1565: The Best Advice Ever To A Teenage Daughter Who Needs To Make Money by James Altucher on Financial Freedom

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. The Best Advice Ever To A Teenage Daughter Who Needs To Make Money by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com. She said no to me and slammed the door. She was on my paper route. I asked out every girl on my paper route, all three of them. I liked having a captive audience. I'd hand them the paper and say, want to go to a movie? They all said no. Well, one girl said yes, but then the next day her brother told me she really meant no.

[00:00:27] I made about $2 an hour on my paper route. It took me about four hours a day and then another five or six hours on the weekends collecting money. One time delivering papers, a guy drove by and yelled, one day you're going to rule the world. I guess because delivering papers somehow showed work ethic? I worked hard, but I hated it. I had no life but delivering papers. So I will tell you another story and don't tell anyone, please. It's our secret.

[00:00:53] The local video store once gave me pamphlets to put at every house on my route. He gave me a $20 bill and I took it. Within 15 minutes, I threw all the pamphlets in the sewer and never went back to that store. All of this is to say, my daughter is considering taking an $8 an hour job. I said to her, instead of that, why don't you go to lynda.com or codeacademy.com and learn basic WordPress skills? You can make blogs for stores.

[00:01:18] It would take you one day to learn the basics, then go from door to door to every store in town. Say that for $1,000 plus $50 a month in maintenance, you'll make their blog or basic website for them and help them upkeep it. If they require a shopping cart, then charge them $2,500. She frowned a little and said, they'll say no. They don't need it. She doesn't want anyone to say no to her and I can relate to that. I don't like it when people say no to me either.

[00:01:43] I said, okay, we have about 40 stores on this street. Let's say only two say yes. That's $2,000. It'll take you 10 hours to do the work. That's $200 an hour instead of $8 an hour. And then the $100 a month you make in maintenance will take you about two hours a month. Here's another idea, I said. To be on Wikipedia, you need about 10 media references.

[00:02:05] We were in a restaurant. I pointed at the wall. How many reviews does this restaurant have? I said. She was digging in. I don't know. She looked away. More than 10, I said. So you can make a Wikipedia page for them. Charge $200 and maintain it for $10 a month. Or maybe every store needs a Facebook page. One in seven Americans are on Facebook right now, this second. Restaurants can use their page to get local customers to like them in exchange for coupons and future messages.

[00:02:33] Again, $500 for setup and $20 per store per month to maintain. But she didn't want to do it. It's not a skills issue. Anyone can get the skills by studying one or two online courses for about a day or two. She does have skills at drawing logos, editing short videos, and some basic design skills she can improve with a course or two. On Fiverr or Freelancer.com, she can do an infographic for $20 to $50 and it would take her 30 minutes. Why work for a boss?

[00:03:02] Here's my guess. She wants to work at a hangout place so she can work while seeing her friends. Okay, I get that. I would love to work at the same time that I hang out with my friends too. But if she started doing what I suggest, here's what she would learn. A. She would create something out of nothing. Most jobs don't let you create something out of nothing. You just move some shit over to some other shit and get paid. The best things in the world are when you create something out of nothing.

[00:03:28] Like, I created her, in part, out of nothing. I admit, I had help with that. B. Basic computer skills. Seriously, if you think you don't have computer skills, take three online courses. Now you are in the top 1% of the world in computer skills and can charge for those skills. C. Rejection. The most amazing skill to learn. I've put in my 10,000 hours of being rejected. I am a master of rejection.

[00:03:55] Every time you get rejected, you learn a little more about yourself, about how to approach people, about building strength, and about getting out of your comfort zone. D. Sales. D. Sales. She'll learn to look at a situation and find what the urgent problem is, what a useful solution can be, and how she can uniquely solve it. E. Your new best customers are your old customers. Once she starts making money, she'll do what most people do. She'll want to make more money. There's only two ways people who make money make more money.

[00:04:25] One, get new customers. Or two, offer your old customers new services. Two is the most reliable technique people have used since 3000 BC, which would force her to learn even newer skills and solve bigger problems for her customers. F. Outsourcing. Maybe someone wants a shopping cart integrated with a database of products. That's too much for my little girl to handle. She can outsource that to India for $100 and pocket $900. Not so bad. G. Friendships.

[00:04:54] Ultimately, customers become friends. How come? Because in a good business, you don't want to do business with people you don't like. People think business is shark tank, but real business is more like tuna tank. Customers become friends. They become testimonials. They pay your bills. They refer other customers to you. Some customers even want to smoke with you, but I'd advise her against that. Customers are a good, fun thing, and some of them end up changing your life. Don't smoke with them, honey.

[00:05:23] H. You don't need a boss to make money. Remember, every time you have a boss, he's taking some of your money, and his boss is taking some of your money. I hope my daughter will do one of these things, but I don't think she will. I hope my daughter realizes that the average multimillionaire has seven different sources of income. A job is only one source. Guess what? Being an entrepreneur is also only one source. I don't recommend being an entrepreneur.

[00:05:48] In other words, starting a company, hiring employees, having an 85% chance of failure and depression, unless you are a masochist. Some people say to me, How can I convince so-and-so to choose themselves, or not go to college, or be more creative, or quit their job, or... You can't. Nobody can. And I guess that's the whole point. I couldn't convince Beth Mosesman on my paper route to date me. Even though my braces were glistening with passion, my greasy hair was reflecting the sun, my paper route was reeking of luxury.

[00:06:19] I can't convince my daughter to make money the way I want her to. The best I can be is a good example. Sometimes I've been a bad example, but all I have to work with is now. Right now, she's a teenager, so she doesn't really listen to me. Teenagers have to bond with their peers and reject their parents, because 200,000 years ago, it was their peers that would save them from lions, not old people like me. I don't know if I could save my daughter from a lion, but I would try. But she still watches what I do.

[00:06:46] The greatest miracle on this planet is that a small cloud can block the sun, but only for a little while. The sun will come up again tomorrow. It will power the entire planet. Nothing can stop it. What does this have to do with my daughter rejecting my advice? I don't know. Maybe everything. You just listened to the post titled, The Best Advice Ever to a Teenage Daughter Who Needs to Make Money, by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com.

[00:07:15] And thank you to James for letting us share his work. And let me tell you a little bit about him. He's an entrepreneur, a writer, investor, trader, and podcaster. You could call him a jack of all trades, which actually many entrepreneurs are. Maybe you can relate. And on his podcast, he has interviews with a bunch of talented people from many different backgrounds. That podcast is called The James Altucher Show, and you can always find it in the top charts in the business category of Apple Podcasts for good reason.

[00:07:42] He's also written a bunch of books, and you can find all of those at jamesaltucher.com. And James' last name is spelled A-L-T-U-C-H-E-R. Some additional fun facts about him. He's a national chess master, a seed investor in Buddy Media, which later sold to salesforce.com for $745 million. And if that's not enough, he's also co-owner of Stand Up New York, where he occasionally performs stand-up comedy. So again, very wide range of skills and life experience.

[00:08:12] You can learn a lot from James. So come by jamesaltucher.com for all of that. And that's going to do it for today. I thank you so much for being here and for listening all the way through. And I'll be back with you tomorrow for the Monday show, where your optimal life awaits.