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I’m turning 25 next week, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Turning one “choca” as we call it here in Guatemala (or 25 years) is a big milestone.
This is going to be a bit of a selfish post as it’s more to order my thoughts on my current status and the next steps I must take. Still, you can take away some things that have worked for me and try them out.
So, I had plans and goals about building a big business, studying to be a scientist, etc. but as the years go by and I realize that the world doesn’t work that way and I give more appreciation to the guy from the atomic habits book when he said:
“Forget about setting goals, fall in love with systems instead”
I’ll do a post about goals as they really work for some people, for businesses and organizations for example, but in the real world, you better start working on your systems.
Anyway, I’m talking about this because of the path that life has brought me. No goals made me who I am or brought me to where I am at my 25’s, but the desire (or passion), work (or persistence), and luck (or destiny) brought me here.
Like a sailor apprentice, somewhat alone in a little canoe with some instruments, knowledge, and a paddle trying to get somewhere in the midst of a perpetual storm.
Where I am well:
This is a BIG example of luck and persistence, but mostly luck.
I started my investment/bad trader journey in 2020 right before the pandemic, and let me tell you something, this type of investment is not common at all in Guatemala. But I made my research, started with some courses and I find out that I love it.
A few months in and I decided I will do this the rest of my life, maybe passive and on the sidelines, but I won’t ever stop. Is not only addicting but is complicated and as a good engineer, I love puzzles and problems to solve especially if they are as complicated as investing.
I started with $200 (quite some money for my country) shorting crazy sh*t (dumb right?) but ’cause of beginners luck it was right in march 2020, the pandemic quick crash.
I’m not telling the whole story (this is for another post) but in that year I got WOWed by crypto, did my research (DYOR always!), and started adding money. I dedicated all my spare time, my whole salary (literally), and 6 months later I got a good initial amount in BTC and ETH ($5K), 3 months later it was worth 3 times that 6 months later it was worth a bit over 6 times that.
Crazy, I know. I learned a lot through all of that and I’ll elaborate more later, but now I manage my family’s and a couple of friends’ money in a type of fund that has a big crypto exposure (that means volatile and making me crazy sometimes), plus we’re getting deeper into web3, NFT’s and risky stuff.
Ah business, the love of my life.
You know, my dad and my grandad were entrepreneurs (my dad is still alive, sorry). I always tell everyone “it’s in my veins” because it really is, my last name Abdalla proves it (a good stereotype, I guess).
I’ve been trying to start a business all these years since I was 18, I have studied and worked, made connections and teams, but it’s one of the hardest things in life and I haven’t cracked it yet, that’s Why I love it (same thing as investing).
My journey in business is long and, right now, not too relevant. Starting with selling my homework and test results in secondary school to a six-month’s work of 3D printing sculptures of babies “babybeats”, to a semester incubator in the US (my best experience so far) doing and learning about social entrepreneurship making upcycling plastic workshops “plastic fever”.
Current projects
And now, I’m working on a platform to digitalize the equipment rental industry in Guate called “siesrentable.com” while working with my sister to develop a product called “Flovers” which is dry leather fruit for fitness people.
Anyone can see my problem here, consistency. I’ll work on that with these 2 next projects.
I really don’t count my investments and the startups as side hustles anymore.
First of all, I just quit my job (another blog post for the future, oh God!) and I get money from this (hopefully more in the coming months) and from some side-hustles
House manager
I manage a house that I rented for a year and get some profit from it. The owner is a friend of mine and he lives far from the city so I started renting the house for myself, after a year I learned that it was too much for just myself so I invested in fixing the house, go reimbursed for that, and now I’m renting it to a family.
The first plan was to use it for the business but we didn’t need it right away so now I have a small, but constant revenue stream from the lending. Although, is a pain in the ass to have tenants.
Lending (exploiting my banks really)
This is not well looked but I promise, I’ve done it twice and it’s a great way to help friends and family while earning a bit, not planning to do this often but if a friend or family (that I know well) asks me to cover some debts I’ll analyze, help, and charge a bit for the risk I’m taking.
I got a friend that wants to buy a car scanner for a small business and if I can help him with my lending capabilities I’ll do it, trying to earn a little bit on the go, I’ve learned a lot about banks and lending through this.
I also helped a friend buy an NFT which gave me my first exposure to that crazy but amazing world (now we own a couple through the fund).
I really don’t know if it’s good or bad but is just another small revenue stream.
Promoting my dad’s work
My brother and I have tried to work with my dad’s business but it hasn’t worked well (he is more like the solopreneur type)
So now, I’m publishing his skills online and possibly in the future creating a course from it. I can earn commissions from it so it’s cool.
Last, but, definitely, not least.
Writing
Writing struck me just like the investment world did. I love it and I’ll never stop doing it again in my life.
I’m adding this into hobbies although I’d love to move it up to a side hustle in 6 to 12 months and a startup in over 2 years.
I’m starting to create my SYSTEM (although I’ve been writing for 6 months now) but really trying to be persistent.
I have a Twitter account that will help me to save, learn and share snippets of content that will go towards my newsletter/blog every week. One week each writing about business, finance, life, and productivity publishing it here on Medium, Twitter, and web3 websites.
Plus I’m working on a Spanish Blog about crypto and investments, specifically, in order to create a course/podcast in the future. I have the curriculum, and some marketing stuff, just need to write haha.
Read, music and exercise
This is the last thing I promise. I just love each of these.
Fiction or non-fiction. One book a month and one in the back every three months. 16 books in total (not impressive I know, I don’t care).
Jazz and classic repertoire, one piece every three months, not bad…
Being fit enough to hike a couple of volcanos or climb a nice Boulder. Run and bike on weekends and do intense workouts every day.
30 minutes for each, each day is of great value to me.
This took me too long to write…
I’m kidding, I need to work on my consistency and that’s something that you can’t be thinking about all day, you just have to do it, and keep doing it, no matter what.
I may have too many things on my plate, but I love it, it keeps me alive and sane, I’ll be doing a 5-year goals post next too which will include all of this in the future.
If you learned anything here and wanna apply it, do it! Don’t wait for the right time, now is the time.
It was a messy post but please let me know if you learned something in the comments (or if you have any advice, it will be well received).
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