It doesn’t matter how much youtube investor bro content you consume, AI investor bots you buy, or how the number looks on the graph, the most important factor into how you’ll “perform” in this space all comes down to 2 things:
A. Do you have a source of steady income that allows you to tie up $$$ income?
B. Can you afford to sit on your personal intuition long enough for the market to agree and reward you?
Everything else is just noise
Your Career will allow you to keep buying into the market no matter the highs or lows. The extra income and your intution will allow you to hold for much longer than the average flipper and dipper. The more you make, the less it matters to sell. Eventuality the market will test and prove your intuition right or wrong. Your choices mean nothing without intuition and time.
Intuition is the most valuable and most difficult thing to obtain & test. It takes time, experience, and above all, trial & failure.
This assumes that $$$/wealth acquisition is the highest “good” there is. I personally don’t adhere to that life-philosophy. Time and health are much more valuable to me, and among other things are valued above career progression (assuming you don’t live pay-check to pay-check). But I can understand that from wealth some of these other things can follow, as a form of delayed gratification.
I do agree that in the collector-investor-sphere, if your goal is to acquire as much wealth as possible, personal intuition is one of the best assets. When everyone zigs, you should zag.
For generality sake, wealth accumulation to me isn’t how many $$$ are in the bank, but how that money can improve your quality of life and those who you look after and/or love.
If people can improve their lives by selling their assets to have a wedding or buy a house, I am all for that $$$ aquisition.
Yeah but to a lot of people here improvement of quality of life equates to 'how big is my house ', ‘how many (fancy) cars do I own’, ‘how many vacations can I take’, and not the meeting of necessities. I assume if you’re on this forum, you’re likely not living pay-check to pay-check, and your basic needs are met. All else (i.e. the examples I gave) is quite frivolous to me. Obviously, if you are living near the poverty line, progression in career could be a good way to improve all other aspects of life.
So yes, something like mental health is something that’s more important to me than climbing the corpo ladder. I’d rather earn less and have joy in my work, than earn more and be miserable every day.
Of course I’m a little hypocritical here because collecting culture is largely about signalling/flaunting your wealth/status/knowledge, and I can’t say I don’t partake in this culture at all. $$$ gets the eyes and attention.
I don’t think that I’ll ever stop working in some capacity, regardless of how wealthy I become. There is something in me that wants to better this world while I am able. Maybe I would feel differently if I hated my career or had little/no ability to make real change in the communities that matter to me.
I would recommend finding a meaningful career instead of climbing the corporate ladder and making as much money as possible. You spend so much time on your way to the destination, so it’s important to find enjoyment in that as much as the outcome.
Totally understand your perspective. I feel i am making the biggest impact on those who love me and care about me the most by providing and helping my family and my loved ones above anything else I could create by myself.
Plus you can create a good work life balance at a “boring job” vs entrepreneurship while at the same time saving yourself sleepless nights or many grey hairs stressing on where the next pay check is coming from.
I say this with experience. Sometimes the dream others preach online is just that, a dream. It does happen, but it takes a special mindset, suportive family, and lots of risk to be able to make it worth it vs just working on a career.
All while buying Children’s cardboard and setting money aside for this hobby.
There is a reason why the big players who make this a living and wasn’t paying pennies on the dollar for illistrators have little to no personal collections anymore. Because they out everything they had into the business to make it a career.
I think this attitude is kind of a problem though. I used to view it like this too, but the hobby has gotten so big, knowledge is very much a thing, and art is going in all directions (from minimalistic, to half-arts, to full-arts) that I think it´s time to take it a bit more seriously. If only for your own self-esteem. If you keep looking at it like that, while spending all this time on it, then you don´t take yourself serious.
I try not to take my self too seriously. It is best to take a step back and look at all this in a realistic point of view.
So that we still accept the risks we take and understand this all is still pretty crazy to do. Risk and fortune favors the bold. Even the most serious and one of the most rewarded collectors in this space @smpratte doesn’t take himself too seriously.
I think it is just a good reality cgeck from time to time which is important in today’s hysterical market.
I completely agree. But this is one of the things I sometimes find hard with the general sentiment on this forum. While I too share this virtue of not taking yourself too serious (or life for that matter), I also think that we can acknowledge that Pokémon is rather serious to us, and also in society. And that we do watch the market ect.
If you ask me; don´t take yourself too serious, but take your passions serious.
I was like that too. But I realised that it doesn´t make sense. If you spend years researching something, honing your skills, you should be proud of that. If we achieve something then more power to us.
But I don´t mean not being down to earth. Yes, it´s ´just´ Pokémon.
This is the correct opinion, & it applies to every investment universe (stocks, crypto, etc.). 20% annual returns are outstanding on a risk-adjusted basis. If 20% gains on the capital you have at risk aren’t needle-moving, your energy should be directed at increasing the money you have coming in the door. That’s what was so frustrating trying to invest the first few years out of school - you make a great call on a stock & the gains are less than a paycheck…
Oh yes, the “Let it Rot” young people in China. A good read up on this. The main difference is that China, hard work isn’t valued along with the whole system that work against young people.
I know some spicy opinions can come of the wood work comparing China’s youth problem the exact same as America’s, but for those who actually dig deep enough, China is not a free country and you do not have the same opportunities as here in America than anywhere else. Even just speaking on this topic is China and it would be removed and I would be taken to some work camp.
But in a short response, yes it is an interesting response to a system that works against you and honestly the only true response China cannot fight against.
