At the start of the year I signed up for the “United States Investing Championship”, or USIC, at https://financial-competitions.com.
It’s a trading competition that publishes trading results publicly, so that traders can share their audited performances with anyone who cares to look.
For January, I managed a +10.94% return in my own account – I have sent in my statement to Norm, the PhD who runs the competition, and at some time in the near future, he should update the site to show 2024 results (at the time of publishing this article, the website is still showing the results until 31st December 2023).
Regarding my fledging Amazon business, after a bit of a rocky start with both Prep Centers and suppliers (there were initially issues making purchases without a United States billing address – I tried credit cards, Paypal, Google Pay, gift cards and finally a Wire Transfer before success), the first units for sale are now on the way to the Prep Center, and should arrive by Thursday.
At that point, I’ll need to create an “Outbound” order so that the units are properly labelled and packed, and then have the Amazon preferred delivery service collect the units, and bring them to the nearest FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) Warehouse.
Providing all goes smoothly, from that point onward I’ll be selling goods on Amazon!
Then it’s just a matter of automating, scaling, outsourcing and reinvesting profits to build a sustainable business, that could provide a mostly hands-off form of income for the foreseeable future.
I feel lucky to have found this opportunity, but then to possibly paraphrase the Roman philosopher Seneca (there’s little evidence that he actually said it), luck is [simply] when preparation meets opportunity.
And while I’ve yet to make any actual profits with my Amazon shop yet, I can feel the time drawing closer every day.
For sure, there will be more bumps in the road, more obstacles to overcome. But for now, after overcoming the first few hurdles, it feels very empowering.
Life is full of rejection, whether it’s not getting a potential suitors number (or these days any matches on your Tinder profile), your credit card being declined, or your kid not getting accepted into that private school that you liked so much, rejections are inevitable. But the rejection itself doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do next.
Because usually, whatever it is, you can try again.
And again.
And again.
And eventually, if you keep trying, the day will come when you get the number, when you manage to pay for something online (lol), or when your kid finally gets into the school you wanted for them.
Whatever it is, just remember that you will face rejection, but if you keep trying, if you refuse to take “no” for an answer, then you will never really be rejected. You just haven’t been accepted yet.
So keep trying, because you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. So take them all.
You can achieve anything that you put your mind to.
I believe in you.
Keep chopping away at that block, and one day my friend, your day will come.
You too will be on your way.
