The Online Investing AI Blog

It seems like a pretty simple question, but most people I talk to have never even thought about it. People just seem to go to work, come home, crack open a cold one, and watch TV until it is time to go to sleep. I guess people don’t like to think about this question because the answer is “a lot more than I have right now”.

After reading this article on Yahoo, I started thinking about it some more. If people had a concrete number, would that make it easier to achieve? In my personal experience, having a goal accelerated the process in a huge way. Even if when I set the goal it seemed like it would take forever.

I think part of the problem is that people don’t really think about spending money. They just buy what they want, and randomly say, “I can’t afford it” at other times. It seems that at the most important times, like when buying a house or a car, we do spend the money.

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Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Success budgets, compound interest, dreams, ERE, finance, goals, Money, planning, retirement, strategies, Success

PBA World Championship

Last Christmas, Tom Smallwood found himself in a position that millions of Americans are now facing.

After years of loyalty and hard work, he was laid off from the General Motors plant. That was bad enough, but the layoffs timing–right before Christmas–was just salt in the wound. He quickly applied for conventional jobs, but never heard back from the companies.

Tom, his wife, and his young daughter faced an uncertain future.

But Tom had a  secret weapon: bowling.

Tom believed he was a good bowler; he even won a few local tournaments. With his wife’s blessing, he tried out for the Pro Bowler’s tour. And made it!

Then he won a major tournament. Tom pocketed $50,000 during a championship match–making more in a single event than he ever earned in a year working at a conventional job.

So, if you’re laid-off, or worried that you will be laid-off, just remember: you can always bowl. At least in the allegorical sense. Maybe you can’t bowl, but, like Tom, you have talents and knowledge that can generate new careers and new sources of income.

You can even follow Tom’s method:

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Dreams Come True, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy bowling, dreams, financial freedom, hobbies, job, jobless, part-time, unemployment

People say that the economy is tanking. Or that it’s hard to find a job. Or, you need money to make money. I disagree. I think it’s possible to make as much money as we want, regardless of the economy. How?

Through the power of ideas.

Have you heard of the Korean Taco Truck?

Unless you live in LA, you probably haven’t heard of it. Some Korean guys went out and bought a regular taco truck, and then did something really smart: they put a spin on it to make it special. Instead of just another taco truck (they seem to be everywhere in LA), they made theirs different. And special.

They started by creating outstanding Korean tacos and other Korean foods. And then, they added the magic. They created a marketing system that successfully created enough buzz that people line up for hours to eat the tacos!

How did they do it?

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Business Strategy, Money, Success action, dreams, food, ideas, korean taco truck, Money, Success

Can Automated Trading provide the freedom to achieve your life’s purpose? Are accelerating technology and artificial intelligence the keys to realizing the meaning of your life?

Hate to be the one to say it, but I don’t think so.

Today I went to sell my CD collection at the used CD store, and met a friend I haven’t seen in 6 years. His dream from back in the day was to create a book of his own photography. He is a talented artist and awesome photographer. It would be a service to the world to create a book of his work.

So I asked him, “Did you make your photo book?”

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success Automated Trading, cell phones, dreams, friends, Internet, Investing, iPod, life purpose, Money, technology, work

Part of the American dream is getting as much money as possible. And, for many people, it is by doing as little work as possible. Case in point: The Lottery.

Most people’s greatest dream in life is to win the lottery. They think, “If I only had a million dollars, all my problems would disappear.” That may be true, but they will be replaced with other problems. And, if they don’t disappear, they will get much, much worse.

Most lottery players are blissfully unaware, but 80% of lottery winners are worse off financially 5 years after they win the lottery than before. How is this possible?

It happens because an increase in financial wealth requires an increase in financial intelligence. But they don’t teach any intelligence when you win the lottery. They just give you the money.

Without an increase in financial intelligence, the winner will continue to use their existing financial strategies. For most people, this means spend all the money you have. So, they spend all the money, and when they run out they just keep spending.

At the other end of the spectrum, is the saver. These people don’t spend any of their money. And, usually they have no idea how to invest it. So, they will typically invest their money in terrible deals and lose it all.

Or, they may buy CD’s or keep the money in a market account. Consider the “safe” investor who won the lottery 5 years ago. Over the last 5 years, the dollar has lost half its value, and inflation has doubled the price level. So they have effectively lost most of their winnings.

These are merely the financial effects of winning the lottery. The psychological effects are even more powerful. Here’s the story of the biggest lottery winner in the history of the United States. His wife says she wishes he never won.

So, maybe what we need is not a winning lottery ticket. Maybe there is something else we need to achieve our dreams.

Success dreams, financial freedom, lottery, Money, Success

There are many dangerous and destructive forces in our society. Many people think that violence, gangs, drugs, and poverty are the source of society’s ills. But I would suggest that there is one force that is even more dangerous: Television.

Most people take television for granted, and think that it is normal for everyone to watch it for hours each day. In fact, the average American watches television for eight hours per day! Many people spend more time watching television than doing anything else, even sleeping.

What’s the big deal with the TV? The problem with television is that it destroys our future. It is so easy to lie down on the couch, get something (unhealthy) to eat, and zone out. Our eyes relax, our body relaxes, and we can have a sensory and emotional shower of sensations that requires no effort whatsoever. This process of zoning out is nothing more than a hypnotic state. A hypnotic state where we are more able to accept the suggestions that we are bombarded with: mostly marketing messages designed to make us buy something.

Here’s the problem. Anyone who has the resources to watch TV can create anything that they want to. They can make real any dream that they envision. But all dreams are built upon the solid foundation of action. And television is a powerful sedative, and prevents just about every action we think about taking. It even prevents thinking, creating a relaxed vegetative state in the viewer.

It seems almost a crime, to have a machine destroy people’s futures. Especially in this day and age. The internet has provided the most powerful tool in the history of the universe to create businesses, technological revolutions, financial success, and any other dream we can imagine. It seems a cruel stroke of fate to have these dreams so easily stolen.

Dreams Come True dreams, hypnosis, Success, television, tv

In western society, there is a large preference for anything big. We like to have the largest skyscrapers, largest houses, and biggest car possible. In America, size is a virtue. And it is prevalent in fast food too, with “super size meals” and the Double Big Gulp (64 ounces!) from 7-Eleven.

And this preference extends to change as well. We love big changes. Americans love to revolutionize just about anything. We are proud of the American revolution. And whenever we have a problem, we like to make huge changes to get rid of it. Like starving ourselves to lose weight.

But big revolutions are not so popular in the east. In countries such as Japan and China, small steps are revered. As in the fable of the turtle and the hare, small steps can be the keys to success. The reason that small steps lead to big results is quite surprising.

When we make a tiny change, we cannot see the results right away. Since human beings experience only the present, we conclude (at least unconsciously) that the change had no effect. But the truth is that the change may have had a massive effect. We just have not seen the results yet. Yet!

Suppose you wanted to improve a skill just a little bit each day. Maybe the skill is reading. Or communicating. Or improving our financial situation. Or even your health. How much time and energy would it take to improve by a tiny amount, say 1%? I would suggest to you that you could improve by 1% in just about anything in less than 30 minutes.

And, what if you chose to do that just once per day? After a year, what would the result be? Many people say it would be 365%, because there are 365 days in a year.

Surprisingly, the result is 3,700%! How is this possible? This happens because the 1% compounds. Every small improvement magnifies all the previous improvement.

So what? So, words read only benefit when turned to action. So, if there were one small thing you could do, so small that it would only improve the situation by 1%, what would it be? What could happen if you chose to do it today?

Dreams Come True compound interest, dreams, kaizen, small steps, Success

Many people go through their lives without thinking about where they are going. We see it all around us. People wake up in the morning, go to work, come home, crack open a cold one, and watch TV. We are so tired from the daily grind that when we come home we don’t want to do anything except zone out, a zombie in front of the plasma machine.

There is one small problem with doing this. One day, we wake up at the end of our lives, and wonder where it went. We always thought “I’m going to travel the world.” Or, “I would like to learn to dance.” But we are stuck in our cubicle prisons and we never do anything to make those dreams real.

The real cause of this problem is the silent killer for more people than any other cause: procrastination. We think, “Oh, I’ll do that tomorrow.” And we believe it in the moment. But that belief is just a hallucination. Because nothing ever happens with that desire. We simply forget about the whole idea for a while. Then, when it comes back to us, we just put it off again.

So the dangerous part of this habit is that it seems plausible in the moment. We believe that we will actually do something about our dreams in the near future. But it never happens.

Often times we think that we need to take a big step towards our dreams. But this is not true. If we simply make a small step, that can make all the difference in the world. One small step leads to another, to another, and another. Momentum naturally grows. And our dreams become real.

Dreams Come True dreams, habits, procrastination, Success

My last few posts were a bit negative in tone, so today’s post is positive. It is about achieving all of your hopes and dreams, in every aspect of your life.

Even if your dreams are not about cars!

Here’s my point. Its a free country. We are all free to make our choices to make our lives exactly the way we choose. We are not in Iran. We are not in Cuba. We are in America.

But we will only succeed as much as our choices allow us to succeed. Many people blame other people for their status in life. They blame their parents, their boss, their husband or wife, the economy and the weather. But none of those external forces have any real effect on how our lives turn out.

They may have an effect in the short term. We may have a boss that is a pain in the butt, and the weather may be rainy or hot. But we can always change jobs. We can always change where we live. If we like rain, we can go to Seattle. If we like sun, we can go to Arizona. Its our choice.

The same is true for our finances. Many people go through their lives without even really thinking about their finances. They say, “I hope I can retire before the age of 65.” Or, “I really should save some money for retirement.” I have to be the one to break it to you, but none of these ideas will lead anywhere that you want to go. Because they are merely vague wishes. And vague wishes are completely useless.

So, what’s the solution? The first step is to decide exactly what we want. How much money? How many cars? How big a house? How happy we are each day? The first step is to decide the details of what we really want. And, as we move away from vague wishes, we move toward a crystal clear image of exactly where we want to go.

So, if you were to decide right now, which car would you like most? Where would you like to live? How would you spend your days?

Dreams Come True dreams, ferrari, financial success, fxx, goals, happiness, Success

Miracles do happen. Anyone who says otherwise is just a hater.

Have you read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho? This is one of the best books ever! It is fascinating, and tells a wonderful story of a boy chasing after his dream.

One of the challenges with society in America and throughout the world is that people give up on their dreams so quickly. In the best country in the world, where opportunity is unlimited, and success is constrained only by imagination, why don’t more people achieve their greatest dreams? Why doesn’t everyone become as rich as Bill Gates? As spiritual as Ghandi? As influential as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

I have no idea what the answer to these questions are, but if more people read books like The Alchemist it would change the world. They too would achieve their wildest dreams.

So, here’s the miracle part. Its free! Yes, free! It doesn’t get any cheaper than free!

Right now, on iTunes you can download and listen to this awesome book for free! And, the narration is great as well!

Download it here.

If link doesn’t work, try starting iTunes and then click on it. Or, go to the iTunes store and search for “The Alchemist”.

Dreams Come True audiobook, dreams, free download, love, paulo coelho, Success, the alchemist