Bijay Gautam is the Co-founder of WYN Studio, a company that creates podcasts for brands. He hosts one of the top podcasts in India, The Inspiring Talk. On this podcast, he chats with top entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, thought leaders, and celebrities about their journey. As India’s first Podcast Coach and Consultant, he has coached over 100 people and helped over five organizations launch their podcasts. He has conducted podcast workshops and training across the country, reaching over 2,000 participants. Bijay has been featured in various media and is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. Before all this began, Bijay was working as a Research Scientist in a leading Pharmaceutical Company. He was losing motivation and drive in his life, and that’s when he started The Inspiring Talk. Within 15 months of starting his podcast, he quit his job to follow his passion for podcasting and inspiring people through his podcast.   “Don’t take advice from someone who has not walked the path that you want to walk.” Bijay Gautam   Worst investment ever A natural orator Bijay was always that guy who loved talking and being in front of people. He’s the guy every club in high school wanted to emcee their event. Debate and public speaking clubs were his favorite. And so, naturally, Bijay knew that he needed to study communication and media and become a radio jockey, television presenter, or anything to do with putting his face out there and talking. Seeking the best career advice When Bijay completed high school and was preparing to join college, he spoke to a couple of people asking what they thought about media as a career. They advised him against it, claiming that media was going down and would have no secure career options. They told him that he’d not make a lot of money from it and he was better off picking a more popular course. The interesting thing is that these people had no background in media and had no idea what they were talking about. But, Bijay looked up to them, and so he took their advice and enrolled for a course in pharmacy. The ever-rising star Bijay invested four years studying pharmacy. Even though he was doing well topping his class, getting scholarships, and also being awarded as the best student of pharmacy, in the back of his mind, he hated the choice he made. But he kept at it. He finished at the top of his class, and in the final year, he got placed at the top pharmaceutical company in India. To the outside world, this was a huge success. Bijay had made it. His stellar performance continued even at his job. In the first year, he got recognized as the most promising candidate for his organization. Quitting the act and staying true to his dreams But even though he was a success, Bijay hated his job. After three years of working in a pharmaceutical company, he realized he was running a...

Michael Michelini is an American social media, e-commerce, and SEO Specialist who has lived in China since 2007. He is a passionate business connector who helps companies do business in China as well as Chinese companies to work in overseas markets. Michael built Global From Asia, a cross-border e-commerce community, to help cross border business owners learn, network, make business partnerships, and grow global businesses. Most recently, he has joined as a partner at Alpha Rock Capital, which is an Amazon FBA investment company.   “Don’t get caught up in patents if you’re entrepreneur and investor. Of course, it’s important to have your IP, but I think the most important one is a brand trademark.” Michael Michelini   Worst investment ever Setting sail in China Michael moved to China in late 2007 with interest in living and doing business there. A few months later, he met a businessman, Andrew, who was all too willing to take him under his wing. Andrew was a sourcing agency and a product specialist who had been in China for 10 years already. He took Michael through the backstreets of China, and in the process, Michael got to learn all the insights of Chinese business. It’s in these backstreets that Michael got to know where the best deals happen, the inside scoop about manufacturing, who is who in business, and so much more information that helped him build on to his business plans. Forging a business partnership Andrew was impressed by Michael’s internet marketing skills and abilities. He had so many product ideas which he shared with Michael. One of the ideas that got Michael very excited about was a light-up, pour spout. This is a bottle top that you put on top of a vodka bottle or any kind of liquid, and when you pour, it lights up the stream of alcohol to the color of the LED. Michael was already selling bar supplies through his e-commerce business and had customers and distribution pipelines. Andrew would help engineer it, and together they would produce and market it from China. From an idea to a real product They embarked on the journey to get the product ready. First, they brought on a partner with a legal background. Then they found the guy who had a patent to the product idea but had never made a product. Hurdle after hurdle Getting the patent was the first hurdle. They spent so much time going back and forth without reaching a compromise. The patent owner wanted more money than Michael was willing to pay to transfer the patent. Eventually, after months of arguing, Michael put his foot down and told the patent owner to take his offer or forget the whole deal. He accepted the offer. The second hardball Michael faced was that his friend Andrew wanted him to use his friend’s factory. But he quoted an upfront fee of about $20,000 for the manufacturing of the product. This is not to make the product but just...

Somdutta Sarkar is the host of Intensify Humanity Podcast, a bestselling author, an NLP practitioner, a thought leader, a passionpreneur, and an Intensifier Mentor. Her book is called 7 STEPS from SHAME to being BACK IN THE GAME.   “Ignorance is not bliss; it’s a disease.” Somdutta Sarkar   Worst investment ever Living in the city of dreams Somdutta moved to Mumbai, known as the city of dreams in India, where she got a job after finishing college. She was working a job that she loved and making a decent income. She was indeed settled in life. A friendly soul Somdutta is naturally a friendly person, so she made so many friends while living and working in Mumbai. She was always kind enough to help anyone who came to her in need of help, no matter what day or time they came calling. This happened over and over again. Her kindness leaves her in debt Somdutta’s friendly nature soon enough landed her into trouble. One day a friend came to her in need of financial help, and in her true nature, she accepted to help him. She took a bank loan in her name and gave the money to her friend. When the time to pay the loan came, her friend went quiet. He blocked her, making it impossible to reach him. She tried all possible ways to get him to pay the loan, but he never did. Somdutta’s worst mistake was trusting her friend, who left her with a debt of $35,000. Rebuilding herself Somdutta suffered greatly mentally and emotionally. She felt enormous shame for having made what she thought was the most stupid decision of her life. During this phase of her life, she lost so many friends. After a few months of suffering, she decided to work on herself, her mind, her awareness about society, psychology, finance, everything. She worked on her self-development, and she was able to pull herself out of that phase. Now she is helping people who are stuck in that kind of stage in life to revive and relive their life again and gain back the freedom and power they never had. Lessons learned Ignorance is part of our system Ignorance is a disease in our society these days. We are taught from childhood that ignorance is bliss. Every problem has a hidden meaning in it Through self-development, you’ll be able to find this hidden meaning, and in return, you will be able to solve the problem. Sometimes you have to jump in the deep end You’ll never know your full potential until to jump into the waters. Avoid the shortfall risk If you are not taking calculated risks, you’re putting yourself at risk. There is simply no way to exist without taking on risk. Andrew’s takeaways High risk is not...

With a background in Business Economics, IT, and Logistics, Simon de Raadt has been living in Asia since 2011. He is now Managing Partner of MAiNS International, Co-Founder of DigiDutch, and investor in Cross-Border solutions. He helps companies understand the whole supply chain, from beginning to end, so that they can add more value in that supply chain. The starting point of his entrepreneurial success in China has been building an outbound mail solution for one of his customers from scratch. This led him into various businesses related to inbound trading.   “Be more flexible and accepting of whatever comes on the way. It might not go as planned. But you know, that’s part of the journey.” Simon de Raadt   Worst investment ever His heart has always been in China Simon had always dreamt of living and working in China. While still working a corporate job, he went to China, and the country completely stole his heart. While on holiday, he decided to look for a job. He was fortunate to get one in no time. Becoming a small business owner in a foreign country In just six months, Simon found himself jobless. The company he was working for closed down. He knew he was meant to stay in China, so he put on a brave face and started job hunting again. Simon tapped into his networks, and soon enough, he got introduced to someone at  MAiNS International, where he went on to become a co-founder. Starting from scratch When Simon joined MAiNS International, the existing business was all gone. It was now just him and his Chinese partner, and they had to start from scratch. Given that it was just the two of them, Simon and his partner ignored lots of business frameworks and just focused on growing their business. Hiring people the old school way In about a year or so, Simon’s business had taken ground and was recruiting people, and suddenly the company had 12 people. While the growth was good, Simon and his partner were hiring all these people, not because there were positions to be filled as there were no existing jobs. Jobs were created and filled based on opportunity. They had no structured way of recruitment. In came the chaos With no formal work structures, chaos hit the company. People were working independently with no clear vision. Everyone was on their own little island, and this started affecting the business. While everyone was hard at work, running in different directions was hurting the business’s bottom line. Most of Simon’s best employees left the company as they no longer saw the company’s vision. This was a huge blow on Simon as these were people he had fought for to get them to work for him, he’d groomed them and worked hard to get them excited. Simon realized that his worst investment was not investing

Nicholas Patrick is the Founder of Ekho Academy, a media platform dedicated to helping you enhance the quality of your career. After overcoming a decade long battle with clinical depression, Nic’s mission is to help working professionals stay mentally healthy and strong. Nic is most active on LinkedIn and Instagram, where you can find him using his full name Nicholas Patrick.   “If you don’t have to rush it, don’t rush it.” Nicholas Patrick   Worst investment ever Coping with mental health issues Nic’s symptoms started around 2007/8. His mood started being affected, and he could no longer cope with the everyday stresses and challenges of life. He, however, chose to ignore these symptoms. He thought it was one of those things that eventually would go away on its own. Nic decided to do nothing and wait it out. Unfortunately, things got really bad to the point where sometimes he couldn’t get out of bed and missed so many days of school. Divine Intervention Things got so bad that Nic thought about suicide. He was standing on the ledge, ready to take his own life when his phone vibrated. He paused to check his phone when he saw an email from a university. The subject of that email was Ways of Managing Depression. This email knocked him out of his trance and helped him understand that he wasn’t trying to deal with his mental issues. He realized that his worst investment was not taking care of his mental health. He took his power back, and from then on, he committed to get well. Which he did, and went on to form his academy with the vision to help other people going through a similar situation. Lessons learned Be patient with yourself Patience is a really easy concept, but something that people constantly forget and don’t pay attention to. Sometimes you might have to go slow and achieve your goals later than you planned. That’s ok; be patient with yourself. You will get there no need to put pressure on yourself. Build your support system When building your support system, there are three categories that people fall into: the outermost circle, people who don’t care, the middle circle, people who care about you but don’t know how to help you, the innermost circle, people who care and know how to help you. Categorize your support system accordingly to receive the most appropriate mental health solution. Mental health recovery is not time-bound When you’re recovering from anything, including mental health issues, don’t work with a clock. Instead, have milestones and work through them one by one and take as much time as it takes.

As an Intercultural Strategist, Ling Ling Tai helps people and organizations develop intercultural skills to foster successful collaboration and build important relationships to ensure continued business success in a globalized environment. She is a podcaster for the Leaders of Learning podcast, and she offers her insights through her website www.culturesparkglobal.com.   “If it’s a problem that can be solved with money, it’s not a problem at all. If it’s a problem that cannot be solved with money, then it’s something you have to look into.” Ling Ling Tai   Worst investment ever Inheriting her parents’ attitude towards risk Ling Ling and her siblings grew up in a traditional Chinese family and were taught the value of being prudent and frugal from a very early age. According to her parents, when it comes to taking risk, it’s either low risk or no risk at all. This shaped the decisions in her life and the things that she chose to do. Chasing independence Throughout her life, Ling Ling wanted to be independent, self-sufficient, and be able to rely on herself. She didn’t want to be a housewife and rely on a rich man, even though that’s what most Chinese parents want for their daughters. So she invested all her time in building up her career. Sacrificing her relationships Ling Ling had no time to invest in relationships as her focus was on building a career that would help her become financially independent. So she ended up spending very little time on people who mattered to her, including her parents and siblings. When death shakes your value system Ling Ling’s mom got sick in 2016 and died three months after she was diagnosed. Her death hit Ling Ling quite hard as it was fast and unexpected. During the time her mom was sick, her mindset changed about life. Seeing death right in front of her changed her whole outlook on life. Life stopped being about money and accumulating material wealth. She started evaluating what values are important to her. She realized that her worst investment was not investing enough time on the things that mattered to her, and instead, she was just chasing dollar signs, neglecting the people important to her, her well being, and the things that gave her joy. Lessons learned Money is not everything What do you value most in life besides money and wealth? Start looking into things that are not monetary, such as your wellbeing, health, relationship with your family, the kind of impact that you want to make on the world, etc. You may have a flourishing career and amass wealth, but when death comes knocking on your door, you can’t bring it with you anymore. So ask yourself, what values are important to you, and what do you want to leave behind? There is a downside to low risk and no risk If you avoid taking any risk, you will be so afraid of investing in...

Ziv Nakajima-Magen was born in Israel, migrated first to Australia, then finally to Japan, where he and his wife run a buyers’ agency and portfolio management company, helping foreigners invest in Japanese property and manage their investments.   “When investing away from home, choose the right people to work with, and learn how to trust and listen to them.” Ziv Nakajima-Magen   Worst investment ever Investing in Asia for the first time When Ziv and his wife moved to Japan, having some experience with real estate property investment in Australia, he decided to get into the Japanese real estate industry. Ziv felt that he knew what property investment is all about. How to price rent for rental property, what’s a good or bad property, locations, and so forth. Cash flow investments Ziv looked for the highest rental income that they could find in areas that they were comfortable with. He found a bulk purchase of three condo units in a city not too far from Fukuoka, where the couple lives. The units came at a discounted price because the seller wanted to get rid of all three of them and was happy to discount the price if it was all to the same buyer. The tenants had been in place for like 15 years, so it was quite a good investment, tenancy wise and return was through the roof at about 15-16%. Coming in guns blazing While doing the math, Excel sheet style, the couple realized that one of the units had slightly lower rent than the others, about $20 or $30 a month. Ziv, thinking that he knew what they were doing as they’d been in the property market for a while now and knew all about globalization, decided that when that tenancy lease was about to be renewed, they should raise the rent to bring it up to the same level as the other two units. It was just a small amount anyway, the tenant wouldn’t mind, or so they thought. In Japan, you don’t increase the rent When they told the property manager to increase the rent for that lease, he asked them if they were sure about it, and they said yes without giving it much thought. What they didn’t realize was that you don’t raise rents in Japan. A tenant would be paying the same rent that they paid when they moved into the property say eight, 10 or even 20 years ago. And they wouldn’t ask you to reduce the rent when the contract is renewed because for them any negotiation is considered and feels like a conflict. The Japanese tend to avoid conflict at any cost. Ziv’s tenant did not renew the lease; instead, they moved to another vacant unit in the very same building that was renting for about half the rent. Ziv stayed with a vacant unit for about a year and a half, losing a third of their income stream. When they got another tenant, they had to rent it at a much lower amount. Eventually, they sold it at about 20 or 30% loss compared to when they bought it. Had they just taken time to learn this new market, they would have known about the Japanese culture regarding raising and lowering rent, and it would have saved them from making their worst investment. Lessons learned Consider cultural and emotional differences when doing your due...

Brendan Davis is a writer-director-producer working internationally in film & TV. He began his entertainment career in Atlanta in 1990, moved to Los Angeles in 2002, and has split his time between Beijing and Los Angeles since 2013. In December 2019, Davis was recognized for his cross-cultural leadership by being appointed to serve as a Distinguished Special Foreign Expert with the Beijing Global Talent Exchange Association. His appointment as an advisor runs through 2024.   “Pick your battles carefully. Set yourself up for success as much as possible.” Brendan Davis   Worst investment ever Exploring an international investment opportunity In 2013/14, China was wide open to foreign investment co-productions trying to work with other treaty partners. One of the countries the Chinese were the keenest to work with was New Zealand. Brendan happened to have two partners in New Zealand and a Chinese partner in Los Angeles. The partners had been working on a project together for a while now. He figured that this project would be a good co-production with China. And so he decided to explore this international partnership. Changing the script The project was initially developed as a Western New Zealand Hollywood type of project. So the first step was to change the script to fit the co-production requirements of New Zealand and China. Due to cultural differences, censorship, and sensitivities in China, they had to re-examine and rebuild the whole story and characters. Finding a Chinese financier For the project to receive the co-production incentives, Brendan had to find a Chinese financier. Through former colleagues and his Chinese partner, he found someone who fit the bill. The gentleman was a second-generation wealthy guy in China and a Vice President of a big studio film finance entity. He was one of the guys deciding where to spend money. The gentleman had been rewarded for his success so far, with a few 50% government investments in a new firm all his own to develop and produce projects. So he was just getting going with this new company when Brendan and his project came along. And it seemed like they were the answer to each other’s dreams. Sealing the deal Because Brendan at the time barely spoke any Chinese and the gentleman spoke zero English, they each got an interpreter. Brendan and his team went to Beijing, met him, liked each other, and things got onto a great start. The gentleman had very fancy offices. He was seemingly very rich and powerful. Everything about him validated that he would be the guy to do this. He even gave them a suite of offices in his fancy custom design, new headquarters building. The business plan seemed to be coming together very smoothly. After a couple of back and forth trips between Beijing and LA, and discussions, they signed a deal that detailed everything about how Brendan and his team were supposed to operate, and it also spelled out exactly what the financier was committing to do as the executive producer and a financier. Introducing the human speed bump As Brendan and his partner were preparing to leave...

Daniel Blue is the owner of Quest Education in the US. He educates business owners on self-directed retirement accounts to help them accomplish their financial goals. He teaches financial education to business owners to help them understand how to: save for the future, protect their assets, save money on taxes, get the funding they need, and eliminate debt. Daniel has worked with over 1,200 business owners and is a contributor to Forbes magazine. He is driven by his passion for helping people shape their retirement dreams into reality.   “To invest money wisely, know your options, and use less emotions and more logic.” Daniel Blue   Worst investment ever Making it in life at just 18 years Daniel got a sales job when he was 18, a job that he was quite good at. He was doing well right off the bat, making about $10,000 a month. He was ecstatic and on top of the world. Time to become a homeowner Daniel was feeling good about his success, and he figured it was time to live as the rich do. He was feeling invincible and knew that he deserved all the nice things in the world. First, he bought a Range Rover; next, he went shopping for a house. He decided to get a mortgage. He was approved for a loan, put a down payment, and bought a house in Utah for $260,000. Life was perfect for this rich 19-year-old. What could go wrong? Fighting demons inside While everything seemed perfect on the outside, on the inside, he was a wreck. He was a 19-year-old dad addicted to OxyContin. He was spending thousands of dollars every month to fuel his addiction. On top of that, he was still living a larger-than-life lifestyle spending more than he was making. Eventually, he had to get clean, which meant leaving Utah. His investment mistakes come to haunt him It was first when he had to sell the house after moving to Nevada that he realized the costly mistake he had made when buying his home. Daniel had put zero thought into his home purchase. He did not do any research. He just went on to buy the first house that looked good to him. When selling his home, he realized that he had bought a home in a bull market, and now the market had turned. Daniel ended up losing the house to a short sale losing all the money he had put into the house. Had he done his research, he’d known to rent instead of buying and would have avoided making his worst investment mistake ever. Lessons learned Understand your investment before you invest Do your research before buying a house. Understand the interest, the current market, and future market projections. This kind of information will let you know whether your investment is viable or not. Have an exit strategy When investing your money in a house, think about how long you intend to stay in your new home and how moving in the future will affect your selling price.

Rayson Choo is a Transformation Catalyst. What he does for a living is pick the brains of the best entrepreneurs in this world such as Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, and others to find out simple and effective steps that millennials can take to experience success in the swiftest and most effective way possible. He does this through podcasting, where he helps millennials to experience personal transformation from the tips that they need to move forward.   “Just being friends with multi-millionaires won’t make you successful. What makes you successful is applying the knowledge that they have imparted to you.” Rayson Choo Worst investment ever Starting his entrepreneurship journey Rayson met a gentleman about three years ago, and they quickly became friends. Rayson found the friendship quite beneficial as they got along pretty well. They would attend all these seminars and conferences together. Often, they would discuss business and future projects and help each other out with the brainstorming. A caring friend lends a hand The gentleman happened to be a financial service provider, and so one day he sat Rayson down and they discussed his financial plans. They also talked about the kind of insurance coverage that he had. It so happened that Rayson didn’t have any insurance. His friend told him that it was best he considered investing in insurance. He recommended an Investment-linked Insurance Policy (ILP). He explained to him that if he invests X amount, he will get a certain amount of money back. He promised that the monthly payment would increase in a couple of years, and the investment returns would come in as well. Trusting his good friend Because Rayson didn’t have any insurance at the moment, he thought, this could be a good thing. Having been good friends for a couple of years, Rayson put his trust in his friend and signed up right away without giving it much thought. His friend knew him well so definitely he was recommending something good for him. Rayson even went on to recommend him to his other friends, some who also signed up for the insurance policy. Never mix business with friendship Rayson was excited about his new investment and he would talk about it with his friends and podcast listeners. After a while, another friend, who is also a financial consultant, told him that the kind of insurance he’d signed up for wasn’t making financial sense. Rayson, confident in the friend who sold him the policy, rubbed this off as a case of one consultant being jealous of the other. One day he met up with a listener, and as they were talking about the podcast they happened to also talk about affordable insurance. Rayson told the listener about his, and the doubts his friend has been having about it. The listener drew the insurance plan down for him and it all made sense now. It became clear that his friend had duped him into signing up for a policy that would see himself benefit more than Rayson would. It made the most sense to cancel the insurance policy right away even though the friendship was, obviously, not salvaged. At this point, Rayson had already made thousands of dollars in payments, and all he could get back was 1,000 Singapore dollars. To add salt into injury, he had to use that money to pay the remaining term of the insurance policy. Lessons learned Never allow your emotions to affect your buying power Don’t use your emotions to buy anything as it affects your buying power. Investing in anything to blindly support a friend is a no-no. Treat this investment with caution just as you...

Danielle “Dani” Rocco is a mother, wife, and lifelong entrepreneur. Growing up as a professional ballerina developed her commitment and dedication to everything that life has to offer. As an adult, her athletic skills transferred and assisted in her becoming a successful business owner. At the age of 18, she started working for her family's gymnastics school and took the company from bankruptcy to financial abundance. After 23 years of being the CEO, Dani left her family business to follow her passion as a life coach and relationship expert. She started working with CEOs but soon realized her heart and mission was serving the US military and veterans. She is the author of Devoted to a Soldier & co-author with Les Brown of Own Your Dreams, co-author of 1 Habit. She created an Academy called Next Level of You, is a TV show host, a documentary producer of the documentary Devoted to a Soldier, speaker, and Life Insurance Specialist specializing in serving veterans and military.   “You can't create abundance when you're living for somebody else, and somebody else's dreams.” Dani Rocco   Worst investment ever Starting her entrepreneurial journey Dani’s journey to entrepreneurship started when she was 16 after she got pregnant with her son. Being a teenage mother created a mindset that she wasn’t valuable enough. For this reason, she was always trying to be better. This way, she felt less judged. At the time, she was living alone with her son and worked hard to make it in life. Pledging her loyalty to her family When she was 18, her father asked her to work for the family business and she agreed. It sounded like a good plan. She could take her son with her to work and also manage to go to college. Dani comes from a strong Italian family, where loyalty is a lifelong requirement. Family comes first, no questions asked. So for 23 years, she ran the family business together with her brother. It was her duty and honor to serve and be everything for her father. Losing her identity Dani and her brother went on to work their tails off and did everything they could so that her dad could have the life that he had worked for. Along the way, she lost her identity while trying to be of service to her family. At one time, she was involved in a terrible car accident and was paralyzed in bed. She would go in and out of consciousness but she still kept working even when bedridden. Rethinking her purpose During the time she was bedridden, she’d often think about her life wondering whether she was happy. She loved...

Sampath Mallidi is the Founder and CEO of Intandemly, a successful startup that helps organizations execute Account-based Sales through their software. Bootstrapped and formed in 2017, Intandemly has been profitable since year 1. Today, more than 200 organizations from 10+ countries use Intandemly to generate sales in the five figures! Sampath is an MBA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with an obsession for entrepreneurship, sales, and salsa.   “Cash is not the king. Cash flow is the king, so always have paying customers.” Sampath Mallidi   Worst investment ever The aha moment Before starting, Intandemly, Sampath worked two jobs, both in sales. But it was in the second job that he got his aha moment. Having been in B2B sales for all this time, he felt there was a need for an affordable account-based sales software for Small and Medium-sized Businesses. And if he could help them execute high quality targeted outreach to customers, he would be making an impact. So together with his then-boss, they formed Intandemly. They felt great about the new startup company, but they had no money. Knocking hard on doors Sampath went out knocking on doors, speaking to lots of potential prospects pitching his new platform and showing them how his platform would give them a higher ROI. He met about 20 companies and three of these loved his idea. Wearing his heart on his sleeve Sampath went out on a limb and told the three companies interested in his software that he had no money to develop the software for them. He asked them to pay him upfront. He used the money as his starting capital and put together a team of developers that started working on his idea. Soon enough, he delivered the software to the three customers who had put their faith in him. From there on, he continued meeting as many customers as possible. That’s how he was able to fund the company and in exactly a year and a half after starting the startup, they were at a pretty comfortable stage with roughly 50 to 70 customers. The startup becomes a household name The startup was now performing well, and he had investors interested in investing in startups approaching him. He got the company valued and got a $9 million valuation. From not having any funds to come into a $9 million valuation that was huge for Sampath. One gentleman that comes from a pretty big background took notice of the company and wanted to take a little stake in the company. And he was ready to invest immediately. So the deal was that he would be pumping in money two months after giving him the go-ahead. Thinking big With the anticipation of getting good funding from the gentleman, the company changed its entire...

Adam Dollner is a skillful international tech & travel/tourism specialist, speaker, and possibility creator with an entrepreneurial mindset. He has visited more than 70 countries and contributed his tech skills to more than 850 small or medium-sized businesses worldwide. His passion is to create opportunities, moving people and improving lives around the world by leveraging the latest technology. He is also the CEO/Founder of HubLearn. He is passionate about using innovation and the technology of tomorrow to make people’s lives easier. Before leaving his corporate job and starting HubLearn, Adam had a lead role in building streaming services such as HBO Nordic, Blockbuster, and others in Denmark’s biggest telco company the TDC Group. Adam has spent the last two years in Thailand & East Africa, sharing knowledge on the use of technology in various industries. Now he is based in Bangkok.   “Don’t listen to too many people. You're the one who lives with the consequences of your actions. So believe in yourself.” Adam Dollner   Worst investment ever Giving up the corporate world to be an entrepreneur After many years of working in the corporate world, Adam decided to quit and start his current company LearnHub. HubLearn was an idea that came up to him while in Africa. His goal was to create a hub that would guide people towards learning possibilities such as online education and help them step into the future of social learning. So he started doing some research and went further to contact some developers. He got in touch with a couple of them, and there was this one consultancy that caught his eye. It was a team of 16 developers with a point of contact who said all the magical words. Adam was blown away and decided to work with them. Getting the idea off the ground Adam was careful to make sure that the new team of developers clearly understood his idea, so they had back and forth discussions about the project. They discussed the idea of having a platform that allowed online, offline, and in-person development. A platform that could also allow someone to sponsor a learner while being able to track their funding. Where they can see the person, they’re sponsoring and be fully aware of what they would do with the funding received. So together, they developed all that on the paper. After about half a year of finetuning the project requirements, the point man told him that the team was ready to get started. However, they needed some money upfront. Because he had confidence in his idea and the team, he transferred US$10,000 to the consultancy. Adam couldn’t help but envision all the people whose lives he was going

Ed Latimore is a former professional boxer and a veteran of the United States Army National Guard. He holds a B.A. in Physics from Duquesne University and has written two Amazon Best Selling books. Millions of people have learned from Ed's insights and experiences through his writing. He teaches the lessons he has learned via his unique path through life at his blog, "The Mind and Fist" at http://www.edlatimore.com. He also delivers daily wisdom and observations on Twitter @EdLatimore.   “If you just work and gradually improve and you're not afraid to take criticism and suffer, you're eventually going to get better.” Ed Latimore   Worst investment ever Blinded by heartbreak At 22 years of age, Ed found himself out of the longest relationship in his life. He was a mess, and without much thought, he found himself in the arms of another woman. Blinded by the emotional loss, he felt from the broken relationship, Ed jumped right into another relationship without getting to know the woman first. It didn’t matter to him that she was dating someone else when they met. It didn’t matter to him that her attitude seemed off. All he cared about was that he found her attractive. He just wanted to be with someone who wanted him. Her true colors start to show A few weeks into the relationship, Ed realized that his girlfriend was emotionally manipulative and did her best to isolate him from his friends. They would get into constant arguments but he kept going back to her because he found her attractive. Here comes the bombshell Not too long after they started dating, Ed’s girlfriend dropped the bomb on him; she was pregnant. Ed was distraught! Not only did he doubt the child was his because he came to learn that she had other partners, but also, he was not in a position to raise a child. He was just 22, broke, and living with his mum. Living in misery Ed being the good guy he is, didn’t abandon his girlfriend. She moved in with him at his mum’s house. Things, however, got worse. She was cheating on him, was always criticizing him and continued to manipulate him emotionally. Ed was so miserable and emotionally drained but he stayed and hoped things would get better but they only got worse. Having the guts to leave Ed wanted to leave the situation, but he felt trapped. His poor financial status made him feel useless and worthless. He didn’t have much to offer, financially, so he stayed so that he could continue living with his mom. It was a miserable situation. One day he woke up and realized that he was either going to lose his mind or do something that he’d live to regret for the rest of his life. After the worst fight with his girlfriend, he mastered the courage to leave the toxic relationship...

Ryan Roghaar (Ro gar) is a serial entrepreneur, award-winning creative director, podcaster, author, and a business owner committed to building authentic end-to-end relationships for his clients—top management to the top consumer. His unique philosophy puts specific importance on human relationships and their inherent value in both business and in life. He believes that as a society, we are reaching a kind of technological saturation point which is leaving consumers anxious and yearning for tactile human experiences, and it is that core ethic that fuels his purpose—to bring people together. ‍From his office in Salt Lake City, Utah, or occasionally from his office-away-from-home in Barcelona, Spain, Ryan will offer enlightening insights on a huge range of topics in his humorous and engaging style. Relationships, business, design, art, creativity, marketing, podcasting, remote work, coworking, the music business, travel and the life of a digital nomad—Ryan has lived and studied them all—and he is happy to share his insights and experiences to help others explore fresh perspectives on business, lifestyle and new ways of working.   “As a contractor, not having the safety of contracts, agreements, a client onboarding process, you are wide open for abuse, and there's very little you can do about it.” Ryan Roghaar   Worst investment ever Delving into a new space Ryan’s marketing and advertising company deals with different clients in different industries. Finding new work is the norm for the company. So when a friend referred a client to them in need of their services, it was nothing new. The client, however, was in Cannabidiol (CBD) and medical marijuana, a market the company had never dealt with. Nevertheless, they were quite excited to try this market. Going against his intuition and better judgment Ryan did a couple of sales interviews with stakeholders in the company, and it was all going well until, eventually, he met the CEO. He immediately had a bad gut feeling about the guy's character. His intuition made him doubt the CEO but he looked the other way. Ryan went against what nature was telling him and pursued the relationship anyway. Blinded by desperation At the time, Ryan’s company was in great need of a win so they were a little bit blinded by some desperation. They had bills to pay, people to pay, and other business operating costs that had to be taken care of. So, this one time Ryan decided to overlook his intuition because the company needed the money. Unlike with other clients, they jumped right into work without dealing with the legal nitty-gritty first. They didn't follow their client onboarding process and had no agreements or contracts in place. So even though they had rules when signing up a new client, they didn't follow them, they just quickly jumped on their projects and went right to work. But, everything seemed to be working out fine. The client didn’t complain about their rates and was paying on time. Changing the project midway At some point, they decided to make a big packaging change. They were up against a deadline, as the client was going to pitch some large pharmacies and other...

For the first time in this podcast's history, we’re having a guest come on the show a second time! For the long-time listener, you may remember today’s guest’s story of loss in episode 41 Diversification: The Best Insurance Against any Investment Burst. Joachim Klement experienced his worst investment in the early 2000s during the Dotcom bubble after investing in a tech fund. Sharing his story on our podcast inspired him to write the book 7 Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How to Avoid Them): A Manifesto for Smarter Investing. It’s a huge pleasure to have him back on the show. In this episode, he will walk through the 7 mistakes he talks about in his book. Guest profile Joachim Klement is a research analyst and former Chief Investment Officer with 20 years’ experience in financial markets. He spent most of his career working with wealthy individuals and family offices, advising them on investments and helping them manage their portfolios. Joachim studied mathematics and physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, and graduated with a master’s degree in mathematics. During his time at ETH, Joachim experienced the technology bubble of the late 1990s firsthand. Through this work, he became interested in finance and investments and studied business administration at the Universities of Zurich and Hagen, Germany, graduating with a master’s degree in economics and finance and switching into the financial services industry in time for the run-up to the financial crisis. 7 Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How to Avoid Them): A Manifesto for Smarter Investing Seven Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How to Avoid Them) calls upon years of experience and scientific research to deliver expert insight into the most common mistakes plaguing investors. From there, Klement outlines his personal tools and techniques, developed, refined, and successfully implemented over many years in the finance industry, to help avoid and mitigate such mistakes. His ultimate aim: to help you help yourself. The mistakes covered include forecasting, short- and long-term orientation, repeating past errors, confirmation bias, not delegating to experts, and blind trust of traditional assumptions. Seven Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How to Avoid Them) is a must-have guide for every investor. Packed with scientific research and personal wisdom, this book draws together the most common investing mistakes to practically revealing how to overcome and eliminate them. Don’t make another avoidable mistake by missing out on this book.   “I think artificial intelligence and other new tools built on big data...

Jim Maffuccio (Ma fuchi oh) has enjoyed a long and successful career in real estate and has some battle scars to prove it. Today, as Founder and Principal of Aspen Funds, he’s drawing on his over 30 years of real estate experience in a way that many haven't discovered. Jim has become an expert on mortgage notes and is helping investors earn high yields every month without the built-in volatility of traditional investment options.   “If you launch off on a cockeyed idea that you haven't gotten counsel from others, haven't done your homework and the timing is bad, you can persist all you want but I'm sorry, it's not going to work.” Jim Maffuccio   Worst investment ever Thrice a fool Jim was sitting at his kitchen table in Ventura, still working for a big oil company that gave him job security and a huge salary. He had just got his real estate license and started putting together deals for a couple of friends. He did some real quick math and said, “Man, I'm gonna make more money on these two real estate deals when they close than I'm making in a quarter of a year working.” Too fast too soon Without any more research or experience, Jim pulled the ripcord and bailed out the corporation. Within a week, both of those deals went south. He made nothing, and now he was jobless. Not one to give up easily Jim found another way to get a few more deals in his pipeline. He started doing transactional real estate helping buyers and sellers find and sell their homes. He hooked up with a friend who had some experience in real estate. They decided to delve into land development. The timing was just right They started subdividing some land, did their first home project, and hit the 1988/89 cycle right. The prices were going up and they ended up doing well with that first project. Full of vigor, they went out and acquired a bunch of other lands and started their next projects. Forgot to keep up with the current affairs Jim and his partner were so excited about their success that they forgot to keep up with current affairs. The S&L crisis hit them unawares. They had bought all this land, and just as the market had gone up pretty rapidly, now it was turning a corner pretty fast. Time wasn’t on their side anymore The problem with a development project is that it takes a long time to get your approvals, and you don't have any control over that timeline. Jim and his partner were raising money pulling the land together, putting all the pieces together, designing the project, hiring architects and land planners, and working hard to present their product to a market that they didn’t even know if it would exist by the time they were finished. Rethinking the plan They had to redesign the project to an affordable housing situation. They broke ground in their project in 1994 just after the recession. It was terrible timing for them. They had this beautiful, wonderful little development of homes but...

Whitney Hansen teaches millennials how to pay off debt and gain financial independence. She gives them the tools to have more fun with money while sprinkling in a little silliness. She’s got a Master’s in Business, a Bachelor’s in Accounting, experienced paying off debt ($30,000 in 10 months), and a true “started from the bottom” story. When she is not writing about money and creating financial plans for others, she can be found taking spontaneous road trips, reading in coffee shops, or mentoring other entrepreneurs. She is also a podcast host for The Money Nerds Podcast, where she gets to interview cool people and hear their secrets to financial success.   “Never, ever make any decisions in your financial life until you do your own research and try to get a basic understanding. I think that is rule number one for any financial decision.” Whitney Hansen   Worst investment ever Blindly trusting others did not serve her well At an early age of 18, Whitney opened up her investing account and hired a big broker firm. As she was looking at her statement one year, she noticed that she was in the hole. Not because her stocks had gone down. They were higher, but because the fees were getting so high, and she didn't even realize that she was paying a 7% fee! She admitted that when she first started investing, she had no idea about these fees and how it affected her investment. Ignorance did not serve her well either Whitney also shared that during her early years, she had financed a family car. Without any knowledge about cars, she, of course, trusted the car dealer and bought one. She did the best she could to make the monthly payments. After a couple of months, the engine blew and the car could not be used anymore. That’s when she realized that people would sometimes lie to make a sale and her ignorance did not serve her well. The common denominator to her failures Whitney realized that all those lessons combined taught her to not blindly trust professionals. Now, before making big financial decisions, she always does her homework diligently and to lean into her intuition. Lessons learned Do your own research and try to get a basic understanding Never, ever make any decisions in your financial life until you do your own research and try to get a basic understanding. I think that is rule number one for any financial decision. Andrew’s takeaways Compound interest is all about getting your money in and keeping it in We’ve all seen that chart that shows the exponential rise caused by compound interest. Always remember that the exponential rise doesn't start occurring until around year 20. So, one of the highest priorities when it comes to investing is getting your money in and keeping it in. One of the six key ways that people make mistakes or lose money is a misplaced trust When you...

Justin Tamsett is Australia’s most awarded fitness business speaker and is recognized internationally as a thought leader who delivers in a unique style and with quality content. He will have you challenge how you do things as he believes we should #thinkanddodifferent to grow the fitness industry. After 30 years in the amazing fitness industry, he shares practical ideas from inside and outside the industry with a focus on ideas that can be implemented immediately. He has trained in over 400 fitness facilities since 2015 as a casual visitor to get the true consumer experience. Justin has delivered over 353 presentations since 1999 across 21 countries and to over 210,300 fitness business owners, managers, team members, and entrepreneurs. He is the only speaker to speak 20 consecutive years at Filex in Australia and for 15 consecutive years at IHRSA in the USA. The people who attend his sessions help him achieve his why: To have more people move and move more often to reduce the health care costs across the globe.   “You can still be an entrepreneur, be successful. But that success will be a whole lot more enjoyable when you’re alive and healthy.” Justin Tamsett   Worst investment ever Doing what he loves and loving what he does As an entrepreneur, Justin always wanted to own a business, specifically a gym. He started as a personal trainer but had a goal to have his gym before he was 25. His determination and focus also saw him open his first gym when he was 25. One thing about Justin that stood out is that he loved what he did. He loved working in a gym and owning a gym. He loved it so much that he would get there at the crack of dawn and leave after the sun had gone down. Some days he was the first person in the gym and the last one out. He never considered it work. He went on to open a second gym. The gym owner who never worked out The irony of it all was that even though he owned two gyms, he never worked out. He never took time for himself; he was always working. Because he loved working so much, he never realized that he was pushing himself too much. His body didn’t love his job as much At some point, he started getting some really bad abdominal pain, but he didn’t worry about it or thought it was anything serious. The abdominal pain also came with some fairly unpleasant toilet visits. Again, he didn't think it was anything serious. And being a man, he decided to keep it secret thinking this was just something that would pass shortly. The toil took him down Despite the pain, he kept working hard every day doing what he loved most. However, he couldn’t keep it together for long. One day when he was on holiday with his wife, he had a strong urge to use the toilet. He just had to go. Fortunately, there was a toilet nearby. His whole insides almost exploded in the toilet bowl. His wife insisted that he had to get checked as soon as they got back home from the...

“Ordinary to Extraordinary” is something Erik Seversen lives by, and he’s been pretty successful at it. Born into an average, lower-middle-class family, Erik received no support from school counselors and others, but he didn’t let them crush his desire to accomplish amazing things. Erik also took life experiences, like rejection from his dream school, UCLA, and turned them into challenges to overcome. He eventually did get into UCLA. Erik studied Anthropology and used it in business to help the company he works grow from a value of $7 million to over $100 million in 10 years. He also taught English as a Second Language for 10 years in Japan, France, Thailand, and universities within the US. He has traveled to over 80 countries around the world and 49 states in the US. He has ridden a motorcycle on six continents and crossed the US on one twice. Erik also climbs mountains, having summited the highest peak of eight countries and five states. He even once had a machine gun stuck in his mouth in Nigeria.   “You can have the best of the best working together, but to create that right thing and that recipe that really creates the right taste and the right success, there has to be synergy.” Erik Seversen   Worst investment ever The perfect ingredients for a perfect business Erik knew a friend who was putting an idea of a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles into action. Since this friend had been working with a lot of restaurant projects before, Erik was very excited about the concept. When his friend was looking for a head chef, Erik referred someone he knew who has published a best-selling book on cooking vegan. With the perfect duo working on the restaurant, things started happening. They raised enough money to take the project off the ground and started running it. The investors were really happy to see the business moving forward. The clash of the flavors Suddenly, the business was not making the numbers they’d projected. The perfect team which Erik helped create didn’t mix. And the supposed wonders that were expected from the dream team didn’t happen as planned. What happened was that their financial guy who was supposed to be in charge of the money and finances started making creative decisions that were supposed to be the job of the head chef. The head chef, on the other hand, wanted to make financial decisions. So, all of these things that each of them knew how to do, when they couldn't stick to what they know and just let things happen, things went south. The second wave of failure There was a second round of funding that Erik and his team used to keep the restaurant alive for a little longer. They invested the money into a new location in a prime location. They went for it because they thought that there was going to be 1,600 units of prime customers living in the same building as their restaurant. In the end, over half of the units were bought as a...

With 28 years of experience in real estate investing, there is not a strategy that Mathew Frederick has not executed, which includes residential, commercial, new development, raising capital, offshore, and coaching. Mathew started in residential income property then expanded to buy-fix-sell, lease option, commercial buildings, and new development projects. Mathew has had the lead on renovating 50 plus properties, has experience with building 240 houses, and 3 low-rise condo buildings. He now focuses on teaching people how to manage commercial portfolios, including plazas and multi-family buildings, plus coaching investors in real estate and business acquisition. Mathew’s mindset is one of always learning. This has resulted in him being able to develop alternative and creative approaches while mentoring investors.   “Sometimes, you have to learn to say no. I knew that it was not the right deal. I knew I couldn't oversee it. It was not the right time. I knew he was not the right person. But I did it to try to rescue him.” Mathew Frederick   Worst investment ever An investment to save a friend Mathew bought five properties as his friend who needed capital promised him that he would do the necessary renovations to resell these properties for a larger amount in the market. The friend ensured Mathew that he had the resources to make these renovations and that they would make good money from it. Unfortunately, once things started, Mathew immediately realized that his friend lied about the resources he had, and things got a little out of hand. In the end, when there was no money in it for his friend, he walked away. A mistake made by an expert Mathew’s intuition was telling him that there was something off with this investment, but abandoning the basics of investment, he still went through with it. True enough, when the US markets fell, and the economy collapsed, Mathew’s properties were greatly affected. This included the five properties he invested in with his friend. Fortunately, he was able to sell three properties out of the five. The two remaining were being rented out because he couldn’t sell them at that time. All the greatest renovations for resale ended up being tarnished because he didn't harden them for rental. So, by the time he did sell the properties, all that extra value was not there anymore. Lessons learned Surround yourself with people who are responsible If you are a responsible person and you circle yourself with people who are not, they will pull you down. Always monitor if your people are doing their jobs If you know already that there are jobs not done right or not done on time, do not waste time and correct it immediately. Do not compensate for people’s shortfalls just because you have lots of experience Even though you are an expert in that field or industry, do not forget to go back to the basics. Andrew’s takeaways Remember all the elements in investing with other...

Roger Dooley is an author and international keynote speaker. His books include FRICTION – The Untapped Force That Can Be Your Most Powerful Advantage and Brainfluence: 100 Ways To Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing. He writes the popular blog Neuromarketing as well as a columnist at Forbes. He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. He's been a serial entrepreneur since he left a senior strategy position at a Fortune 1000 company to enter the then-nascent home computer market. Also, you can check his podcast entitled The Brainfluence Podcast.   “We all have a tendency that if we're in a situation that is somewhat comfortable, we keep investing our time in that when we really shouldn't. We should say, ‘Okay, a year from now, this is not going to be any better; it is time to pull the plug and do something else.’” Roger Dooley   Worst investment ever Investing in a company that does not want to be obsolete Way back in the early days of home computers, Roger co-founded a business that focused on getting software, accessories and other products to the early owners of home computers. For years, Roger grew the business to a quite substantial size. But for the last five years, they began to level out and saw that the market was changing which made some of their original product areas defunct. Instead of looking for an exit before becoming obsolete, Roger stayed with the business and managed to run it for a couple more years. And in those years, the business never grew nor had experienced big financial losses. It just existed in the market in comfortable inertia. Money can be recovered but time can’t After 13 years, Roger realized that it was time to exit. Although he had no substantial losses from that investment, he felt like he was trapped for years in a situation that never paid off long term. This was for him his worst investment as it took so much of his time, which he can never get back. Yes, he invested

Peter Sainsbury is an investor in resource stocks and is also a commodity futures trader. In an attempt to help others, he wrote two books aimed at investors - Commodities: 50 Things You Really Need To Know and Crude Forecasts: Predictions, Pundits & Profits In The Commodity Casino. At Materials Risk, he writes about what he observes in the world of markets, economics, and investing.   “I thought I was clever, but in many ways, I was making it much more complicated than it than it needed to be.” Peter Sainsbury   Worst investment ever Making a contrarian investment is exciting Peter always had an interest in gold and after his previous success, in early 2014, he bought shares in a mining company. He was very excited to have potentially found something that was being underappreciated by the broader market. During that time, he thought it would be interesting to make a contrarian investment. He took a position that went against the trend of the market, hopeful of gaining a comfortable leveraged exposure to gold and providing limited downside as well. Going for the kill With that play in mind, Peter was searching around different ways to apply it. While reading through various articles, one company kept on coming up and was making a buzz in social media. After making enough research of this company – looking at how it performed in the past years and the different gold price environments in the past, Peter decided to make a contrarian investment. Getting out of a position is harder than getting in However, the excitement didn’t last long because one problem after another started to pile up. First of all, the gold price kept on falling. Second, the company was based in a country where a change in political regime meant that the attitude towards mining became increasingly negative. In effect, the share price of the company was down around about 70%. Even with all these issues, it still took Peter quite a while to realize that he just made his worst investment ever. He admitted that getting out of a bad position and moving on was really hard. Lesson learned Do not put all your eggs in one basket Investing without diversification is like throwing money away....

For over 30 years, Dante Vitoria has been running his firm the Vitoria Group, which has broad experience working with companies of various sizes to fulfill its client's financial needs. The client base is extremely diverse, ranging from international money centers, domestic banks, insurance companies, and financial firms. The group provides a vast array of financial services specifically tailored to enable clients to meet their goals, the assistance direction and access to professional banking and other facilities.   “Know when to get in, but more importantly know when you're going to get out.” Dante Vitoria   Worst investment ever Getting into Wall Street After college, the dad to one of Dante’s friends asked him to come work for him at a small but very successful investment banking firm. Though he’d never thought about getting into finance he said yes. Experiencing his first stock investment About a month and a half into his first job a doctor in Florida named Stanley Chase came up with this idea where he’d take your blood test and pronounce you AIDS-free then give you a credit card to show your AIDS-free status. A lot of brokers were interested in the idea and even tried it out. They figured they could take the doctor’s idea public. The whole firm was behind the stock. Every broker from the rookie, to the 75-year-old retired guy who'd come every day and have a cup of coffee, was buying the stock. It was the greatest stock since IBM. Getting into everyone’s favorite stock Dante, not wanting to be left behind, took all the savings he had, about $50,000 and bought the stock which was selling below $12 a share. After about a month and a half, the stock was selling at double what Dante had bought it for. Playing sheep with his investment After he had doubled his money, Dante went to a stockbroker with a ticket to sell. The trader looked at him and said, “What's wrong with you? It doesn't get any better than this. Don't do this. Let's keep it. If anything happens I will tell you to get out.” Dante listened to the trader and kept his stock. A week later the stock was trading at $31. He still doesn’t sell it. Well, the trader had not yet called to advise time to sell, so he still held onto the stock. Here comes the FBI One Monday morning, Dante stepped off his office elevator and was met by a huge guy wearing a brown polyester suit with slicked black hair. The guy asked him if he was Vitoria to which he answered in the affirmative. The guy said he was the FBI and told him to go have breakfast they had no interest in him. Confused, Dante showed him the breakfast he was carrying and said he was good. The FBI told him to leave immediately and come back after lunch. So off he went. The office building was now full of cops, plainclothes detectives and the FBI. When he came back later,...

Sarah Larbi specializes in helping take the mystery out of homeownership for Canadians who thought real estate investing was out of reach. She has earned their trust and respect by having the drive and focus to embark, build and grow a seven-figure, 10 property investment portfolio by her early 30’s. Sarah’s goal is to inspire and train other fellow Canadian’s to realize their property-owning dreams by sharing her 7-step investing process through her online training programs. Her results-oriented approach has been featured in The Toronto Star, 1010 News Talk Radio, and Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine as well as numerous online media. She is an invited speaker at the Canadian Real Estate Wealth Investor Forum and is often a guest on numerous North American finance-focused podcasts. Sarah is the co-host of two podcasts related to the Canadian real estate market.   “In this real estate game, it is about time in the market, not timing the market. So just do your research, jump in and keep learning along the way.” Sarah Larbi   Worst investment ever Desire to be wealthy Sarah had a great desire to be wealthy and she wanted to find out how she could retire at 40 while still enjoying financial freedom. So she did some research and real estate investing kept coming back over and over and over. While she came across other ways of creating wealth, she was drawn to real estate. She managed to convince her boyfriend to join her and buy real estate property. She took a second job and cashed in some of her vacation money to be able to have enough downpayment to buy the cheapest house that they could afford. Mistake no.1: Renting to family At the time Sarah and her boyfriend were looking to buy their first rental property her sister needed a place to live closer to her daughter's school. So they decided to look for property in that area with plans to rent out the house to her sister. They didn’t do any kind of research they simply asked the sister what kind of house she wanted and could afford. That’s the only information they worked with to buy their first rental property. They didn’t research the location or make any price and property comparisons. Mistake no.2: Not using a local realtor Sarah used the realtor that was originally helping them in a town about an hour away to find their rental property. They kept going back and forth because the realtor didn't know the market and neither did they. Mistake no.3: Borrowing from the bank instead of a mortgage broker Once they got a property they went to their bank for financing. The bank wanted 35% downpayment forcing her to look for a mortgage broker but at this point, she’d wasted a lot of time trying to negotiate with the bank. Making the math work Luckily, Sarah happened to listen to several real estate investing podcasts and she learned that she needed to figure out how to at least break even or make some cash flow from her real estate property. She worked out that she needed to collect $800 in rent per month to break even. What she didn’t...

Jack Thomas is the founder and CEO of BASE, which was voted as Asia's Gym of the Year 2018 at the Fitness Best Awards. With eight years of experience in Asia's fitness industry, he runs a multiple seven-figure fitness business in Bangkok with a team of over 30 coaches. Jack also hosts the Fitness Business Asia Podcast, a weekly show with a mission to raise the standards of Asia's fitness industry. He regularly speaks at leading fitness industry events in Asia such as the FIT Summit, Asia Fitness Convention, and ExPro Fitness Convention.   “If you do the right things during the recruitment process and probation period, by the end of that, you should really know if they're the right fit for your company or not.” Jack Thomas   Worst investment ever The difficulty of launching a business Jack admitted that the first six months after they opened in August 2016 was the toughest. Although he had experience in running a business, launching one was different. He said that not focusing properly in sales and marketing was his biggest regret. Instead of consulting marketing agencies, they decided to do it internally. With little knowledge in sales and marketing, he interviewed someone who he thought was the right person for the job. Bringing in the wrong people One moment he was launching a business, the next thing Jack knew, he hit rock bottom. Yes, he had clients coming in and did some free trial runs but they were never converted to fully-paying clients. The manager he hired whose job was to introduce packages that catered to their clients’ needs was letting these clients walk out the door without offering them products of the gym. It was not until they were pretty low on funds that Jack discovered how wrong that person was for the job. Lessons learned Tidy up your recruitment process Every time something goes right or something goes wrong, look back, and analyze what went right and what went wrong. Incorporate the things you have learned when updating your recruitment process to make things better later. Get people who are excited with sales If they are allergic to sales and they do not want to do it, it's going to be hard to turn that person around. Don't tell your employees that the products will sell itself When your employees stop selling and expect your products to do all the work, sales don’t happen. Andrew’s takeaways Entrepreneurs are risk managers A lot of people call entrepreneurs risk-takers, but truthfully, they're risk managers. It is important to manage risks so carefully especially if you have a very limited amount of resources. The beginning stage is not the right time to take risks...

Michael Lebowitz brings more than 25 years of financial markets and risk management experience as a portfolio manager at RIA Advisors. Throughout his career, Michael has been involved in trading portfolio construction and risk management, involving some of the largest and most active portfolios in the world. In addition to broad institutional experience, he has also built a successful independent investment advisory, which allowed him to further extend his experience into the realm of investment management for individuals and family offices. Michael's background and experience are the product of a diverse career path that affords him a unique investment and economic perspective, grounded in logic and common sense. He blends his vast trading and investment experience with economic viewpoints that deliver pragmatic and actionable thought leadership to clients.   “You just got to say no. It's okay to say no, and even if whatever you're going to buy goes up a lot, that's fine. Just think about tomorrow, stop thinking about the past.” Michael Lebowitz   Worst investment ever Lose a client or invest in a tech company Back in 2012, when Michael and his partner started their management firm, one of their biggest clients approached them to invest in a computer chips company. And because this client was putting in a huge amount of money to their firm, they could not say no to him. Although the pitch was decent because it promised them great potential and even greater results, Michael admitted that he and his partner did not have any idea what they just had gotten themselves into. However, they were pretty convinced that if they didn’t put a decent amount of money into this tech company, they might lose their client. All is not well in the end Michael and his partner thought the payout would be in two or three years. As it turns out, they invested in 2012, it’s now 2019, and they still haven’t gotten any returns from that investment. Not to mention the problems piling up with the development of the chips and constantly raising more money and diluting Michael. To make matters worse, that particular client left his firm a year and a half later for other reasons. Lessons learned Stay in your lane, do what you know best Even if the promise is great and the returns are said to be unbelievable. Getting into something that you don't know will never bring you good results. It’s ok to say no to an opportunity Not all opportunities are to be taken. Some are traps. And to avoid them, one has to learn the art of saying no. Andrew’s takeaways Startup investing is so much about burning money You're either going to lose all the money you have invested, or they're going to come back to you and ask for more money. If you do not have that money to put into it, then you're going to be diluted. It’s difficult to...

Joel Comm is a New York Times bestselling author, blockchain enthusiast, professional keynote speaker, social media marketing strategist, live video expert, technologist, brand influencer, futurist, and eternal 12-year-old. With over two decades of experience harnessing the power of the web, publishing, social media and mobile applications to expand reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his audiences inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create highly effective new media campaigns. Travis Wright is a top marketing technologist, author, keynote speaker, blockchain advisor, tech journalist, and podcast host. He is the former global digital and social strategist at Symantec (Sa man tic) for the Norton brand. Wright is the co-founder & CMO of CCP Digital, a Kansas City & SF-based digital ad & content agency. Wright is the author of Wiley & Sons, Digital Sense, The Common Sense Approach to Social Business Strategy, Marketing Technologies, Customer Experience and Emerging Technologies, which was published in January 2017. These two gentlemen are the hosts of the podcast Crypto Curious and Crypto Serious.   “The current paper currency model is going to go away. A big shift is going to happen. The paper money system is going to crumble.”  Travis Wright   Worst investment ever – Joel’s story of loss The big idea 2009 was a good year for Joel. He had a staff of about 38 people running several successful projects. The money was flowing, the business was good. So together with his team, Joel came up with one of the first pieces of technology that would bring email marketing type of delivery to mobile. Think of Constant Contact and AWeber, where you can send bulk emails to people that have subscribed to your list. They came up with technology that would allow you to do that to mobile phones. Blood, sweat, and money Joel put a lot into this project spending somewhere in the low six figures of his money. They did everything they could to promote the system. They showed up at trade shows and demonstrated it, but people didn't respond. He tried to raise venture capital to grow it but didn't get the response that he wanted. He even tried looking for partnerships, but no

Niels Kaastrup-Larsen is the managing director of DUNN Capital (Europe) and heads up the business development in Europe and Asia. Niels has been in the managed futures business since 1990. Holding management positions at several leading commodity trader advisors and has helped investors place more than $2 billion in trend following strategies. Niels is the founder and host of the world's leading podcast within quant-based investment strategies, Top Traders Unplugged as well as the host of CME Group Managed Futures Podcast.   “I certainly had to realize that to overcome emotions in the investment world and be rational and critical and to preserve those kinds of thinking. Then becoming a quant or a rules-based investor was the way to go to automate things. So you’ll know exactly what you want to do and have a plan.” Niels Kaastrup-Larsen   Worst investment ever Doing what he was trained to do When Niels started as a young trader, his job was partly to provide liquidity to the clients of the bank he was working for. He would inherently be speculating during the day or even during the week by holding positions in bonds that his bank was making markets in. And so, the mantra that many people know as buying low and selling high was really what he was trained to do, but on a discretionary basis. The fear of the unknown When there were big changes, Niels found out very quickly how difficult it was to figure out where the low was because the low may be very different in reality to what he thought. So, because of not knowing what he did not know, he certainly had quite a few very painful days during that time. The power of momentum What he did not know at the time when he was just a young trader was the power of momentum and how important it is to follow the overall trend in the market, not trying to go against the market trend. Lesson learned Do not listen to your gut feeling Our gut feeling is more of a warning system to keep us safe. But cannot be used as a guide or measure for making financial decisions. Do not be guided by your emotions These emotions would sometimes lead us doing the opposite of what we should. We end up becoming more risk-seeking towards the end of a bull market and be very conservative just before the bear market is coming to an end. So we end up being guided by emotions, which are complete disasters when it comes to making financial decisions. Actionable advice Be open-minded and trust the evidence. Do proper research. Niels has advised watching some Ray Dalio videos....

Angela Zeigerbacher has always been interested in the personal finance realm, from hoarding cash in her sock drawer as a kid to paying off her student loan debt in one year after college. After countless conversations with friends, she realized not everyone had the same level of personal finance education, which prompted her to launch the Money in the Bank podcast, a personal finance podcast for the average Joe or Jane. On top of this, Angela has taught personal finance to teenagers in high school as well as hosted “lunch and learn” at several companies. She recently started a food channel on YouTube, Foogality, where she cooks and bakes frugal type of meals.   “Things can always break when you buy a house. So going in without a maintenance fund is a really bad idea.” Angela Zeigerbacher   Worst investment ever Young, debt-free and proud Angela finished paying off her student loan in just a year after college. She was on top of the world. At 22 and having paid off her student loan debt that fast, she felt she was doing a lot of things right. So what's next? Interestingly, nobody talks about what you should do once you pay off your debt, especially to young people. So after working so hard to pay off her debt, she didn’t know what to do now that she was debt-free. All her friends advised her to treat herself, go on nice vacations, and buy things she wanted. Angela had never really been a spendthrift. So she didn't take the advice completely to heart, but she started thinking about it. Desire to live the American dream Everyone kept telling her to buy a house, so she figured the American dream sounded good. It would be nice to have a house and have a boyfriend, two cars in the garage, and a white picket fence. Her American dream started with a new car. She didn’t put much thought behind it. She just went to the dealership and picked a car that she thought was good for her; a brand new Ford Escape for $35,000. Let’s buy a home Next on her American dream list was a house. After buying the car, her lease came up for renewal. At the time, she was living with her boyfriend and they decided that renting was just throwing away money, especially now that the lease was going to increase by $250 a month. So they decided that buying a house was the right thing to do. Again no thought was given to this decision as she was just too excited to get something she wanted and could afford. Oh, damn the closing costs! Even though they went for a house, they could easily pay for, one huge factor, prompted by the hasty decision making, was ignored. They never factored in the closing costs which was about 3% of the buying price. Now they were draining...

Tobias Carlisle is the founder of The Acquirer’s Multiple. He's also the founder of the Acquirers Funds. He is best known as the author of the number one new release in Amazon, Business and Finance, The Acquirer’s Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the Market. He has also authored several Amazon best-sellers - Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations, Quantitative Value: A Practitioner’s Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors, and Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors. Tobias has extensive experience in investment management, business valuation of public companies, corporate governance, and corporate law. Before founding the forerunner to acquirers fund in 2010, Tobias was an analyst at an activist hedge fund, general counsel of a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and a corporate advisory lawyer. As a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, he has advised on transactions across a variety of industries in the United States, the UK, China, Australia, Singapore, Bermuda, Papa New Guinea, New Zealand, and Guam. He is a graduate of the University of Queensland in Australia with degrees in Law and Business. Currently, Tobias is a portfolio manager of the Acquirers Fund, which is an ETF listed on the New York Stock Exchange.   “You can have a good thesis, but you have to be very careful about the cash flow.” Tobias Carlisle   Worst investment ever Started out investing in asset-heavy business When the BP oil spill happened, many oil and gas companies got in a lot of trouble. One of which was the Seahawk Drilling. As soon as the drilling stops, they didn’t get a lot of cash flow but they were very asset-heavy. So, when they were trading at around $0.10, Tobias took the offer to invest in those jackup rigs as he was promised that there has never been an opportunity like that. To capitalize and become one of the big drillers in the area through these undervalued assets was exactly what Tobias was looking...

Guest profile Andy Hill is the award-winning blogger and podcaster behind Marriage, Kids and Money Podcast His podcast and blog are dedicated to helping young families build wealth and thrive. His advice and personal finance experience have been featured in major media outlets like Business Insider, Market Watch, and NBC News. Trusted as a personal finance influencer by National Financial brands like Quicken Loans, his message of family financial empowerment has resonated with listeners, readers, and viewers across the US. When he's not talking money, he enjoys wrestling with his two kids and singing karaoke with his wife.   “I made a promise after that home purchase that I would never buy a home that took up more than 25% of my after-tax income.” Andy Hill   Worst investment ever Excited to be a young homeowner When he was 22, Andy decided to invest in his first investment, buying his first house. He had saved $20,000 working odd jobs and couldn’t be more proud of himself. All along, he had heard that the best thing one could do with money is to buy a home and become a homeowner. So this was a big deal for him because he had worked hard and felt proud of that. Andy ended up looking in a great suburb where a lot of young people lived after they graduated college and found a $200,000 house. He put 10% down and bought the home. He was excited; it was going to be his bachelor pad close to downtown where he could hang out with friends. The bills start trickling in Once he got the keys, he started to get the bills. He quickly realized that this mortgage was going to take up about 70% of his income. As if the mortgage was not enough, things started breaking. The roof needed replacing, and the kitchen needed some work. Andy didn’t have the income or the funds to properly fund this investment that he had plunged all his savings into. He ended up taking out a home equity line of credit (HELOC) on his home to keep up with his living expenses. Shacking up to pay up The bills started to rack up, and he got into debt. This was not the investment that he thought it was going to be. So he ended up getting some roommates to help him pay for his living expenses. Some of them worked out; some of them didn't. Getting out of his worst investment ever To get out of that mess, he worked harder to grow his income to pay his mortgage. Eventually, he just had to sell the house. At this point, he had done some updates to the kitchen and the backyard. And all in all, when he sold the house, he barely broke even. He sold it for $225,000.  But he had spent more than $25,000 in repairs. Lessons learned...

Nick Bradley is a business scale up specialist helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses to create freedom, build wealth, achieve their mission, and live life more on their terms. He is the founder of the Fielding Group, a growth accelerator that helps companies improve business performance. He works with private equity firms across the UK and the US, leading business turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions, and scale-ups. Over the last decade, he has bought, built, and sold multiple businesses creating significant value for shareholders. Nick is also the host of UK’s number one business podcast on iTunes, Scale Up Your Business. His mission is to help bring an entrepreneurial skillset and mindset to people all over the world as a driving force of progression and prosperity. Originally from Australia, Nick is a dedicated family man who has a strong background in physical fitness, having completed 67 marathons and 24 ultramarathons worldwide. He's also a qualified personal trainer and performance coach.   “The worst time to make an investment decision is when it's based purely on emotions because you're not seeing the bigger picture, and you're not being objective.” Nick Bradley   Worst investment ever Starting his entrepreneurial journey Nick’s entrepreneurial journey started when he was 18 years old when he started a gym. Personal training back in the late 80s was still a new idea, so in some ways, he was innovating, but he felt the need to get out of the environment. So he sold that business to a friend for a little bit of cash, packed up all his belongings, and left the little town of Adelaide, South Australia. He ended up in Sydney with about a month's worth of cash. Jumping into the corporate world Left with barely any money to survive on and about to move back to Adelaide, he was lucky enough to bag a job as marketing manager of Men's Health magazine. His new job earned him some good money. He loved his job and did everything he could to get ahead in his career as quickly as possible. Sometimes he had to step on people to get to where he needed to get. Board member before he was 30 Nick’s drive to succeed saw him become a board director of a company in the UK before he was 30. So he left Sydney and moved to the UK after he got transferred there by one of the media companies he was working for. Grinding his teeth, literally All this corporate work was stressing him up. One night he was quite stressed and wasn't feeling great. He was taking some of that stress out on his young family as well. So this night, he had a whole heap of stuff going on with the company he was working in. The stress had him grinding his teeth in his sleep. He woke up and realized that he had cracked all his back teeth on the right side. He had ground his teeth right down to the point where the pressure of the clinch broke his teeth. <span style="font-weight:...

Frank Paiano is a retired professor from Southwestern Community College, where he was teaching his favorite course Introduction to Investments. He started as a computer programming teacher and mathematician but then moved his way into investments in finance after working at a brokerage firm as a programmer for a while. He’d been a broker now for over 20 years. Aside from that, he is also an insurance agent. He plans on getting right back to teaching and helping young people to improve their financial lives.   “You need to make a choice, and you need to invest. The world doesn't end if you choose carefully and wisely. You are going to do well.” Frank Paiano   Worst investment ever Losing a tremendous opportunity for not doing anything Frank’s worst investment was an investment he never made. At that time, Frank was putting as much as he could into stocks through 403b, which is like a 401k, an employer-sponsored retirement plan. One day, a duplex became available for a fairly reasonable price, just down the street from Frank. He thought it was a pretty great deal. And now, he was torn between focusing on investing through his 403b, which would suffer if he invested in the property. In the end, he did not buy the property at $250,000. Eight years later, at the peak of the market in 2007, that same property sold for $765,000. Lessons learned Make a choice, but do your research first If you are not sure about what investment to choose, do your research, find someone you trust, get a good referral, or take a course and learn how to value individual securities, how to research mutual funds, how to look for real estate, and make your choice. Do not give up You’ll probably mess up the first time but learn from it and do it again successfully the second time. Andrew’s takeaways The concept of alternative outcomes There are many possible alternative outcomes to an investment story. Always remember them when you look back from that investment you did not do. Do not fixate on one thing There are so many things happening around us. Just accept the fact that you’re missing something every single day. Actionable advice You need to get in the game. Do your research or find a competent advisor that you can trust. No. 1 goal for the next 12 months Frank is hoping to join a subscription service where he can travel to Mexico at very low fare so that he can have a vacation there every month. Parting words   “Best of luck and success to all the listeners!” Frank Paiano   Andrew’s books <a...

Michelle Russell is an author, speaker, and an amazing host of the Short-Term Rental Revenue podcast. She has a history of successful investments in a wide variety of markets and has learned only from some of the best real estate gurus. Her experiences from investing in real estate have taught her the value of short-term rentals and getting the most out of your properties. Now, she wants to share her knowledge with other people and teach them how to rent or buy a property to turn it into a short-term rental and create a profitable residual income, one that keeps coming in month after month, to build your wealth and create a healthy retirement.   “It’s all about business. You need to be rational. Don’t think with your heart and feel that you need to help people out. You are not their savior.” Michelle Russell   Worst investment ever Don’t let pity cloud your judgment Michelle bought a property for $100,000 and had it rented to a couple for three years. Unfortunately, the man died leaving his mourning fiancé with nothing. She told Michelle that they were planning to buy the house after their wedding, if not for the tragedy. Feeling obligated to help, she sold the house to the woman. A year after, she got a call from the same woman and asked if she could lend her some money to pay for the mortgage of the house. Instead of lending her money, Michelle bought the house again and planned on renting the house again to the woman. While she was processing the papers for the house, she lost contact with the woman, so she decided to give her a visit. The price you pay for bad decisions To Michelle’s surprise, the once immaculate house a year ago had turned into a horror house. As she described it, 40 animals were in the house and feces were everywhere. Black molds were seen on the wall and not to mention the bad smell that was pungent inside the house. It turned out, the woman, after the tragedy, never recovered. She got depressed and was fired from her job. Left with no choice, she evicted the woman and had to spend $185,000 to renovate the whole property. Don’t try to wait until you recover the cost spent After getting the appraisal, instead of selling the property, Michelle let her emotions decide again and let her daughter move into the house and stay there for a couple of years until she finished school. However, the economy crashed, and the value of the property decreased until it was too late for her to recover the costs. It took her a decade to get a reasonable price and sell it eventually. Lesson learned Due diligence is a very important step yet people tend to skip it Michelle was not new in real estate when she dealt with this property, yet she forgot to do all the due diligence that she knew necessary with buying a property. People who do not do their due diligence are bound to make bad decisions. Never let your emotions decide for you Always work with your brain and not your heart when it comes to investments. Try not to mix up helping people and your...

Otavio “Tavi” Costa is the portfolio manager at Crescat Capital and has been with the firm for six years. Tavi built Crescat’s macro model that identifies the current stage of the US economic cycle through a combination of 16 factors. His research has been featured in financial publications such as Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Real Vision, and Reuters. Tavi is a native of São Paulo, Brazil and is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Before joining Crescat, he worked with the underwriting of financial products and in international business at Braservice, a large logistics company in Brazil. Tavi graduated cum laude from Lindenwood University in St. Louis with a B.A. degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in finance and a minor in Spanish. Tavi played NCAA Division 1 tennis for Liberty University.   “We all need to be able to respect and apply risk and uncertainty. You know the changes in probabilities.” Otavio Costa   Worst investment ever Bearish and bullish are terms that Tavi understands, like the back of his hand, given his background in business model analysis and macro investing. Tavi is an expert in analyzing and predicting business cycles. The expert is tested The period between 2014 and 2018, however, put his expertise into a real test. Between 2014 and 2015, the market experienced a global GDP decline of 6%, almost as significant as the global financial crisis. There were a lot of reasons for that. Oil prices were collapsing, the dollar was strong, and other commodities were collapsing. Also, China was going through a turmoil with Chinese stocks going from a boom to bust in less than a year. And then investors were pulling money out of China. Capital flows started picking up, and businesses started doing well. Boom! Here comes an unexpected wave Then came the elections that changed everything. Nobody saw a republican sweep coming. A synchronized growth environment came up, and China printed more money, increasing liquidity. This completely shifted the narrative. Tavi and his team thought that China was on the brink of a credit collapse and would get a lot worse in the short term. However, this business cycle extended for a couple of years. Things get bearish In 2017 the market became pretty bearish, and so the team started to do a lot of research and focused on what other indicators they may have missed in terms of liquidity. They created different macro models that revealed that liquidity was still growing in 2016 and 2017. Not so perfect model However, their models missed the fact that liquidity wasn't growing in 2018 and so they ended up missing a bullish moment in 2017. To deal with this, the company had to shrink its positions. They also had to apply new forms...

Meb Faber is co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management and manages Cambria’s ETFs and separate accounts. He is the host of the Meb Faber Show and has authored numerous white papers and leather-bound books. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron's, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Meb graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in engineering, science, and biology.   “The funny thing about investing in the computer age is we can now rely on an enormous library of investing ideas and concepts.” Meb Faber   Worst investment ever The young investor with a chip on his shoulder Like many young investors, when Meb got into investing as a young biotech engineering graduate in the 90s, he was full of vigor, overconfidence, and believed that he was the best investor on the planet. At the time, the US was hit by the Dotcom bubble and US stocks were the most expensive they've ever been. And so, it was a wild time that made crypto look basic. Wild times for investors It was a pretty wild time to be investing, but also, biotech was a big deal. The human genome was getting sequenced by the government as well as the company Celera, and so biotech stocks were also going crazy. Amid this madness, Meb identified a good stock to invest in, Biogen. This was in the early 2000s when biotech and pharma stocks were extremely volatile creating a lot of investment opportunities. The storm that is biotech stocks In most cases, biotech stocks, unless it's a monster like Pfizer, will have these binary events where they have a drug that's either going to get approved or not, in which case the shares will go 100% up or down. The whole company is leveraged to one outcome. And so that creates a lot of opportunity and volatility. So with Biogen, everyone knew there was a date in the future where the company would announce whether the drug was approved or not. Meb believed that the drug was not going to get approved. Choosing his best investment options...

Richard Flint has been speaking and changing lives for over 30 years. His staying power comes from a strong following of corporate clients and associations that invite him back year after year. As one of America’s top personal development speakers and coaches, he travels and speaks over 175 times per year and personally coaches businesses and individuals while on the road. Considered a well-guarded secret by many, Richard Flint inspires, teaches, and helps people and companies to transform into their Power To Be, so they can do or have anything they want. Interestingly, he does it without you having to set goals. Richard is on a mission, which he calls a crusade, to help people have their Best Life Possible. He knows how through his own experience.   “Smarter is not being the most knowledgeable person. But it's being able to use life's experiences because I think life is just a library of experiences.” Richard Flint   Worst investment ever Born into a world where love did not exist Richard was born in New Orleans. He never got to know who his dad is and his birth mother was a prostitute and so he was the result of a one night stand. When he was two weeks old, he was given into a family where the man wanted a son but the wife didn't want him. She found every opportunity to prove to him that he was unloved, unwanted. From when he was six, he would repeatedly tell him that he was the stupidest kid she’d ever met, that he was never going to amount to anything in life and that she was sorry they adopted him. Out in the cold alone at a tender age When he was 15 his adoptive mother told him that he had to get a job and pay room and board to live in her house. A year later, at 16, she threw him out. He was working at an IGA grocery store in Ardmore, Oklahoma, when his dad brought him his suitcase and informed him that his mother had decided, Richard could no longer live in her house. Defeated, Richard walked into downtown Ardmore, Oklahoma and checked into hotel Ardmore. The staff looked at him funny but he had the cash to pay for the room. To live or to die? When he walked into his room on the seventh floor, he walked straight to the window. He didn’t even turn the light on. He sat on the ledge and for three hours he tried to decide whether to live or die. After three hours, he figured out on that ledge that if he jumped his adoptive mother would win and he wasn't going to give that lady that kind of victory. Richard called his best friend’s dad who helped him decide the next course of his life. He decided he was never going back home. So he helped him find a room with a lady who was the editor of The Daily newspaper in Ardmore, he paid her $5 a week to live in her house. Facing his fears head-on After some years Richard realized that he had believed all the things that his adoptive mother had told him. His worst investment was accepting what his mother said as truth because parents don't lie. This held him back from his true...

Scott Royal Smith, Esquire, founder, and CEO of Royal Legal Solutions prides himself on successfully conveying the essentials in asset protection to audiences nationwide. Scott is no stranger to high stakes litigation and has spent his career deconstructing asset protection structures and developing strategies that serve both to protect what you own as well as leverage your income and maximize your tax savings. With experience in entrepreneurship, starting several successful companies in owning real estate in 10 states in America, Scott pulls from his experience as a lawyer to put a new and valuable perspective on business ownership. No one wants to get sued. But if you plan to start a business, the question isn't if, but when you’ll get sued. Scott is the attorney who will have your back. He's smart, savvy, and he's got a great sense of humor. And he has a gift for simplifying the complex.   “Try to find someone like you businesswise and ask that person a bunch of questions about what you should be doing because they've already gone through it all once.” Scott Smith   Worst investment ever Launching his business idea Driven by a sense to help people with things that he had already figured out, things he had spent the time to figure it out, he started to teach and do it for others. His law degree also came in handy, especially when advising people on how to launch a new business or choose investments. Letting excitement get to him People wanted his services. Within no time he had a really popular podcast. Then pretty soon he had a rapidly growing business. Everything was going too fast and was way beyond what he understood regarding the business. But the growth got him all excited and he felt pretty confident that he now knew just about everything and that whatever he touched would turn to gold. So he kept things moving fast. Fast and big is not always good His business continued growing fast and he got to a point where he realized he did not know what to do with all of that growth. He found himself having to solve problems that he didn't understand. He was forced to hire people to solve the problems for him. Because he didn’t understand what the problems that needed solving were, he ended up hiring people that weren’t that great. He was hiring and firing people so fast. He should have outsourced It was only after he had spent over a quarter-million dollars that he realized that he was struggling to create a system or a solution to something that someone else already had out there. He realized that had he taken a pause, slowed things down with the business, he’d have been able to figure out what the business needed and then hire an agency and offload things on them. But no, his excitement to keep things on a high saw him make his worst investment ever. Lessons learned Delay launching a new business Yes, you have an awesome idea. Yes, you feel ready for a business launch. Delay that launch by at least three months. Take those three months to learn. Take a course on how to launch a business online, get someone to mentor

Tristan Wright is the rock star Business Sherpa from down under. He is based in Melbourne, Australia and has a background in leadership coaching and applied business. He studied engineering and industrial design. He worked in that space for a couple of years but decided to start his own cycling clothing company, Seight, at the age of 24. Presently, his company, evolve to GROW gives business owners and entrepreneurs the tools and support they need to simplify their workload, grow their profits, and reclaim their time.   “At the end of the day, I'm not responsible for how they feel and disconnected myself from that outcome. So, I have my own goal plan and I know what I want to achieve. People can see that I'm driven with where I want to get and they can see that I'm congruent with what I want to achieve, and how my actions align with that.” Tristan Wright   Worst investment ever It is not always great to be at the top of the world At a very young age, Tristan Wright had already made a lot of money from his successful sportswear business. He started across Australia and ventured into different countries across the world. He was indeed feeling on top of the world for owning a seven-figure business at the age of 26. However, because of his initial success, he thought that he needed no one’s advice. He felt invincible and believed that if he has achieved something others could not, what was stopping him from doing more? Woke up with debt One day, Tristan was this successful businessman from Australia dominating the sportswear industry, the next day, he woke up with a quarter-million dollars of debt and a wife who told him that they were over. For six months, everything just went from bad to worse. The Australian dollar dropped against US dollar just at the time he was investing in growing his business. Mindset investment is equally important as monetary investment What Tristan means by mindset investment is investing in yourself before investing in others. Earlier, he thought that making other people happy, would make him happy as well. He was living a life according to what society wanted him to be and how they perceived him to be. He was so focused on making other people happy, putting up a show for them by looking nice and successful that he forgot his own goal plans. He disconnected himself from what truly made him happy. Yes, he was successful on the outside, but he felt empty and inauthentic inside which made him really unhappy. Personal development includes minding your own business When Tristan hit rock bottom, he realized that he had no one to turn to. Those people who he invested so much in were never there to support him. With that, he realized that he needed to put an end to the show and live his true self. He started investing in himself by following what his goal plans were. Little by little, he saw improvement in his personal life. He was able to recover from his losses, grew the...

Pete Matthew is a 21-year veteran financial planner, based in Penzance in the far southwest of the UK. In 2010, he began shooting a series of short videos explaining how money works in simple everyday language. This hobby became Meaningful Money, which is now UK’s biggest independent personal finance podcast with over 3 million downloads, a YouTube channel, a book deal and an online Academy teaching people how to beat debt and build wealth. Pete is also the Managing Director of Jackson's Wealth Management, which can trace its roots back nearly 100 years in Penzance. He’s married and has two daughters age 19 and 16. And a Jack Russell Terrier called Maisie.   “We should be intentional with our finances because nothing good happens by mistake. Anything good takes work and intention” Pete Matthew   Worst investment ever Zero financial training Pete grew up in a home where money was an absolute taboo subject. His parents, like many others of their time, didn’t know how to talk to him about money. So he grew up with zero financial training. And thus he never knew how to engage with money, well not until he met his fiancé. Learning how to manage personal finances with his tail between his legs Pete came to learn how to manage his finances in the most embarrassing way. One weekend, he was heading for a weekend getaway with his fiancé, and his brother and his wife. During the car ride, they were talking about paying for the weekend. Pete was filled with fear because he had zero money. He was worse than zero. He had overdrawn his overdraft. He had no choice but to admit to his fiancé that he had no money and there was no way that he would be able to pay for the weekend. The embarrassing part was that they were driving in her car that she had saved for because she had all the financial discipline that he didn't. Right there and then Pete had a life-defining moment where he thought he might lose his fiancé over this because how could she marry such a mess? He had student loans, but no degree to show for it and an overdraft with the bank. Fortunately, she stuck with him and she paid for the weekend, and he eventually paid her back. Money lessons from his fiancé His fiancé and that vulnerable moment taught him a great deal about how to manage personal finances as well as day-to-day expenditures. He realized that his worst investment ever was a complete lack of investment in his ability to cope with day-to-day finances. Lessons learned Don’t self-sabotage yourself When it comes to financial planning we are our own worst enemies. Many times we tell ourselves incredible lies that lead to self-sabotage. We tell ourselves that we can’t do anything about the financial mess we are in and we believe it. So instead of learning about personal finances, we continue being passive about it. Don’t let bills

Gabriel Abed is the founder of bitt.com. A FinTech enterprise established to offer financial solutions to the world's unbanked communities. He is also the founder of the Digital Asset Fund, the first regulated digital asset mutual fund in the Caribbean region. The Barbados-based entrepreneur is internationally acknowledged as a pioneer in the digital currency evolution having initiated the first global movement to encourage the use of central bank digital currencies to stop these politicians from printing money.   “I knew better and I knew that the price would stabilize once the sufficient supply hit the market but I bought into the FOMO. And it was that FOMO buying that I got burnt on. So, the lesson learned is to avoid FOMO, don't be an emotional trader and stick to the fundamentals.” Gabriel Abed   Worst investment ever A new privacy coin that gets everyone excited Back in 2016, Gabriel heard a rumor about a new privacy coin coming to the market called Zcash. The need for privacy in the cryptocurrency sector got everyone excited, thinking it would be a lucrative investment. Rumors had it that the team behind it was great and that the legendary tennis player Roger Federer was one of the big backers of the project. Gabriel, just like many others, was at the front row ready to see this thing unravel. It went down as fast as it went up When Zcash hit the exchange and the buy orders were climbing into the thousands. Gabriel was in one of their staff houses in Barbados, opening up his trading engine and buying himself some Zcash. When he saw how it skyrocketed, he thought this was going to be a special one. And just as fast it went up, Gabriel saw the price of Zcash crash. He continued to buy on the way down. He was still hopeful and kept buying to increase his position. Unfortunately, it never recovered. Lessons learned Never get too excited and abandon the fundamentals If you don’t want to crash and burn, stick to the fundamentals of a good and prudent investor. They are there for a reason and that is to guide investors not to make mistakes especially in high-risk investments. You are not missing anything if you overcome FOMO Just because, everyone is buying it, doesn't mean you have to. A good investor knows the right thing to do is to research and examine the information gathered in order to come up with an investment decision, not base it on FOMO. Always go for the long-term play Short-term investments rarely pay off. If it’s a good investment, it’s not going to go away in one day. You just need to be patient. Andrew’s takeaways Don’t try to catch a falling knife Don’t jump into an investment when the price is falling sharply. Wait until the price has bottomed out. Do your research When you forget the basic principle...

Daniel Ramsey is the founder & CEO of MyOutDesk, the highest-rated Virtual Assistant company in the marketplace with over hundreds of 5-star reviews, and over 10 years of experience, serving more than 5,000 clients – including over half of the RealTrends™ Top 10 teams. Daniel is a long-time licensed real estate broker, mortgage broker, and general contractor who’s sold hundreds of homes and made millions in commissions, and built real estate’s #1 staffing company. Back in 2008, he was inspired by his own time-management struggles to find a better way to help agents leverage their time & energy, and created MyOutDesk to provide a trusted, reliable solution to the office administration, marketing & prospecting tasks that every agent has – but most lack the time to focus on. In 12 years with MyOutDesk, Daniel has helped thousands of clients scale their businesses & grow profitability. He’s worked with some of the top clients in the industry – from sales organizations like the Mark Spain Team and Ben Kinney to tech providers like the Zillow Group, Keller Williams, and RE/MAX.   “When you know the markets are down, go all in and triple or quadruple your net worth. But it takes guts, and I'm all about that. I cannot wait for the next downturn to come around.” Daniel Ramsey   Worst investment ever Experiencing an economic downturn Things were quite tough for real estate companies during the economic recession, and it was exceptionally horrible in California, which was one of the top 10 markets to be cut in half. If you bought a house for $400,000, two years later, it was worth $200,000. The sky was falling, and people were running away from real estate investing. Daniel experienced a 90% drop in revenue forcing him to close his office. He went from having three offices and more than 30 licensed people to working out of his back bedroom. Weathering the economic recession Daniel decided to reinvent himself in 2007 and started learning about short sales, foreclosures, and what's a deed in lieu. He realized that the financial meltdown had opened up an entire industry. He traveled around the country, went to New York, Dallas, and Boston and met huge institutional lenders who had thousands of homes in Sacramento that were for sale. He offered to sell these homes. Riding the downturn to double his wealth Daniel realized that he could make a profit by buying homes during the recession and sell them off for a profit. He decided to explore markets outside of Sacramento. That’s when he found this beautiful condo on the hills in San Francisco, in the city of San Anselmo. It had one of those driveways that have a little hill on the top. The owner had bought it for 1.5 million dollars and was selling it for $650,000. It was quite a steal for Daniel. However, the previous owner had decided to convert the garage into a master bedroom. That was not a problem for Daniel as he doubled up as a developer and a contractor. Or so he thought. Climbing the financial...

Kornel Szrejber is the host of the Build Wealth Canada Show. He has been featured for paying off his mortgage in only six years while still in his 20s and becoming one of Canada's youngest retirees at the age of 32. He now runs his popular personal finance and investing podcast created specifically for Canadians. Kornel interviews top personal finance experts to share their best practices, tips, and tactics when it comes to investing and personal financial planning in Canada. He also runs Canada's largest personal finance and investing conference.   “We sort of just, got scared, let fear take control, buried our heads in the sand, and said, let's just pretty much ignore the stock market and go for this short thing of paying off a mortgage.” Kornel Szrejber   Worst investment ever Ready to be financially independent Kornel and his wife set out to be financially independent straight out of university. They were smart about their money right off the bat. While other young couples were enjoying the benefits of having well-paying jobs straight from college, Kornel and his wife decided to live off one of their salaries and use the other one to pay off their mortgage quicker. Fear got the best of them They were also considering to save for retirement, but before they could make a decision the 2008 financial crisis hit. Investors were freaking out because they were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in their investment accounts. As young graduates, they didn't know much about investing in public markets or opportunity costs. And so they got completely scared off from the markets and decided to go for the sure thing, which was paying off their mortgage. When one good decision leads to a missed opportunity They did manage to impressively fully pay off their mortgage within six years, something that is rare in Canada. They even got featured in both of the major personal finance magazines in Canada, some large blogs and podcasts, and in a book. But despite this nice milestone, they missed out on an important investment opportunity. At the time they were getting the mortgage, interest rates were at historic lows, and therefore, they had a guaranteed rate of return. On the other hand, the markets went incredibly up after recovering from the 2008 financial crisis. Getting rid of their mortgage debt gave them good peace of mind. But by ignoring other investment opportunities, they increased their opportunity cost. Had they put some of the money they used to pay off their mortgage in the stock market, it would have far exceeded the interest payments that they were paying. Lessons learned The best time to invest is when the market is at the bottom <span...

At the age of 40, Gary Wilson retired as a corporate Vice President in a nationwide bank. Since then, he has traded over 3,000 investment properties in less than five years. He has developed five real estate holding companies owning more than 250 rental units. He has built five businesses, including brokerage rental management, investment services, settlement services, and appraisal services. He has been accepted into the Andron Apiphenon Order of Excellence for Real Estate. With his experience, he has authored seven books. He is also the founder, trainer, and coach of the Path to Profit System, teaching more than 20,000 agents and investors. Finally, he has appeared on over 100 national and local media outlets, including CBS, Fox News, NBC, ABC, and Business Week   “A lot of stuff is going to happen when you’re buying properties. You're going to get involved with some drama and grief that you get unintentionally tied into that trauma. So, figure out how to be a good business person and how to be a compassionate human being at the same time.” Gary Wilson   Worst investment ever A deal that couldn’t have gone any worse Gary Wilson has always loved closing deals. He could not forget his first experience at the closing table, negotiating his way out of that 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house. When the deal was done, that’s when he realized he’s born to close. A couple of years after, he was on his third property investment when he encountered his worst investment experience. The owner of a three-unit property he was looking at buying was a seasoned veteran investor and also a real estate broker. Gary was at the closing table with a lot of people pressuring him to buy the property. With little to no due diligence on his part, he ended up buying the property. It turned out; the owner had not pay the $500 water bill. The drama he wished he was never a part of Gary had hoped that after a bad start, he would start to reap his profits out of that deal. However, he got unlucky with his tenants. Two of his tenants could not pay the rent because their money was used to buy drugs. The crazy stuff is, Gary had to go through the whole drama of personally demanding them to pay the rent and almost forcibly threw them out of his property. He got tired of it, and because he did not want to go through the whole eviction process again, he offered them money and paid them to leave. When it rains, it pours One problem after another and Gary at this point was fairly certain that nothing worse could have come after what happened. But as the famous saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.” And literally and figuratively, a perfect storm and two hurricanes flooded and damaged his property. He asked everybody to vacate the place temporarily. While no rents were coming in, he had to shell out some cash for the renovation for it to be livable again. Finally, after a couple of years, he sold it and never looked back. Lesson learned Follow your intuition If Gary had followed the inner voice telling him not to buy...

Vikas Gupta founded OmniScience Capital to provide a scientific approach to global and India-listed equity investments. Together with his team, he formulated the Proprietary Scientific Investing Framework which stands on the strong foundations of nearly 100 years of investment research and practice. While his exposure to the capital market can be traced back to the 1990s. He has a long track record of investing since 2003 onwards, based on the value investing philosophy developed by Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. The practical experience of investing over the various ups and downs of the markets was supplemented by a relentless thirst for learning from other investment greats. Scientific investing is the result of this trial by fire over the decades. Vikas has earlier incubated the global equities vertical at ArthVeda Capital, which won international awards and rankings. Besides, he successfully obtained a US SEC license for the firm with a vision of operating in the US markets. He led advanced discussions and/or inked agreements with leading stock exchanges, asset management firms and research firms across the globe, including from the US and Europe. He has a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and has earned his Masters and Doctorate from an Ivy League University—Columbia University, New York.   “Listen to everyone, even the greats, but make up your mind on your own.” Vikas Gupta   Worst investment ever Imitating the value investing greats Vikas started his investment journey by following the ways of some of the top investment maestros such as Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Franklin Templeton, Peter Lynch, Philip Arthur Fisher, among others. By doing so, he was exposed to different investment philosophies, including value investing, investing in monopolies, concentrated focus investing, diversification and so on. But what attracted him the most was looking for monopolistic growth companies. Vikas decided that he was going to have a 10 stock portfolio and so he went out looking for stocks worth investing in. He would find what was the best stock and then allocate 10%. This is when he landed on his worst investment. Finding the perfect investment As he was looking for investments to fill up his portfolio, he came across a great investment, what he calls a classic Buffett playbook. It was a media company with the only available channel for other companies to reach their target segment. Being a near monopoly, the companies would have to pay whatever the media company asked. And so, this was a classic Buffett investment media company with complete dominance. The company ticked off all the right boxes for the perfect investment. One of the few English speaking media companies in India, in a highly concentrated

Joe Saul-Sehy is the co-host of the award-winning Stacking Benjamins podcast, which focuses on earning, saving, and spending with a plan. Joe is a former financial advisor (16 years) and represented American Express and Ameriprise in the media. He was the “Money Man” at Detroit television WXYZ-TV, appearing twice weekly. He’s appeared in Bride, Best Life, and Child magazines, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit News and Baltimore Sun newspapers. He’s also appeared online in more than 200 different places, including CNBC.com and WSJ.com.   “If you think you’re smart enough to know where the market is, you don't understand the risk of investing.” Joe Saul-Sehy   Worst investment ever A walk into Best Buy leads to buying a stock Joe has always been the guy who loves experimenting with different investment philosophies and investment strategies. He has also been a forward thinker in technology, and that’s what led him to his worst investment ever. One day he walked into a Best Buy and saw this miracle called XM Radio and thought it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. This satellite radio had hundreds of channels, and he could now listen to all his favorite sports, business news, comedy, and much more, all in one place. That was phenomenal! He thought to himself that this was the future, and it was going to be amazing. But, being the financial risk guru he is, he didn’t buy the satellite radio that day. It took him a good nine or ten months of research as he considered if he needed it and if a subscription for his radio was necessary. Buying the company because you love the product So he did all kinds of research. He finally bought one, and he loved it. He loved the radio so much that he bought 1,000 XM stocks for $2.85 each. That’s how much he loved the product! XM satellite radio was indeed a great product, and the shares rose up to $30 a share. XM was doing phenomenally well, and Joe couldn’t help pat himself on the back for being such a smart investor. Investing in the competition is a BAD idea He decided it was time to diversify his portfolio, so he sold half of his XM shares at $30.25 making some pretty good profit. He found XM’s competitor Sirius Satellite Radio and invested in it with the money that he took out of XM. He figured that since XM was doing so well, the competition would perform as well. While he...

Jonathan Jay has bought and sold businesses for over 20 years, buying from private equity firms and selling to them as well and has also done numerous trade deals. In the last few years, he has brought his knowledge to the world through The Dealmakers Academy, which is a UK leader in training people to buy and sell businesses without risking their own capital. For the first time, he is now teaching dealmakers how to source and negotiate deals to generate cash flow and exit opportunities without them having to work in the business day-to-day and as a bolt on to an existing business. You can gain free access to Jonathan's webinars and latest book, “Business Buying Strategies - The Solution to Your Business Growth Problem” and attend one of his low-cost discovery sessions. Each year he manages a select group of dealmakers through their first acquisition and in some cases, partners with them to create a powerful deal team.   “Some businesses are too perfect that there isn’t any value to be added by the new owner. What I look for is a business with enough headroom for myself and my team to actually add value to it. With the value that we add, comes the growth of the business.” Jonathan Jay   Worst investment ever The rough acquisition Jonathan was told to approach a certain company in a sector that he already had invested in before and did well. Since he did not want to let an opportunity pass, he met with the owners of the company and discovered that they wanted to sell the business. They were open about the finances of the business, and Jonathan could see that it had done better in the past year or so. Jonathan and his team spent a couple of months doing their due diligence with intensive research and crunching some numbers. Although they had discovered some things that were not particularly good, they had expected these kinds of things in the business of buying businesses. “It’s not all going to be a bed of roses,” Jonathan reminded himself. He dived into that acquisition with his eyes opened. But the reality was just terrible. A stressful transition Nothing seemed to be right after the acquisition. The business had every problem and every issue Jonathan could ever imagine. The staff, the delivery, the supplies, and the finances just all went south. The next six or seven months were a total nightmare because all they did was putting out one fire after another. The only incentive Jonathan had to continue was that at least the company was making money despite being terribly managed. However, that little profit won’t compare to how stressed Jonathan was for that whole seven months. Indeed, after eleven months of firefighting, he sold the company. You don’t get the culture during due diligence Jonathan believed that the...