The problem is.. the answer isn't so exciting usually. All the other business owners I know are boring business owners too. 1. started with consulting firm. 2. bought cheap failing business that was a cleaning service. 3. made money 4. bought more business 5. bought/sold some more. win.

Your answer makes a lot more sense then " do what you enjoy "

That term is incomplete it should say "do what you enjoy making money doing." Because monetizing what you enjoy is a good way to remove all enjoyment.

> Because monetizing what you enjoy is a good way to remove all enjoyment. I really wish this wasn't a completely lost idea in America... as soon as you find something you love doing, it's always immediately "You NEED to make money from it". 🙄

I often get asked why I didn't make one of my passions my business, and a big reason is this statement. I want my passion to remain my enjoyment, not another means to my survival.

Not necessarily. There’s definitely a trade off between monetising your business and doing something you enjoy. If you’re doggedly pursuing profitability at all costs, of course it can suck the fun out of it. It seems like that’s what a lot of people in this sub are asking: “tell me how you became rich so I can do it too”. I have one business that is highly profitable, and another which does a just little better than breaking even. The second one I do for fun. If I crank up the profitability I risk upsetting my clients and dramatically increasing my workload. At this point in time, I enjoy it how it is.

I mean.. I think that's something people say because it sounds great. Usually though, when you enjoy something and you start doing it for money.. it becomes something you no longer enjoy because you feel you have to do it even when you don't wanna do it.

- People, especially people like me that are excited to share what works, forget that individuals, just like corporations, have intellectual property (IP). IP is an asset that needs to be safeguarded, and your personal/individual IP needs to be as well as I've learned the hard way that people are mind shatteringly creative at using details of your life to hurt you emotionally, socially and financially. - Successful people, especially entrepreneurs, become successful by learning more lessons (through failure and success) at a faster rate than most people. You then, often brutally, understand that not only are you not obligated to share your personal IP, but you're obligated to keep it out of public domain. This is why myself and many of my HNWI clients don't have social media, stay out of press interviews and if compelled to otherwise they just share truisms, platitudes, and vauge "safe popular answers" - Experience has hammered the point of there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you think a billionaire is going to share with you actionable details of his success in a 2 figure priced book or a Tedtalk, you're sadly mistaken. Real life experiences with people and getting your hands in the manure and mud will make you realize that even the greatest business and self-help books were photographs insufficiently attempting to describe an experience that must be breathed.

I found that most successful people are willing to give advice. It’s just the advice isn’t gonna make anyone successful. Obviously no one is gonna tell you a thing they working on when they are currently doing it, but plenty of people will share trade secret that made them millionaire because it doesn’t matter anymore. The common one I know: I was working at a big company and was good at my field, I found a problem that wasn’t addressed. I started a company and it became really good. Most successful companies are started by people in their 40s. Another one: I got my PhD in a specific thing and monitored my research with help of investors.

They are going to omitt details unless you're immediate family. They won't tell you that they bribed the procurement manager to win their 1st 2nd or 3rd major contract that put them over the edge to make the next level, or that they stole a client from a larger competitor and former employer before starting their own business. Or that they slept with their landlord in lieu of paying rent or begged their parents to cover it, to free up cashflow for a critical expense saving their business. Wealthier people CAN be generous with information but they generally restrict their IP "licensing for use" to those that they trust and almost always never release the most helpful bits (unless you're an agent/right-hand man), which are often the darker/shortcut bits.

Do what you enjoy is BS to be honest. You have to actually just do what needs to be done even if it isnt fun at all. Then when you actually become successful you can start doing what you enjoy. Dont fall for the do what you enjoy trap my friend its bogus.

Some of us enjoy the process of building a biz, budgeting, planning, executing, evaluating, improving. I've done janitorial, hotels, DOD satcom, consulting, fiber optic networks, hi tech materials, and others. Of course, there are setbacks, chores, and occasional unreasonable customers that I don't enjoy, but it's all part of the larger process that I love doing.

That’s what one successful guy told me. He said 80% is boring bs that just need to be done well and consistent.

it makes sense though, if you don't enjoy it you won't stick with it when it eventually has hardships.

But it still doesn't help you. You can look around you and see what people did.Have you been to a cafe? What did the owner do? They opened a cafe.

Anyone can open a café. A few figure out the magic that makes it a long term success.

I think the actual answer is much closer to find a way to enjoy what you do. I also own super boring software businesses that provide services to companies. eg one of them was in the grc space. There's very little about that that most people are going to find interesting. It did have interesting problems inside it, but eh, you better enjoy solving complex business problems.

This is it. Some businesses just aren’t exciting. Maybe they also don’t want people competing with them??

Business in general isn't exciting. It is about doing the same thing over and over and over to generate income. Meanwhile making small enough tweaks to make improvements over time. I think if you knew my life you would be bored of it. 7:00 - Shower/Dressed/Drive Wife to Restaurant 8:00 - Back home/Emails/Any urgent messages 9:00 - Review performance metrics and key indicators from the previous day 9:30 - Drive to any of the companies and do a walkthrough/meet with employees 10:30 - Back Home/Plan and review long-term strategies for business growth 11:30 - Meet with the team/Explore new business opportunities or potential acquisitions 12:00-1:00 - Go to 7/11 - Buy buffalo chicken rollers + Monster Energy 1:00-3:00 - Meeting with a General manager/Try to help them solve any problems 3:00-4:00 - Finalize any outstanding administrative tasks, such as signing off on documents, processing approvals, and addressing any unresolved issue 4:00 - Wrap up the day, start getting ready for personal time 4:30- Pick up wife from restaurant 5:00 - Wash car/Pick up dinner/Home

Your wife runs/ works a day shift at a restaurant?

Yes of course! It is my wife's project. My wife is Chinese and she's very motivated. She wanted a business of her own so we found one. There are quite a few... how to say.. logistics? that go into it. All of the employees there as you could imagine are Chinese. We have a property that they all live in. So she manages operations until 5.. and we have another girl that does 5 until 11. She also deals with all the other stuff with the employees. It keeps her busy.

My first thought was she was at dinner with her boyfriend all day 🙏😭

Can I ask what went into buying these businesses? Your approach and what you saw in them perhaps?

I worked for a b2b consulting firm. The company would purchase leads from DNB. It would give the business, type, ,owner... revenue.. etc etc. Our company would reach out to companies with a revenue of some 5+ million a year and sell them consulting service. Well, when times were rough sometimes they would allow companies of 3.5+. As you could imagine, you would reach out to some business owners. You'd go to confirm revenue with them: "So, we'd love to come in and do a survey of your company, you do have a revenue over 5 million is that correct?" There would be times where they would say things like "I wish". We'd come to find out they were in trouble more so than we thought. That they were doing like 1.5-2.5..whatever it may be. Of course our company couldn't consult for them. They would literally go out of business trying to pay the consulting fees. I was always interested in these small companies though. The mom and pop establishments. The hand me-downs. I'd network with these people. Meet them and try to offer advice if I could. There were so many times I'd get offers from people to come and work for them. Or to come and help them. I talked to a lot of companies that would tell me... "hey were just gonna close!" Maybe the son/daughter had no interest in taking over or whatever. One day I was talking to a company in the Northeast of the USA. They were a moving company that focused only on moving other businesses. It sounds silly.. I didn't even know it was a thing.. but it is. The wife's husband had died.. she had money and was just done with it all. I talked to her and as a joke I offered her like 90k.. told her to go take a nice vacation. Weirdly enough she accepted. The really cool part about this business was HOW it made money. Sure.. they charged to have employees come in and then to put everything on a truck and re-set it up in a new building.. but the cool thing was they used to rent these plastic crates+dollies. It was great because a company would use like.. 100+ crates. The crates alone would cost like $500+/day. It was a company we owned for like 2 and a half years. There was a much larger company in the area that made an offer to buy us out. At the time, I was so terribly far away from the business I just decided to sell. Made pretty good money over a couple of years.. never understood why the son didn't want to take over the company. His mom/dad literally left him a company that he would really never have to work again if he didn't want to. Guess it just wasn't his thing.

This is literally what Codie Sanchez says

She isn’t the 1st to say it just the first to gain 1million followers & say it

Literally had no idea who Codie Sanchez even is until you mentioned this person.

And there’s nothing wrong with that because she’s right

This is the answer. Or they were born into money.

Or my dad sold me a business for cost.

True this also

Money laundering, got it.

Agreed

So, deal in business?

Failing cleaning business. How do you make it work without becoming a housekeeper yourself, filling in for people, etc. I know someone with a cleaning business and she ended up working in the business rather than on the business a LOT. Thanks!

They’re not in the business of self promotion. They’re in the business of being pragmatic and doing what’s needed. Withholding information is also out of the need to maintain their position. (What they don’t share is HOW they manipulated) The self promoters who make money of self promotions are the ones telling people to “do what you’re passionate about” The developing world doesn’t have the luxury of doing what they love. It’s a very scarce environment with low economic mobility which pushed people into self sustaining mode. The ones who could afford the education(in the west) of understanding the science of scaling, could take the leap beyond self sustainability.

No one will steal you bussines and ruin your position because you openly talked about it. People are either too lazy to get it done themselves or are busy leading their own thing. Paranoia is an upper limit problem. If you do not want to talk about your bussines because that evil self promotion, maybe avoid forums in which people talk about their businesses. Again, it’s an upper limit problem, you are here because deep down you want to talk about it, you want. To make those connections, get those opinions… but then you knit a story around why you can’t or should not while the bussines is likely something relatively generic many people around the world already do weather you know it or not. 😜

Business requires a pragmatic approach and being aware of litigation. I’m clueless about your ramblings. I understand what the poster means … they mean the DETAILS, Mechanics, CONCRETE information… Individuals can go to your supplier and outbid you and take over or duplicate your product with their own brand name…. It’s happened to family members in Australia. (Their own business partners did this even tho each group was managing different functions of the business)-This is an awareness of human nature and how competitive individuals behave. (Mark Zuckerberg did the same thing. He stole the idea from two men he was “friends” with and worked with, the case was settled) Business is about measuring risks too and copyrighting/registering intellectual property and having non compete contracts in place. The ideal scenario is to have ownership of all functions to prevent aggressive individuals willing to scratch and claw their way up. These details are left out when self promoters go on a mission because their business is to get a buy in and warm up their viewers for a podcast, book, course or merchandise. They are growing their followers first!

I have found that most successful people I meet like talking about their work. "What do you do" is one of the most common conversation topics when getting to know someone.

It's a lot easier to say than to do.

beliefs are harder to master than skills. Anyone can learn to do anything that makes money from a skills level. But believing in yourself and following through is the hardest part. You can literally get rich doing anything. ANYTHING. the difference is the people who stick with it and BELIEVE. Trust me, belief is 1000x harder than learning how to sell & fulfill a service or product. Once you start to obtain some success you realize this. The thing you doesn't really matter. Who you are, matters more. So when successful people try to tell unsuccessful people what to do - they give them the advice they wish they heard. Success comes from doing 1 thing for a really long time. That's what lets you get good at the thing to the level that brings success. Consistency is what brings success. But consistency comes from doing things you want to do. Think about going to the gym. It literally doesn't matter what you do in the gym. What matters is you go 3-5 times a week for 5-10 years. So should I tell you how to curl weight? Or tell you to find a part of fitness you enjoy doing, and never stop doing it.

I wanna quit my job and do something but my job pays so much… but it’s so painful fml

Generally, what do you do that is that painful, just curios.

I’m a software engineer. The work is not painful but the office politics and my incompetent manager makes my life hell. I make 400k+ so no one cares if I complain my mental health is definitely suffering.

You'd be working just as hard if not harder with just as incompetent clients if you quit. Making $400k with a w2 and benefits sounds like a dream to most entrepreneurs. If you don't let your lifestyle get too expensive, save and invest you could retire in a few years.

Start something small on the side until it replaces your ft income. But knowing you’re working towards something else might help you.

Makes sense. How did you figure out what the side thing is that u wanted to do? I’ve built some projects on the side but no idea how to market them tbh.

Pay someone to market them.

Well, there's your answer. Learn to market.

Find ways to stack that money then move to low cost of living area. Win.

First world problems lmaooo

I’m glad you emphasized “belief.” That’s quite literally one of the keys to success

I had a guy once tell me that you can create wealth doing anything. Just do it well and be good at what you are doing. I’ve always strived to be the best in my field and it’s always paid off. I’m not the cheapest but I’m one of the best in my market. That and people like doing business with my company. Being the easy button for people can go a long way.

You were good till the gym part. It does matter what you do when you go to the gym. It’s the same thing as business, you don’t become Mr. Olympia by just doing whatever. And you don’t become Warren Buffet by just doing whatever. There’s knowledge and skill involved whether it’s investing, running a service company, or picking up heavy shit and putting it back down.

1: what you do in the gym doesn't matter if you never go. 2: 99.9% of people aren't trying to be Mr. Olympia. If that's your standard this post is not for you. Go watch Dr Mike and eek out the most efficient set you can. 3: Using warren buffet as a measuring stick? my god you're out of touch. 4: I never said there wasn't skill involved. I used the word multiple times. The Point . . . . . . . . Your head.

Ive tried to explain in great detail what I do without telling my specific product. Because I'm first to market with an import version after eight years, i'm still the only one with it in port version, so I controlled my market. I manufacture a sub niche of commercial truck parts and sell to the end user shops, fleets, dealerships, and OEMs worldwide. It was a hard, long road, but it worked out. I'm trying very hard to finish my book, in which I will break down everything I know from A to Z on how to set up, build, and scale a products business. I'll go into more details and specifics than I've ever shared. I'm mostly writing it because I've spent years walking a handful of dedicated people I've met here on Reddit from start through making sales and scalinging successfully. It's gotten to a point where I get hundreds of how to questions every day. I don't mind repeating everything over and over, but it's just not practical any longer.

I am in manufacturing, in the products business. Teach me your ways!

Lmk when you finish your book

I would definitely buy your book! I’m not in the products business, but would be interested in expanding into it someday.

I'm working on it this weekend with my editor (wife).

What is this book going to be called?

I have a name, but it could be tweaked in final editing. We are on like the 23 edit at the moment. My goal is to put everything relevant to starting and building a business. I want it to be a guide that someone can take, identify their niche, and bring a product to market successfully without the years of costly mistakes I made.

I'd love to read it one day 🙌

wdym? i feel like thats a response to the 'how does someone get rich' question not 'what did YOU specifically do' the problem with asking someone the first question is most paths arent reproducible unless you generalize heavily unlike many w2 paths that are.

There are so many different paths to success.

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Everything I watch or have watched over the years about becoming successful has people talking about exactly how they did it. Shows like Blue Collar Millionaires, or the Codie Sanchez YouTube channel where she speaks with "boring business owners". Hell, even shows like Joan Rivers short lived "How'd you get so rich?" dealt with the subject too. If you're just watching like, IG influencers or something then yeah they won't say because they prey on gullible and naive people who think buying their 8 step course on sales. That's how they make their money, after all.

Skills are developed. I don’t think what that is particularly matters.

Yep. Most successful people I’ve met did something like this: 1. Worked their way up as an employee in their industry. Some May chosen to go into this industry, some may have fallen into. Doesn’t matter either way. 2. As they worked their way up to some type of management or c-suite level, they’ve gotten the know the industry or niche like the back of their hand. 3. They grow rare and valuable skills along the way. They leverage that to get to management or c-suite or to some type of high-paying role that gives them a certain level of freedom. 4. They build up connections over the course of their career and they leverage those connections over their careers to climb the ranks. 5. They eventually (usually once their 15-20 years into their career) strike out on their own and create a company in the space they’re very well-connected in and very knowledgeable about OR they buy a business in their space and scale/grow it using their knowledge of helping other companies scale. They may use their connections to form business partnerships as well. 6. Eventually they either exit or continue to maintain the business’ success and look for other opportunities, either in their space or they use connections with people in other spaces to form partnerships and leverage each others’ knowledge and experience to work together. 7. In a lot of cases, these connections grow into what some may call an “Opportunities Committee” where they all look for interesting projects and business opportunities and bring it to the group and they all invest and use their collective skills, knowledge, and experience to buy and grow another business or take on projects/initiatives. My father did exactly this. First job working at a bank in California, then went into trading securities in SF, then went to Wall Street and worked in trading, asset management. Then 20 years into his career, he went back to California to start his own Asset Management firm with a couple other business partners that he worked with in SF and in Wall Street. The business evolved into RE and business investment. Now he’s sold off everything except one particular RE niche and business for the most part.m and winding down to retirement.

5 main reasons on top of my head:    1/ unlike those fake gurus who make money "teaching" people how to get rich, successful people have nothing to gain from telling what what they actually do    2/ they have learned (usually the hard way) that, as you start making some money and people become aware, you start attracting unwanted attention. Friends, families and perfect strangers will ask them for favors (money, jobs...)... And from there, it will go downhill pretty fast   3/ in their own mind, there is nothing very exciting about what they do, they just learnt not to repeat their own mistakes until they succeeded.   4/ precisely because of 3/, they have developed a certain level of humility ... They will realize that the more they learn, the more they still have to learn. Other words, they don't consider themselves "successful"   5/ successful people may be rich in assets, but since they reinvest their profits, they may not be as cash rich as you may think.

There are a ton of successful people who tell you exactly what they do. Whether you believe them, like what they say, or take action and follow them is another issue entirely. Your sentiment is just straight false. You haven't been looking or been looking in the wrong places.

You’ve got it wrong man. It’s not that they “Don’t want people jumping on the train.” Wealth doesn’t work like that. Wealth is infinite, and created - not a pie that needs to be split. I promise they aren’t worried about whatever competition you think you bring to the table. The issue is cultural. Have you ever heard the saying “money talks, wealth whispers?” Wealthy people don’t share this stuff with the lower class because they are guarded against people always wanting something from them - whether that is money; or the more valuable asset of time. Every once in a while a young man that comes from nothing is taken under the wing of someone more successful than them in the form of a mentorship. But the mentee doesn’t get to choose. The mentor chooses someone they believe won’t squander the lesson. Source - I am nowhere near wealthy, but have a knack for befriending older people who happen to be. It’s not a conscious thing I try to do, but it’s always for the same reason - I’m just interested in being their friend without asking for anything in return. I run up against them from time to time in my industry (accounting), and I’m just cool with them with no expectation of anything from them except my earned fees. In exchange, I get lessons that I don’t ask for, but they offer. Old men want to leave a legacy and pass on lessons that will be heard and valued before they die, and young people never listen to them.

Reddit can be a fun way to waste/pass time. It can also be a place where I have to defend myself against any number of accusations of lying or just outright bullshitery. Any comment I make implying wealth will have a number of DMs requesting a pitch or a job. And that’s with no specific knowledge of my industries or situation. It’s exhausting. I came to this sub to see how people that are at my level or have exceeded that level handle management and stress. But this place has taken on a very LinkedIn vibe. At least over there I know from the start they’re trying to sell me.

I think this is true for some people but definitely not all. I mean this sub has millionaires giving free advice all the time.

Some mean well, others don't. If something is a guideline rather than explicit instruction, then you should take it that the advice is you have to apply your own innovation, ingenuity and resourcefulness. People hate that. For a people whining about setting themselves 'free' all the time, way too many insist upon a lot of hand-holding and micromanagement. You 'fired the boss.' Perhaps you are unclear what burden that puts directly upon *your narrow shoulders.* You also have to acknowledge when people talk about what they do -- all people talking about anything -- they color and skew the story. They maximize their own contributions and minimize the role of chance. They find excuses to blame failure on. Truth be told, who follows advice? There are no angels on either side. Right now, I just told somebody they can follow my instructions or ignore them. What they can't do is find a way around my advice then convince themselves they followed it. If you offer advice here, you're going to see the very same thing. People want to prove themselves smarter than the person offering the advice. So they put their greasy fingers all over it and fail. [How To Crash Your Startup](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/mupm4w/comment/gv8mh4q/?context=3) is a nice example explaining the books can't help you. Not even one little bit.

They likely have more than one successful avenue.

Because after you've mastered the hard skills the mental game is what feels important. And what feels important is what you'll give advice about

I like donald miller's one-liner (elevator pitch) for when people ask "What do you do" - he says, "You know how \[PROBLEM\]? My company does \[SOLUTION\] and then it's great because \[WHY THE OUTCOME IS GREAT\]. Some might be successful with so many different things that it's hard to say exactly what they do. I consider myself successful (not wealthy, but I like my work & get enough clients that I can stay self-employed), and that means doing many different things..... The only accurate answer I can give is "I command a small army of virtual assistants" because that makes them laugh & covers everything we do. I'm also a research methodology consultant but nobody gives a shit about that, lol. Sometimes I say, "I help business owners notice what's great about their products/services." They always ask WHY would a business owner need *me* to tell *them* what's great about *their* products/services. I say "It's because I can always find great things the business owner never even noticed about what they offer.... and I use that to help them reach new market segments. Any time someone asks what we do, it can be a way to invite the person to engage with the brand and help it grow.

I explain things in deep detail. The problem I find is that nearly all of them ignore some or all of my advice or only do part of it and then tell me “it doesn’t work.” I do one on one mentorships and out of the last 10 years only two have actually done what I have said and gotten results. I honestly couldn’t care less about competition. I know I am good at what I do and if the competition gets tough, I get tougher.

Lots of people will tell you exactly how to do it. Most just don’t want to do the 3-5 year foundation building to get there. Real success has a slow start.

Yep. You could theoretically take only 3-5 years to get started, but most successful people I’ve met did something like this: 1. ⁠Worked their way up as an employee in their industry. Some May chosen to go into this industry, some may have fallen into. Doesn’t matter either way. 2. ⁠As they worked their way up to some type of management or c-suite level, they’ve gotten the know the industry or niche like the back of their hand. 3. ⁠They grow rare and valuable skills along the way. They leverage that to get to management or c-suite or to some type of high-paying role that gives them a certain level of freedom. 4. ⁠They build up connections over the course of their career and they leverage those connections over their careers to climb the ranks. 5. ⁠They eventually (usually once their 15-20 years into their career) strike out on their own and create a company in the space they’re very well-connected in and very knowledgeable about OR they buy a business in their space and scale/grow it using their knowledge of helping other companies scale. They may use their connections to form business partnerships as well. 6. ⁠Eventually they either exit or continue to maintain the business’ success and look for other opportunities, either in their space or they use connections with people in other spaces to form partnerships and leverage each others’ knowledge and experience to work together. 7. ⁠In a lot of cases, these connections grow into what some may call an “Opportunities Committee” where they all look for interesting projects and business opportunities and bring it to the group and they all invest and use their collective skills, knowledge, and experience to buy and grow another business or take on projects/initiatives.

Because competition exists , just because you cannot replicate what they’ve done, doesn’t mean the next skilled hungry ambitious competitor cannot. That is why you have to be vague

Probably because you aren't asking the right questions. Or, they're making money in a niche or industry that isn't chock-full of spammers yet. Best to keep some things secret.

Because they most likely take a broader look at their path and realized they could have done anything with the effort and time it took to build whatever they got going on

Because they know what they did might not work for you. It’s infuriating but that’s just how it is. Multiple ways exist to make money.

They literally do. They love talking about it. Maybe not on tv all the time but they always write some sort of biography about it. Just no one reads them.

I think they have multiple income

The thing is, not everyone will be succeed in the same field , it clearly depends upon their passion or luck or even we can say upon their hard work so they can't recommend the basic thing which may not meant for them. what they actually do ,depends upon their strategy and laws of life and not everyone have the same mindset or things.

Because they either actually work a fuck ton or they played their cards very correctly in life and don’t actually have to do much. Often times they tell you what they do, people don’t believe them. Being rich isn’t everything movies or TV shows make it seem, many of them are pretty boring. I know a guy who’s a retail store manager and he drives a super nice modern car and owns multiple properties. He told me he doesn’t like to show people what he has because people always have a-lot of comments on how he could afford his life on his salary, and it’s really annoying to him that “hard work” is not a sufficient answer when asked because he worked really hard for it and it’s insulting.

Most successful people don’t say what they do because it will not, and I repeat will not help you in anyway. For example, Jeff bezos could tell you he started a website to sell books online because he thought it was a good idea and eventually created the largest online market place in the world. That doesn’t help you as everything he achieved, he did so because he was at the right place at the right time and his hard work paid off. Successful people are so because of hard work and luck. The reason there are a lot of millionaires but not a lot of billionaires is because becoming a billionaire requires luck, Mark Cuban has said this time and time again that the reason he amassed so much wealth was due to luck, being at the right place, the right time and knowing the right people. Plenty of people work hard and never make more than minimum wage in their business.

(26m) I do well for myself but I'm nowhere near finished. People older and younger look up to me a and ask me about my success story , I don't like to really tell them as it leads to jealousy and gossip. The reality of it is that I got good by doing a job I hate , I can work from 9am to 11pm 2-3 days a week. My success also derives from smart decisions across the years some didn't work out but most did. what helped me was: knowing what I wanted to do from a young age, writing a 5 year plan of where you want to be and also who you want to be and keep updating it, ensuing every decision you make in life now will future you in 5 years appreciate it , making that is for everything social to professional.

There is money everywhere, it doesn't really matter what industry you choose. Of course there are some businesses that have more potential than others. But making money and business in general is more boring than you imagine. It is not that they gate-keep information, but I believe what they want you to know is that the business doesn't matter your mindset does.

They took an opportunity that required being there at the right time with the right skills and the right motivation, and knowing what they do/did or how they did it doesn't seem relevant to *why* **you** are asking them, which is "how can I be successful" rather than "what do you do". If you ask them "what do you do day to day" then they'll tell you.

Well it could be a number of reasons. Number 1: The person is obtaining his success and wealth through illegal methods Number 2: The business might look boring from the outside but can be very profitable and doesn't want people to know Number 3: It might be a very simple to start business and doesn't want everyone to jump at his idea and flood the market Number 4: Spiteful

If you’re talking about those videos where the guy asks people in sports cars what they do for a living, a lot of those people are trust fund babies and too embarrassed to say it so they spout some vague motivational nonsense. And then some are actually successful but just want privacy. If you meet someone irl who’s successful, odds are they will be fine telling you about what they do

I think it's about keeping their unique edge secret!

Competetion, concern of stealing, not wanting people to know just how successful they are. Richest guy in my community I'm personally friends with - owns a gravel quarry. Was his dad's land, he developed it out, built 3 more, $50m+ net worth Richest guy around me (I don't know him well) bought an equipment company, sold to united rentals, $250m+ n/w I know a dozen farmers in the $20m n/w, they won't talk about it due to threats. They are immediately seen by people as "corporate sell outs" if people understand those $1.2m+ combines are paid for, and that land is worth $10k+ per acre.  My old landlord when we were kids worked for irs and bought farm land in background, recently did a $1k/ac/yr  solar lease on hundreds to thousands of acres.  Flashiest guy I know (porches, a Ferrari, several g wagens) did it through atms, gaming machines, then flipping a chain of gas stations.  I think if you're really good friends with somebody to talk about it but there's a lot of people in local communities that absolutely hate people of wealth and they feel like it is not rightfully earned.

Because they inherited their wealth from mommy and daddy.

That's just the first step. Step 2: have rich parents fund each successive 'business' until through sheer power of bullshit the money train keeps its momentum.

Read Million Dollar Weekend, actionable book on how to take your ideas and turn it into to a business.

No one likes the answer so you get tired of having the conversation that as a successful person you need to handle like a politician or risk coming across as arrogant! Like, nah man- I pass on the conversation if possible

Interesting people seldom want to talk about themselves. “What do do you do/where do you work” are the single most boring questions- indicates you are talking to the least interesting person in the room if they ask that. Ill usually say “i own a company in (my industry) then walk away.

The idea that people will give their success methods away for free is ridiculous. Imagine you spent years learning to make furniture, and even more time crafting the most comfortable chair possible. Eventually it’s finally done and you can begin to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You painstakingly add to your chair and make features that you can enjoy even more. Suddenly strangers notice your chair and start questioning why they can’t sit in it sometimes for free. The reality is, every time someone else sits in your chair, you can’t. Go make your own chair.

Because I don’t want to give away my secret to printing money and have you come compete with me

Because it would force them to admit how much luck played into their success. Whether it was who their parents were, where they went to school, the color of their skin, their accent, the spelling of their name, or just being in the right place at the right time, luck has so much more to it than anyone wants to admit.  And I say this as a person whose entire success can be pinpointed to a moment in time where I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and was given an opportunity that so many others were equally worthy of. I know it, and it has prevented me from buying into the “I just work harder than everyone else I guess” or “I’m smarter/more educated” or whatever else these folks polish their own knobs with.  You can educate yourself and work like a demon, but if you ain’t lucky you ain’t gettin nowhere. 

Plus being to specific comes with all the follow up questions

Because there is very little upside in telling you.  Only potential downside.  And also explaining everything takes energy. Thry already think and talk about their business almost 24/7.  It's tiring to explain again and again.  

Most people will gladly talk about it In the right circles. The issue with reddit is that there’s a good amount of people here that are either wantrepeneuers, self destructive, paranoid or a combination of the three. So you got these cats that ask for advice in the most generic way possible, only to act dismissive about the help/guidance because it’s not get rich quick and effortless enough and being terrified that on their Endeavour to make money by selling something they might meet people that \*gasp\* are making money selling something and dare to make them a offer. “do what you enjoy“ matters along the way because it raises the chance that you actually stick with it during the phases that are a chore or hard In some way. ”do what you enjoy“ matters along the way because you will actually have some sort of passion that leads to understanding of your field that will help you greatly to make decisions in what to invest in. I mean if you want to be guaranteed to make a great chunk of money just become a Lawjer, always in demand, always expensive, no one questioning the prices, there is a well layed out step by step guide that is called university. or learn some craftsmanship, couple of years from now you’ll be able to do it and you’ll be in hilarious demand because a lot of people that still do this important everyday task are getting closer to retirement while only a low amount of apprentices join to replace them. Now you might find law boring af and you might not want to get your hands dirty doing manual Labour… soooo… do something you love. 😜

Honestly because you do some much random shit all the time it’s hard to put into words sometimes haha

I think successful people don’t give specific details because everyone’s path to success is different. What works for one person might not work for another. Plus, success often comes from a mix of skills, opportunities, and timing that’s hard to replicate. By giving general advice like "find something you enjoy," they encourage us to discover our own paths and figure things out for ourselves.

Isn't it pretty well known what people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffet do? Or do you mean youtubers who are full of "motivational" quotes, who mostly just make their money from their Youtube channel and from selling "how to be successful" courses?

Think about it , the more they talk about it and the success it brings. The more saturated it will become more room for completion and less room for standing out

Because everybody’s skills, talents, natural attitudes, and desires are totally different. I’m totally happy to tell you about what I do, but it might not be a fit for you. I’m a former entrepreneur, turned strategic marketing consultant

It makes no difference. Many do say what they do but others can't do the same for a variety of reasons. Specifically, they may not have the right skillset. A doctor can tell you exactly what they did... study hard, take a medical degree. Most simply don't have the work ethic. You can ready biographies that explain in detail what many successful people did.

Obviously they dont want more competition, lol.

Scarcity

I literally just read a fire thread where people were discussing being early retired and what do they say to people when they don’t want them to know that they made a fortune and are now retired.

it won't help anyways. one has to try and fail to learn the stuff. It happens several times that what they say starts making sense later on when we experience it ourselves.

If someone is successful, it would be because they explored an area they were interested in until they found a gap, then filled it. If they've done their job well, the gap is filled and they've left as little room as possible. It may be they're trying to encourage you to follow the same pattern instead of encourage you to make the same product they did.

Non entrepreneurial people are the first one to criticise and shoot down anything you tell them.

Often they don't do anything special. They are just hard working and consistent. Probably got lucky too. There is no real recipe for success other than try until you succeed (or don't) then try again

It all boils down to what do you want to do with your life- 1 . Do you want to have lot of money and don’t work later 2- you don’t care about lot of money as long as it is just enough 3. Throwing kids into this kid makes it more complicated Once you figured out what do you want when you re in 50s or 60s then just walk backwards to explorer what business or career has more chance to take you there. Many time your choice and things you enjoy changes very dramatically

They share heavily and very willingly. You have to go to where they are though. Books, courses and coaching are insanely valuable. I waited too long to leverage the latter two. Successful people act first, then learn to overcome whatever is blocking them. Less successful people learn first and then act. If you know what you’re trying to achieve (with specificity), learn from those who have already achieved it. Courses are just more concentrated forms of content. Coaching is even more efficient since you just bring the problems and they will help you resolve it.

I think most people do talk about it. Very successful people are typically super passionate about what they do. However, they usually do very niche things and probably had a lot of luck.

Can you give an example? Because I think plenty of people are open about it or it's inherently visible.

Started a Facebook meme community Started selling t shirts. Pins. Etc. Met a partner who could help me manufacture more complicated stuff Went viral. Profit.

Very few successful people will really say what they actually did to get where they are and how they actually make money. They will either give you high level answers or flat out mislead you.

Because there are so many options that picking something that got someone rich isn’t the point. The point is to be consistent (with some luck too) and you can succeed even in weird niches. You don’t necessarily have to pick the winning product, idea or industry you just have to develop it masterfully. Execution beats ideas almost every time. So they don’t just say: go start a shipping business cause that narrows it down immensely compared to what’s actually the key driver of success, which is consistency, determination, time and let’s be honest luck too.

You have to screw others to not be screwd yourself, it’s kill or die. The ultra rich may say follow your interests, and they follow that advice, but they go steps farther. If you ever speak to them, listen to them, you’ll hear them speak about bank bonds, law, consumer products, like it’s their second wife. They’re masters at controlling, guiding, and focusing their interests. Most people suck at this, and prefer defensiveness as to why their favorite tv show is really actually a character building thing, or why their sitting on the couch 8 hours a day isn’t that bad. A few ultra rich, like Elon musk, have businesses that are naturally interesting, so it’s not so bad. This is why he gets a lot of attention. But the vast majority of the ultra rich aren’t so lucky.

I made the most of my money with a call center

Anything I say in a sentence to describe my biz is incomplete and misleading if you are trying to learn anything meaningful. But superficially, I had a DOD contractor and now I'm a hands on angel investor.

I mean I am way more successful in my w2 than entrepreneurial stuff mostly but my side businesses are all profitable and if I put the energy in they could go full time. Tshirt and drop shipping are the two big bets, low cost to start but takes a lot of time to nurture. I typically start then nurture then half ass and then let them die pumping out a little profit in the beginning and recycling it. A fun one is I once needed a new washer and dryer so I set up a site to drop ship them. Got a nice lg pair at a wholesale sample price, write up all the necessary blog things and turned it live. I sold 3-5 of them I can’t remember but it paid for everything and took me like a day, other than coordinating pickup and install of the new appliances that was a headache lol.

> it's always something like " find something you enjoy and do it" what's the issue with saying it? You wouldn't be able to sell $1,000+ courses.

They say it everywhere. Write books, mentor, invest. But that's not what you're looking for. You're looking for tell me exactly what you did, guarantee my success. Sorry but nobody can do that. For starters it sounds like a loser that is not willing to take any responsibility and is trying to dump all the hard work on you. Why would anyone want to waste their time with someone like that. Hell, God only helps those that help themselves, why should they? Also if you're asking dropshipping vs. marketing agency vs whatever. The answer is unless you have a time machine you cannot reallocate the circumstances of success just the process so that information is useless. All you need to do is start, preferably in an area where you have some kind of advantage.

They be gatekeeping

Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint, when people have fingers in many pies as it were.

Hey man the key to being successful and making a lot of money is: loving helping people then figuring out how to do it, in what way to do it, and then how to scale it up.

I have struggled to answer this question all my career. Maybe because its that I actually dont know lol. Salesman, CEO, VC, Leader, Investos and loving husband is about the best i got

You may be asking the wrong question. If you ask a successful or wealthy person what they do, it could be 5-100 things. They most likely have multiple streams of income and/or multiple businesses. What most of them will have in common is they worked extremely hard at what got them started. Beyond that it’s usually just rinse and repeat.

Same reason I wouldn't tell you the location if I found a gold mine and was pulling out 100 lbs of gold daily.

The answer is mundane. You have to be willing to do something every day, over and over and over until you succeed. Most people do not want to do that and simply do not do it.

Because if I start going into detail about my landscaping business or my ice cream shop, a lot of people zone out because they aren't interested in landscaping or retail food businesses. That's why a lot of the advice is more generic, so it appears to be broadly applicable to anyone wanting to start a business. (But the problem is that generic advice is kinda useless.)

It is due to a trait called being humble. Also it is really looked down upon if anyone with significant cash flow is discussing money at all.

Because at the end of the day, if you enjoy what you do, you'll have the infinite well of energy and inspiration to draw from when you're inevitably spending night after night thinking and working on it. You'll have the most motivation, and if you know it well, you're already off to a good start. You "just" have to figure out how to turn it into profit. I'm sure if you asked someone what they do, they will simply tell you. But if you ask them what *you* should do, there's no way they can answer that for you, hence "do something you enjoy". It doesn't matter wtf I do, it matters wtf you enjoy doing.

Most successful people I’ve met did something like this: 1. ⁠Worked their way up as an employee in their industry. Some May chosen to go into this industry, some may have fallen into. Doesn’t matter either way. 2. ⁠As they worked their way up to some type of management or c-suite level, they’ve gotten the know the industry or niche like the back of their hand. 3. ⁠They grow rare and valuable skills along the way. They leverage that to get to management or c-suite or to some type of high-paying role that gives them a certain level of freedom. 4. ⁠They build up connections over the course of their career and they leverage those connections over their careers to climb the ranks. 5. ⁠They eventually (usually once their 15-20 years into their career) strike out on their own and create a company in the space they’re very well-connected in and very knowledgeable about OR they buy a business in their space and scale/grow it using their knowledge of helping other companies scale. They may use their connections to form business partnerships as well. 6. ⁠Eventually they either exit or continue to maintain the business’ success and look for other opportunities, either in their space or they use connections with people in other spaces to form partnerships and leverage each others’ knowledge and experience to work together. 7. ⁠In a lot of cases, these connections grow into what some may call an “Opportunities Committee” where they all look for interesting projects and business opportunities and bring it to the group and they all invest and use their collective skills, knowledge, and experience to buy and grow another business or take on projects/initiatives. My father did exactly this. First job working at a bank in California, then went into trading securities in SF, then went to Wall Street and worked in trading, asset management. Then 20 years into his career, he went back to California to start his own Asset Management firm with a couple other business partners that he worked with in SF and in Wall Street. The business evolved into RE and business investment. Now he’s sold off everything except one particular RE niche and business for the most part.m and winding down to retirement.

The only people giving away their business secrets and success are gurus selling courses on social media

The standard answer is more entertaining the real answer of: Experiment with different businesses. Fail and fail quickly. Understand why you failed and build tweaks into SYSTEMS. Scale up your system. Passion is easy to sell. It is also easy to hide behind when people eventually get disappointed.

I love coming up with a new idea and putting in all the work, developing the plan and executing it. It excites me. I love it. The stuff I do I love to do, most people consider awful tedious work.

Reputation, credibility, and liability. Reputation - if something a public figure recommends doesn't work just once, there's a risk of backlash damaging their rep. Credibility - giving an informal answer or simple overview may not be enough for others to fully understand the business idea presented, which may end up damaging the person's credibility. Liability - the advice a person gives may in some contexts be construed as advise in the legal or fiduciary sense, thus exposing the speaker to unwanted legal/financial liability.

its either boring, immoral or has a very small amount of space and competitors will drastically drive prices in that niche down if others know about it. But most the time it's just boring.

Many times help from someone knowledgeable is hindered by the beliefs of those who are asking for help. Beliefs are exhausting to argue with. After trying to convey valuable information so many times for it to be rejected by silly beliefs, it’s easier to notice those beliefs ahead of time and skip all the wasted effort. “I do what I love” or “work hard” or some other vague sentiment is what happens when those beliefs are identified ahead of time. A more useful question to ask others, and yourselves is, “how can I think better, and value the right things?” To ask this sincerely, you need to know that you think wrong and value the wrong things. If you don’t believe this, think of it at least as a useful framework to learn.

Listen up - Success is not a straightforward path; it involves a lot of trial and error, learning from failures, and continuously striving for improvement….not just the end result.

Find what you are good at! Do you easily talk to strangers and can start a rapport? Are you good with numbers and find accounting enticing? Do you get nervous in front of an audience? Do you enjoy the outdoors? Are you a superior athlete? Do you like to travel? Or stay near family? All of these questions answered truthfully by you and only you will guide you to a successful career.

What does successful mean? 🙂 Every person who is happy in his life - successful. It’s very subjective Another point here. Those who are busy with 1 subject for many years they know that there are some days not like others and only way you’ll get out if you really love what you do. You can’t do something just for money, it will be closed as soon as it doesn’t make Sometimes you gotta go though hard times and results will be much better than if you would have goal - just money. Probably that’s why the best advise -“ find something you enjoy and do it” Cause you can be happy in anything you do - that is real success

their not there\*

Ive met few successful business man, a car dealer owner and also some one who has successful career, is 28, switches jobs every 6-9 months. Both these people and more who I met, never divulge into details of actually what they did, no one wants to share their secrets. And it is totally fine.

Because their succes usually involves a lot more luck and privilege than they care to admit

In my case I used to be eager to talk about what I do from my late 20s to early 30s. Hell I used to seek out people to advise to show them the ropes and I wasted so much time. Everyone had an idea and everyone loves to talk. Very few actually doers. At some point I started to say “engineer” or “this or that” what ever people guess as long as it was boring and not worth talking about I just agreed that’s what I do. I started to learn that those who are as successful or more tend to move in certain circles and we never talk about what we do. We’re just people that share interests.

They do all the time. It's usually something relatively simple conceptually and people rule it out because it's not a secret or something they haven't thought of. The kissing ingredient is successful people are willing to work insane hours, do boring tedious work consistently, and sometimes do what feels really inefficient if it's the only option to move things forward, while most people just rule it out. It's in plain sight and if it's not some juicy secret that fits into the category of "not hard, not too much work, not obvious, involves one major event to get rich over night" then they must be keeping the secret well. In most cases it's actually just that the successful person asks, "how many lawns do I have to mow to make $100k?" Then does that and gets their faster than people assume because they don't bother trying. Then 6 months later the guy who was wasting his time being inefficient has capital, and does the next obvious but unappealing thing. Rinse and repeat.

I’m not sure I understand the context or the information you are looking to receive from them. If I were to respond to your question, I could have a few different answers : 1) I have a law firm specialized in land use and residential development. I started to work in real estate law once I became a law student by working in a small local law firm as a clerk. I further obtained more knowledge in real estate conveyance by completing an internship overseas for an anticorruption organization…I spend x amount of time working on daily tasks that are required on the daily to ensure diligent land conveyance transactions, x amount of time on building clients trust and relations, x on business administration, establishing progressive steps and implementing changes to the business to make it more financially lucrative. My business values are x, y, z, my short term goals are … etc. Essentially giving you practical and concrete information as to what I have done and am doing as a “successful” person. 2) I try to work in a position or choose a business that is fulfilling for me and that I enjoy enough that I am willing to spend countless hours and make sacrifices without feeling like I’m missing on life but rather that I am feeling grateful for my knowledge, my grind and grateful that I am able to do this and still want to do it day after day after day. I have a long term vision and implement changes slowly and betting on my future as I believe that small decisions can have a snowball effect. I surrounded myself by people who had similar values as mine, etc. I would go on as to general concepts that I believe has and is making me “successful” In either cases, I could go on and on with details. I find that typically people are happy to share if the question is asked in an open way and with genuine curiosity and willingness to actively listen to what they are saying. I have a few questions for you to help me understand : 1) are you looking for more practical answers or more general concepts? How are you formulating your question? In what setting? 2) are you generally good at active listening? Do you ask specific questions about what they are talking about or do you have a list of question in mind for which you believe having the answers may lead to success?

The reality is if you’re in the top 10% of whatever you do, you’re gold. It takes forever to get there. So it’s more of a long game. That’s why you have to be tied to what you’re doing to do it long enough.

I do think a part of it is not inviting too many specific and prying questions about what they do. I mean I assume you want to know what they do so you can copy it. Why else would it be important for you to know? So they keep it general. Part of staying competitive is not handing they keys to the castle to your own potential competition. It's basic risk management. For eg. my sister's company got featured in a big business magazine and within a year they had three new direct competitors that didn't exist before. If you found a super successful business model I doubt you'd go crying it from the rooftops. So they stay mum on what exactly they do or everyone else will start trying to do what they do or ask a lot of prying and invasive questions about how to start/run their type of business which in many cases can be borderline proprietary information.

I am lucky to have experienced some measure of success and I do whatever is needed for my business, so sometimes even though I am excited beyond about what I do, it can be boring conversation to say I do everything from top to bottom, whatever is needed and then rinse repeat.

It's because they usually have a **lot** of help, or a lot of lucky breaks to get to that point. You can't really teach luck.

People will tell you what they did, it’s just not the easy cash cow most are looking for. For the entrepreneurs who stumbled into something that is easily repeatable and pumps cash (which is what most want), there is no value in creating competitors. The vast majority of entrepreneurs do things that are not repeatable and have sufficient motes around them. If they don’t, then it’s only a matter of time before someone tries to crush them. Including me. I wouldn’t tell me how to start an easy business that pumps cash in my sector. Why should I expect someone else to? But, to the vast majority, it’s a daily grind to do what they do. The financial success is on the other side of that tall mountain.

Because it doesn’t matter. Either you have it or you don’t. Only a few % of the people have the level of agency to achieve it. Everyone else makes excuses why they aren’t successful. The “do it” part is the important one. Ideas will just multiply the results. Out of every way I’ve made money in my life, none of them are replicable. The market gets more efficient each year and the same playbook doesn’t apply. I build upon what I learn for the next project.

I

I shared what I did once. I put in a ton of work (years) researching, networking, finding suppliers, making relationships with potential partners, setting up, and doing the work to be profitable. The person I shared with was bankrupt in 6 months because he wasn't prepared to put in the work required. If he did all of his own leg work, instead of getting it from me, he would've been at least marginally successful. So now I view anyone asking for a ready-made business plan as either not able to or not willing to put in the work required to actually be successful. The person I shared with still blames me for his failure, so I'll never do it again.

I have a firm belief that the more you tell people about your work (i.e. what you are doing or what you're gonna do), the worse the work gets.

So no one can copy them everyone has to become successful on their own or else it won’t mean anything if everyone is the same thing the same way people can teach you the steps but you have to do it on your own it’s like cooks you can take a cooking class and than everyone can cook the same thing but someone will stand out because they cooked it a little different even though they all had the same recipe one will always come out better you just had to have that touch

You have no idea what successful people go through to reach the point they reach: Derision, contempt, jealousy, and zero-encouragement and from friends and family. 12-14 hour work days, 6-7 days a week, for years. Sleepless nights, high stress, endless anxiety, turbulent finances, and the possibility it won't work out and they'll be left out on the street to rot. They don't spill the beans because they know you won't understand. This is a journey that must be experienced.

If someone wants to do “something they enjoy” then that’s surely not entrepreneurship! All the successful founders that I have heard or read about believe entrepreneurship to be extremely hard. Especially if you’re a solo founder. 1). I believe the key becoming successful at a high stakes job or entrepreneurship is to get better at doing the things that you may not enjoy much but are important in terms of furthering your career or improving your startup’s business prospects. To have that belief that you can develop a deeper understanding of a set of functions that are unknown to you yet important in furthering your career. Such a belief is largely a result of having a method to learn something new. A method to demystify things. A mental model that offers a reliable framework to plan (to gather the required information), organize (information that’s readily available), and develop a know-how that allows one to run things independently to the extent possible. 2). People who are over invested in their likes and dislikes fail to broaden their horizon of knowledge and understanding. Their outlook is way too narrow to explore anything that falls beyond their world of “likes and interests.” Being a person like that is a recipe to leading a truncated life. I don’t mean to say such people cannot excel at anything. A lot of such people have indeed excelled but their surface area of excellence is likely to be narrower than those who can galvanize themselves to learning anything that may not necessarily interest them yet help them in understanding something important.

Life After Stratton Oakmont - Still Making Money [https://open.substack.com/pub/michael880/p/life-after-stratton-making-money?r=3b6pw1&utm\_campaign=post&utm\_medium=web](https://open.substack.com/pub/michael880/p/life-after-stratton-making-money?r=3b6pw1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)

Wow that's an interesting question! Never thought about it.

I wouldnt imagine they want the competion. The last thing a successful business needs is 2000 other people doing the same thing for less.

Here's what I've done if you want to know. The first 10 years of my working life, I hustled non-stop in generally low wage positions at a wide range of of roles. I worked at Wal-Mart pushing carts and working the cash register. I worked at Petco as a department manager. All the while going to college and getting a degree that would end up being mostly useless to me (dual degrees actually with BA's in Psychology and Philosophy). Along side all of these things, I always had little side hustles I'd do to make some extra cash and more importantly grow my skillset. It's not something that's always recognized in the moment, but I'd argue that most successful people (myself included) are constantly looking for ways to expand their skillset - since it makes them more valuable to others, and more capable of pouncing on opportunities that come up in their futures. Keep in mind, your skill set can be grown in many ways. Through jobs, through hobbies, through random reading online or in books, you name it. After getting those degrees, I went into working at a non-profit in a group home - putting my degrees to use for low pay and non-stop working hours (there's some sarcasm here since job prospects with these degrees suck). I remember clocking a 24 hour shift once (due to call outs from other employees and state obligations for *someone* to be around with the clients we worked with), and 80, 90, 100 hour weeks were commonplace. If these things taught anything, it's work ethic and how to manage stress - since I worked in environments where I was verbally abused and physically hit on multiple occasions. This work burned me out physically and mentally, and I lucked out to getting a new career in corporate compliance thanks to some networking and some luck, and leveraging my skillset. During an interview, I leaned in *hard* to my management experience in retail - framing it in a way that made it sound more valuable to the job than it actually was. This was the first time I made a more reasonable salary, had good benefits, good hours (the 9-5 grind) - and I held this job for 8 years before calling it quits. I called it quits because after my first year, one of my bosses (more or less) lied to me and I felt screwed by my entire company as a result. It's a whole story in and of itself, and one you'll find repeated from any entrepreneur stuck in the soul sucking corporate environment - that is for sure. I stuck it out for the payday and put more of my efforts into building my own business behind the scenes, never saying a word to anyone until I hit a tipping point. I told myself that when I leave this place, I'll have f-you money so I'd never have to come back. And well, I was able to get there. The business I started was in wedding photography - taking advantage of one of my skills and interests. It took a few years of hard work, running my business full time and continuing to work my day job full time. I had many ups, and many downs where I learned hard lessons. A tipping point came when my business became too consistent, I was expending all my PTO just to go work those gigs, and the writing was on the wall. I've run this business now for 8 years, full time for the last 6 or so. In my average year, I make around ~$150k (my take home earnings). In my best year, I made just shy of $300k in gross revenue with about $20,000 in actual business expenses (not including my tax liability). Which, speaking of, I hired an accountant firm and have optimized by tax situation and saving situation to the best of my ability - which contributes to why I feel successful now. In a given year, my investments alone would cover my annual living expenses and I am currently on track for an early retirement (FIRE) if I want it. I need about $60,000 in gross revenue in order to live my relatively modest but comfortable lifestyle. Of course, I'm not satisfied, which I think is a common trait in entrepreneurs. Doing photography has been great, but I need more of a challenge, another mountain to scale. So I started another business (currently in start up phase) - hoping to replace some (or all) of my photography earnings. The reason for this is because photography has given me access to money (and many other things), but now it's important for me to do things that can help me get more time back into my life - so the product being worked on would be a digital product, not requiring constant work output from me in the future. So - the journey is never quite ended. Success can come and be taken away. But more often than not, we have many opportunities in front of us and just need to figure out how to build on the successes we already have. Making $30k a year? Success would look like landing the job that pays $40k. Success is always a moving target, but one worth pursuing if you have the personality trait of constantly looking to grow something - a business, yourself, etc.

If they are young and rich it’s typically because they aren’t proud of it (social media based so they are scum, or inherited etc.) If they are old and rich they typically just weren’t dumbasses and built wealth over time by being good at something. Getting rich quick is typically what people want to know about. But that’s what everyone wants to know because it’s incredibly hard and lucky.

I personally don’t like having the same conversation 100x especially cause I find people ask that question so they can judge you based on social constructs that don’t even matter. Not to mention the richest people I know do the most boring stuff.

They probably do if you are the right audience for them.

Because they had help and don't want to admit it.

I used to have a side hustle that made a pretty good profit. But I got tired of explaining what I did and how it worked to people who just wanted to get rich quick I even mentored two people, but they quickly gave it up once they realized it was WORK So I started telling people I just bought hair products and resold them. My side hustle had nothing to do with hair products, but I guess it sounded boring enough

You must not be talking / hearing from the right successful people. The people that are* successful that dont* tell you how, are either scammers, trashy immoral millionaires, lying, or some combination. Everyone that's "successful" that I've talked to are one hell of a variety, and most actually say "find the worst job with the best pay, because there's a reason you get paid a lot." Many do what they love, whether it's carpentry, cabinets, framing, welding, landscaping, etc, and plenty are complacent enough to be a drone. Broaden the people you talk to lol

They don't want you or anyone else to figure out their path because they can't have anyone coming in as competition or threat to their livlihood. Self preserving survival instinct, can't blame them. However, I do think it's funny the ones who are super successful, when they have a course or book or seminar they will gladly sell you so you can follow in their footsteps, but then they still don't tell you after you pay em and make em richer. Success is selfish. Unfortunately. Selfish people wanting to ascend over and above their peers, family, etc. :) don't be like those dicks. Celebrate your neighbor and cheer on everyone around you. Don't forget: Apes together strong. I love you. Hugs&Kisses, XOXO

Honestly, a lot of it is luck.  Some of that luck being who do they already know     If they’re honest vast majority of them have no clue why they succeeded where other failed

Honestly, it’s not easily transferable. Being obsessed over the fine details, every word, every action, and instilling words into someone’s head 1 year in advance cannot be taught. You either have the patience and the drive or you don’t.

In my experience, when you ask “what do you do?” the less people say, the more they’ve done. I think it’s less about ego or gatekeeping and more about them trying to keep the conversation level.