Money vs. Skill Building... Which one wins?

[Garrett]

Hey guys, Garrett here.

So amidst my first year at University (I'm 19), I've had to make some pretty influential decisions in terms of my future. I'm sure some of you guys out there have too... Anyways, realizing that working as an MD is extremely time consuming work, getting called in at any time, studying religiously... the costs just outweighed the benefits for me. Currently, I'm taking a full course load, but I dropped a course because I don't know exactly what I want to do/don't have time to research it. This coming summer, however, I'm planning on really investigating a few jobs, and meeting people who are successful in those jobs. The ideal job to me is one that requires a few hours of work daily with decent pay, followed by time that I can use to improve and master various skills such as developing a proper workout routine, establishing a balanced, healthy diet, learning and mastering pickup, improving my social skills/confidence (coincides with pickup so it's transferable), getting better at music/guitar, potentially coaching a soccer/futbal team, being the best father I can and finding a girl to mother the child (Someday I'll pass the committment point with an awesome girl, but I'll NEVER be committed 100% ). Anyways, enough about me, now onto the question...

Here are my current thoughts... if you choose a job that's extremely time consuming, but a good job, you'll probably be racking in the money. The catch is, with endless work/time devoted to achieving that job, you'll miss out on a lot of life, and you won't be able to advance yourself in a well-balanced manner. On the contrary, if you don't receive an education/degree, you won't live a very good quality of life. So my question, which is particularly directed to the older guys on this forum is, how important is money when you're grown up and have moved out of the house? I understand it is important and I definitely want to get a decent job someday, but I still want to have time/energy to build my skills, spend time with family, and thus, not be a socially awkward 35 year old who just studied all the time to get a good job. I enjoy social sciences (psychology, anthropology), and really want to work hard and I want to improve myself, I just wanted some advice from people who are more experienced with life and have moved out. The reason being, my parents have an "Asian mentality". Not to be racist, it's just that they put so much value on education and money, which I think is good to an extent, but realistically, I don't want to live in my schoolbooks for the next 10-15 years... Not only this, but I've been pretty pampered and want to move out in a few years to truly experience what life's all about, and I know it's definitely not a walk in the park for many!

I plan to take advice with a grain of salt, but will consider/filter through everything I feel is relevant. Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Garrett

 

[Flames]

I've been one to chase money and yet I never seem to be very short of it. Sure I've got a relatively low paid job, but I think the more you have the more you waste, as in spending you don't really need to do.

So I'd say skills any day, they're what will make you happiest.

 

[Light]

Hey guys, Garrett here.

Here are my current thoughts... if you choose a job that's extremely time consuming, but a good job, you'll probably be racking in the money. The catch is, with endless work/time devoted to achieving that job, you'll miss out on a lot of life, and you won't be able to advance yourself in a well-balanced manner. On the contrary, if you don't receive an education/degree, you won't live a very good quality of life.

This is not true. This does not apply to people known as Entrepeneurs. People who created their own financial wealth with no degrees or whatsoever.

Listen, go with what you are good at, and passionate about. Careers are paid differently depending on location.
I live in the UK, so if I was to pick a JOB (Just Over Broke) that allows me to work minimum and get paid maximum... it would be Dentistry.
However, I don't want to work. I want to become financially free. I want money coming to me while I sleep... known as Passive Income or Residual Income.

What you should do is learn about investment.
Learn about creating passive income.
Learn how to make money work for you.
Learn about Leverage.
Learn about Compound Interest.

Study the people who are Truely Rich (People who ain't rich by accumulating money but working their ass off day and night.)
People such as Bill Gates, Anothony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, T. Harv Eker, Dr. John Demartini, Bob Proctor, Donald Trump.

Create financial independancy so that you won't ever have to work for a living.
Spend your time doing the things you love to do.

If you really like to discuss this further, feel free to send me a PM. I can send you video links, and guide you books to read.

That is my top advise, as it is what I am doing.

P.S: Being an Entrepeneur has many of the attributes which girls love in a man, it was only when I started my journey as one did I realised I attract more girls

 

[Flames]

Sorry my 1st line should've read 'I've never been one to chase money'

 

[Addicted2height]

On the contrary, if you don't receive an education/degree, you won't live a very good quality of life.

This is not all ways the case. Of all the people I know that have been through higher education I know about 3 that are working in the job they studied for.
I on the other hand am making more money than them, in a job where most people i work with got kicked out of high school.

Just got to find something your passionate about and follow it through

Personally I like climbing stuff...

 

[Garrett]

On the contrary, if you don't receive an education/degree, you won't live a very good quality of life.

This is not all ways the case. Of all the people I know that have been through higher education I know about 3 that are working in the job they studied for.
I on the other hand am making more money than them, in a job where most people i work with got kicked out of high school.

Just got to find something your passionate about and follow it through

Personally I like climbing stuff...

Addicted2height,

I'm actually confused as to why I wrote that because I don't think getting a degree is necessarily required to earn a high paying job. I was probably tired when I initially posted and my parents have constantly been trying to ingrain the idea that degrees = success, which is definitely not always the case. Also, success is defined differently by people, so success to one person could be making 300,000K, and to another person it could be to find something they love doing and sticking with it.

Getting an education as a backup is usually a good idea though, because oftentimes it provides solid, secure framework where if someone has a dream goal and it flops like a business shuts down and they enter an unpromising financial situation, they can fall back on their degree to get them a good job. Once they find a decent job, then they can try again with another business once they are more financially secure. I've also heard of people having great, high paying jobs who completely dumped them to pursue what they love. The thing is, giving up that job may be quite risky because if you get money, quit the job, then pursue your dream, you could lose your hard earned money very easily. How so? Your business could fail, you could live with a girl, get separated and lose money to her. Basically, your emotions, in particular, have the potential to drive you to places where you lose a lot of money, so I definitely think you should follow your dreams, provided you have a secure foundation in place before plunging into a risky scenario. Also, it's good to make sure you have an exercisable, realistic plan in place to get you where you want to go, and to take action and follow that plan!

Cheers,
Garrett

 

[Chase]

Hey Garrett-

On your main points and questions here:

if you choose a job that's extremely time consuming, but a good job, you'll probably be racking in the money.

This is true sometimes, but there are plenty of jobs that are extremely time consuming yet pay very little for the time you put into them, and plenty of jobs that might seem to be paying you very well at a given moment in time or your life, but ultimately not be. For instance, there are a lot of young guys migrating to boomtowns in South Dakota like Williston right now seeking jobs on oil rigs that pay high salaries, frequently into the 6-figures, to people without college educations. Seems great, but there's not much future for guys in jobs like this except to keep doing jobs like this, and there are a lot of lifestyle sacrifices for these kinds of jobs (which is why the pay is relatively high for people without educations). For instance, the male-to-female ratio in many of these boomtowns is 1.6 to 1 (60% more males than females), or frequently even higher.

Or, you may pour all your time into becoming a high-paid lawyer earning $200 to $300 an hour after a few decades of non-stop work, only to see an entrepreneur like Light be commanding $800 an hour on his own business he spent 4 years building, or a computer programmer who learned PHP commanding $140 an hour while having the skills and free time to start building his own apps and side businesses that produce substantially more money for him.

There are opportunity costs to consider with every different type of position.

The personality benefits of entrepreneurship that Light mentions are also very good for socializing / women. You need to be strong-willed, very independent, relatively optimistic, and good at calling the shots, running the show, and not letting people put one over on you if you're going to succeed in the often-cutthroat world of entrepreneurship. All of these traits translate very well to pick up. And it's just hard to shift into dominant male mode when you've been sitting in an office taking orders all day.

On the contrary, if you don't receive an education/degree, you won't live a very good quality of life.

There is some merit to this... people with college educations generally make more money, have stabler marriages, and are happier.

I think the greatest benefit of a college education isn't necessarily what you learn from your classes (you don't learn all that much that's useful in the life after), but rather it's the gradual transition to adulthood that those who forego college don't experience, and the exposure to lots of different kinds of people and ideas and an environment that's very supportive and conducive to you having time to explore who you want to be and what you want to do. People who dive right into working don't get any of this (I worked immediately after high school, and after a year of selling products and managing a shop 60 hours a week, college seems like a vacation).

how important is money when you're grown up and have moved out of the house?

That depends. What do you need it for?

It sounds like you want a more or less normal life, which is totally fine and good. Job, house, wife, family. You'll be doing reasonably well on $60K to $70K, assuming you're the breadwinner and your wife is taking care of the kids. If she's working, that's icing on the cake. If you can get your income into the $100K+ range, you'll be able to send your kids to pretty good schools, have a big house, and take a nice family vacation every year. You probably won't need more than that for your current goals.

If you later decide you want to make other contributions in your life (whatever those may be), money might become a bigger deal. At that point, you've either got to raise your own capital to fund your objectives, or you've got to build a large enough channel of influence that you can scare up donors or investors for projects that you want to build. The same is true if you start wanting some kind of conspicuous consumption lifestyle, where you're driving around in a Lamborghini and chartering private planes and lounging in the VIP section of top-shelf nightclubs.

Alternatively, if you decided to become the traveling vagabond backpacker guy, you could do odd jobs now and then for cash, and spend the rest of your time traveling around on a tight budget and do things that way.

I've known people from all these camps, and they all have very different money needs.

I enjoy social sciences (psychology, anthropology), and really want to work hard and I want to improve myself, I just wanted some advice from people who are more experienced with life and have moved out. The reason being, my parents have an "Asian mentality". Not to be racist, it's just that they put so much value on education and money, which I think is good to an extent, but realistically, I don't want to live in my schoolbooks for the next 10-15 years...

With your interests, you'd probably be able to carve out a decent living in academia - get a PhD, teach for a few years, get tenured, and then you're working about 35 hours a week or so, partly with students, partly on your own research. The money isn't spectacular, but it's enough to provide for your family on.

The only downside is, you would indeed need to spend some time in books... although, you could conceivably skip getting a Master's degree. It's not an absolute requirement for a PhD, it's just more the normal route that most traverse. And, it is possible to do your PhD quickly, you just need to really know what you're doing and be booking it.

Another thing to think about if you decide to go the academic route might be a fellowship. I've had PhD friends who went this route, and essentially (for the right project) had Harvard or other schools give them money to go bum around Europe or Asia or wherever and not have to worry about working for a while.

Not only this, but I've been pretty pampered and want to move out in a few years to truly experience what life's all about, and I know it's definitely not a walk in the park for many!

I plan to take advice with a grain of salt, but will consider/filter through everything I feel is relevant. Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Garrett

If you're at all interested in entrepreneurship, two books I'd strongly recommend are The E-Myth Revisited and The Millionaire Fastlane. Both of those will give you crash courses in the right mentalities to have about business-building, and the places that most would-be entrepreneurs make big mistakes.

Chase