You want to become financially free and make a lot of money, but you are most probably solving for the wrong money problem and at the wrong time, just like the 99% of people are.

In this letter, I want to share with you a simple concept that took me too long to learn, the concept is “solving the money problem”. So, here is the outline for this letter:

1. What is the money problem?

2. How I learned it and solved for it?

3. How you can solve it for yourself in order to make money?

Let us get started.

What is the money problem?

It is well-known that whenever you identify the right problem, you become 50% closer to the solution. So, the natural question here would be: “what is the problem we are solving for?”

The answer: to make money, more of it, and as much as possible.

Note that many people skip this part, they do not define the right problem, which is one of the reasons why they do not make money (I have seen this happen many times, myself included).

Let me take your through the process and let us define the problem together.

Great, so… how is money made?

Money is usually made either through a job, real estate investing, buying stocks, trading the markets, starting a business, offering a service/product, buying, & selling other people products/services, inheriting money, winning the lottery, and so on.

We can agree that these are valid ways where, if done right, would lead to more money.

Now, let us categorize the above to find what are the common inputs needed to achieve them. They come down to the following:

1. Use our time & effort to make money – job, offering a service

2. Using money to make money – real estate investing, buying stocks

3. Get lucky & get money – winning the lottery, inheriting money

It becomes clear that we either need time, effort, money, or luck in order to make money.

Side note: this breaks the common false belief people have which is “money is needed to make money.”

To illustrate this point, we can draw the following schematic based on the information:

This shows that if we “input” time, effort, money, or luck into something, we will “output” money. Interesting.

And the inputs depend on the individual, it depends on you. Let us say you do not want to put in time, effort, or even money in order to make money, this means that you will depend on luck to do so because there is no other way. Simple.

Here is a secret: most people do this by the way, they only depend on luck, and this is something you should exactly not do (never follow the crowd). Even if it is an option here, and even there is a possibility, I never consider it because it is simply not controllable. Keep in mind that everything is possible, but not everything is probable.

So, if we know what inputs are needed to make money, what is the that box in the middle?

This is the interesting part and where people make the most mistakes; it is called your “vehicle.” You either create it or use someone else’s vehicle. And certain vehicles have certain requirements, some are high and some are low, some are easy and some are hard. Some have external things which affect the performance of that vehicle. Thus, choosing the wrong vehicle at the wrong time will lose you money and time.

The key point here is that you cannot choose anything or what someone tells you because it worked for them and try to make it work for you, it does not work that way (I wish it was that easy). You need to choose the right one given your situation (the inputs you have). And let me break it to you, most of the time, it is not real estate investing or buying stocks, or investing in general. I have seen many make this mistake repeatedly and get trapped.

This is the problem we are solving for, the “money problem” which is:

"Given my situation right now, in terms of the time I have, the effort I can put, the money I have, what is the vehicle I should choose that will work and make me money"

How I learned it and solved it?

23rd November 2019... nothing was going right, nothing worked, and I needed money. I was looking for solutions.

I attended an event in Dubai where the well-known figures of the business world were speaking that day, the likes of Gary Vaynerchuck, Grant Cardone, and others. The event promised that you will find a way to make money. Exactly what I needed.

At the end of that day, I ended registering for 2 workshops, one to do with trading the financial markets and the second to do with social media marketing. Also, there was one speaker, who talked about real estate investing in the UAE and gave me a signed copy of his book. I ended up buying his workshop later when I was sent an email about it.

During that time, I was also reading books as I look for solutions, particularly by Robert Kiyosaki. And started meeting people. I was committed to find an answer.

The common theme there, with all that I did, was real estate investing. I was sold the idea that this is how you can make money with little to no money down, easily, and with low risk. Also, all the wealthy people have real estate, right? I thought I found the perfect solution. But I could not have been more wrong.

See, I did not understand the money problem, neither I understood the choices I had, I was influenced but what everyone was doing, and, I wanted a quick way out of my situation (looking for a shortcut).

Looking back now, I see why it was the wrong decision. I was solving the wrong money problem. I was solving it at the wrong time.

This is where I learned about the money problem along several lessons which are:

• The only person who knows what is best for you is YOU – problem: they knew what is best for them

• Everyone has a motive and its most probably not in your best interest - problem: they make money selling something easy either through a commission or a guide

• If you want to make money, you need to be independent, and to be independent, you need skills - problem: I lacked the skills and was depending on others

• We live in an age of talkers that have not walked the talk - problem: I did not investigate what they did and how they make their money

• Cashflow always before investing in anything, you will make mistakes and you need ammo - problem: a single mistake got me stuck in the process of getting rid of it for years with losses

It was my fault, there were problems I did not see and to be honest, I did not know any better at that time.

Now, I want to pass these lessons to you and show you how to put it into practice and use it for yourself… without the loss, sacrifice, and delay.

How to solve it for yourself and make money?

So, lets get into it.

We have laid out the following:

• Your goal (output): make money, more of it, as much as possible

• What is needed (input): time we have, effort & sacrifices we can make, money we have, or luck (we will not consider luck)

• The problem (money problem): “Given my situation right now, in terms of the time I have, the effort I can put, the money I have, what is the vehicle I should choose that will work and make me money”

• The solution (vehicle): the vehicle (which is the empty square you saw in the image above)

There are many vehicles out there to choose from and it is important to understand the options available to you. See, I did not understand this, I thought there was one that was the best. It is simply not true. I repeat, each one should be used in the right time. Here are some examples:

• Job - your 9-5

• Business - can be a brick-and-mortar store or an online business, also can be service-based or product-based

• Real Estate - can be real estate investing, flipping, or development

• Stock Market - can be holding for the long term or day trading

• Cryptocurrencies - can be buying NFTs, to minting your own collection, to investing (HODLing) or trading

But which one should you choose? and which one is the best for you at the given time?
Note: I did not say which one you want but what is best for time being. This is a common trap many fall into, they confuse the two.

To answer that, we need to first break down the vehicle to its core components (as you can see in the image above). Each of the vehicles mentioned above has 5 main parts which are:

1. Risk - what is the probability of the vehicle to lose you money instead of making you money?

2. Return - how much will the vehicle give you based on how much you put in?

3. Pre-requisite - what are the requirements for you in terms of knowledge and skills to use this vehicle?

4. Limit - what are the limits a vehicle that restricts your returns?

5. External Factors - what are out of control things that can affect this vehicle and make it fail?

Now, lets take an example to make it clear. This example most probably will apply to you, which is the job vehicle.

• The vehicle: Job

  • Risk: moderate risk - can be fired/sacked and replaced whenever the management decides with no where to fall back on

  • Return: you put in time (average 8 hours, but work goes beyond and it become 10-12 hours) and effort to make an average return of 20,000 AED ($5,181) which is the average salary in the UAE.

  • Pre-requisite: a certain skill, work experience, at least a 4-year degree or a 12-year high-school degree. It requires mainly time and effort available from your side and not money because a job is you going on someone else's vehicle where that someone put the money in for it.

  • Limit: it is extremely unlikely get a 200% raise/promotion a year no matter how much time and effort you put in. You should be really lucky but we don't depend on luck. A big limiter for the output (money) because, again, its someone else's vehicle.

  • External factors: economy goes bad, a pandemic, an earthquake

You can clearly see that to get into this vehicle you need years of preparation to get into someone else's vehicle where you trade your time and effort for money while having a big limiter with a moderate risk of it stopping to make you money.

Now, you can see that a once confusing and hard to solve problem has become very easy after breaking it down into small pieces. Let us summarize everything in 5 steps for you to take action:

1. The Inputs

   • How much time do you have available per day?

   • How much effort are you willing to put in per day?

   • How much money are you willing to lose?

   • Have you been depending on luck till today?

2. The Outputs

   • What is it that you want?

   • How fast and how much of it?

3. The Problem

   • What is your money problem?

4. The Solution

   • Which vehicle will you choose?

   • What is the average return of that vehicle?

   • What are the risks?

   • What are the requirements and how will you meet it?

   • What are the restrictions and limitations?

   • What are random factors that are out of control?

5. Put it into action

Note: my personal favorite vehicle is business and it has always been. I know that some of you know me as the trading guy or investing guy, I am not, that is something I do and it is a business to me.

Now, this should answer the question of "what should I choose and where should I put my money". I wanted to get this out of the way as I get asked this question almost daily.

Now…let us talk business.