Do It Your Way

People who say it can't be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. I'm doing it.

To the voices in your head, to the doubters, the haters, your old boss, your 11th grade math teacher, that shitty ex of yours. To anyone who thinks wealth is out of reach or has heard the mantra they shout at us from the rooftops. You can't do it that way. This video, it's for you. And it's also against all of those trolls. I cannot fit in the boxes. Work hard, play hard, wait your turn. You're not ready. Really? You just climb the ladder. That won't work. Work until you're 65, then retire, cut out the Starbucks, debt is bad. Rome wasn't built in a day. All terrible advice. If I were to get a tattoo, a one line slogan about my life, it might go something like this, do it your way. Because, hell, that was the only directions I've ever followed. Like when I went to start a business in Latin America and mom was like, you don't really speak Spanish. Or when I wanted to build my own baby Berkshire. And my partner said, you should just focus on sales. You're not smart enough for investing. Or when I wanted to be in venture capital and it was Cody, didn't you go to public school? Asu, Truth be told, if I was to explain what all of you out there, investing, building businesses, buying, selling, doing Web 3.0 every single day, it would be a chorus of the old traditional thoughts saying, you can't do it that way. It's always worked like this, but they don't really get it. Do they. Think we can't build our own currency without a government and get the whole world, including Jamie Dimon, entire countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador, and hedge funds across the world to invest in it? Right. You can't do it that way. Except you know you did. You can't make make millions buying mobile home parks. You can't leave Wall street to invest in laundromats. You can't buy some land in an RV and live off passive income. You can't run a real estate empire. As a former graphic designer, I was scared to leave my $110,000 salary. You certainly can't get accepted into Harvard and then become an investment banker making seven figures. But you can go invest on Robinhood and even give the hedge funds a run for their money. Next thing you know, Citadel is running scared. If you do it your way, you can't get into private equity. You went to a party school. Yes. And you definitely can't become a partner at one. But you find a new industry and a little money from friends and family and you did it your way.

I didn't go to college and I've never really had a job.

You don't need Ivy League degrees. You don't need daddy's trust fund. You don't need to spend three years never sleeping as an analyst at an old school firm. Welcome to the fixed income division of Goldman Sachs. When the world is going online and running faster than ever, you don't need permission. You don't need someone telling you it's okay to become a venture capitalist. You just go do it on Twitter, raise money without any steak dinners and say, I did it my way. They call us millennials, Gen Xers, stonk traders get rich quickers. Bring out the contestants, coders, crypto punks, fintwit. But what if we know something they don't? You can start an angel investing company on angellist, Buy a company online without any money, start a fund with your buddies, or launch a new art movement that creates royalties for life. It probably means digital art is here to stay. When you're a 21st century investor, all you need is your computer, a network of strangers online, a little bit of WI fi juice, and the seed of an idea. You turn your idea, your thought, your words into currency. And the world gets to make you ask for permission. Not anymore. If you do it right. You leave the day job behind. You realize it's just the starting line. You create friends, some online who you've never even met. And they do it alongside you. Your way. A life moving so fast and so full, you don't even have time to process it. So to my fellow builders and investors, here's the truth. Never stop. Don't listen to the noise. Keep doing your work. Don't forget, you don't need to ask for their permission. Because in this world, there are no gatekeepers you shall not pass, no deans of schools, no guardians to pass. Go. Because this world hasn't even been built yet. So to the knowers, the haters, leaders, the old guard, I say, watch out. Y' all are in the Middle Ages. You're Constantinople before the fall. And we, my friends, well, we are the Renaissance.

This is my job.

Do it your way.