Personally, I am finishing a Bachelor degree in Business and Administration. I can say that not all courses were useful for me, but there were courses which strongly developed myself, gave new and useful knowledge and so on. I understand that people gain success, there are real examples. Sometimes it is happens occasionally, sometimes not, anyway it can be. If you want to develop yourself without the education then I would suggest to read books and articles, watch Youtube and best way is to learn from people who have already gained something.

learn how to trade stock options. there is no career in the world where you can make more money than trading stock options

Practical example: myself. I'm a successful self-employed personal trainer and gym owner.

Got out of school (barely graduated) and got a decent full time job making $35,000 a year managing corporate fitness sites (this was fifteen years ago). Had my own part time gig (training) making about $30 an hour about 5 hours a week.

I did the math. $35k a year hourly for the hours I was putting in was about $17.50 an hour (working 2000 hours a year or 40 hours times 50 weeks). I could work 30 hours a week at $30 an hour and make $45k a year training full time. Plus in theory my ceiling is unlimited because I can raise my rates, work more hours - I just need to be able to find and retain clients. So sitting in a corporate job made zero sense to me. I pulled the plug and didn't look back.

It meant a lot of shit eating and heavy work hours, plus stress from variable income. If you can't handle that, don't waste your time. Ask yourself if you like security. One month I had literally half my clients decide to vanish up to the cottage for the summer and my income got cut in half, literally within a two week period. It's stressful.

Now I make $80 an hour and work about 25 hours a week actually with clients. You do the math. Plus have income from my gym and passive income from other trainers. Next year I'm planning on reducing my hours and hopefully still bringing in 125k but only working 20 hours a week. And if I want to I can make more.

Make your time valuable for what you do, and then create multiple streams of income. Even $200 a week is an extra 10k a year.

Even on top of all of that, know what: I'd still get the degree. It gives you a fall back position and ability to get a job if the bottom falls out, plus you are super young and have ten years to figure it out. Get an education. I didn't have one which is why I had to go all in on working for myself, but if I had the choice I would have gotten a degree as well because it would have opened a lot more doors.

Working for yourself isn't the only way - but it is very effective. Just be aware of the pitfalls and that you have to work your ass off.

> Is Entrepreneurship the only way to pass the 6 digits counter?

No, it isn't. There are lots of ways to get rich. The Law (here in the US) is extremely lucrative. As with anything there are rich and poor in the field.

You can learn great skills toward that end in college, and also in the military. Which (here in the US again) is a great way to earn that college degree without any debt.

Most of the guys I know that have made the money you're talking about, impressed somebody who then lifted them up to another level. In some cases they stayed in the same job, but now had richer clients (a lawyer friend). In other case, the guy was given a partnership opportunity in a business. The young man brought work effort and the older man brought cash and wisdom. Yet another guy took his military and police background to the Middle East after 9/11 is making 6-figures, tax free, with basic living expenses covered (he also only sees his family 4 months a year).

Just remember: anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

Junior in college here.

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Economics and Finance major. I'm applying to big banks, you can make a large salary there. You'll learn about investments, my family owns two houses in a shitty town and that grown me interested in alternative investments and real-estate investments.

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I recommend Economics, you will learn about the most important thing to anyone, money.

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Also I recommend a fraternity, just find the right one. I now have 100+ brothers, which 80 of are business majors. A couple of them now works at J.P, Secret Service, BoA. A couple will be entrepreneurs. Some might do well, some might not, but we're here for them. Make friends that will set you for life.

My definition of "wealthy" is if I decide to cash in my chips tomorrow and live my days out I could do so comfortably.

Economics is a good choice.

Wealth can be created without being an entrepreneur, but it can take longer.

If someone is making $120 -$200 k a year, there’s plenty of opportunity to live below their means, save save save, invest invest invest, and repeat.

You can also join a start-up as an early employee - hopefully it’s a good enough idea that the business gets acquired or IPOs.

My main goal in all honesty is money. I heard so many times that "aiming for riches" is bad

Aiming for riches is great.

Yes, I see people who earn around $120.000 a year and in 8-9 years they might reach the 1 million counter.

Not really. $90k after taxes, save half, that's 20 years to reach $1m. The interest is barely covering depreciation of the dollar.

Could you give me a general advice about how to get educated about this stuff in a self-taught manner, and your thoughts on Economics' degree? Is Entrepreneurship the only way to pass the 6 digits counter? Thank you in advance.

Look at it this way.

You want eg $1m. So does EVERY OTHER FUCKER out there.

So you gotta be good. It's going to be a lot of work. Forget "investing" as a way to make money, this is a complete fucking myth for young people / beginners. You need expertise that takes years to accumulate, and not everyone can invest and profit. So how can YOU win at this? Well, you gotta get good and better than most other people.

Is Entrepreneurship the only way to pass the 6 digits counter?

No, it's just one way.

There's also:

• Highly paid job
• Domain expertise and consulting
• Luck / investing (very expensive if unlucky)

Here's a tip for you: avoid anything where you get free money. This is always risky and usually involves someone else winning (eg crypto currency, stocks and shares, etc).

TL;DR: It's hard. Get good.

You're on the edge of discovering that you live in a shit country.

And to answer your initial question: No. You might be lucky, but it's not how it usually ends and it's not the only way. That dream of this minimum chance of being lucky enough and make it(!!!!) is what keeps you all going.

If you want to become rich you have to learn about the different types of investments: Real estate, stocks, bonds, businesses, etc. Not just a quick glance either, there's a ton of information that takes months of studying to absorb

Each has its own risk/reward ratio and the younger you are the more risk you should take

Your goal should be self-sufficiency for now.

Here is an interesting article about income by profession. Entrepreneurs are only briefly covered, but this should give you a rough idea of how lucrative established professions can be.

If you don't already have a good business idea that you are committed to, you should definitely go to college. You will learn far more than you know now and will make good contacts and improve people skills.

If starting a company is your goal, you can work on this at college and if you happen to get something worthwhile going, you can always drop out then.

The people who skip or drop out of college and become multi-millionaires are a) incredibly rare, and b) already had a business or two going beforehand that they decided to pursue.

At 18, you have no business being an entrepreneur.

Successful entrepreneurs are people who have some special skill(s) and identify some new good or service--or some cheaper way to provide an existing good or service--before someone else does. Unless you've learned a trade growing up, there isn't anything you can provide at this point. The cold, unpleasant truth is that Idea Men are a dime a dozen and don't contribute anything on their own.

Even if you do find an idea or market that no one else has, and have the skill to capitalize on it, there is no guarantee of success. The overwhelming majority fail. Of those that succeed, few earn their founders millions. Even if the business is profitable, the entrepreneur may barely scrape by.

This isn't to say that you must give up on the dream of starting your own business or being your own boss, but fresh out of high school you have nothing to offer. If you can afford college, study something technical and perhaps get a business minor. Technical skills are valuable for both your $120,000/year "slavery" (eye roll) and for founding your own business later on. Or, consider learning a trade. Skilled tradesmen are in short supply in developed countries, and many plumbers/electricians/etc. go on to start their own small businesses once they have the experience under their belt.

Working for a salary is not popular among TRP writers, but I say that's bullshit. I'm a physicist, just got out of grad school, and make a damn good starting salary. I work any 40 hours a week I choose in a sweet office building, get an 8% 401(k) match, and all that shit. It might take me a couple decades to become a millionaire, but it's a hell of a lot more certain than any entrepreneurship. Don't sell a professional career short.

You noted that people who say ‘aiming for the riches is bad’ is blue pill thinking.

As cliche as this may sound, it’s important to aim for something that you love or something that interest you. Otherwise, you could be creating your own prison.

In addition, money will not bring you happiness but it makes things a lot easier.

Go get the money but don’t forget to balance it with things you love.

Try things out and figure out what you like, you find yourself through your actions.

Balance entrepreneurial isolation with friends, events, conferences, etc.

It’s easy to fall into grind mode and shut out the world. It’s hard to balance being an entrepreneur while pursuing what you love.

Just some thoughts to consider from my experience.

You could easily(or well, not easily, but...) go into a leadership position and make bank. You don't have to start your own business to become an CEO/CTO or the something. Plenty money to earn, stock options, bonuses+++

Software engineering can get you hundreds of thousands per year for senior roles if you're good and you can find companies where you don't need to work for more than 8hrs/day. You would need to live in SF Bay area/NYC/Seattle as salaries are not comparable everywhere. B.Sc is often enough and some engineers don't even have a degree (rare though).

As long as you're working for someone else you are selling your time. Some people make great money song this: models, CEOs, celebrities, etc. For the rest of us, entrepreneurship offers a path to unlimited wealth, the risk is high but so is the reward.

Wasn't expecting to make such a discussed topic in here, thanks for everyone's input

There's multiple ways to become wealthy, it all depends on you.

You can always invest money in stocks, real estate or even cryptocurrency if you think it will boom again.

Or you can work in a high-degree field and make a good salary...

Or you can even go in sale department jobs where you earn comission? based on your performance.

I suck at English, but there's multiple way to make money, you'll need to find your own way to make some money

Starting a business is inherently risky and most of the business owners I know are far from wealthy. More importantly, if you have to ask if it's something you should do, then that's a sign that maybe it isn't. Entrepreneurship chooses you. The drive to build that business should be so strong that you almost can't help but to go out and get started and most likely wouldn't even consider asking random people on Reddit if it's a good idea.

Sales is also another viable path to millionaire status. You need to choose the right field and you need to be willing to work your ass off, but the money is there.

Regardless of what path your choose, if you aren't willing to work your ass off, get the whole millionaire thing out of your mind. The self-made millionaires who had an easy path are anomalies.

If you're uncomfortable with the idea of putting in 10-12 hour days on a regular basis and for years in a row, then you might be happiest if you focus on adjusting your income expectations. There is nothing wrong with that, many if not most people prefer a "comfortable" lifestyle that doesn't require them to work so hard or for so many hours and they are more than happy to forego higher income levels to have that comfort.

The point is, I really often read that graduating in universities is useless if you want to reach a 7 digits net worth. They just turn you into a slave. Yes, I see people who earn around $120.000 a year and in 8-9 years they might reach the 1 million counter. But you'll get that only if you work hard 12 hours a day for someone who earns your money in a much smaller period of time.

Read from where? Bud, if you were a genius that didn't need to go to university, you wouldn't be on TRP. Smarten up and go to college like the rest of us 'slaves'.

Could you give me a general advice about how to get educated about this stuff in a self-taught manner, and your thoughts on Economics' degree?

So you want to get rich... and want to major in Econ? You're 25 years behind. Do CS, Math or Engineering, work in a startup or Big 4, profit. Wall Street is dying, and even if you do make it there, that's where the real slaves work.

You're really ignorant right now, bluntly put. You've got a lot of research to do.

Don't choose economics unless you're going to be an investment banker. The only jobs that's quickest to 6 figures straight out of college is investment banking and working as an engineer in top tech firms (google, facebook, etc.). Everything else is a lie, always ask the salary and growth over the years when you network with grads, you need to hear the numbers yourself. Always ask for the exact figure. Now you know something I wish I knew before.

Do not major in economics, it is a worthless degree. Accounting is the only non-worthless business degree.

In my opinion being a entrepreneur is the only way. But first, what do you consider wealth? Wealth is nothing if you don't have time, wealth is nothing if you don't have health, wealth is nothing if you have to sit in a dark stinky office. At a regular job you just get paid for you time. Wealth = created by time and being physically there.

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However, if you for example develop a service or product your wealth is not bound to time and being physically present. I believe that a educational background is not required. Sure education is required to get a job and mostly are the credentials to it. But think about the tech industry. Most guys haven't done a IT bachelor's, a lot was self taught just by reading on the internet and just being practical. At the end customers and a businesses only care if you get the job done.

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For me personally, I used to think of doing a lifetime IT-oriented consultant career at a big firm. Then I started thinking. What am I doing? Working my ass off for something that isn't mine, for limited rewards, for tasks that I can't control, for a boss that can kick me out in the current SJW era?

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Now I am doing everything to gather knowledge and meeting people that help me in developing services that don't have all the negative factors. I rather spend 5 years having fucked up and maybe going back to just being employed, than just not trying and settle for mediocrity. Wealth is a game-changer, to me, higher than woman, higher than friends, higher than having fun in the short term instead of the long term.

Go read the millionaire next door. Wealth is created by savings, not income. Think about that. It makes PERFECT sense. It doesn't matter how much you earn if you can't save it.

True wealth is created by compounding interest. Saving your first chucks of money are hugely important.

MOST ALL startup/small business fail. When they fail, they cost you capital and opportunity cost.

In the US, you should easily be worth $1MM by your early 30s if you're earning $100k/yr. If you can't achieve this, you're living in the wrong area (junior techie living in SF), or you're spending too much (how's that new car again?).

If you work hard for the The Man, you should be able to have a $4MM+ net worth by your late 40s. (note, that is in 2018 dollars, mentally adjust for inflation.)

go read mr. money mustache.

at 18 years old you have no value to offer a business. figure out what you're good at. figure out what you like to do. go find a company doing that and LEARN. At some point you will find a problem to solve and go for it.

When you work a job, you are selling your time at a fixed rate.

People can (and do) jack that rate up pretty high. Last I checked, a world-class neurosurgeon makes $350k a year.

That's nice, but as others have noted, that means the moment you stop working, you stop making money.

Becoming an entrepreneur changes the equation. Instead, you're selling units of product. Or subscriptions. Or whatever other metric.

This produces a big shift in mindset.

You see, when you're receiving a salary, there's a perverse incentive against working hard. If you bust your ass and don't get a raise/promotion, then that makes you a sucker, doesn't it?

But if you're selling units, it trains you to think differently:

• Instead of trying to "run out the clock," you're actively engaged in trying to hit sales numbers.
• You train yourself to look for actions with disproportionate results.
• You become a fucking sensei of task-prioritizing.
• You learn to be decisive.

I've been an entrepreneur for 7 years, during which time I've mentored a half-dozen other successful entrepreneurs.

If I ever became an employee again, and I wouldn't, they'd guaranteed make me a VP of something. Why? Because I've had 7 years experience strategizing, prioritizing, managing people, and being relentlessly decisive. Not many people can do that, and you sure as shit won't learn it from being an employee.

So, where do you start? That's a whole 'nother comment or post.

Of course not, climbing the corporate or craftsmanship ladder has higher median wealth with lower risk of failure. Investments allow income when not working and pretty much all high income individuals have lots of investments; they're not sitting in a savings account.

focusing too much on women

It's actually unnecessary to go roundabout. You'll see some of the best naturals as relatively bum-my but have an active social life. The gym rat chad with an average job is more common than the renaissance man chad.

You need to find an intersection between your interests and a promising path to wealth. An econ major is a good way to explore it if you don't know what your interests are. Just don't let school get in the way of your education; you have to keep pursuing the details of what you're interested in.

People who earn 120k a year do not reach millionaire status in 8-9 years. If you earn 120k a year, about 35k of that is taxes. Plus you're probably spending another 2k or so on medical insurance premiums, 20-30k on rent/mortgage depending on where you live, at least 2k on gasoline, clothes, and dry cleaning, and you haven't even eaten yet. And I'll bet you like having the internet at your residence and owning a cellular telephone. And cars and shit around the house break all the time. And people don't give you electricity and natural gas and water and pick up your garbage for free.

Yes. You can become the highest paid exec at a company. It all stops when you die or retire. Building a business or acquiring assets is the only way to make your wealth last for generations after you are gone. Assuming you taught your family the ins and outs of money and asset allocation and management. Otherwise they will probably sell all your shit and ball on on dumb shit.

Edit: I must add that you must really want it. And be able to persevere through failures because you WILL fail. Being able to get back up as quickly as possible is what will determine your success. Learn from other people’s mistakes. The world isn’t all trial and error.

Graduating from a university is not useless. It's not about becoming a slave, you get a lot of knowledge, and the biggest thing is connections. If you want to be an entrepreneur connections will get you far. At the very least having a degree is something to fall back on if your business fails.

I know doctors who make 200k-250k a year and just clock in and out without much effort. Being an entrepreneur is a 24/7 job.

money is about how value do you have and do you produce
if you make music you start making 0€ then you make 10€ then you try to increase your value (people want you to perform live, you make soldout)
This is for everything: soccer, music, influencer...

No. You can become wealthy many different ways but it us much harder at a company where bosses take credit and grab all of your good ideas.

In my view, getting rich is a long term process that requires discipline and is highly correlated with taking good risks. Very few people are willing to make business best and they will never be rich.

can you really start a business without having any educational background?

Yes, and you will most likely fail. That's why you don't take a 100k loan for your first business. Be fine with failing and look at it as a payment for a practical class. I'd been failing for 1.5 years until I managed to launch a successful business.

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my family never taught me anything neither school did

And they never will. It is up to you to try and fail. I've learned that failure is the best teacher. You know how older people keep saying "You'll understand when you grow up"? It's like that. Right now you don't understand how failure could be your biggest friend. But when you fail, learn from your failure and try again, that's when you'll understand the true benefit of failure.

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I am running my own small business currently in a field I have been working as an employee for 5 years prior to my company opening. It's a basic business, but it took real world experience (I'm 30), enough technical aptitude to perform all of the tasks required to actually get paid, and knowing how money works.

My accounting classes were chocked full of good information and I learned about the flow of money. People here are right, your mindset changes.

I think if you want to start your own company you should learn accounting 1&2 at least, marketing, and economics as you suggested too .. to start.

Then, I would find a field you are interested in and either work for a company or find a solution to a problem facing people within that industry. Business is fun, good luck.

can you really start a business without having any educational background about how money work and the overall economic system?

Yes.

However, without a grounding in running a business (which you can get without an education, but you need to get it somewhere) you're probably going to fail.

It's hard for a total beginner to understand the concepts,

Which is why you need to find someone who can at least give you a basic idea of what to do and what not to.

how to get educated about this stuff in a self-taught manner,

Get a RobinHood account and start paper trading. It'll take a while and you'll lose everything multiple times, but you'll get the hang of things.

l.o.t.t.e.r.y

You need to work as a wage-slave for a few years:

1. To learn from your boss
2. To save money to start your own business
3. To find problems that need solving

Then you can start your own business

Be careful who you get your business advice from. Too many people out here dropshipping or selling tuppaware acting like they run a huge enterprise. You wanna know the hard to swallow truth, you can’t just walk off your job and say I’ll never be an employee again, and listening to these “theories” from self proclaimed entrepreneurs won’t do you much good. Your first step before you consult anyone is save a large pile of money. At least 10% of every paycheck going into an account not touched for a year. Check back after that time so you can start your business or invest.

I studied econ and graduated last year. I immediately jumped into tech sales with a goal to get an MBA and transition into entrepreneurship in the future. A great resource that helped me to understand working for someone vs working for yourself was a book called "Efficiency" by Wall Street Playboys. It's a great read that based on this post I think it'd be a great place to start for you.

Take a job consulting out of college. They pay ~$100k per year starting, send you all over the world, and work you enough so that you won't have time to spend your money. Rent a shithole apartment in whatever city you're located in, and invest as much as you can (preferably something paying dividends, like real estate). By the time you exit consulting into a cushy management job, you'll have a few hundred thousand through investments and hopefully some passive income.

Define wealthy. I work at startups for preIPO stock and have had one successful IPO (Trulia) and two upcoming IPOd with significant stock (Pinterest and Uber). I’m not going to be a billionaire doing this but my hourly rate is pretty nuts, esp if Uber and Pinterest have very successful IPOs.

Mark Cuban has a lot of insight.

Here is my advice.

There is a lot to learn in any field and nothing gets you prepared to do something like an expert than hands on experience. So, get a job in a small company and volunteer for everything you can that solidifies your expertise

Your expertise is what you get paid for. No matter what your field, it boils down to expertise. So, the other day I paid an IT guy to come in and in 7 minutes he had a serious bullshit problem squared away. 270.00 am hour and s what I paid him. He told me I had 53 minutes left so he went through 7 pc and gave me a report on what I’m looking at coming my way.

I own my own business I make over 100k. Guess what the big secret is ? I show up on time, I do what I say I am going to do, and I do it very well.

More power to you if you want to try, but don't be blind to how many fail. It's no different than people who want to become rappers or house flippers. They caught a bug by watching it on tv or online and think they can be the next chosen one. You see only the handful that have made it and not all those who blew up their finances trying. If you can pull it together, then of course entrepreneurship is the best. But it it is not the only way. I've bene hourly or salary all my life and am doing better than a lot of people who make much more than me. I learned how to invest and not eat at Olive Garden every night. I've also driven shitty cars forever. Just saying entrepreneurship is not the only route.

Learn by failure

Don’t start a business in something you’re familiar with, find a decent idea and learn everything about it. Watch your idea fail, try again, fail again and at some point things are bound to go right.

Realize you know nothing so avoid huge risks

Learn a skill that benefits other businesses and teach it to yourself on the side. The skill should be lucrative and ahead of it's time i.e. they don't teach you much about it in business school.

Go to business school to learn accounting and finance and above all make connections with other future business owners that will give you their money. That's what I did.