But when the financial collapse happened that pretty much all went away overnight.
So I figured I would give my original career path a shot. I decided I could get a job with my biology degree.
After I shotgunned my resume to over 200 companies, I ended up getting ONE interview.
“Oh, I don't see where you’ve gotten your PhD anywhere here, on your resume.”
Not to be deterred, I pressed further. “Well, sir,” I said, “I don't have a PhD. But if I did, what would you pay me?”
He humored me, he said, “We pay starting PhDs $35,000 a year.”
“You know,” I said, “ maybe this is not for me.”
I pounded the pavement for two weeks all the way from Harlem on down the island of Manhattan.
Not a single job to be had.
When I finally got down to Wall Street, I remembered the old Warren Buffett quote... so I figured, “If everybody's running out of the room, I should be running into the room, right?”
So I went on Craigslist and found an ad for an opening at an asset management firm.
I went into the office, spoke with the senior broker, and got hired on the spot. The job was entry level, I was making up to 1,000 calls a day.
It was grueling work, but I kept learning. To hedge my bets, I went and got a real estate license at night.
And when I finished, I was recruited by an up-and-coming real estate firm.
I thrived there, getting 5 promotions inside of two years, during the worst time in real estate history. I was finally starting to get my feet under me, learning valuable skills that translated to running a business.
On Mother’s Day, two years later, I was on the train out to visit Mom on Long Island and I got the call that my dad passed away.
I received what inheritance was left, an old house that ate money, and some cash…
And realized that if my dad, at the rate he was going, had lived even a few years longer, what my grandfather left him would have been completely gone.
So I vowed that I would right the ship, and create a legacy for my family, and to make sure what happened to my family never happened to anyone else I came into contact with as long as they were willing to listen and apply what I've learned.
This book is basically the advice I’d give to anyone about money who hasn’t been obsessed with learning about it like I have been for the last 20 years.
The ups and downs seemed endless, but I finally started getting my feet under me.
I took my cash and bought 1,000 shares of Tesla at $22 a share, an investment which would now likely be worth around $3-4 million had I held on to it.
I sold most of it when it doubled, thinking I was a genius.
I missed an opportunity to buy Bitcoins at $0.05. I invested $5000 in a Bitcoin trading app that went nowhere instead.
That's a billion dollar mistake and counting (though I did grab some at under $100, and eventually lost some of them due to user error, but what I managed to hold on to went crazy, 50,000% returns and counting.)
Each time when I found out I had made a huge mistake, I updated my rules accordingly.
Such as always invest in the underlying asset, and how it pays to set yourself up to be in a position where you can buy and hold forever.
And the most IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL-- THAT RULES ARE MEANT TO BE FOLLOWED!
And now that I do know better, I want to teach people what rules I've learned.
One of the things I did right was get into masterminds.