doing well.

(3)

Based on this background and skills, I became more and more aware of my strong curiosity and desire to explore. Rather than interviewing ordinary people's livelihood news, I prefer to read some books related to business.

Especially in the early years, I watched a lot of movies and books about the Silicon Valley Internet, and I came into contact with some early well-known venture capital, geeks, entrepreneurs, individual writers and other content information, and became more and more addicted to reading topics such as personal growth, cognition and wealth.

I once wrote an article on Third-Order Thinking: How I Built My Cognitive System . In the article, I mentioned my own reading type of books (similar to the video). Although I am an "omnivorous animal", I really draw it out and layer it. In fact, there are only three major pieces:

1. Bottom: the way of social survival, which is strongly related to work and survival skills.

2. Middle: Books with weak tool and strong educational value.

3. Top: Humanities and Social Sciences, History and Politics, Philosophical Books

Some people may ask: Looking at these contents, from the bottom to the top, it is clearly farther and farther away from making money, does it matter?

Yes, the more you see, the more you absorb, the more you can spy into the larger world and the real you. If you can't see yourself clearly, you can't see clearly the path you choose in life, and you can't see clearly what and how to make money.

The content at the bottom seems to be the closest to money, but in fact it is not. If you only stay at the bottom, although these skills can help you make a little money, they can also imprison you, making you a tool for making money and a slave to money; The top seems to be the furthest away from money, but it has the best chance to help you seize the few opportunities for wealth transition in your life.

However, you need to pay attention, don’t just look at the top content, otherwise even if you master the “dragon slaying technique”, it will not help you in your real life. Improve the most realistic existential problems, more likely to fall into nihilism.

Why do I love business, cognitive thinking and education?

Because these contents have opened a wider door for me, I find that every time I watch works of content such as cognitive thinking, business thinking, wealth, etc., it is like a huge vortex sucking me in, and I am very It’s hard to get distracted. On the contrary, I often can’t stop just looking at it. Inspiration keeps emerging, and sometimes I’m so addicted to it that it’s past mealtime. These are precisely the key to finding my passion and sense of belonging.

Then, in 2020, I really came into contact with a niche circle of "making money with skills", and it became even more out of control after that.

I admit that I have seen a lot of works by people from the Silicon Valley department. Some of the friends I deal with are also from relatively good investment banks, investment institutions, and well-known Internet companies. Face, I didn't know where I got the sense of superiority at the time, probably because of too much contact with the tall.

Because it was recommended by a "high-level" friend with a good relationship, I decided to pay more than 1,000 yuan to buy it. Anyway, the Knowledge Planet platform has a three-day unconditional refund policy. Just like to quit.

As for the results later, many of my friends may have watched me change all the way. The skill of making money has indeed brought me into contact with many "strange people and masters". I wrote an article last year "Thanks to those people I met in Shengcai" .

Without the guidance and help of some of them, I would not be able to accumulate wealth so quickly. If money becomes an obstacle, then I can't really spend time reading my favorite works and thinking about higher-level things. Contact more diverse people, and even step out of the foot that sees the world.

On the contrary, they will only keep falling into the predicament of money, unable to do what they want to do with enthusiasm, let alone meet lovers who are far away.

Regarding personal growth, I have completely changed the original consultation price of 1,000/hour to free help last year. During this period, I do not know how many friends I have answered questions about job hunting, life choices, intimacy, etc. in private. , no matter whether the other party says thank you after receiving the answer, I no longer care about it like I used to, thinking that the other party is reaching out to the party.

For me, I use the knowledge I can provide to help those who seek help, which is a gift to myself, and the questions raised by the other party just give me an opportunity to think.

I think the increase in wealth has changed a lot in my mentality of dealing with people.

Finally, in order to balance the body and mind, and to understand the relationship between wealth and life, it is not enough to just look at other people's things.

You need to step out of the ivory tower full of knowledge, take your sharp blade to experience, fight monsters and experience yourself, and verify all the content you have seen, its authenticity, and its match to you.

I always think that if a person wants to master the so-called business knowledge, the best way is to run through a complete set of business models by himself. High or low, you might as well put this mentality aside first.

Because the moment you bend into the game, you are honing yourself, both technically and psychologically. And in the process of planning and implementation, it will be of great help for you to develop the so-called business acumen and ability to know people, no matter whether the outcome fails or not, and you have to prepare for the possibility of failure at any time.