Transcript

Clay: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast, episode 275.
Announcer: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast where you get to see the realistic side of a trader’s journey. Get inspired and stay motivated by every day, normal people who are currently on their journey to trading success. And this is your host, believe it or not, he’s an undefeated wrestler, ClayTrader.
Clay: That’s right. You heard it. Undefeated. Granted, my opponents have been my children, the oldest of which is eight, but hey, you know what? Maybe a minor detail. I’m not quite sure if that matters. But yeah, they just can’t beat me yet. I don’t know if this makes me a bad parent or not, but I’m not letting them win because I think there’s a life lesson somewhere in there where, you know what, sometime life is just not going to work out. Sometimes you’re going to face scenarios and situations that aren’t just going to work out. So you know what? You’re going to have to learn to deal with not having a win or not having a victory in every single situation that you come across. And now that I think about it even more, I feel like I could draw some parallels to trading too, in terms of not always having a victory and scoring a winning wrestling match every single time.
Clay: But maybe I’m just a jerk of a parent for not letting my kids beat me, but I don’t know. That’s when my competitive nature comes out. But it’s a good time to wrestle, a lot of learning lessons, I think, in there. But I am undefeated, okay? So, I mean, just be very careful if we ever cross paths on the street, just know I got some pretty good wrestling moves up my sleeve. Maybe you could tell from the title of the podcast or just from, if you’re looking at the thumbnail, we’re doing another solo podcast here. And this all came from just… I’ve had some people ask, “Hey, Clay. How do I stay motivated? Hey, Clay. How do I be disciplined?” And I’ve been thinking about this. And then there’s some other little comments. Of course, you read headlines and yet you turn on the news and then you turn it off about two seconds later.
Clay: But there’s some scenarios out there that really kind of just brought me to the, how can I best approach this? And then of course you sprinkling the, “Hey, Clay. I wish I had more money to trade. You got any tips? You got any tricks to grow your trading account?” And I always say out there, “Yeah. Ticker Symbol J-O-B is a great way to go about it.” But what I really want to focus on here is just rewiring your brain, your perspective of the world, how you approach decisions you make. And by doing so, I think you’re going to see a lot of difference. I think that you’re going to, all of a sudden, just start to see money seemingly show up out of nowhere. Now it’s not showing up out of nowhere because you’re going to be putting yourself in much better situations.
Clay: But at the core, this is how… I mean, from what I’ve seen and I’m not proclaiming to know it all, but I’ve studied lots of wealthy people. And the things that I notice is they are always, now maybe they don’t approach it and they don’t explain like I’m about to, but at the core, this is what they’re doing. They’re approaching all situations with this general philosophy in mind. And then that is causing them to make the best decisions possible. Give them the best benefit, the most odds in their favor of actually succeeding. Now, of course, nothing’s guaranteed, but I will speak from personal experience here. I realized I’m a data point of one, but I will say from my personal experience, it really does work. From the people I’ve surrounded myself with, from the people, like I said, that I’ve studied. When they approach matters with this perspective, by rewiring their brain and just looking at life kind of like this, as I’m about to show, then things add up and make a big, big difference.
Clay: So how do I want you to rewire your brain? How do I want you to kind of go about life, if you will? Want to start all this off, let’s just address the core point here. And this is a fact, whether you like it or not, but you are a business owner. You are an entrepreneur. You are a CEO. What? No, no, I’m not, Oh, I get it, Clay, because as traders we need to treat our trading, treat our investing, like a business. So that’s what you mean. No, that’s not what I mean now. Now you’re not wrong, that’s true. If you’re going to get into trading, you want to have success with trading, you better be using it… you better be approaching it as a business. You better be using it like a business owner would use their funds within a business as a whole.
Clay: But that is actually not what I’m talking about here. You are a business. You are an entrepreneur because you do have a product. You do have a service to offer. What do you mean, Clay? Everybody has a product and service to offer. Even my kids. Now, at this point in their life, they’re going to have a very hard time turning this product and service into any sort of cash. But the older they get, that’s what I’m going to be showing them. That’s what I’m going to be teaching them. That’s what our job as parents are, right? Hey, be a good entrepreneur. Be a good CEO. When it comes to this product and service that you offer. Clay, what is this product and service? Quit beating around the bush. Okay, fine. I’ll stop beating around the bush.
Clay: First we need to start off with a little miniature economics lesson here, okay? So the economics, a term that is used quite a bit is the word, labor. Now what do I mean by labor? Well, I’m assuming, if it were me, one of the first things that pops into my head is manual labor, right? Oh, yeah. Get out there do some manual labor. But what is actually labor? Well, all labor is in its simplest form is time. That’s all it is, time. And like any marketplace, you’re going to have people out there trying to negotiate labor, right? Labor unions. That’s what a labor union does, right? They are negotiating with the big company, how the workers are treated, what sort of payments I get. All that, right? A labor union. Really that should just be called a time union because the way economics works, this should make perfect sense for those… because if you’re listening, you’re clearly interested in the stock market or some sort of financial market. But markets have what? Buyers and sellers.
Clay: So within the labor market, there are buyers and sellers. Who are the buyers? The buyers are business owners. The buyers are corporations. The buyers are small business owners. The buyers are anybody that needs to buy what? Well, buy labor, right? Because it’s a labor market. In a stock market, people are looking to buy stock. And the labor market, people are looking to buy labor. But there’s also sellers in the labor market. Who are sellers? Me, you, people that are looking to sell their labor. But that doesn’t really mean anything. What do you mean, sell my labor? Well, at the core, remember what is labor actually, that I said? It’s time. So you are looking to sell your time. Others are looking to purchase your time.
Clay: And to bring this back to main street lingo here, what do we call that? If somebody purchases your time? Purchases your labor? Well, that would be called, you just got hired for what? A job, right? Somebody just gave you a job. Or in other words, economically speaking, they just purchased your labor. They just purchased your time in the open market known as the labor market. All right, Clay, I got it. I’m still not quite sure where you’re going with all this. Okay, Clay, there’s a labor market out there and the labor market is all about people trying to buy other people’s time and then other people out there selling their time. So the question becomes… Well, knowing that you and I have time, right? We all have time. And there’s people out there willing to purchase our time. What is that telling us about how we should be viewing the world? How we should be thinking about our time, knowing that there’s people that want to buy it?
Clay: Hopefully you’re saying, “Well, Clay, I think I would want to make my time worth as much as possible.” And I would say, “Well done, very well done.” That’s the key. That’s the secret to… I don’t say getting rich in the sense of now you have a Rolex collection, but getting rich in the sense of taking control of your life, just building wealth. Because when you look at your time and you say, “Hey, you know what? There’s people out there that want to purchase my time. Is my time worth that much?” And in many cases, no. I’m not saying it for you exactly. But a lot of people out there, it’s absolutely not worth very much at all. And that’s why those people are griping and complaining and woe is me. But what is your time worth? What have you done to increase the value of your time?
Clay: And there’s two ways that you can increase the value of your time. One, probably my favorite, probably the one that I respect. Well, I don’t know about the most because they all require work and dedication, but one is just through willingness. What do I mean by increasing your value of your time through willingness? We’ll look at it like this, and I’ve done a podcast on this… actually, I don’t know when that was. But the podcast was titled something about if I had to start all over again, what would I do? Or another way would be if I had to start all over again, how would I make my time as valuable as possible just so I could start to build and build, get more money for trading or just build finances in general?
Clay: And what I talked about in that podcast, so I’m going to quickly talk about here, is the willingness to fill up dumpsters. If I were getting started again, I would fill up dumpsters. I would start a dumpster company. Now I don’t mean a dumpster company in the sense of you go out there and you’re trying to sell dumpsters to people and… not necessarily sell them, but rent them to people that need to clear out their house or what have you. But, no, you are selling, filling up the dumpster. You’re selling your labor to fill up the dumpster. And the way I would use this, and just because I can relate to this given I do invest in real estate also, is you could approach a real estate investor and a real estate investor… everybody’s got different value. Everybody’s time is worth different things, right?
Clay: Jeff Bezos is not going to sit there and he has no desire, he has no need, it would be stupid for him to go and try to figure out some sort of issue that’s not really an issue, because his time would be much better spent doing something else. But in the real estate example, if that real estate investor, let’s just say, just had an eviction, they had to evict somebody out. They stopped paying, whatever. And I don’t know this person was… it was a nightmare. They just trashed the place. They left a bunch of stuff behind. It’s stinky, it’s smelly. There was holes in the wall, so now drywall needs to be torn down so it can be replaced. They clearly had dogs all over the place that did their business on the carpet. So carpet needs to be ripped out. I mean, it is just a train wreck. Stuff all over the place, dirty, disgusting, smells bad.
Clay: But that real estate investor, they got to get the place cleaned out. They need to refurbish it. They need to put new drywall, get new carpet in there, so they can rent it out to somebody else and get the cash flow streaming again. But they do have other things with their time, maybe. So what do I mean by maybe? Well, let’s just say if it were me, I would say, “Hey, Mr. Real Estate Investor, you get the dumpster. You pay for the dumpster but I’ll fill it up for you. I’ll go in there and do all that. I’ll rip out the carpet. I’ll fill up that dumpster. You just tell me what you want hauled out and I’ll do it. I’ll fill up the dumpster. You just provide the dumpster.” And then this is what you would do, you would say, “Okay.”
Clay: Well, of course the real estate investor is going to say, “Okay. That sounds nice. I don’t want to do that. And plus I could be out there searching for other deals. Yeah, you know what? I would love to purchase this person’s time. I would love to buy this person’s time to fill up that dumpster because I can use my time to go find another deal or to go do other things that I think would be worthwhile.” Now, of course, they’re going to be thinking it might not be worth my time if this person comes and says it’s a million dollars. Then of course not. I have no desire to purchase your time for a million dollars. I’ll just do it myself. But there is some sort of balance in there, where, “Yeah, that’d be great to purchase your time. I don’t want to have to deal with that.”
Clay: So think about it, you could say, “All right. Well, I think it’ll take me 10 hours to clean out that house. You know what? And I want to make $20 an hour.” All right. So I should probably charge the real estate investor… I should try to sell my time to this real estate investor for $200, right? Because if you think it’s going to take you 10 hours and you decide you want to sell your hours, or you sell your labor at $20 per hour, you would just charge them $200 flat fee. And let me tell you this, and I can speak with authority here, I can speak with confidence given I am a real estate investor.
Clay: $200 to have somebody clean out a disgusting place like I just described. Yeah, absolutely no-brainer deal. Done, done. Let’s go. So in other words, that probably that’s too less. So let’s think. All right, well, let’s try $30 an hour. All right. $30 an hour. And I think it’s going to take me 10 hours, 30 times 10, that’s $300. As a real estate investor. Absolutely. Go ahead, go ahead. Clean it out, $300, fill up that dumpster. No-brainer deal. Now where does that finally come out of where it’s like, okay, no, it’s not really worth it anymore. I mean, even at $500, depending on how disgusting the place is, I could easily say, “Yeah, you’re going to fill up that dumpster for $500? Done, deal.” And right there, now all of a sudden, you have $50 an hour.
Clay: Now what has allowed you to do this? Because you’re willing to do something that a lot of people are not willing to do. And when you’re willing to do stuff that lots of other people are not willing to do, what is that doing to you? That’s adding value. You have just given yourself an edge by simply being willing to, like I said, whether that be to just put your ego aside. I know another one. Wait, you want me to knock on people’s doors and ask if I can mow their lawn? I’m above that. Wait, you want me to deliver pizzas on the weekends? I’m above that. Fine. Those people out there that are willing to put their ego aside, guess what? They are now going to be making more money. Now that’s not the exact same scenario because you’re not going to get out there and make $50 an hour doing that, like you would filling up a dumpster.
Clay: But, again, delivering pizza is much different than cleaning out some nasty, disgusting place. But that’s willingness, right? The more willing you are to do something that a lot of other people are not willing, or not wanting to do, the value of your time to which you can sell it for increases because there’s just not a whole supply of people out there, right? Supply and demand, economics. If there’s not a great supply of something, prices go up on it. I mean, if gold was the same as air or sand, gold wouldn’t be worth that much. But there is a limited supply.
Clay: Just like the more limited supply of what you’re willing to do, you can create, then people want to purchase your time to do it. No, and I’m not saying, just like I said in that podcast, that you have to sit here and do this the rest of your life. I’m just saying that is one way you can quickly build a trading account, for example. Or just put more money in your pocket by thinking about your time as your business. Saying, “Okay. What can I do? I’m a business owner of my time. I need to sell this for as much as it’s worth.” All right. Well, yeah. If I am willing to get out there and do some kind of disgusting things, do some things that a lot of other people don’t want to do, then, yeah, I’m going to go do that.
Clay: Because I can actually sell my time for a lot more than if I just go apply at McDonald’s. And I have nothing against people that work for McDonald’s. That’s fine but that’s minimum wage for a reason. Minimum wage jobs are a minimum wage because there are plenty of people out there that can do them. That not necessarily want to do them but are willing to do them. If you had a choice, clean out a nasty, disgusting eviction house, or flip a burger or just take people’s orders at McDonald’s. Well, most people would say, “Yeah, that McDonald’s thing sounds a whole lot better.” Yeah, but you know what? You can make a whole lot more doing the dumpster thing and you make a whole lot more because there’s just not that many people out there that want to do it.
Clay: I probably should have started this all off saying, I’m well aware that none of this is some sort of mind blowing discovery on my part. But sometimes it’s those simple, it’s those obvious things that just hide in plain sight. And a lot of people just are missing out. I look around and I… Now granted, I will say that the community that I offer at ClayTrader.com, Inner Circle, we have some beasts in there. We have some hustlers. We have people… Joey, off the top of my head. I still remember the post, he post… I don’t even remember what it is. Like an hour into the day, maybe not even that. $700 he made.
Clay: And then underneath he says, “Now it’s time to go DoorDash.” I mean, that’s just a flat out hustler and grinder right there. Iron sharpens iron. So that’s awesome. And that’s why I have very little pity for people that, “Oh, I don’t have this. I don’t have that.” Here’s a guy who just made $700, he’s in college still, he makes $700 and then sitting there thinking he’s awesome. He goes out there and starts to DoorDash. That’s awesome. That’s pure motivation. That’s a CEO of their time. They’re trying to value their time as much as possible. He could very easily just sit there, “Man. I just made $700. Click Disney+, click Netflix. No, he’s saying, “No, absolutely not. DoorDash. Let me value my time as much as possible.” Because he’s willing to do it.
Clay: So guess what? Joey is going to be making a whole lot more money than somebody that’s not willing to do it, right? That’s saying no. No, I want to sit here and watch Netflix instead. So just willingness. That is one way. What are you willing to do? Not necessarily what are you able, but what are you willing? There’s lots of things out there that people just find annoying. There’s lots of things out there where it’s actually stupid for that person to actually do it. Because again, we all have different values over time and that’ll be you someday, right? I want you to become that real estate investor where you can sit there and say, “No, it is literally not worth my time to sit there when I can buy somebody else’s time for $200 or $300.”
Clay: And like I said, for me, my time is worth more than that. And I don’t say that in an arrogant way because anybody can get to where I am. I say that in a way of, you got to just start valuing your time at some point in life. And when you do that, then eventually you’re going to find yourself in the spot where you realize, oh, wow. No, no, I need to be buying somebody else’s time for this right now. And that could very well be maybe you do start a business. And now you’re in the business of purchasing other people’s time because you need to have your time used elsewhere. You need to be selling your time and other components. ]So maybe now you can sell your time for $200 an hour. Okay. Well, I need to be doing that but I still need these other tasks to be done. So I’m going to go purchase people’s time for… I don’t know, minimum wage. $15 an hour, $20 an hour, whatever it may be.
Clay: So that’s the ultimate goal. So I don’t sit here and say that you’re always going to be stuck in that position. I’m just saying, I want you to get to the point where you need to now be able to say, “Yeah, I was willing to do that at one point in my life but not anymore.” I mean, for me in college, I was willing, I was… I mean, it was annoying at times, it was not always pleasant, but I did roofing in school. Every college I’d come back over the summers and I would do roofing. And let me tell you this, for those of you roofers out there, nothing but respect. But being up on a roof with asphalt shingles in the heat, it can get pretty, pretty toasty.
Clay: Shingles are not the lightest thing in the world, especially when you got to carry up the bundles. And we didn’t have any of those loading machines that loaded up perfectly. No, we had to do it up the ladder. It was a workout but I was willing to do it. And I made a buck well above minimum wage, because I was willing to do what a lot of other people just didn’t want to do. It’s too hard, it’s too hot out there, I don’t get enough breaks. Wait, you’re working 10, 12 hour days. Huh? No. All right, I’ll do it. And I’m not anything special. I want you to do the same thing. I’m not saying that I’m the only one willing to do that. I’m just saying that’s one way you can increase the value of the labor that you sell, your own time.
Clay: The other way is you just improve your skills. So how do you do this? Well, the stereotypical example would be… Oh, yeah. That’s why you need to go to college. Now obviously they don’t tell you in the way of now you want to go to college so that you can increase the value of your time so that you can sell your time in the labor market for more money. But in all actuality they should. That is the proper way you can do it. Maybe you sense the frustration in my voice, but I get sick and tired of the way college is portrayed to people. College is given. Hey, go to college and you can get a good job. In other words, that’s saying go to college and you’ll be able to sell your time for more money. And then therefore you’ll make more money and have a quote, unquote, good job. False. Lie. Scam.
Clay: That’s so deceitful. There’s no exaggerations here. Feel free to run the Google search. The student debt problem right now is rampant. The student debt issues we have all over the place is crazy. And it’s crazy because people’s brains aren’t wired the way they should be. If you approach college in this way, do you think we’d have the student loan debt crisis? No, we wouldn’t. So how do you approach it? Well, again, the goal here is, I’m a CEO. I am going to be selling my time in the labor market. I want to be able to sell my time for as much as it’s worth. And the more people… and the buyers, right? I want people to want to buy my time for as much money as possible.
Clay: So how do I do that? Well, you know what? I’m going to go and get a degree in the history of Norwegian basket weaving. I’m going to go get a degree in the theory of pineapples. I’m going to go get a degree for four years at some private school, that’s going to charge me $30,000 a year, that’s out of state and I’m going to go and get me a degree in the evolution of a cardboard box. Okay? Okay. You go and get those degrees. Now do you think in the labor market, there’s going to be that many people out there that want to purchase your time because you have knowledge of the evolution of cardboard box? Or you know the history of pineapples? I don’t think so. That’s what we would call a job market, right? Is there a job market for the skills that you just acquired? And in many situations, no, there’s not. And I could do a whole podcast on why college is a scam, because this is the prime way how a college is a scam.
Clay: They offer up all these, quote, unquote, skills, all this, quote, unquote, knowledge that does nothing for your time. In the sense of it doesn’t increase the value of it. And then people wonder why they can’t get a job. What is not getting a job as far as the way our brains are now working? They can’t get a job because nobody is willing to, what? Purchase their time. Why are people not willing to purchase their time? Because there’s no value in the time that they’re offering. They don’t have any sort of skill because you know the evolution of cardboard boxes. But let’s flip this around and I’ll just use myself as an example. I had great parents, and so all you parents out there, please, I’m not saying make them listen to me, I’m probably some random guy. But maybe try to explain this to your kids before they go out there and make a huge mistake by taking on all this debt.
Clay: At least my parents had a good job. I realized, all right, if I’m going to be taking on debt, if I’m going to be making this investment, I want… Now, of course, at the time I didn’t sit there and think about it, “Now how do I make my time worth as much as possible so that in the labor market, somebody wants to purchase my time for as much money as possible?” The way I looked at it is, I just want to get a job. I want to get a good job. I want to make respectable money. So I got an engineering degree.
Clay: I’m not saying you need to get an engineering degree but I will say that I had a job. Not only did I have a job, I had a job before I even started my senior year of college because I did an internship in Kansas City for Honeywell. And then after the internship, they extended me a job offer. I mean, I didn’t extend it, but they were like, “Here, we would like to purchase your time next year after you graduate for that.” And that amount at age 22 or whatever, I was like, “Holy. You’re going to purchase my time for that? All right. All right. That’s great.” That’s a whole lot more money I was making doing roofing. But, of course I increased my time value by increasing the skill by getting an engineering degree. The pointer being that there are people out there that want to purchase your time. You know, think about nurses. If you get a nursing degree, are there people out there that are going to want to purchase your time to be a nurse? Do hospitals need to purchase people’s time to be a nurse? Absolutely.
Clay: How about accountants? How about really anything in the medical? How about a dental hygienist? Assistant? So a two year degree. Are there people out there that are going to want to purchase your time to be a dental hygienist, or an assistant, or… I don’t even know what these… but all I know is that a lot of those two year degrees out there, fantastic. People are going to want to purchase your time because there is a job market for it. There are buyers in the labor market that say, “I want to buy your time.” And in many cases, depending on how… Well, let me take it this way, because this is the case right now for sure. Not even going to college. How about learning a trade.
Clay: Depending on where you’re at geographically, here in Michigan, and it seems like it’s pretty much all over the place right now, because less people are going into the trades and everybody’s going and getting degrees in Greek apples. But people that go into trades, at this point you can go out there pretty much sell your time for whatever. I mean, have you tried hiring a contractor? Oh, yeah. I’m six weeks out. I’m eight weeks out. What are they really telling you? Listen, people have already purchased my time for the next two months. So you can purchase my time, but you’re just going to have to wait awhile. But everybody else is booked out too, because again, when there’s not as many people in a field, they can charge more. That’s good old-fashioned economics, supply and demand. They can charge more for you to buy their time.
Clay: So another way you increase your skill, maybe think about a trade. I mean, think about it. You learn, you a plumber, you become an electrician, you become an HVAC specialist, you learn how to do tile, you learn how to do carpet, you learn how to do any of these trades, tool and dye. I mean, any of them. There’s numerous trades out there that… I get it. Well, I want to go to college so I have this degree that hangs on my wall. Okay, well, while you’re drowning in debt, somebody that goes to a trade school, learns a trade, is going to be out there being able to sell their time for $20, $30, $40, $50 an hour. Yeah, it takes some willingness.
Clay: As an electrician, climbing up in attics and stuff like that. Probably not the most ideal situation, but guess what? A lot of people aren’t willing to do that, a lot of people don’t have the knowledge to do that. So because of that, hey, you know what? You’re going to be able to sell your time for even more. And we all do that. I mean, with a plumber, sure. You can learn to do it on your own. But again, there does reach that point. And this is where I want you to get, I want you to get to the point where it’s like, “No, it’s literally not worth my time to do it myself. I need to, I want to go purchase somebody else’s time.” And you can do that with a plumber. One of the best quotes out there, and I don’t even remember what show I heard it from, was, “You don’t pay a plumber to bang on the pipes. You pay a plumber because he knows where to bang on the pipes.”
Clay: And that’s what skill is all about. You increase your earning and that’s how skill [inaudible 00:28:03], because it increased your value. Not because you can pound on the pipes, but because you know where to. And that’s a great way to be able to sell your time for more. And when you can sell your time for more of that gets you way, way ahead. But, please, just to circle back to the college thing. And I don’t know if there’s high school kids that listen to this, but if you’re a high school kid or you know a high school kid and you mentor them, maybe a lot of times, I see that. And I remember when I was young. So the last person you want to listen to is your parents but you find somebody else that’s not your parents.
Clay: It could be… When I was in high school, I thought college kids were the coolest kids ever. When I was in middle school, I thought high school kids were the coolest kids ever. Right now my kids think I’m the coolest person ever. And I realize that’ll go away. So my point here is, yeah, maybe you don’t have a kid that’s thinking about going to college, but do you have anybody in your life that’s at that part of life. Maybe they’re not in high school, maybe it’s just somebody older that’s thinking about going back to college. Just please, frame it in a way of, okay. You do realize that you’re going to college because you want to make yourself valuable in the job market. And the job market, the way it works is people are going to want to purchase your time. So you just need to make sure that you’re getting a degree in something that’s actually going to add value to your time. That’s going to give you a skill that makes people want and need to purchase your time. When you can insert that need in there, fantastic.
Clay: Goes back to nurses, right? Nurses, people are always going to need nurses. Anything. And that’s the way the think, what are people always going to need? Not necessarily what are always people going to want because those can always change. Engineering, people. There’s always going to be stuff that’s broken, people are always going to want to be out there designing new things and upkeeping certain things.
Clay: And there’s always going to be a need for accounting, right? Because that’s one of the most recession proof things ever, because even in a recession, Uncle Sam, the government, still wants their money. They still want taxes. And who has a big part in figuring out how much money the government gets, which the government wants? Well, accountants. So accountants, any sort of finance, that is going to be something that is always going to be needed, that is always going to be wanted. So just think about it in that way and make sure that you’re… and nothing against the evolution of cardboard boxes.
Clay: My point is just keep it as a hobby, go get a degree, go get a skill that’s going to add value to your time, but just keep your interest in pineapples on the side, use it as a hobby. And guess what, if you value your time the right way and you can sell it for more, then you can go pursue your hobby that much better. That’s what I wish a lot of people would realize, is I have nothing against these obscure majors, but just keep that as a hobby. Value your time better so you can sell it for more and then you’ll have more money where you can go pursue the hobby that much more. And it’s a win-win for everybody.
Clay: And circling this all back to trading. It’s a great way to fund your trading account. How can you get out there and sell your time for more in the labor market? What are you doing to increase the value of your time? And this is one of the things that’s really helped me out because I have no problem admitting when I first got started, 2013, putting myself out there more publicly, some of the social media stuff, it would get to me. I mean, people can be cruel. People can be mean on social media and I get it. Oh, people are mean to you. I mean, at this point I just laugh about it.
Clay: And the way I comprehend it and deal with it is, I just feel bad for these people. Because think about it. How is sitting there typing some sort of hateful comments, some sort of, quote, unquote, trolling, to anybody. What is that doing for that person’s time? Absolutely nothing. They are literally doing nothing to increase the value of their own time. And in a lot of situations, I’m sure these are the same people out there screaming and complaining, woe is me. I can’t get ahead in life. The system is rigged against me. Are you sure it’s rigged against you? Or are you just not doing anything to improve the value of your time so that you can go out there and sell it for more? That would be a great way to maybe use your time instead of sitting there griping and complaining and trolling around social media. So at this point I just pity those people because that’s how they’re choosing to use their time.
Clay: When again, to go back, I’ll use joy as an example. When I’m surrounded with joy and there’s been so many people I’ve talked to on the podcast itself where they’re out there and every second they get, of course they don’t say it as, “And I’m trying to value my time as best as possible.” That’s not what they say but that’s what they’re doing. And a lot of people unknowingly, they’re great CEOs. They’re fantastic business owners. They are managing their time, selling their time in the labor market in a very fantastic way. So just realize that. And also realize that if somebody’s out there, like I said, the cyber bullying and just the social media in general, if you’re out there and you’re trying to hustle, you’re trying to grind and it doesn’t have to necessarily be on social media, but anyone in your life, anyone surrounding you, it could be in person. If they’re putting down your pursuit to increase the value of your time, I assure you, they are the last person that you should be caring about what they think or what they’re saying about you. Okay?
Clay: Because for them to sit there and critique and put down or make you feel bad or stupid or anything, because you are trying to bank yourself a better business owner of your time so you can sell your time for more. Don’t even worry about it. Seriously, move on. That is not the person that you want to be listening to. Okay? So if that can just help you out in a practical, real world example, that’s one thing I’ve learned over the years from social media is just pity those people. You definitely don’t want to listen to them. Iron sharpens iron. You want to be surrounding yourself with people that are out there constantly looking to improve and add value to themselves so that they can go into that labor market and sell their time for as much as possible.
Clay: And for me, just to offer up, I don’t have a job anymore. Honeywell was not able to purchase my time as much as I can sell my time now to other people. I do sell courses, I do invest in real estate, I have multiple streams of income. These are all ways that I’m willing to now use my time, sell my time, right? If you purchase a course, what are you doing? You’re purchasing my time. You’re purchasing my time to be able to send me an email if you needed an opinion, send me an email if you need thoughts on something, interact with me in the chat room. That’s what’s going on there. You’re purchasing my time for my mentorship, for my guidance, for my coaching, whatever you want to call it, for just me to teach you. And that’s how I do it now. That’s how I am selling my time in the labor market.
Clay: I love to coach people but that’s also why, “Well, Clay, you’re evil for charging prices.” No, I can’t do everything for free, right? I need to value my time in some regard. Now I’m not trying to sell it like some people are, where it’s always ongoing payments. But once you’re in, you’re in for good, but that’s what’s going on. And that’s where I want you to get. I want you to get to the spot where you have all sorts of freedom in what you’re doing with your time. And you can look at certain situations and say, “No. I’m not going to sell my time for that amount.” Which is why I always have to laugh when people are like, “Well, before I buy your $99 subscription, prove to me that it’ll work. Give me a pick first.”
Clay: And all I can do is laugh and say, “No, you’re literally not worth my time to do that. I don’t need your $99, okay? I don’t need to go spend any time at all to try to prove something to you so that you then might give me $99.” Again, I don’t say that in an arrogant way. I just say in, that’s where I want you to get. Everybody can get to that area where you can look at some sort of money, just be like, “No, I’m not willing to sell my time for that amount.” So you can do it if I can do it. So go out there and start to rewire your brain. Look at the world like this. What are you doing? What are you doing right now? Well, if you’re listening to this right now, good job. I would like to think that you listening to this podcast is helping to improve your time because now the time that you’re using in the market and what have you is helping out.
Clay: But I would challenge you… I mean, start to rewire your brain to look at the world like this. Look at it through a very economics way. The labor market, and the whole idea here is what are you doing to be able to get out there and sell your time for as much as possible? Are you out there where nobody really wants to buy your time because you’re in some sort of worthless field with your degree, or you don’t really have any skills that people want to purchase your time for? Or for whatever reason, maybe you’re not willing to do stuff, but there’s lots of ways that you can get out there and make it happen.
Clay: So be a good CEO of your time and start to focus on that. Look at the world through a different way. And like I said at the beginning, money is just going to start to appear seemingly out of nowhere, you’ll seemingly get a whole lot more luckier. If you think back to the last solo podcast I did, it was the science of luck. So like I said, I think if you… Not think, I know. I know that if you rewire your brain to what we’ve just talked about, you’re all of a sudden going to start getting much luckier in life. And I challenge you to go out there and if you’re not already doing it, then, yeah, start to do it. But thank you for hanging out. Thank you for listening. And I appreciate the feedback.
Clay: I know some of you really enjoy the solo podcast, but I really enjoy talking with other people. But I am going to continue to try to scatter these in and sprinkle them in. But for those of you that really do enjoy them, I appreciate the feedback. I’m glad you enjoy these and I hope you enjoyed this one. Before I go, first off, if you’re listening on iTunes or any of the other podcast players, especially on iTunes, make sure to subscribe. And also a rating would be great, ideally five stars but a written review, even better. That really helps us out and I really do appreciate it. So I hope, and thank you for your consideration. If you’re listening on Spotify, same thing, make sure to subscribe. If you are maybe just listening at claytrader.com, then on the show notes page there in the bottom right hand corner, there’s a little chat box, so that’ll all be routed to a human if you request that.
Clay: But I love to hear from people that listen, nothing better than a conversation that starts with, “Hey, Clay. I listened to the podcast.” And then I’m open; questions, comments, suggestions. If you have another idea for one of these solo podcasts, I would love to hear it. Please reach out. And I’ll make sure to give you a shout out if I use your suggestion. But I love to hear from you as listeners and always appreciated for sure. But thank you for hanging out, I appreciate it. Yeah, get out there, rewire your brain and start to really focus on being a good entrepreneur when it comes to the value of your own time.
Announcer: This has been The Stock Trading Reality Podcast. Thanks for taking the time to hang out. To learn more about Clay and the ClayTrader community, including the trading team, premium training, and more, visit claytrader.com.