Upgrade Your Mindset

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Guest 00:10

If you're 23 years old making 100K a month and you're out of the US born in a third world country, how would you get into paper call or how would you invest your money?

Carlos Corona Jr 00:21

First of all, if you're doing 100K a month in a third world country, you're doing pretty good. So congratulations. Now to answer your question about how will you get into paper call? First thing first, you will need to have a legal structure, a company. You will have to follow tax laws in the US and all that good stuff, but I don't see that as being an obstacle into getting for paper call at all. Hopefully you can visit the US and come to the trade shows and meet face-to-face. I think that would be the best way to go about it. Also, some groups. You have smaller groups like this one and other groups that host events and masterminds and meetups, and I think that will help you. And trying to network face-to-face, that will be my advice. Are you already experienced with affiliate marketing?

Guest 01:12

No, actually. I tried my hand at it maybe four years ago, but it completely fucked. So I went down a different business.

Carlos Corona Jr 01:20

So if you don't mind me asking, what is it that you do?

Guest 01:25

I sell fiction books on Kindle basically.

Carlos Corona Jr 01:29

Okay, great. And I'm guessing that's doing pretty well. And now you learn about PaperCall and you were like, "Hey, what is this?

Guest 01:37

" Yeah, because I was lost when I hit 100K a month and I just find the next thing. And so I came across Adam's book.

Adam Young 01:47

If you're not excited about what you're doing, that means that you're not doing it for anything that's important to you. So you have to make a decision on whether or not you want to focus and be disciplined and just reap the financial rewards while it lasts and just fucking do it. Or you have to think about who you want to be and what you want to accomplish in life and start thinking about what your personal mission is going to be long-term. I can tell you right now that having a personal mission that serves other people is far more rewarding and fulfilling. It's also the way you make the most money if you generally care about people. That's a shift that probably happens for most later in life. When I was your age, I was making millions of dollars.

Same thing. I didn't really care about whatever it was. I think the one piece of advice I would give you besides that, and I think you should start thinking about it now, is that the faster you can remove any sort of reward related to material items from your life, the better your life is going to be. I know it may seem a litle bit odd for someone sitting in a gigantic penthouse on top of a building telling you that, but I don't own anything. I have a couple T-shirts and some pants and I don't buy watches. And I had a car, but I'm getting rid of it and I don't want it.

Because the only thing that concerns me at this point in my life is how many people I can impact, how many lives I can make better, and how many people I can help become successful. And that brings me so much joy that it's what I focus all my attention on. And the people who know me know this is very true. Anyone who's spent any real time with me understands that this is how I think, but it's also the reason for my success. And I think you're asking about investing and this type of thing, and I don't know where you're located and it doesn't really matter, but if you're accruing that much capital in a country like you're in, you can make a lot of money by investing in that country, or if you want to be safe about it, split your money between S&P 500 ETFs and treasury bonds.

And since you're in a third world country, you just live off the interest like it doesn't matter. A very, very, very rich man let me rent his $12 million house on the ocean when I was 23, and he wouldn't let anyone live there, but he really liked me because all I wore was white T-shirts. And he was like, "What's your deal?" And I was like, "I just want to make shit with my friends on the internet." And he thought it was funny, so he let me rent the house for a really low price. He wouldn't let rich people or actors or celebrities rent it. He just let this kid rent it because he wears white T-shirts and doesn't care. But the point of that conversation is one thing that he said to me really stuck with me in many ways if you think about it, and that is you can drive a moped, but if you live in an inspirational place that lets you be creative and lets you think and see the world differently, then you will be able to accomplish much more.

And sure, yeah, you can go down to Novakov in your Lamborghini and the girl will get in or whatever, and I don't have one. We got to take Uber.

It's not a problem, trust me. And so I think what you need to think about when you have that kind of capital is how you can invest it in yourself and invest it safely for the future. And then if you're going to splurge, it should be on something that allows you to think differently or have a much higher quality of life. And that's not Versace T-shirts or watches or any of this bullshit, not depreciating assets because rarely do people get lucky enough, and I'm sure you work very hard. I do too, but a lot of this is luck. Rarely do people get lucky enough to earn the kind of money that you're describing or even half of it or a third of it. And I don't know, God loves me apparently because that's where I'm at. So the reality is you don't know where it's going to end, and so you have this opportunity, you need to ride it into the ground, and you need to save as much money as humanly possible for the rest of your life so that at the very least you can help your family live a great life and let them never have to worry again.

And so it's hard to do this at a young age. When I was 24, I sold all my cars.

That was the last time I bought anything fancy, and it's kind of the end of it. If I want to do something now and it's expensive, people see me flying on jets all the time. Well, the reason for that is because we own a jet brokerage that's moving a shitload of planes, so we control the planes. It's not like I'm paying retail. Most of the time I fly private for free. I don't want to spend the money. I figure out ways to get what I want without having to do it. And so you're in this incredible position and it may or may not last. You should assume it won't, and you should think about what your future needs to be and what you need your future to be. And that's the way to make those decisions. No one can give you the right advice. You need to feel your way through it, make mistakes, but that's the lens you most likely should be looking through.

Does that make sense?

Guest 07:28

Yep. Yeah. I was thinking just investing more in environment and yourself essentially.

Adam Young 07:34

Yeah.

Guest 07:36

Got it. Yeah, love that. Thanks.

Carlos Corona Jr 07:39

And bam, another banger. I wish I was 23 all over again though. If I was 23 all over again, oh boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Oh, boy. But you know what? I'm 40 now, baby.

Adam Young 07:55

21 is lit. I don't know. I'm 23 better. I don't know if 23 was better. I don't know.

Carlos Corona Jr 08:03

I'm telling you, the knowledge that I have now on a 23 year old now, dude, you're just extending my life by 20 years. You know what that means? I mean, come on now. That's major. I don't give a who you are. Time is time, brother. You feel me? That's my currency right now. Dollars. I mean, I need them because I live in an organized society that without that currency, I will not be able to operate. But what it boils down to, it's time, baby. It is time. That's the only thing that you can make more of.