끝까지 일을 하지 않음….

내 장담하지만, 이 책 대박….

너희들이 시간 낭비하는 동안 쓸 뿐이지,
열심히 쓰는 것도 아님…

34

Not Being Persistent

Being persistent is the only superpower in the real world.
-Brad Kong

Every writer has experience with failure. I am reading “The Alchemist” written by Paulo Coelho now; he said he wrote it when he was 41 years old in 1988 and only 2 copies were sold in the first six months; he said he was old and desperate; he made a new contract with another publisher and it started selling in massive quantities a couple of years later; just let you know that Coelho’s net worth is over $500 M as of 2022.

There is a book titled “A Time to Kill” written by John Grisham. He is a successful lawyer and House of Representatives politician, so I thought that this guy never had a hardship. It shows that he had 1,000 copies of this novel in the trunk of his car when it was published in 1989; he said he tried to give out those copies for free to the libraries, coffee shops or whoever wants it, but had an extremely hard time getting rid of these; he said one friend helped him clear these out; it eventually became successful and a movie based on this book made as well; the net worth of Grisham is over $400 M.

The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer was a well known genius in the 19th century. When “The World as Will and Representation” was published in 1844, only 200 copies were sold in the first year.

When the famous American writer, Henry David Thoreau published “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” in 1849, less than 300 copies were sold out of 1,000 copies already printed. Over 700 copies were returned to Thoreau after years and this is what he wrote: “I have a library of 900 books at home and 700 are written by myself.” Even though “Walden” was much more commercially successful, only 2,200 copies were sold in his lifetime; now it is one of five greatest books ever published in America.

Being persistent is the key: It makes a normal person exceptional. No one gets successful at the first try. Poor people just don’t do things all the way up to the end. And, they have not done anything for life as a result.

When I read a book titled “Nomadland”, I learned it starts with a story about one generous, but poor lady named Linda; she has been poor for life and ended up living in a cheap camper at the age of 66. This book ended with her dream; she had a dream to find land without much building code restriction and tried to build an eco-friendly house called Earthship. At the end of this book, she actually bought a barren four acre land with $2,500 near the Mexican border in Arizona. ($200 down payment and $200 every month pay) I was curious to see what happened after this, so I checked the internet all over.

You know what? This is what I found: She gave up. I understand she must have gotten into a lot of difficulties; it is not cool during the summer in Arizona. Still, this is why she is poor. And, probably she will be poor. Only news I found was that she donated the land to a van dwelling organization or something. They, her friends and she, did not even start the building project. What a waste of all those plans and research taking up 100 pages of this book. Actually doing it and doing it all the way up to the end is the real power: the only superpower in the real world.

I usually do not go to the novel section in our library. There is one huge room having tons of only novels on the first floor. Still, I don’t really read novels. But, lately I go there everyday only to check what the best sellers look like.

What I found out was there were a lot of authors who are not very famous, but have written a lot of books. Have you ever heard of “Eric Gerome Dickey” or “David Sedaris”? Personally, I have not. I just checked their books out because each writer has written at least fifteen books in our library. Eric wrote a type of black couple romance until 2021 as he died of cancer last year. David has written diary type essays.

No offense, but I did not think their articles were anything astonishing. I felt like anyone could have written as well as they have if provided with a paper and pen. There is a reason why you have probably never heard of them. But, I learned that their books have a surprising amount of reviews on Amazon. This means commercial success and, in fact, I found out that both are actually millionaires. And, here is my conclusion: “They got famous solely because they have persistently written large numbers of books.”

When we see a large quantity of books written by one author, we automatically assume that this writer is talented and successful, so he wrote a lot of books. But, the other way around is also true; the writer kept writing a lot of books, so he ended up being famous and wealthy. In fact, the second case is much more common than the first. No one really gets famous as soon as they write only one book. Think of one author you like and check Wikipedia for bibliography of that person. Chances are you will see the writer has written many books before. This is true in other fields also.

Have you ever seen a nice video on Youtube, clicked the channel and got surprised by the number of videos in that channel? For example, there is a YouTube channel called “Alux.com” and it has 1,500 videos on it. For some reasons, YouTube makes it impossible to count the exact number of videos in a channel. But, I can say that those Youtubers have made efforts persistently for a long time. I just happened to like one video and clicked the channel. But, now I decided to watch all of the videos in Alux as an English exercise. Book sales could be something like that: Qualities come from quantities.

When I searched “Best-selling fiction authors” in Wikipedia, William Shakespeare came as the number one. It shows that he sold two billion copies of his books. But, did you know that he wrote forty two different books about poems and plays? Not many people write that many books even for professionals. For example, the Harry Potter author, Joan Rowling has written 15 books so far by 2022. I believe most writers have less than ten books published in their lifetime. I see plenty of authors who have written only one book in the library.

Being persistent does not necessarily mean being painful. This book would be my first book and I thought I can write six hundred pages if I write four pages a day for five months. I planned to make all my books have at least six hundred pages since any one can write a thin book. Also, readers would not feel ripped off when they buy a thick book at a reasonable price. No one wants to spend tons of money on thin materials.

And, I think that five months is a reasonable time frame since some people take years to finish writing one book. I would say that I can write one book a year: Probably five months writing and seven months break a year. You do not have to kill yourself, but you just need to do the same thing everyday. I usually start writing from 8:00 AM till 2:00 PM and it is much easier than nursing home. I am free in the afternoon everyday. If it goes well, I believe writing would be a better job than owning a business or being employed.

When people talk about salaries, they talk about the amount of salary a year, but rarely talk about how long they can get it. Again, “persistence” matters and “how long” is actually a more important question as people live longer. Forced early retirement is a social problem in Korea and people lose jobs from huge companies at an early age. In that case, making $100,000 for 10 years is much worse than making $70,000 for 20 years.

Again, I would like to focus on the fact that being persistent is not necessarily painful. I usually invest my money in dividend stocks and interest bonds. Once I buy a stock or bond, I never sell it. Getting $20,000 interest and dividends a year is more important than “buy and sell for capital gain” as people live longer. Besides, “Buying a stock and selling it for profit” usually does not work since no one knows where the price will go.

그나마 파트타임도 때려친 백수색히가…ㅎㅎㅎ

응원해 주셔서 감사합니다…..

또 인증하면, 나도 글좀 써볼까 하는 사람들 나올텐데….

하루 아침에 되는게 아님….

매일 매일 한줄이라도 자기글을 쓴 사람만이 가능….

참고로, 내 장점이 한번 시작한 일은 오래 한다는 것….

80장까지 이미 쓴 책을 비롯,
시작한 일은 끝을 본다는 것임….

나 이새끼 누군지 알거같다.
내가 아는 그놈이면 미친새끼 맞아.
브래드 너 키작고 안경꼈냐?

No.

생각해보니 안경은 나도 아리까리 하네.
동부쪽에 잠시 있었었지? 그렇다면 넌 그 또라이…

30년 전에 있었는데, 무슨….

오래되긴했지만 30년은 아닐텐데…또라이

까막눈들이라 글에 대한 얘기는 없네….

미국에서 도대체 어떻게 사는지….

Good bye!

책은 진짜 아니라니깐 못알아듣네

유튭하라고

No.

여기 있는 놈들 유튜브도 해본적 없다에 한표….

구경만 했지, 그것으로 돈을 벌어본 적이 없는 것임…

소름아.
이색히 샴버그 사는 공덕영이야.
좃만하고 안경 맞아 ㅋㅋ

그래….
그럴줄알았어…..이런 신기한놈이 흔하진 않지.

Never had glasses.

와 시발 진짜 ㅋㅋ 워킹 유에스에이 욕받이, 오늘도 수고하쇼

No English?

여기서 하지 말라는 얘기 나오면 무조건 해야함….

항상 남 질투하고, 잘될 것 같으면, 방해하는 사람들이 대부분….

잘될 것 같은 가능성이 높아졌다는 반증….

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 아 대체 현실에서 어떻게 살길래 웹에서 글만 보고 사람들이 누구인지 아는거지? 똘끼가 보통이 아닌가보네. 사생팬으로서 이런거도 몰랐다니 체면이 안선다

그냥 하는 소리임…

키도 크고, 안경 쓴 적도 없고, 인터넷에 제 사진 한장도 없습니다…

제 책에도 썼지만….

아내와 딸이 sns를 안해서 너무 다행…

안경이랑 렌즈를 31년을 써서 돈아까우니까 시력 자연회복 시키겠다고 글써놓은게 불과 얼마나 됐다고 안경 쓴적 없다고 구라치냐 브래드야 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 원래 거짓말하려면 예전에 했던 말이랑도 맞춰야 되는거라 그거 보통 머리로 하는거 아님.

내가 알기로 여기는 유튜브로 돈 버는 사람도 없는데….

그렇게 시작만하면, 돈 술술 벌리는 분야가 아님….

초기 4,000 시간 채우기도 힘들고….

원래 잘 모르면, 뭐든지 쉬워 보임..

이게 지금 님 이야기에요.

책 쓰기만 하면 돈 술술 벌리는 분야가 아닙니다.

원래 잘 모르면 뭐든지 쉬워 보이지요. ㅎㅎ

어휴 ㅋㅋㅋ

뭔소리야 니 사진 떠돌아다니는데, 니가 하도 스스로 정보누출하니까..ㅎㅎ

60kg 정도 존나게 마르고 키는 한 170 cm..
올려줄까?

진짜 이 놈은 숨 쉬는거 빼고는 다 거짓말인듯.

Contacts lenses only.

No glasses.

나도 사진 봤는데, 키 크고 안경 안 쓰는 것 맞음 (안경을 안 쓰고 찍은 사진을 봤음).

얼굴 공개 본인도 원하지 않을 듯 하고, 그걸 보게 되는 사람들은 안 본 눈 사겠다고 아우성 칠 게 확실하므로 평화를 위해 링크 공개는 안 하는 편이 나을 듯. ㅋㅋ

인터넷에 본인 사진 없다고 본인(from IP 24.***.244.132)이 한 번 더 부인하거나, 공개해보라고 덤비면, 사진 링크 포스팅 가능.

I wore glasses when I was in Korea 23 years ago.

Where us my photo?

Link?

하여튼 이새킨 주둥이만 열면 다 거짓말.
주식 53만불?
5만불만 있어도 내가 장을 지진다 , 클로짓에서 사는 새키가ㅋㅋㅋ

???

Why would I lie??

If you give me $100, I will show it to you.

It has been shown many times.

이 사이트에 들어오는 사람들 중 단 한명이라도 브래드 책을 읽을 사람이 있을까요?

글쎄요… 저는 1명도 없다에 한 표 던집니다.

솔직히 너희들이 영어책 읽은 적이 있냐?

네 책이 영어로 쓰이긴 했냐?

응….영어 한글도 구분 못하는 놈아…

일을 하는데, 가난한 이유 17장

너무 빨리 포기함…

17

Giving up a Little Too Early

A miracle happens sometimes.
We need to give it enough time, so it can find a way to us.
-Brad Kong

I

Before starting this chapter, I would like to make sure that I am not writing this to blame a company or someone. I just would like to explain what happened to me and hope you would not make the same mistake. You will see how I made a small fortune eventually out of loss. Also, it would be great if some companies can learn something from this. This is my honest experience as an investor. I do not know why some people do not change or improve their company for years while others change things too much.

There is an American technology company called “Pitney Bowes” in Connecticut, USA. It is a publicly traded company and its stock ticker is PBI. This cooperation is known for an online postage machine called “SendPro”. If you sell an item online, you can print out postage with this machine and drop it at the post office. Simply, that machine made my online sales much easier.

I had invested a lot of money in the company from 2011 to 2020: Simply, I had owned $65,000 of PBI stocks by 2020. I had bought this company’s stocks little by little whenever I had chances for almost nine years.

I thought this company had a bright future since online sales helped my retail video game store all the way up until it was closed in 2014. I opened the shop in 2006 and we had made a lot of used items sales on Amazon, eBay and Half.com. Before Pitney Bowes made delivery tracking systems integrated in PayPal and eBay, keeping USPS tracking numbers on paper was an extreme hassle.

Before 2009, I had to go to the post office and wait in line whenever I sold an item on eBay. If I chose to use certified mail at the post office, they would give me a tracking number on green receipt paper at that time. After selling 100 items, I didn’t even know which tracking number paper is for which item I sold exactly.

The biggest problem was fraud buyers. There were fraud buyers online and they lied to eBay or Amazon that they did not receive an item they bought. These online companies ask sellers to provide tracking numbers showing proofs for the item delivery to those customers’ addresses. If sellers cannot find the exact tracking number papers, they will take money out of sellers’ accounts. A lot of amateur sellers stop selling online for this reason almost until 2009.

This happened to me a few times as well. I just did not have the luxury not to sell online. I invested so much money in the retail store already and the store did not do very well. Rent was cheap, but it did not bring us enough foot traffic. Well, you get what you paid for, right? Still, I had good feedbacks on eBay and Amazon, so I was able to make more than reasonable sales throughout 8 years: Often online sales were bigger than store sales. But, the problem with fraud buyers still remained.

After Pitney Bowes invented the computer delivery tracking system for online sellers, I did not have to worry about those fraud buyer problems any more. Their software lets me print out postage with my computer and printer on eBay and PayPal sites automatically. (These eBay and PayPal are basically the same company since PayPal was spin-off from eBay in 2015.)

The tracking number was saved together with an item you sold on eBay. You can easily provide tracking info by clicking a link, so disputes disappear with fraud buyers. Also, good buyers have been able to check delivery status of their items by clicking tracking numbers easily. It is a natural part of online purchase nowadays, but was innovative technology for sellers at that time. In general, inquiry emails about delivery status have decreased dramatically. That was a great advantage since I had to work by myself most of the time.

I sold most of my items on Amazon only by 2008. No site had that kind of postage generation and tracking integrated system for small sellers by 2008. So, I used the “Stamps.com” service separately with a $15 a month subscription. (Stamps.com copied Pitney Bowes Technology after all) I did not like Stamps.com since they upgraded software occasionally for any reason and it made my computer freeze unnecessarily. But, the Pitney Bowes system integrated in eBay had been always working smoothly. And, it was free with eBay sales. As online sales literally saved my store, I thought everyone would do online sales someday. “As it saves my life, it can save others’ lives as well!” I thought the company had a strong bright future.

I invested originally $100 for this company in 2011. PBI was one of SP500 company stocks until 2014. And, it came with the highest dividend among SP500 companies as well. (I remember it was up to 12% a year at one point.) I probably invested up to $30,000 by 2015. And, I finally ended up having $65,000 of PBI company stocks by 2020. This stock has always come with dividends even now.

But, I was at risk of losing $40,000 in 2020 since the company suddenly did not do very well after 2015. It sounds ridiculous, but that was the reason why I ended up having so many PBI stocks even until 2021; I bought so many shares simply because the stock price kept dropping. It is called “averaging down”: You buy more when stocks get cheaper. Your average purchasing price of the stocks gets lower after all.

For example, let us say that you bought 100 shares of A company stocks for $500. The average purchasing price of the stock is $5 a share. And, then, let’s suppose the company did not make a lot of profit, so the stock price becomes $3. If you buy 100 more shares, your average purchase price is $4 now: You have 200 shares of A company stocks with $4 average cost a share.

Sometimes, people do that when they have faith in the company: They may believe “The stock price will go back to $20 someday. I will make more profit by lowering the average purchase price.” In my case, more likely I did it because I thought I could get out of loss easily by lowering my purchase prices. I knew I would sell it all someday after 5 years of suffering in 2020.

The company did just fine until 2014. The stock price was up to $28. I was happy, optimistic and invested about $30,000 by 2015. But, when the stock price dropped to $12 in 2016, all I hoped was getting out of the investment without loss. I was desperate and bought more and more shares whenever the price dropped gradually.

It was risky behavior since you can lose everything if a company files a bankruptcy. Some people commit suicide for this reason: They lose all. It is still a huge amount of money to me as I have a portfolio having just little over $600,000 as of 2022. It was even a bigger amount of money at risk at that time since my portfolio was about $420,000 by 2020.

A new CEO came in 2012 and the company stock price has been downhill since 2015. The tracking system was invented long before he came to the company. He is still the same CEO in 2022. I personally, do not understand how he has been able to keep the position in the last ten years. I heard that he always gets a 90% approval rate with a vote at the annual stockholder meeting. It is about a $1 billion market capital sized company and hires 10,000 employees. I absolutely have no idea about how politics works in that company. All I know is I had miserable five years since my stocks had dropped crazily after 2015.

I checked a lot of information while I had suffered from the loss for five years since 2015. One thing I noticed was the CEO still had gotten paid $10 million salary and benefits every year. I thought it was a lot of wage considering the stock price drop. Probably his salary had been $1 million a year, but the benefit had been huge. He was not the type of a person willing to get paid $1 a year like Steve Jobs or Donald Trump. He will get paid a lot whether the company is suffering or not. I ended up making $20,000 profit only thanks to “Wall Street Bet” from Reddit, but it could have been a big time loss for me that I could never get over for life.

While the stock price had been in a downturn in general, it got particularly ridiculous after Covid pandemic hit in 2019. PBI stocks were as low as $1.80 in 2020. I understand it was not completely the PBI’s fault. I know most company stocks crashed in the beginning of 2020. But, the PBI stock price was up to $28 in 2014. As a result, it had been like over 90% gradual drop for 6 years.

But, miraculously, I ended up making about $20,000 profit out of those PBI stocks in 2021. I sold them all on 1/26/2021 (Tuesday): It was $13.44 only in two days (1/26/2021 to 1/27/2021). You can check the records.

This is surprising since PBI stock has averaged $5 in the last three years from 2019 to 2021: For example, it is $4.84 even today (4/20/2022, Wednesday).

“-$40,000 possible loss Vs + $20,000 actual gain”

This is a $60,000 difference. I was losing $40,000 out of PBI stocks in 2020, but I ended up making $20,000 profit in 2021. I am glad I did not give up one year early. This happened since I chose a dividend stock to begin with. PBI always has come with about 3% dividends. It was an extremely lucky case, too.

When I think about it, everything started with opening the business in 2006. Along with it, I happened to watch news about one old lady in Lake Forest, IL in 2010. Her name was Grace Groner and she left $7 Million when she died in 2010 even though she only bought three shares of Abbott Laboratory stock in 1935. It made me interested in investment in dividend stocks. By the way, Grace had lived until 100, so she fits my topic in Chapter 25.

Together with the news and many financial books, my business eventually put me into PBI stock purchase in 2011. Whenever I sold an item on eBay, the shipping postage label from PayPal showed the Pitney Bowes logo. Without eBay sales, I would have not known the name of the company. There could not have been $20,000 capital gain in 2021 or $7,000 dividend income from 10 years’ investment of PBI stocks from 2011 to 2020.

I will tell you why buying a stock with a dividend is important later in this chapter. Basically, it is crazy to buy a stock without a dividend when there is one with it. Do not buy a stock as if you gamble. You need some safety net: Dividend income. Please address stocks as saving accounts. That is my advice especially for beginners. First of all, let me get back to 2006 and tell you what happened in detail in chronological order.

* * *

II

As I mentioned in previous chapters, I graduated from college in March, 2006. I was already a power seller on eBay. I got a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. My GPA was only 2.6 out of 4.0, so I decided not to go to graduate school (Pretty much I was not able to). I decided to go to Chicago to start a business instead of New York City since my girlfriend studied in a doctorate program in Champaign, IL. I told you where I met her already in Chapter 12. She eventually gave birth to my daughter later in 2010.

Before leaving Buffalo, I sold virtually everything in my apartment via Craigslist.com. It was easy since a lot of new college students were looking for used furniture or TV for the new semester. One Ukrainian girl contacted me and brought some cash with a lot of her friends. One of her friends was a biology instructor at UB.

After finding an apartment in Rolling Meadows, IL, I moved everything from Buffalo by car. I thought the apartment was a little too expensive while the size is also bigger than I need ($900 a month in 2006). But, I did not have much choice since I did not know anyone in Chicagoland. It was a cold winter and I had to find some place quickly.

I did not rent a U-Haul truck when I moved into that place. The distance is about 500 miles between Buffalo and Chicago. First of all, I was not sure if I could drive a big truck for such a long distance. Secondly, I did not have much extra cash to spend on renting a truck. So, I decided to use my car twice to bring everything to Rolling Meadows from Buffalo. I brought my cat on the second trip. He was very tired in his cage and slept a lot after the 10 hours trip. And, I remember I had back pain for about two weeks because of too much lifting. I remember I bought a huge table from Meijer supermarket and assembled it for my new place. I bought a new mattress and brought it myself by car to save some money on delivery charge, too.

I was all by myself and had to do everything on my own. I have been through a lot of difficulties and hardships even though I have wealthy parents. Simply, I cannot write everything here. One day, I saw one Mexican lady moving a broken down car on her own on a busy major road. She struggled, but her car hardly moved. I cannot imagine what really poor people have to go through. Maybe that motivated me to write this book.

The apartment turned out to be pretty looking, but a bad one since they had raised rent every year and had mice. And, the rent did not include any utility at all. It is not that they raise rent because of inflation. They raise it because tenants do not want to move out once they settle. Not only is it bothersome for residents to move out, it costs money, too. Pretty much every landlord is deceptive in that sense. And, this is why you have to buy out a small condo with full cash no matter what instead of going for a bigger house with a mortgage. Unless you have something yours completely, these types of deception will never stop. You will keep leaking money until you get out of rent or mortgage.

And, that apartment complex had window stickers for resident cars. It was my fault not to take it seriously and not attach it. Just like in Buffalo, they had plenty of spaces to park, anyway. But, the Redmon towed my car out of the blue one day. It was ridiculous since there were no assigned spots in the complex and plenty of free spaces for everyone. This company “Redmon towing’ is no good and they did it only for money. What they did was not helpful for anyone. When I visited the apartment office in the morning, they had no idea. I spent $100 to pay for a taxi and get my car back: Pointless.

I still remember the taxi driver had a very hard time finding the towing company. I felt sorry for him. He was a middle aged man, but definitely a new driver. Navigation was not available to most taxi people in 2007. He said it is OK not to pay, but I paid him since he tried hard.

I think it took about two months to find an ideal store location. The web site, “Loopnet.com” was very helpful. I drove around everywhere, but I found it was pointless. An empty retail space is always available somewhere. I did not know which one is good. I read “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee bar” at that time. It gave me an idea of compatible businesses: “You should open a business close to related businesses. You cannot open it in the middle of nowhere.” I ended up opening a video game store right next to a gaming cafe thanks to this book. I feel sorry for Borders bookstore as I had to return the book after reading since I was broke.

I opened my video game shop at a local strip mall in a Chicago suburb in 2006. One lawyer owned a strip mall and the price of the entire plaza was about $5 Million. It was huge, but in a slow location. I did not like him much when I had my business. But, I cannot hate him now since they suggested the lowest rent possible in Chicagoland. Without it, my business could not have run for eight years.

I am not sure I will go into more detail, but my rent dropped down to $1,100 a month in 2012 when he bought the J exercise business right next door. The business made incredible noise. Those three lady owners were the most stupid people I have ever seen. They made a lot of noise instead of money. They charged very little money to members, but they never had enough customers. Their situation was like me in Chapter 45: Making only enemies instead of money. Only difference is I was 29 and they were in their 50s.

My poor mother gave me $30,000 initially. She is wealthy, but too generous for her two stupid sons. I got two months free rent out of three years of lease contract and spent most of the money to set up the store. I had no idea about wholesalers, but I found one within driving distance. It was a sort of miracle since America does not have that many video game wholesalers to begin with. We saved a lot of money out of delivery charges since we were able to pick up new games on our own.

I thought that I would make a lot of money out of refurbishing if I could get second hand video games solidly. That way could be a small store. A small store can be a market place to trade used games. I know I made way more profit dealing with used games than new ones on eBay.

The size of my store was about 900 square feet and the initial rent was $1,200 a month. I opened it right next to an internet café where a lot of guys gathered to play PC games. Again, it was a good business plan to locate my business right next to a compatible one. The cafe was eventually closed out in 2012 and I suddenly saw a huge decrease in foot traffic. I still feel grateful to Eddie who owned the place. Not only was he a great business man and neighbor, he was a great customer, too. He brought his uncle and nephew to our store and they bought countless video games: Usually Nintendo DS Pokemon series. I visited the Sushi restaurant his parents owned to give them some business. I truly appreciate that we had a profitable 6 years thanks to him.

Basically, this is how we made money in our store. We sold a lot of brand new games, accessories and systems. The profit was no more than 15% for brand new items. This is probably the same for all the retail stores. But, more importantly, we accepted used games, accessories and systems as store credits. Customers traded in used stuff they did not need any more and got a discount on new items they planned to buy. After cleaning those used stuff, we sold them for much higher profits than brand new items from wholesalers. We often sold these online.

We probably made about $7 to 8 profits whenever we sold a brand new game: We used to get Xbox 360 or PS3 games for $51 from one wholesaler in Elk Grove, Illinois. And, we sold them for $57.95 + tax even though most other places sold those for $59.99+tax: We sold $2.04 cheaper than even Walmart or Target, not to mention GameStop.

Some people suggested that it was ridiculous we were selling things even cheaper than corporations. But, I thought that it was fair since we paid less rent and had no advertisement cost. We had customers only by word of mouth. We had coupon magazine advertisements before, but these turned out to be complete waste of money. I hate the Indian Pizza shop owner who suggested that. I do not believe he had any monetary gain out of the suggestion, but it definitely caused loss on us. I had decided to spend those few hundred dollars on discounts instead of advertisements and we did it until our store was closed in 2014.

Personally, I just did not feel comfortable to charge $60 full price for games. I knew it was a lot of money to some people. The strip mall had a low income apartment complex on the back. I was nervous that we may lose regulars if we charge in full. Still, we did not see a lot of customers even with $2.04 discounts on new games all the time since the store location was a bit invisible and obsolete.

Before moving on, let me explain to you how the store credit system worked in the store. Let us say that there is one game selling at $60. If a customer brought one used game, we could value it for $10 store credit if we could sell it for $15 on eBay. Then, the customer buys the $60 game for $50 because he gave us one used game: It is a $10 discount on a new game since the person traded in a $10 used game. It was just like GameStop. But, there were three differences from these competitors: GameStop, Play and Trade, etc.

First of all, we suggested way more credit than those corporations. With careful calculation, I concluded that we do not lose money even if we give out enough store credit on used games customers traded in. Especially when they buy a used game after trading used games, we made the maximum profit. It was better for us to just keep the reputation of generous store credit after giving out a lot. The reputation was an advertisement itself.

Secondly, we did not have a cash option for trade in: “More credit, but no cash” for used game trade in. Simply, customers could not sell games for money while they could use them as store credit only for discounts on new items. That was the best store policy I had ever made since those street craps for digging more cash disappeared a lot. Before that policy in 2007, there had always been arguments about cash amounts. It was pointlessly tiring. Store kept losing a lot of money to give out cash and never made money. After setting up a “store credit only policy”, arguments disappeared and cash drains stopped as well. I noticed that we ended up having more quality gamers for customers, too.

Thirdly, we sold refurbished games after cleaning the used games customers traded in. We had two Azura disc cleaning machines: One in the store and the other at home. This company used to build CD DVD cleaning machines with price tags up to $10,000. We had two of $600 machines and suggested $1 disc cleaning service as well. That was popular. We always cleaned used game discs, changed dirty covers and sealed those with new shrink wraps. We sold those as refurbished games, but the prices were the same as just used games in other stores.

I still remember one of the worst customers was one Nigerian guy. He was a middle aged short guy and had strange habits to buy games at aggressively discounted prices and returned all for full prices in a couple of weeks. He gave me a lot of headaches. In the return case, customers only can trade in those for credits only, but he did not understand and insisted his way. I re-wrote all the store policies only for him. I almost called the police on him and it could have been the first time I called the police even though no one stole anything. What a shame on him. I even went to his apartment only to ask not to come to my store again. This is a great shame since most stores try hard to get customers. “What kind of monster are you since the store owner seriously begged you not to come? Why do you cause this much trouble even in a small local store?” I lived pretty close to my store and he lived in the same apartment complex where I lived.

I am still not sure of his exact job, but he obviously had a small income, but large expenses: Two kids, two cars, two bedroom apartment rent, smartphones, etc. I will never understand this type of person. What is the point of having an argument to see who is going to call the police first at a game store? I told him that I will call the police if he does not walk away. He said he will do it first for the buyer’s right or something. Why didn’t he just walk away and save some money out of his meager wage? What is the point of going through all that confrontation hell? He cannot make money out of buying games. I am pretty sure he is still living in that low quality apartment with a huge rent. If rent is a waste of money, his larger two bedroom rent was a bigger waste. There is no cure for idiots.

* * *

III

I explained how our online sales worked with the Pitney Bowes system in the beginning of the chapter. That was the core part of this investment disaster in 2020. I was on the verge of losing about $40,000 in my portfolio thanks to Pitney Bowes stocks in 2020. I had four painful years from 2016 to 2020.

This could have been my first major loss if one miracle did not happen in 2021. I have lost money before, but none of it has been a huge amount. Currently, I have 128 company stocks and 42 company bonds in my portfolio in 2022. I think about 10 companies filed bankruptcy and the total loss had been less than $10,000 in the last ten years. I am getting about $20,000 dividends and interests every year, so that loss is not really significant. But, a $40,000 loss solely on one company could be really big.

For your information, I have bought most company stocks for 100 shares per company except PBI. Now I buy more than that, but it has been like this for quite a while, especially before 2015, so the loss has not been that big.

In 2020, my situation was like I would be more than happier if I could get my $65,000 back without loss. Instead, I got $85,000 back on January 26th in 2021. Do you know what happened on that exact day?

There is a community website called Reddit and it has a subgroup called “Wall Street Bet”. Three million members were there in 2021 even though I heard more than 11 million members are there now. These investors had united all together and focused on buying certain stocks for reasons I do not understand. Sometimes, they call it “pumping” or “short squeezing”.

One day, these three million people decided to focus on buying Pitney Bowes stock out of the blue. I am not sure why they decided that. $5 stock suddenly became $13 only for two days starting on 1/26/2021. This was like a miracle. I could not believe my eyes when I checked the graphs on screen. “What is going on?”

I was relieved for that moment, but I had to make a quick decision. “Do I have to sell this now? Or wait longer?” I decided to sell as soon as I saw the profit hit about $20,000. It was 2:30 PM in Central time, which was 30 minutes before the stock market closed. I would not have done that unless PBI stock had been a headache over five years.

And, I am glad I was not very greedy, either. I realized that my decision was correct two days later. Suddenly PBI stocks went back down to $5 to 6 ranges and it has been like this in the last two years now.

I am glad I did not give up on PBI stock too early when all my friends recommended selling them. They said there is no hope for the company and I may get $0, which means $65,000 loss. I am glad I stuck to my idea.

Also, I am glad I did not hold on to the stocks too long to get more profit. $20,000 profit was plenty, especially for a five years old headache. I knew this was “enough”. I sold all out when I had a chance on that day in January, 2021.

I am not writing this to blame the company or the CEO. It is over and I do not think I will buy the stock ever again unless something happens like the CEO retirement. Maybe the company can learn something from my story to improve the situation.

* * *

IV

Here is one question: Did I really make money because I was patient? That answer is “No”. Absolutely not. The secret was “dividend” stocks.

Dividend to stock is like interest to the bank. If you have some money in a bank, the bank will give you interest every month. Interest and dividend are basically the same things. Only the names are different. When stocks give out interest like a savings account in a bank, it is called dividend stock. Only difference is banks give out interest every month, but stocks give out dividends usually every quarter. Quarter means three months. So, you get dividends every three months.

Not every stock is a dividend stock. According to my experience, usually about half of stocks in the entire market are dividend stocks. The rate changes all the time as new companies come or old companies go away.

Here are some examples of dividend stocks: Apple, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Intel, AT&T, Target, Microsoft, etc as of 2022.

Here are some examples of non-dividend stocks: Tesla, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc as of 2022.

I always buy dividend stocks only. If a company I am interested in does not have a dividend, I buy bonds of the company instead: For example, Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, etc. Their stocks do not have a dividend, but their bonds have interests. Bonds give out interests, which is the same as dividends. As I said, only the names are different.

If a company does not have a dividend or bond giving out interest, I just do not buy anything. For example, Facebook stock does not have a dividend nor the company has a bond. I have never bought the company. FB stock price dropped crazily anyway.

Why are dividend stocks important? You are putting money that could have been in the bank into stocks. Let us say that you bought $1,000 of “A” company stocks. You could have put that $1,000 into a bank and gotten interest every month safely. There is no reason to risk losing that money even a little bit in the stock market.

Alternatively, if you buy dividend stocks, you get a dividend as if you get interest in the bank. Often those dividends are bigger if not much bigger than bank interest. For example, Annaly Capital gives 11% dividend a year while bank interest is 1% a year nationally: That dividend is like 10 times bigger than average bank interest. Then it is worth it to buy the stocks and risk your money in the stock market. Annaly is the biggest mortgage REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in America and considered a safe investment. If you can buy that NLY stock at some lowest points on some days, you can make money out of both stock growth and dividends. (It was only $6.65 on 4/23/2022)

Some people say that non-dividend stocks are growth stocks and better than dividend stocks. These are idiots if not gamblers. A stock growing is a growth stock. Not having a dividend does not guarantee growth. Usually poor people bet on stock prices only without considering dividends. It is a well known fact that rich people more likely go for dividends. There is no cure for poor gamblers.

I could not have endured five years of depression with PBI stock price without getting dividends (3-6% every year). I gave PBI enough time to recover since I am getting a dividend, anyway. The $65,000 I put into PBI stocks would have been in a bank and given me interest. Yes, I had got interest in the name of dividends. There was nothing I was losing because of the PBI stock price drop as I did not plan to sell it any time soon.

While I had gotten dividends for a long time, the stock price jumped up one day and I made $20,000 profit out of hopeless investment. Sometimes, you have to give enough time to a miracle, so it can find a way to you.

It is the right approach to put money into dividend stocks as if you do in a savings account. At least, you should do it with most of your money even if you are a crazy gambler.

* * *

V

Originally, I did not start writing a book because of money. One day, an idea hit me: “What would happen to the world in 100 years? People will not even know I existed.” I did not want to be oblivious completely. I thought I could write about my own stories at least when I am still alive. My desire to get out of the hellish kitchen in the nursing home got particularly stronger in 2021.

I had problems with my job at a nursing home for a couple of years from 2020. There was one short Mexican sous chef giving a hard time to everyone. He is just a poor cook after all, so I will ask him to bring my food if I have a chance to see him outside later on. Another problem was management interrupted me moving forward to a better job.

I had the medical coder license, but they did not have an opening for that job. I had the pharmacy technician license as well, but the small pharmacy store in that nursing home was owned by a different company called “Symbria” and they did not have an opening, either. The dining service I worked at kept preventing me from transferring to the wait staff department. They tried to use me as a dishwasher only. Not only is this not right, but not even legal. I felt like I was trapped in a swamp. The dishwasher job was way harder than the waiter even though they both get paid exactly the same ($16.24 an hour in 2022). I thought this was ridiculous.

Luckily, I have been in a situation to get enough dividend and interest from my portfolio every month in 2022: Enough for living (about $2,000 a month). My wife has been working and I have only one child. I thought I could try to be a writer since it gives me more meaning. People can find my book at the library 100 years later and recognize I had lived on earth once. I thought it is better for me to start a little early before turning 50. I still have 51 years left if I live until 100. Who knows I can make more money with writing as well?

I did not plan to publish a hardcover book in the beginning. It was not in my interest to charge readers more money. But, I found three reasons why I may publish a hardcover version first.

First of all, there are readers who prefer or even buy only hardcovers. I always buy paperbacks mainly because it is a little cheaper. But, you will never know everyone’s preference and I did not want to lose a reader for that reason. (I assume it pays me about the same regardless if I publish a hardcover or not. I can charge more, but it costs more to publish hardcovers, too.) I can simply suggest more choices for readers.

Secondly, hardcover books last longer. Believe it or not, books have expiration dates and it shows that hardcovers last about 50 years while paperbacks last 20 years. I hope my book can last longer, so someone can find it long later.

Thirdly, expensive hardcovers make paperbacks look cheaper. I know it is not my primary concern to get financial gain, but I want more people to read my book. They can buy my paperback with less resistance to the price barrier.

Fourthly, I can use up my ISBN a little faster. I may have to buy 10 ISBNs all at once since that discounted price is way cheaper. (1 ISBN is $125 while 10 are $295 in 2022.) I am not sure if I can write 10 books any time soon. Maybe I can use one more when I have them in hand. For your information, we need two ISBN for a hardcover and a paperback.

Maybe some people wonder why I write a thick book. You can see this book is obviously thicker than others. When I checked Amazon’s top seller list, I noticed that a lot of them are thick books. For example, “It” written by Steven King was 1,150 pages. I am not a famous guy. I don’t think I can write way better than others. But, I thought I can write more than others at least.

In a sense, I did this for everything throughout my life. I had never shown any big talent in a field or achieved a superior goal. But, I think I have tried harder than others at least. I did more. If this book is successful, one of the reasons would be simply that I write more than others. I am good at doing the same thing persistently for a long period of time.

Talent may be important. But, I believe luck can come to a person prepared and trying harder. Readers choose a thicker book not only because they can get more knowledge with less money, but also they know this writer tried harder. Again, I am not famous, so I have to write more at least. Also having a long term vision and giving enough time for luck to come to us are important. Maybe that is why I was able to make a profit out of a fallen company and have enough savings to support my family without working at a relatively young age.

Now it is May, 2022 and a lot of people come out already even though 300 people die a day because of Coronavirus. I still stay at home and wait for the fourth Covid vaccine. It is not over until it is over. Do not give up too early or move too fast. A little bit of patience makes a huge difference.

* * *

Summary

1. I had PBI stocks and sold all for +$20,000 profit in Jan, 2021.

2. If I sold them one year earlier, I could have lost $40,000.

3. Do not give up too early.

제목과 맛보기 페이지 보고 사는 사람 한 둘 있을 수 있는데, 이 모든 얘기가 연 고정수입 세전 2만불 벌고자 하는 어이없는 사투였다는 것을 알게 된 어느 독자의 리뷰가 올라오고 그 이후로 이 게시판과 똑같은 상황이 아마존에서 벌어지게 됨을 예상해 봄.

저도 같은 예상 했음 ㅎ

이메일 알려주면, 내가 페이팔로 $100 request….

돈 주면 53만불 인증 올리겠음…

그냥 올리는 것은 별 이득이 없지 싶은데…

평생일함 = 꾸준함

평생일했는데 안꾸준해서 가난하다는게 뭔소리지?

브래드는 결국 하고싶은 소리가 “나처럼 안살면 거지”인데 자기 삶을 뭔가 rule number 붙여가면서 그럴싸하게 포장하려고 해도 본인이 모순적으로 살고있기 때문에 글이 개소리가 안될수가 없음 ㅋㅋㅋ

그쵸. 자기는 검소하기 때문에 작은 콘도에 산다고 해놓고 더 작은 콘도 사는 가족 유투브 올려 놓고는 저 4인 가족은 450sqft에서 사는데 자기는 3인 가족에 850 sqft라고 좋아하고 있음.
결국 내면으로는 넓은 집을 원한다는게 드러남. 모순에 구라에 인지부조화의 혼종.

백수가 집에서 놀면서 꾸준히 개소리를 써대는 이상황

지금 상황으로 가면, 이책 700페이지 거뜬히 넘을 것 같음…..

최대 허용치가 850페이지….

$29.95이 책 가격일텐데,
그냥 수익 계산 하지말고, 많이 쓰렵니다…

어자피 얇은 책들은 시장에 많으니….

특이하게 두꺼운 책으로 가서,
활자 중독자들이라도 노리는게, 성공가능성 높이는 길임…

어자피 전 세계적으로 10만부만 팔면 끝….

70만불 수익…

아마존에 책내면 여기랑 반응이 다를거라고 기대하는거 자체가 망상

누구나 눈에 개소설 이상으로 보일리가 없는데

I do not have to be successful.

I only need to sell 10,000 copy.

$70,000 profit.

ㅋㅋㅋ= debt

😄

세상 사람들이 자기랑 비슷하거나 더 떨어진다고 생각하나보다 그러니 자기의 개똥철학을 저리 책을 쓴다고 하고 팔릴꺼라 헛소리를 지껄이겠지.. 1부도 안팔릴 꺼 같은데..ㅎㅎㅎ
브래드는 도대체 뭘 근거로 그러는걸까? 그는 인생을 어케 산걸까? 나는 30몇년간 살아왔지만 나랑 비슷하거나 더 엄청난 사람들이 많던데