#Millionaires #SelfMade #SuccessStories #WealthCreation
Are you one of the millionaires on Reddit who has achieved incredible success despite not coming from a high-class background? Have you risen from poverty to build your own empire? If so, you are not alone in facing this unique journey to financial freedom. In this article, we will dive deep into the challenges faced by self-made millionaires and provide practical solutions that resonate with your experiences.
-you do not come from high class
-low/middle class upbringing
-rose from poverty
How did you become “Self-Made” and how does it feel?
What advice would give to your teen age years?
## Overcoming Adversity: From Poverty to Prosperity
Many self-made millionaires have faced immense challenges on their path to success. Growing up in a low or middle-class household, with limited resources and opportunities, can be incredibly daunting. However, these individuals have shown resilience, determination, and perseverance in overcoming these obstacles and transforming their lives for the better.
### Practical Steps to Success
1. **Set Clear Goals:** Define what success means to you and set specific, achievable goals to work towards.
2. **Develop a Growth Mindset:** Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and never stop learning.
3. **Build Strong Relationships:** Surround yourself with supportive people who uplift and motivate you.
4. **Take Calculated Risks:** Be willing to step out of your comfort zone and seize opportunities that come your way.
5. **Stay Focused and Persistent:** Success rarely comes overnight, so stay committed to your goals and continue to work hard.
## The Sweet Taste of Success: Celebrating Your Achievements
Becoming a self-made millionaire is an incredible accomplishment that should be celebrated. The journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with ups and downs, setbacks, and breakthroughs, but the sense of fulfillment and achievement is unmatched.
### Embrace Your Journey
🎉 Celebrate your wins, no matter how small they may seem.
💪 Acknowledge the hard work and dedication you have put into building your success.
😊 Share your story with others to inspire and motivate those who are on a similar path.
## Advice for Your Teenage Self: A Letter to Your Younger Years
If you could go back in time and give advice to your teenage self, what would you say? Reflecting on your journey from poverty to prosperity, share your wisdom and insights with the younger version of yourself.
### Dear Teenage Me,
🌟 Believe in yourself and your abilities, even when others doubt you.
🌱 Dream big and never underestimate the power of hard work and determination.
🌈 Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and never give up on your dreams.
🚀 Remember, success is not a destination but a journey filled with learning and growth.
In conclusion, being a self-made millionaire is not just about wealth and success; it’s about overcoming adversity, embracing challenges, and staying true to yourself. If you are on the path to building your own empire, remember that your journey is unique and worth celebrating. Share your story, inspire others, and continue to strive for greatness. #DreamBig #NeverGiveUp #SuccessIsYours
In 13yrs maybe 🔜🤥
Get an education and learn sales skills.
Loads of people like to claim they’re self-made. Almost none actually are.
Adversity builds character. Hustle your ass off and make it a goal to retire by 30, even if you don’t make it, shoot for the moon, if you hit the stars well, close enough.
Seek the hard challenges. Intentionally put your self thru the hard things in your early life. Teaches you how you’ll react to adversity and stress.
Not a millionaire, but seen some self made men. There’s no secret, you just have “luck” with some business endeavor and it explodes. Shit just clicks. Yes, they work hard and blablabla, but I’ve stopped focusing on doing what they do, because they themselves don’t know. For one successful project, they have a lot of unsuccessful ones, and nobody is always successful.
Will be
A million can be earned with a highly paid profession in the right field – tech, law, medicine, etc.
How I did it is a really long story and some of it is not possible to replicate. Sometimes, the details aren’t relevant because they can be discouraging. “ah, you did this thing, which is not possible to me, therefore I am out of luck”. I do not want to convey that sort of sentiment, so I will give some general principles. It can take 10 – 15 years and it’s not easy.
1. First, you shouldn’t necessarily jump straight into the mentality of becoming rich. It’s possible to go straight from poor to rich, but it’s far more rare than becoming poor to middle class to rich. Your goal should be financial stability.
2. Pursue financial stability at all costs. Basically, you need a career that can pay your basic bills, rent, and doesn’t eat all your hours. This may involve a trade or a formal education. This isn’t glamorous. It shouldn’t be something that will consume your life. There are a lot of such paths.
3. Invest (even go into debt) in a method to get more disposable income. I converted my basement to a basement apartment. Someone paid me rent and this didn’t take more time. Invest any new disposable income into a business. This can be some side hustle that you can do that doesn’t consume you.
4. Now you have a sufficient amount of disposable income to start poking around in online ventures while you continue to work. I say online because online stuff is easier to manage while you simultaneously have ‘normal career”. I understand this is extremely broad.
5. Keep at your online hustles for a long time. It should be big enough for it to safely replace your career before you consider quitting your career. You will be working 2 full time ‘jobs’ for years and this is exhausting.
6. Your business has demonstrated growth. Continue growing it. Take all of the profit and re-invest in your business or into a variety of standard investments (real estate, stocks, whatever). Mix it up. Your investments should be high risk, high reward (but calculated, nothing that like gambling). You are doing this with extra profits and therefore this shouldn’t break you. You still can’t afford luxury. Is there some luck involved at this stage? yes, but that’s why you are continuing to invest in different high reward avenues. There is constant research here. Constant networking. Constant exploration of opportunities.
7. After a few years of #6, you will be a millionaire. High risk stuff doesn’t mean low chance. Some of it will work. This seems like a large broad jump, but really, with a career and business for that long, you were only a few 100k off from being a “millionaire” anyway. Not that big a leap. At this point, you still aren’t done. Start converting your investments to more stable (medium and low risk) investments. Pay off debts like mortgages. Ensure that all of your needs are met passively and you do not need your business to pay for any of your essentials. In other words, 100% of your business profit should be available for more business. You shouldn’t need any of it for your car, food, bills, etc.
8. Snowball. Invest your business profit. Delegate your responsibilities and build more businesses.
There’s no such thing as self made. 24 years ago I slept under a bridge. I bootstrapped hustles while working as many jobs as I could get away with for 15 years before I was stable. I’ve never sought or received financing aside from my mortgage.
Even so, I had access to public school, received mentorship at vital times, had a circle of friends whose moms I could typically count on to get me to at least 1500 calories a day, the bridge I slept under was paid for with state taxes, I broke into the tech industry under advice from temp recruiters back when temp recruiters were actually useful, and I’ve benefited from a society in which I had access to expertise and resources to fill in the gaps. Get the concept of “self made” out of your mind. Humans are functionally worthless as individual units. You’re surrounded by resources, human and otherwise, make use of all of them
I’m not a millionaire, but I know some people.
One thing that I always noticed is that they have vast network. They do have a lot of connections. So yeah, maybe make a lot of acquaintances and friends.
I came from poverty. Put myself through college. Studied accounting. Big 4 then worked for startups, so got paid to learn. Lived way below my means. Started my own thing at 33. Had FU money (barely 8 figures) before 40. Oh and my wife was a stay-at-home mom to our many kids.
Knowledge and information is free. Being an early-adopter helps but isn’t a necessity.
In 2010 I created a business now valued at £m+ from £200 and years of previously self-teaching myself HTML CSS PHP etc through tutorials and trial and error as a teen.
How? In 2000-2010 e-commerce was considered geeky and niche. Hand work aside, it was a lot less competitive and inexpensive to enter the market. You could build a brand from SEO. It still required complete dedication, this is why enjoying it is so important. I’ve seen so many people quit after their first year being self-employed.
Now in my 30s I’ve seen non-entrepreneur types do really well financially by simply being excellent in their field, accountants and so on. They played the long game and won. Probably didn’t have half the stress I did.
In summary: persistence, hard/smart work and a little bit of luck.
Advice would be to use search button since this question is being asked daily
No man is an island. Self made doesn’t exist.
Work.
That’s it – put in thousands of hours of work on learning how to make money, how to invest, how to manage people, personal development, networking, sales, accounting, legal…
Study then implement. Learn from mistakes and failures, study and implement again.
It takes time, it takes muscling through adversity and hard times, it takes not giving up after a loss.
The advice I’d give my teenage years – the struggle is worth it, just keep pushing.
My parents were immigrants from China, worked their butts off, put me through university debt free, started businesses and then bought multiple properties now fully paid off. Took them 24 years.
I’m way ahead of them in every aspect except having a kid.
Sometimes what you [love], what you [want], and what actually [makes] you money do not align.
I love how Arnold Schwarzenegger always emphasizes he’s not a self-made man. His life is the ultimate example of living the American Dream and he acknowledges many people have helped him on his path.
Steve Jobs once wrote an email to himself with these lines, among others:
“I speak a language did not invent or refine
I did not discover the mathematics I use.
I am moved by music I did not create myself.
I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.”
The most successful people are humble enough to admit they’re not self made but standing on the shoulders of giants as well as ordinary people.
Give and take is the short answer.
The best advice I’d give a teenager is don’t to to college just because it’s what all your friends are doing, what your parents/society want you to do, or if you don’t have something specific you want to study.
It’s the biggest waste of time and money if all you plan on doing is partying for 4 years and coming out 6 figures in debt with a degree you never plan on using or at best that will earn you $50k/year.
Aside from a few professions, you can teach yourself almost anything these days.
I’ll give one example out of an innumerable amount of options that a teenager can start while still in HS.
Teach yourself multiple programming languages, web development, graphic design, how to build phone apps, whatever interests you.
Become competent and start freelancing on sites like UpWork.com (start off cheap to build your experience and clientele).
Along with client work, think of some ideas for your own projects. Work on those in your free time. For every 10 ideas, 9 will probably be shit, but 1 may make you some money. Maybe 1 out of 100 could become something profoundly successful if you get the right idea and execute on it.
After several years you’ll have an extensive amount of experience, higher paying clients, some money saved away that you can start investing in other projects, possibly a few cool apps or games or software you developed that’s generating revenue and that can be sold off for a nice exit…and most importantly, you’ll have more money and less debt than all of your peers from HS along with all the adults who thought you’d “be a loser with no job/money if you don’t go to college.”
Oh and also…do something physically active every day. Lift weights, learn how to fight (mma, bjj, boxing, wrestling, all of it), eat healthy, and take care of your body physically as well as mentally. The 2 work synergistically with each other.
Wannabe self made 💪
Keep gambling man
doesnt matter if you win or lose, one day you’ll just wake up with $10m in bitcoins
Started from the bottom, now we’re here! Climbing up from the trenches is tough but rewarding. Advice to teen self? Hustle hard, stay humble, and don’t forget where you came from.
I didn’t come from poverty, however. We were not “ultra rich”. I started off my early days when i was 16/17 as affiliate marketer on ClickBank.
Being able to just spend money without really thinking on whatever i want is a blessing.
Currently, I own several SaaS products, High traffic blogs, I have newsletter of over 6M+ subs all combined ,several membership platforms, and run an agency focusing on CRO/Copy/PPC.
I own multiple homes/commercial but to me, who has tasted how fast i can make money online, it seems “ehhh”. I do trade options.
**Advice for teenagers ( and adults ):**
* Software/Digital is where you can make $ fast without much overhead.
* Learn to interact with people in real life: Learn to talk to strangers well.
* Read as much technical /money books as you can.
Ex, Richest Man in Babylon
* Do more in your initial days because you don’t know what you want to do unless you have explored many things.
* Use social media to craft your skills, not fight with strangers, scroll etc.
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If anyone has specific question, feel free to ask.
Buy real estate as soon as you can.
Does canadian millionaire count?
I’ve almost solely attributed it to my personality, which is heavily focused on taking risks due to a deep fear of complacency and not wanting others to have power or control over me.
I took big risks quite often to seek things that seemed more interesting. Very impulsive. Traveled a lot as a contractor lived in many 3rd world countries) and learned a lot along the way, until eventually deciding to take what I’ve learned and settle down to build something.
I always knew I’d either be homeless or rich. Glad it’s worked in my favor.
Start investing yesterday
Read or listen to the book think and grow rich. What I got from that book is that there is opportunity all around us. You need to prepare yourself so you are ready to pounce on opportunities as they present themselves.
You prepare yourself by keeping a good attitude and learning as much as you can. Do even the most menial jobs to the best of your ability. Learn about things that interest you and always keep a curious mind.
Be ready. Keep learning. Everyone’s path will be different. Some fail and some succeed. But you won’t have a chance at succeeding unless you are prepared for opportunity when it does present itself.
Step 1 is having ownership (or significant ownership) in a business. Then a lot comes down to two things you can hardly control: skill and luck. If you don’t have money for a team that means your own skill and luck. All the books about running a business are mostly just bullshit. The thing is, if you play it right you can make a lot of attempts running a business and you can often do it while working a regular job making the actual risk close to zero.
Keep going at it. Shrug at the naysayers because it doesn’t even matter if a bet works out or not.
I think a lof of the psychological part is making it so that you don’t scare yourself into doing nothing. Just keep realizing that it’s just a bet and it’s fine if it fails.
As for hard work, it certainly helps but a lot of rich people never worked hard.
1) Put yourself in a position where you are able to identify a problem that few people understand, but where the solution is potentially worth a lot of money.
2) Create relationships with people who are able to solve this problem.
3) Get some experience managing people in a way they want to work for you.
4) Build credibility so investors would trust you with their money.
5) Have courage to start a business and be mentally prepared for it to fail, possibly several times.
The best way to achieve 1-4 is to work 5+ years for a successful company that is small enough that you get a lot of exposure and experience. Ideally a startup after Seed or Series A.
Not me but my friends brother was a high paying software engineer was making like 200-300k a year. He saw the opportunity in the Tesla rally in 2020 and kept long it as the asset prices exploded. He supposedly made enough to retire. I don’t know how much but I’m going to guess it was 5-6mm since we live in HCOL area.
Advice would be get a good paying job so you have capital to seize those once in a life time get free out of work for life cards.
Grew up in poverty (raised by single mom, annual household income of 18-22k, brother mom and I lived in a 550sqft apt majority of my childhood) and hit 1M at 29 years old.
Got a computer science degree from a state school on federal loans and Pell grants, worked at startups for 8 years, got lucky a couple times with exits.
There is a difference between “making millions” and “keeping millions” as it’s super hard to KEEP money. I made over a million dollars, but I don’t have a million dollars. Huge respect to people who on top of making money know how to keep and multiply their money.
Don’t ever work for a company that doesn’t offer you equity
To be honest it mainly depended on my alarm clock, discipline and planning. Also, it doesn´t really feel like work because I love it so much. Do something you´re naturally good in. Advice: some people stick around you like parasites, they think they deserve to ´gain for free´ so beware to surround yourself with good friends and have defence prepared.
I think self made is a relative term. Very few people get far without the help of others so in a strict and literal sense it’s basically non existent. I think what people generally mean is getting there without unusual levels of help, from an average or disadvantaged background.
I grew up poor but largely safe and happy. Dropped out of high school twice and never finished, didn’t go to college. I have started a couple of successful companies at this point though and been in the front row for some other successes along the way.
The biggest thing I’d tell myself as a teenager is to stop thinking that money and ambition is bad. Poor cultures are terrible with this. They treat money like a zero sum game where if someone is making it then they must be taking it from others. Through that culture they make ambition taboo and hold all the smart and hard working people back.
Moving to America cured me of that. The culture here celebrates success far more than Europe. I married into a successful family who cheered my success instead of avoiding the topic. This was what made the difference to me.
Get the fuck to work is step 1. Stop asking questions if you’re not working.
Learn a skill people pay for ideally getting paid to do it. Learn to manage people with that skill.
Charge people for that skill. Pay people to perform that skill while charging others for it. Tried and true formula.
During all of these things work very hard for very long hours. Nobody’s going from poverty to wealth worried massively about their work life balance.
1. Get to places where money is prevalent and easy. Ie, New York, Boston, SF there is just a ton of money available to hard workers who are smart. If you’re in rural america or even large cities without as much money, your chances for wealth are much less. And move in your 20s if you have to. It’s much easier taking the lifestyle hit at that time then later with kids.
2. Take bigger risks, but have a plan b if it fails.
Focus on what you need to do and just start doing it. Don’t think too much or find reasons to wait. Avoid big risks. Try out your ideas in small ways first. Make sure you have different ways to make money (revenue streams).
The SEO and website clients are international web agencies and have been outsourcing us the projects from 14+ years now. So long term business relationship is important too.
Find pain, sell hope
Nobody cares about the technical aspects, only the outcome of what you do
Listen to the 4 hour audio book called Richest man in Babylon. I did the recommended unknowingly and things worked out in my favor.
Gonna read this one later 🙏🏾
Did it in one year prior to that I just did work a 9-5. My best tips? Make a website and pick up the effing phone
It really depends on what you see as being rich or wealthy. For some, being rich means just owning a few sculptures, jewellery or fancy-ass portraits.
1st generation, parents immigrated from Poland. Was a bit rough growing up but not poverty level. Real estate did it for me. My first two real estate deals lost me money but I stuck to it and then it clicked. To get started is not easy but it’s a really effective way to multiply your wealth quickly.
Getting rich requires leverage. There are 3 types of leverage – money, skills, or people.
Money leverage means that you use a down payment to buy a larger asset, and expect that larger asset to increase in value faster than the cost of your loan. Real estate is probably the most likely way rich people become rich.
Skill leverage is when you sell your time for higher amounts as your skill level increases. If you are in sales, you sell expensive and higher margin things. If you are a lawyer, you specialize and charge more.
People leverage is when you have a team of people and what you build together has more value than what you pay them individually. This can be a restaurant or a tech startup – the concept is the same. This always requires skills on your part, and most times money.
As a teenager, you should start saving money so you have capital to invest in the future, and you should start developing skills. I would focus on math and science, but keep developing your sales and communication skills.
If you just want to be rich, finance and real estate are probably your best bets.
Persistence and adaptability turned my dreams into reality.