Nothing. At age 40, I had zero debt, and a few thousand in the bank. I worked 4 days a week, as a psychologist at a private psychiatric hospital. I also took a month paid leave, every year. I worked almost exclusively with violent, involuntary admissions. Most of which were the result of extreme drug or alcohol abuse. I was highly respected.

When I inherited $10k, I studied the stock market, read “Fortune 500” and “Forbes” magazines. I developed a strategy, and then waited for my chosen stock to drop down to my buy price. The wait was 3 months. It was Jan 9, 1991. 13 months later, I sold the shares for $22k. It was much more than I’d anticipated, and the money didn’t seem real.

I repeated the process, waiting 4 months for the next stock to hit my buy price. After 16 months, I sold the shares for $55k.

After waiting 3 1/2 months, I bought my next stock. The stock traded below my buy price for 11 months, before beginning a really good run. I loved this stock, and intended to own it til the day I died.

On Feb 15, 1995, my shares were worth $135k, my goal. It was my day off. I wrote my resignation letter, drove to work and turned it in.

On Feb 1, 2000, the value of my shares hit their all time high of $2 million. Then the tech bubble burst, followed by 9/11, and the recession.

By the time Intel Corp bought the stock for cash, the co-founders of the company had retired. I lost interest in the company and Intel.

In 2011, I bought NVDA, at $17 a share. The stock traded below my buy price for 2 years and 10 months.

Today it’s trading at $312 a share. At the end of 2018, the shares went from $289 a share to $135. I sold just enough shares to live on.

#GOATMoments #expirience

I didn’t notice.

The first five years of my career were spent in big law firms. The starting salary was $160K/year back then (now it’s $180K/year), and by the time I was in my fifth year I think it went up to about $250K/year. Plus bonuses.

My wife also worked for the first roughly ten years we were married. Her salary fluctuated from about $50K/year (as a public school teacher) to about $90K/year (as a freelance editor in educational publishing.) For the past couple years, she has scaled work back drastically to raise our son. Maybe she earns $15K-20K/year now.

We don’t live a lavish lifestyle… we don’t own a car, we don’t buy jewelry, we don’t fly first class, etc. To be sure, we do live in the greater Boston area, which has one of the highest costs of living in the US.

The excess money was almost always invested in real estate, and specifically in rental properties.

One day I was putting documents together to purchase our fourth rental property. We were getting a mortgage, and the bank wants to know about your financial picture: your debt, your income, your assets, etc. At that point, I realized our net worth was well over $1M (but less than $2M). This kind of took my by surprise, so I double and triple checked.

I totally missed that milestone go by.

To be sure, a huge chunk of that is “paper.” That is, equity in houses/apartments that have appreciated over the years. But even with pretty conservative estimates (say, discounting the Zillows and Redfins of the world by 20%), it’s up over $1M.

But in terms of lifestyle, I don’t think there’s really anything remarkable. Again, modest house, no car, no fancy toys, etc. We might go to eat at restaurants a little more often than usual, or slightly fancier restaurants than usual. But these days, in a high cost of living area, I think a net worth between $1M and $2M is still pretty middle class. Maybe upper-middle class, but not at all glamorous.

#GOATMoments #expirience

Nothing suddenly changed… it was very gradual.

I took my whole family to dinner the night that I realized I was a millionaire. Only my wife and I knew why I was celebrating… she, rightfully, wasn’t impressed with the million dollar mark.

I thought it was pretty cool at the time. I thought highly of myself for a few hours, but then it was back to work the next morning just like nothing ever happened.

We have made many millions since then and it’s even less of a big deal than it was the first time.

I still go to my office five days a week, and likely will for life. I enjoy working. It’s like a relaxing mini-vacation almost every day.

This is Wednesday. So far this week, I’ve made an offer to purchase two properties, helped a Quora reader/real estate investor in New York, dealt with two foundation repairs for approximately $28,000, closed on one property that I sold, received and accepted offers on two more properties from separate buyers that I had listed for sale. Those will close before the end of the month. I’ve been to court on a property zoning issue (I won the case, but it still cost me $4,500 for a new site plan, so it was more of a semi-win).

Tomorrow I’m in meetings much of the day, but am helping a very active Quora writer/real estate investor via a phone call in the morning and in the afternoon I plan to invest six-figures in a start-up business that I anticipate receiving a large percentage of ownership in, if negotiations go as everyone plans.

Then I’m off to play poker until early Friday morning. I’ll go to sleep for a few hours, then go to my office for a few hours before my wife drives me to the airport for a business trip in Florida from Friday evening through late Monday night when I finally get back home and can start a new week.

The thing that I’ve noticed with me is the more funding that I have available, the more deals that I look at. If I don’t have available funding, there is no use in wasting anyone’s time, so no urgent need to have a meeting. Lately it seems that I’m always meeting with people. Lunch is almost always a business lunch, to conserve time, and give me a chance to relax just a bit and get to know the person that I’m meeting with.

The volume of opportunities is about the largest change that I can think of. The more funding you have, the more opportunities you are able to take advantage of.

If you’re doing $10,000,000 minimum deals, up to one Billion dollar deals, right now I have a pipeline to funding. The larger the deal, the more they are interested in funding it. So, I guess that’s something that I didn’t have prior to becoming a millionaire also… a lot of contacts, with a lot of available funding.

Other than that, not much else has changed.

#BinanceTournament #expirience

24: $0 - Broke neck in diving accident. Paralyzed from chest down. Began learning stocks. 25: $0 - Hired as an analyst by small brokerage at $1,000/mo. 26: $0 - Lost job. 28: $0 - Re-hired by different company at $500/mo. looking for defunct public companies to reverse merge with private companies wanting to go public. 29: $10k - Salary increased to $3k/mo. learned the biz inside and out. 30: $100k - Got stock in a few deals that worked out. Started my own company and did a few deals. 31: $1M - Did more deals. 32: $7M - Did more deals and invested on full margin during internet boom. 33:$700k - Market crashed and lost 90% of my net worth. Indicted for securities fraud but charges dropped. IRS nailed me for offshore account. 37: $500k - Lost more money in bad deals. Depression. Thoughts of suicide. No job. Too afraid of doing what I used to do, after getting burned. 40: $300k - Lost more money. Depressed. Studying spirituality. Tried day trading futures. 46: $300k - Never made money day trading. Still dealing with fears of losing everything, being broke and paralyzed. But trying to gain new strength every day. No longer depressed. Still seeking a new path. Meditating. Mostly at peace with fact I'm 46 and some would call a loser. But, no longer equate self worth to net worth.

Lessons: 1. You can achieve your dreams regardless of your limitations. 2. Find a mentor, offer to work for peanuts and learn everything you can. 3. Hire an assistant as soon as possible to free you up for high dollar activities. They provide a huge ROI. 4. Cherish your youth and don't be afraid to take calculated risks early once you have some skills. It's easy to make up a 10k - 50k loss when you have your whole life ahead of you. 5. Luck plays a huge role. But, you also need to position yourself to get lucky. For a surfer to catch a big wave, you need to first choose to be a surfer, have the right board, surf under the right conditions and show up every day. Something bigger than you decides the size of wave you get. 6. Peal aside a chunk of your net worth and build a fortress around it. You never know when luck will turn. Look at Eike Batista. Was worth $30 billion. Now filing bankruptcy.

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties and saw a friend's dad lose a nearly $20 million net worth in real estate. I thought: "What a loser. I will never risk all of my money like that". But when you're worth $2M you wanna be worth $5M. When you're worth $5M you wanna be worth $10M and so on. Money is a game. Your life isn't. After you have earned a nice nest egg, make sure you play the game with only what you can afford to lose. And check your greed every day. Much more to life than money. Of course, that what's often said by those who don't have it :)

#GOATMoments #expirience