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I'm not sure the outcomes are equally probable. Boats and cars depreciate in value pretty hard, so those are most likely sunk costs. Now mark has a cool boat a

I'm not sure the outcomes are equally probable. Boats and cars depreciate in value pretty hard, so those are most likely sunk costs. Now mark has a cool boat and car, but that doesn't guarantee you a social network, much less a social network of professionals. A doctor wanting to start a practice in the slip over would be quite a stroke of luck. An even bigger stroke that he would be any good, and yet even bigger stroke that he would want to start his practice with some random dude on a boat. All that for a shot at putting in the hard work so you can maybe have a successful practice. In your scenario, it seems likely that Mark is actually pretty charming, and that's what would lead another boat doctor to want to start a practice with Mark. If so, then Mark probably doesn't need the boat or car to charm a peer from his existing network. Which would almost certainly be better ROI. Additionally, even if everything went wrong for Sam, as you describe, he would have learned a ton for future cash flowing assets, and can probably sell them for what he purchased them for, possibly more if he improved the numbers. Between the knowledge, and the intermittent cash, Sam almost certainly has a much better ROI. I would like to point out though, that I don't fully agree with the goal of the article. Sam seems like he is going to wake up one day and wonder where his life went. Doesn't sound like he is making any great new memories. Mark, on the other hand, probably won't be retiring in the Hamptons, but he will probably look back on his life and have made some awesome memories.

deleted 5y ago
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mattzito 5y ago
I generally agree with your points, I might disagree on whether the personality is necessarily the key driver, after all, if you don’t meet the right people, they don’t get a chance to be charmed. But that doesn’t take away from the core of your point. The sort of meta-comment that I think the article kind of doesn’t address at all is that there’s a lot of personal growth and development books that are all about “core competency”. Figure out what your core competency is and double down on that, make sure that is tended and watered and growing every single day, because that’s the thing you do better than other people. Sam’s core competency is presumably being a doctor, but he has all these distractions. The author can say “passive income”, but it’s a drag even when things don’t go as wrong as my overwrought scenario. My father had a ton of “side hustles”, and some worked better than others, but they were all some amount of psychic drag on his attention and focus. Mark isn’t necessarily doing the right thing from that perspective either, but we could imagine a third person, Alice. Alice is making the same money, but instead of either of the two previous paths, she devoted her free time to working in a clinic, did research, wrote papers, went to conferences. She studied on her own time, and worked to improve her craft and reputation. She hires an accountant to deal with her taxes, a money manager (or roboadvisor) for investments, outsources everything so she can focus on being the best at what she does. That seems pretty likely to yield dividends too, imho.
fredophile 5y ago
> I'm not sure the outcomes are equally probable. To be fair, the original author makes some very improbable assumptions. Several people have posted research they've done or experience in things like vending businesses. At one point the author says that even with Covid affecting the short term rental market Sam could still get a 20% return in year 1. To make that math work he needs to make $100 profit a month from the rental property during a pandemic when he would actually have a hard time just minimizing his losses.

deleted 5y ago

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mattzito 5y ago

I generally agree with your points, I might disagree on whether the personality is necessarily the key driver, after all, if you don’t meet the right people, they don’t get a chance to be charmed. But that doesn’t take away from the core of your point. The sort of meta-comment that I think the article kind of doesn’t address at all is that there’s a lot of personal growth and development books that are all about “core competency”. Figure out what your core competency is and double down on that, make sure that is tended and watered and growing every single day, because that’s the thing you do better than other people. Sam’s core competency is presumably being a doctor, but he has all these distractions. The author can say “passive income”, but it’s a drag even when things don’t go as wrong as my overwrought scenario. My father had a ton of “side hustles”, and some worked better than others, but they were all some amount of psychic drag on his attention and focus. Mark isn’t necessarily doing the right thing from that perspective either, but we could imagine a third person, Alice. Alice is making the same money, but instead of either of the two previous paths, she devoted her free time to working in a clinic, did research, wrote papers, went to conferences. She studied on her own time, and worked to improve her craft and reputation. She hires an accountant to deal with her taxes, a money manager (or roboadvisor) for investments, outsources everything so she can focus on being the best at what she does. That seems pretty likely to yield dividends too, imho.

fredophile 5y ago

> I'm not sure the outcomes are equally probable. To be fair, the original author makes some very improbable assumptions. Several people have posted research they've done or experience in things like vending businesses. At one point the author says that even with Covid affecting the short term rental market Sam could still get a 20% return in year 1. To make that math work he needs to make $100 profit a month from the rental property during a pandemic when he would actually have a hard time just minimizing his losses.