3 SIMPLE STEPS FOR GENERATING WEALTH
Table of Contents
3 SIMPLE STEPS FOR GROWING YOUR WEALTH
The formula for generating long-term wealth is simple.
The technical aspects to executing the formula might be difficult at times, but the concept itself is very easy to understand.
It can be simplified down to a 3-step process:
- Spend less than you make.
- Invest your excess capital into investment vehicles you understand.
- If you don’t understand an investment vehicle, then invest in your own education – find a course, a coach or a mentor to guide you.
Repeating these 3 steps puts the odds significantly in your favor for growing wealth over long-term time horizons.
The key here is that you invest your excess capital in vehicles and assets that you understand.
If you don’t understand how cryptocurrency markets work but you decide to invest in them because of all the hype surrounding them, you’re significantly more likely to lose money. You’ll be one of the masses who buy at the worst possible time, and then sell at the worst possible time.
If you don’t understand the real-estate market but a friend talks you into buying a property despite not having any experience in that world, you’re significantly more likely to make mistakes and poor judgment – and lose money.
There are many examples I could use, but hopefully you get the idea – if you want to make your money work for you then invest it in ways where you understand the risks, the potential rewards, and you have confidence in the quality of your decisions and judgment.
And again – if you don’t have an investment vehicle where you understand the risks, rewards and have confidence in your judgment – go back to Step 1 and invest in yourself, your skills and your own education.
Another key element for generating wealth over the long-term is to decouple your time from your income. This isn’t always necessary, especially if you can charge a very high price for your time, but it certainly helps speed up the process if your income is not bound to your time.
Either your main income needs to be decoupled from the direct amount of time spent laboring, or your secondary income through investments and side-hustles needs to be decoupled from your time.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day to spend doing work to generate income. People who become incredibly wealthy tend to spend that time very differently from those who never become wealthy.
Spoiler alert: wealthy individuals don’t always work more, or harder, or longer than others. Often they do work very hard – but they also work smarter and more efficiently than others. They’re more calculated in the approach they take to money.
They spend their time in ways that truly move the needle in terms of getting the most “bang for their buck”, where the buck is not necessarily money, but more importantly their time.
Money is not attracted to hard work.
Money is not attracted to long hours spent toiling away.
Money is not attracted to those who take the “safe” and popular route through life.
Money is attracted to simplicity, the path of least resistance, calculated risk-taking, and efficient deployment in ways that generate compound interest – and eventually, like a snowball, money becomes attracted to money. This is why the “rich get richer” – the more money you generate, the more money-making opportunities open up to you.
I’m not exactly a rich person (yet!), but I have certainly made more money in the past few years than I thought was possible for me and my background as a broke university dropout. And so due to my experiences so far, I feel qualified to share my thoughts on this subject to some degree.
As a trader and investor first and foremost, the art of attracting and generating money and profit is obviously a major contemplation in my line of chosen work.
It’s not the only contemplation, as I’m not a very materialistic person by nature, but it is still a very important aspect of life that I think about deeply and often since my job is essentially to take money and find ways to make it into more money.
I’m still learning and internalizing a lot of these wealth-generating ideas and habits myself through the help and guidance of those who are far further along the path than I am (aka mentorship figures), but I can confidently say through personal experience that this approach to generating wealth does work.
DISCONNECT YOUR TIME FROM YOUR INCOME
I can attribute any budding financial success I’ve had so far to two key ingredients: decoupling my time from my income, and investing my excess capital in assets and investment vehicles I thoroughly understand.
How you do this is up to you, and depends entirely on your own specialized skills, strengths and weaknesses which you need to discover for yourself through trial and error, reflection, and good old fashioned “having a go”.
I can’t recommend a one-size-fits-all solution to disconnecting your time from your money because we’re all different and have different skills and interests and there are many ways to achieve this (including trading), but it’s something I want you to think about because it has been a key milestone for me in my own journey of wealth-creation.
For me the way I decoupled my time from my income was obviously learning how to trade and invest, but also to start selling digital products – in my case that is online courses where I teach other traders how to build their own tools and trading systems through mastering the skill of writing code.
I spend a lot of time working on these products and content to make the quality as high as possible, but once the content is created, I can sell that same product multiple times, all over the world, at all times of day, with minimal maintenance or expenses.
I sell these courses at prices far below the value they generate my students and clients through the skills that I teach, and yet I still make a decent income whether I’m awake and working, asleep and dreaming, or even sick or on holiday and doing no work at all. I don’t trade my time directly for money anymore.
This has created a disconnection between the time I spend working and the amount of income I can generate from that work – as opposed to a wage or salary, which I’ve spent plenty of time working for in the past but did not generate any lasting wealth.
Some months are better than others – sometimes my business generates more money than my trading or investing on a given month, and sometimes my trading and investing generates more money. Some months I spend a lot of time working on my courses, and other months I spend a lot of time working on system development and backtesting.
But I’ve escaped the trap of trading my time directly for dollars – and now my money works for me.
Remember: we’re not just traders and investors, we’re entrepreneurs. We’re in the business of working for ourselves – and that attitude should be a core pillar of our lives whether that’s in the markets or outside the markets.
I’m not saying you should quit your job and go out on your own if you have an employer and you like your work and income, but I am saying that it helps to have a creative side-hustle or a source of income that is separate from your hourly labor which has a wage cap.
That alternative source of income can be from trading or investing, but it can be achieved through many other methods too. Trading and investing are just amplifiers of your excess income.
SPEND LESS AND INVEST THE REST
The second important aspect of my accumulation of wealth so far has been to spend less than I earn from my business and then invest the rest in things I understand – or in education if I don’t understand something.
For many, myself included, once we get a rise in our income the impulse to go out and buy toys and unnecessary liabilities like cars or boats or bigger accommodation or things we want but don’t really need—and can’t yet really afford—is strong.
But it’s important to resist that impulse, save that excess capital, and invest it.
We need to make our money work for us, not us work for our money. If we want to break the cycle that ensnares so many people to a life of glorified slavery then we need to escape the situation where we are forced to work an hourly wage for our money.
As a wise and very financially successful man once said:
“If you can’t buy it twice, you can’t afford it.” – Jay-Z (worth $1.3 billion USD)
Now I’m not saying we need to be lazy and do no work at all. What I’m trying to say is we need to work smarter, not harder, if we want to attract true wealth.
One way to work smarter is to invest our capital instead of spending it frivolously. But investing it successfully is a skill in and of itself. It’s not as simple as putting it into the stock market, or property, or crypto, or a trading account.
If we want to invest successfully, sometimes we need to take a step back and invest in ourselves first.
We need to take that excess capital and invest it in ourselves through buying other people’s knowledge and experience with it. This is the fastest way to progress along the path towards wealth accumulation (or any other skill for that matter).
If you already have an established successful business that generates more revenue than expenditures then investing in yourself might mean investing back into growth opportunities for your business. But if you don’t – then it means investing in your skills.
Don’t blindly struggle forwards on your own – pay for the knowledge of someone who has already successfully navigated the path before you, absorb their experience and emulate their habits and ideas until you find what works for you.
Trading and investing are two very potent methods for generating wealth – but the skill needs to be mastered first.
And a key component of mastering any skill is mastering the tools you employ.
WHEN IN DOUBT, INVEST IN YOURSELF
I invested $15,000 of my own money earlier this year in a course curated by famous Australian trader Nick Radge where he teaches how to develop software to backtest and develop profitable systematic stock trading strategies.
5 months later, I can confidently say it was worth every single cent. I am definitely a better trader for having spent that money to learn from someone like Nick – a trader who has been in the game since the 80s, who has traded (and survived and even thrived) through several market calamities and crashes.
But not everyone is in a position to be able to afford to spend $15,000 on their trading education.
And you don’t need to, at least not at first.
When I began my journey as a trader the idea of spending 15k on a course was so far outside the realm of my reality that I would have laughed at the idea. I could barely afford the $250 per month I paid my first forex trading mentor Steven Hart.
But just a few short years since I started, I am now happy to spend that sort of money on a course to learn from an expert like Nick because I know it will pay for itself over time through the wealth his ideas, experience and skill transference will generate me.
Not every course is worth the money you pay, and I’ve definitely paid for some duds in the past.
But if you do your research on the coach or mentor, you take the time to read through testimonies and watch their free content and get a grasp on their reputation and true level of ability, you will find courses out there that will change your life for the better in ways you can’t even imagine.
This is the part where I try to convince you to buy one of my courses.
PINE SCRIPT MASTERY COURSE
I’ve been programming as a hobby since I was 14 years old.
I’m now thirty-two, and all these years later I could have never imagined how powerful a tool that “hobby” would become.
I owe a significant amount of my success as a trader and investor to my ability to code.
Being able to write code to build tools to assist in your trading is an immense advantage over those traders who don’t know how to write code. Utilizing computers as an ally in your trading process is one way to ensure that you are maximizing your potential as a trader or investor.
Whether it’s tools to speed up your analysis and testing process to make you more efficient, or custom indicators and scripts to help you analyze the markets and identify your A-grade trading opportunities across dozens of markets in a matter of seconds, or even fully-automating your systematic strategies – coding is a necessity as a trader in the 21st century.
Those traders who don’t know how to code are trading with one hand tied behind their back.
But one of the biggest challenges for anyone who is unfamiliar with coding is knowing where to even start. There are so many languages you can choose from, ranging from easy to learn but borderline useless to incredibly complex and requiring years of study to master.
That’s why I always recommend Pine Script as the first language any traders should learn. It’s the proprietary language created by the TradingView developers – and it’s lean, mean, and powerful.
It’s incredibly simple and easy to learn, yet still as powerful as some of the more complex and advanced languages out there.
The main advantage of learning Pine is that tons of the heavy lifting is done for you right in the TradingView platform. The language itself can be coded right in your browser in the TradingView Pine Editor window – complete with automatic code recommendations and completion to assist in quickly and easily writing scripts.
No need to download complex and expensive tools and libraries and software – just load up TradingView.com and everything you need is right there in your web browser for free.
No need to connect data feeds to exchanges and brokers – it’s all handled for you right there in your web browser.
No need to set up virtual servers or run a dedicated machine in your home – TradingView runs everything in the cloud on their servers with 99.99% uptime (100% in my experience) and their tech team is the best in the business for ensuring your scripts never miss an alert or a trading opportunity.
I’ve already written a lot today so I’m not going to bore you with all of the many perks and advantages of how the skill of learning to code can assist in improving your trading results all while reducing the amount of work you need to do.
I’ve already written several articles explaining my thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of learning Pine which you can find here:
But I will list a few important advantages really quickly before I wrap this article up:
1) PINE CAN SAVE YOU PRECIOUS TIME
I firmly believe that our most precious resource as traders is not money. We can always make more money, or raise more capital, especially if we’re any good at our job as traders. Time on the other hand is a limited resource.
We don’t get more time. We don’t get longer than 24 hours in a day. We don’t get more than 365 days in a year.
It’s important that we spend our time properly – doing what we love as often as possible, with who we love, when we want to, without any regard for the cost. Trading and investing can help us achieve this status.
And Pine Script (or any other language for that matter) can help you save time in your trading process through automating or semi-automating huge segments of your trading and analysis process.
From automated alerts and backtesting tools to completely automated trading systems, mastering Pine Script can unlock the ability to do far more with the time you spend involved in the financial markets. Whether you’re a stock trader, forex trader, futures trader, crypto trader, a scalper or a long-term investor – there’s a way to make your process more efficient through learning Pine Script.
I said earlier that any language can help you save time in your trading process, and that’s true. But the reason why I chose Pine Script as the language I specialize in is because of its power and simplicity.
I’ve been programming for over 16 years and in that time of exploring dozens of languages I have never come across a programming language that was as easy to learn, as simple to code in, or as easy to access as Pine Script. And the best part is that even though it is a simple language to master, it definitely does not lack in power.
Pine Script has managed to achieve something most languages can’t – simplicity and ease-of-use combined with enormous power and capabilities.
Pine Script is the Excel or Google Sheets formula of the trading universe – if you can code a spreadsheet formula, then you can learn to code in Pine Script – and you’d be surprised at what can be achieved if you take the time to master the secrets of this powerful yet simple language.
And I’m here to guide you every step of the way – whether you’ve never written a line of code in your life, or you’re an experienced programmer, my courses will teach you everything you need to know in a step-by-step process.
I’ve taken great care to deliberately design the course to build on each module so that in the beginning things are very simple and easy to understand, yet by the end we build on everything we’ve learned to create profitable (and in some cases even fully-automated) trading strategies and tools.
2) YOU CAN BE MORE EFFICIENT WITH PINE
No one enjoys backtesting. If you do, then you’re crazy. But it’s a necessary and incredinly important aspect of trading and investing.
If you can’t prove that what you want to do in the markets has worked before, then what makes you think it will work in the future?
Obviously past results are not indicative of future results and the future is unknowable and always changing, but people don’t change that much. Markets don’t change that much. Prices can only go up, down or sideways – and these recurring patterns are in fact predictable.
And Pine Script can help you to identify these recurring predictable patterns and generate an edge over the markets through that knowledge – and it can help significantly speed up the whole process.
When I began trading, I did all of my backtesting by hand. I went through each market, each timeframe, each bar one-by-one and entered the data into a spreadsheet by hand.
Needless to say, this was incredibly time-consuming and monotonous – and even painful. I’ve had repetitive strain injury in my dominant arm for over 10 years so all of the typing and clicking would leave me in agony most nights, to the point of literal tears.
But then as I became more proficient at trading, I decided to try to apply my skill at coding to my trading process. I’ve been a programmer since I was 15 years old, so when I discovered Pine Script I was incredibly excited.
It didn’t take me long to master the language. Once you learn one language, it makes it very easy to learn another – and I have learned several over the years.
But learning Pine Script took hundreds of hours of reading through pages of documentation, other people’s scripts, and lots and LOTS of trial and error and frustration of working out bugs and solutions to various limitations of Pine.
I did all of that so that you don’t have to. Or at least, you don’t have to experience quite as much frustration.
My courses will teach you the best practices, and the most efficient methods for achieving various things through Pine. There’s no fluff or unnecessary rubbish – just pure, practical application of coding techniques to exploit the markets as efficiently and as effectively as possible.
I’m a trader and an investor just like you. I teach you how to use Pine to extract money out of the markets and save time in your trading process – nothing more, nothing less.
Reduce your screentime significantly through the use of automated alerts. Write scripts to detect your favorite market conditions, or setups, or both – and combine them into a strategy script that can calculate your position size, stop loss, take-profit or trailing stop, and enter the 21st century of trading in style with the power of technology as your ally.
3) YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR EDGE WITH PINE
The final advantage I’d like to highlight is the fact that writing code to create tools to assist in your trading can and will lead to an increase in your bottom-line. Obviously I can’t promise you’ll make money as a trader, no one can promise that, and if they do they’re lying to you.
But I can promise that learning to code will make you a better trader.
If you’re not yet profitable, then learning to code scripts and tools to help you analyze the markets will help you to better understand the markets. It will lead to light-bulb epiphanies that could be the secret to unlocking the next step in your evolution as a trader.
And if you are already profitable, then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from taking the time to learn to code.
Once you have tools and automated systems set up to detect your preferred market conditions, setups and general trading rules, it becomes impossible to ever miss a trade again through anything other than negligence or choice.
Unless you fail to act on the alerts that are generated, or you are sick or otherwise incapacitated from placing trades, then there are no more excuses for missing the best setups.
And in fact, if you take the time to truly master Pine Script and the coding techniques I teach, even incapacitation or illness shouldn’t stop you from catching trades because depending on the complexity of your strategy it might be possible to fully-automate the analysis and execution of your trading system.
But whether you choose to fully-automate or semi-automate your systems, your scripts will act as a second pair of eyes on the markets – except they’re robot eyes that don’t sleep. They don’t take breaks, they don’t miss a beat, and they don’t second-guess themselves.
Become a better trader through leveraging the power of code in your trading process. Catch every setup, every move, every time.
IN SUMMARY: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY!
If you’re interested in learning more about Pine Script visit my website.
And if you’re not yet ready to financially invest in your skillset as a trader by purchasing one of my premium courses that I’ve invested hundreds of hours into curating and carefully laying out educational content to take you from a beginner coder to a Pine Script Master, then at least invest some time into your trading education by taking my completely free no-strings-attached Pine Script Basics Course.
Once you’re finished with the Basics course you’ll be able to start experimenting with Pine on your own and then you can decide if upgrading to my paid mentorship is worth the very modest price.
Also make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel – I try to release high-quality educational content on there as regularly as my busy schedule allows!
Take care, enjoy the coming summer or winter depending which side of the world you live on, and I’ll speak with you real soon.
And as always – best of luck with your trading.
Best regards,
Matt.
