Strategies and Philsophies for Building Your Net Worth or Finding a Job

Hi all,

Regardless of what the talking heads on TV say I know the economy hasn't recovered. What's happening is there is more lending going on, the internal problems that caused our economy to crash (dip) haven't been fixed just bandaged.

So I want to explore ideas with those of you looking to increase your value in the marketplace and or find a job.

First off, allow me to share with you my perspective.

--- If you take 25 people in to your business and tell them what your plans are almost all 25 of those people will tell you why you CAN'T do what you want to do.

I am the 1 that will see the potential and look at what you CAN do with it.

Be the 1 person that sees what the POTENTIAL of something CAN be, not for what it is, but what it can be.

Now using this logic your going to want to start looking for needs. Here's an example I'm actually going through in my real world experience.

There are a few shops in town that buy local. They buy things that are unique or organic or anything that will support the local economy. One of them is the Wegman's food chain, another a City Market Cafe downtown and so on. We'll there's only 1 cold press juice and real fruit smoothie place in town that delivers an organic product that is a truly healthy alternative. They bottle their juice and are looking to grow their business. So I've taken the liberty to start going to the juice shop and begin forming a casual relationship with the employee's and owner who works there often. I've also began doing the same thing at the other stores that aren't carrying their juice but will possibly be interested in carrying it.

So now I'm going to start talking to the owner of the juice shop about becoming an outside sales rep by fulfilling the need for the stores to carry a better array of product and by enabling the local juice shop to expand their business by closing a few deals for her but not for free.

So what I'm doing is creating a need for myself rather than just applying for a job.

Anyway. That may not workout but it does and will eventually workout for me sometimes better than others. If you would like to add your own strategies I would love to hear more please feel free to add.

a reply to: onequestion

Make something unique and collectable.

This is what I hope to do within the next few years.

I work shifts in a factory and I get a good wage but I absolutely DESPISE it. I can feel the drudgery rasping my spirit down. I want (and need) to get out of it.

I'm a graphics programmer. Finding work depends entirely on having work I can show. I was unemployed for months until I started a blog.

Presently I'm working with Blender, but am looking to learn other applications like 3D studio Max. There's a demand for freelance artists/modellers.

a reply to: stormcell

Solve someone's problem.

a reply to: onequestion

I thought you were going to start going to college while working in a metal shop? This sounds like a much different plan.

Anyways... building wealth and building a skill set doesn't really go hand in hand, you must expend wealth in order to afford knowledge. It's only after you've reached a certain level of competence that you can get on the job training through experience and become better while building your assets.

I'm about at the point where I'll be filling out resumes for next summers internships in a month or two. What I've done, is I've been working hard on increasing my portfolio of personal projects and reading up on material (actually, just finished one project tonight, I start the next one tomorrow and have until mid October to finish it). That may or may not get me a job, but it's what I can do on my end. Other than that it's just a waiting game, and a question of if I apply to enough places.

Wealth on the other hand is something different. Due to the circumstances that I'm on disability and that I'm receiving Pell Grants, I'm not really allowed to have any assets to build up. If I were going to do that though, being on the lower end of the income scale and don't need quick returns, I would take the amount I have to invest and apply it in the following order
1. Remove all debt.
2. Place at least 6 months of savings into easily accessible accounts.
3. Put 33% of the remainder into a rainy day fund.
4. Put 33% into the stock market in medium risk funds that are highly diversified.
5. Put 15% into commodities.
6. Put the remaining 19% into local small business investments.

originally posted by: stormcell
I'm a graphics programmer. Finding work depends entirely on having work I can show. I was unemployed for months until I started a blog.

Presently I'm working with Blender, but am looking to learn other applications like 3D studio Max. There's a demand for freelance artists/modellers.

Now this I can speak on a bit. I've got a bit of practices with making my own renderers and rasterizers. I've built a couple of engines in OpenGL too.

I don't really bill myself as an artist. I've got the degree that says otherwise, but I lack the talent. I can push polygons on a screen and shape them, but texturing and making them look nice requires an artists eye that I just don't have.

Only done a very small amount of work with Blender myself, I've used 3dsMax a couple of times but my favorite is Maya. When I build games, I do all of my asset building in it.

Something you may not be aware of with some 3d modeling skills is that not only is the art side lucrative if you can land a job, but it's being used all over the place. Most cartoons are done with Maya these days (most notably South Park), rapid prototyping as a field loves 3d modeling (requires access to a 3d printer), and with technology like the HoloLens and Vive you can even make buildings and give people virtual tours. I actually one did that as a capstone project for a real estate company a few years back.

There's lots of stuff you can do with digital art.

I'm a bit confused by your title though, are you an artist/modeler or are you a graphics programmer? Or are you like me, and a bit of everything? The two are very different jobs.

My plan is pretty simple. I leverage my skills to secure better positions as time flows by. Right now I make a simple wage and save every week. I've been improving my credit back to excellent status. Next year I go to get a construction loan to enter home building. I'll work it a single house the first few times, then doubles, then triples and so on. I want to be either commercial or residential developing on a decent scale within 10 years.

The current employment is through my father's construction company. We secured an investment to franchise out the business open new markets throughout the Gulf states over the years. I take on more responsibilities as the weeks march on, and am expecting yearly bonuses and increasing pay until I decide to fully branch out.

When I'm not working the dayjob, I usually am working on projects. The last few months has been a rather large one which will complete sometime in fall. I anticipate this to offer a new revenue stream making back my investment within 6 months, and continuing to pour in long after I hire and train my replacement.

Home building is just an easy way to build the pot. I've been watching houses go from planning before a slab pour to finishing touches since I can remember, but my passion has always been in game-changing tech. I want to keep launching startups and basically be able to funnel out monies from my more stable streams into higher risk, funner projects. The end goal is a bit too fantastical to mention, but I'm not settling on keeping to this here rock.

A good strategy to build wealth is to live below your means, and diversify your savings into varying degrees of risk as Aazadan pointed out. I'm trying to do this a bit integrally, not focusing on just wealth for the sake of wealth, but as a means for pursuing a path in life that could not otherwise be afforded.

The cool thing about what I do is I learn new skills every week on my projects. These skills can be applied to newer projects. I've basically built from tiny to now large projects, and see no reason in slowing down or taking on lesser roles in companies. It's just too much fun to see the product of your hard labor. What you first struggled with and took for freaking ever, next round is smooth sailing and much less time consuming.