The Power of Yet

I grew up in two different worlds, one with rich friends, and the other with poor friends. My parents sent me to a private elementary school, where all the kids came from posh neighborhoods, wore designer shoes, and got chauffeured around in imported cars. Everyone, except me. I lived on the first floor of a rental house with my parents and two siblings in a middle-class neighborhood, wore fake designer shoes, and took the school bus.

Every day in school, I imagined a prosperous future for myself, it was normal because everyone around me believed nothing was impossible, but when I returned home, the reality was different, especially because every time I asked for anything, my dad reminded me, “money doesn’t grow on trees.” Whenever I got curious about a family in our neighborhood that successfully built a fortune, my dad told me, “they just got lucky.” And I spent my whole childhood trying to figure out why some people got lucky in life, yet others struggled.

During summer holidays, all my fellow classmates went on luxurious vacations, but I stayed home and wondered if I would ever get a chance to explore a foreign land. During the summer of 88, I vividly remember the day when my cousins came to visit us from Australia, and they invited me to join them in Sydney the following year.

“But I don’t have the money to buy a plane ticket,” I said.

“Not yet,” my uncle said.

“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” I laughed.

“You sound just like your dad,” my uncle shook his head, “dream big, act small, start now.”

I always admired my uncle. Despite his upbringing in an impecunious family, he built a massive fortune. He went from nothing to building one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the States. He told me that we all have dreams for a reason, some people might tell us why those dreams could never come true, but those people are the ones that achieve nothing in life. “It’s because they have a fixed mindset,” my uncle said, “they believe their abilities can’t be developed, so they leave everything to fate.”

A decade after that summer holiday, I went to see him. “Come work for me,” he said. But I had no interest in pharmaceutical industry, “I want to travel and photograph the world, make films, write books, and get rich by doing that,” I said.

“Wonderful, so why aren’t you doing that now?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Not yet,” he smiled, “remember what I told you about the mindset.”

He taught me one of the greatest lessons in life: the power of not yet. Through a lot of trial and error, setbacks, and failures, I finally found the proven method to be financially free, and to live my dream life, all by starting with baby steps. In the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience, but it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from. Making mistakes is a good thing, because we can learn from our mistakes, and get better.

Last year, I wrote about how to make over $100K USD a year, get three months of paid vacation, and do what you love, but since then I had a new dream: to invest in a venture fund, just like a Silicon Valley insider. The problem was that access to top-tier venture capital and private equity investments was typically limited to ultra-high-net-worth and institutional investors. I didn’t know how to do that. Not yet, I thought, so I started with a baby step, learned the game, and then did everything a Silicon Valley insider would do.

Last week, I was presented with an amazing opportunity, and now I’m a venture fund investor.

It's not just our abilities and talent that bring us success - but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. Stay away from people that bring you down. The naysayers never achieve anything, ignore them and pave your own pathway. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them reach their highest potential.

Now I know what all great parents, teachers, and celebrities already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area. As my uncle said:

Think big, act small, start now.