HOW TO INVEST IN YOURSELF

Dear friend,

Let’s say you got $1,000 to invest. What should you buy? Stocks, or something else?

Naw cousin, invest that money into yourself.

1. Buy books, not gear

Worst investment of money: gear.

Why? All digital camera will get outdated in 6 months. Same with laptops, phones, cars, etc.

A book might cost you $20, but might give you 1 million dollars worth of value in terms of ideas.

For me, the books that have changed my life include Steve Jobs by Isaacson, ANTIFRAGILE and all of Nassim Taleb books, Zero to One by Peter Thiel, All books by SENECA (download for free online), NIETZSCHE WILL TO POWER book (free download on Project Gutenberg). I’ve re-read all these book, the only test whether a book is good or not.

Anyways, the ultimate tool you have is your mind. The bigger you can think the more money, influence, and power you can build. Of course you can do this all without fucking others over or throwing others under the bus.

Rather, build your own mind. Think massive. It’s better to die huge than die passive (Jay-Z).

Free ERIC KIM BOOKS >

2. Build your own empire

Don’t build your own empire on foreign soil.

For example, make your own photo blog, and build your own website following.

Fuck making an Instagram, and getting followers. You’re essentially helping Facebook (who owns Instagram) their own empire.

An assignment:

Make your own photo blog, and don’t upload to Facebook or Instagram for 1 month. All the photos you would have uploaded to social media, upload it to your own photography blog.

Pay money for your own platform. Super easy: bluehost.com and WordPress.org. Even easier: pay WordPress.com $10 a month for your own photo blog.

I say avoid Squarespace, because their platform isn’t as open. WordPress is the shit.

3. Promote yourself and your clique

You have friends. Promote them. Promote yourself. Build your own mafia, your own clique, your own team.

First help your family. Second, help your friends. Third, help all of society.

Essentially, be selfish and first water your own garden before watering the garden of others.

My clique:

CINDY NGUYEN

HAPTICPRESS.COM

WEARETHESTREET

4. Be selfish with your time

Cindy’s easy: MY LABOR IS NOT FREE is powerful. Don’t give away your time for free, unless you want to.

Consider, if you were born with 100 gold coins, would you give away one of those gold coins for free? Hell no.

1 of those gold coins is 1 year of your life.

And these number of gold coins are limited. You can never have any more, assuming we live to be 100 years old.

I’ll give gold coins to my friends, family, and loved ones. But not to everyone or anyone.

My suggestion:

Protect your gold coins (your time) with your life.

Be selfish with your time. You can always make another $100, but you can never gain another year of your life.

Learn to ignore, learn to say NO, or learn how to let things slide. Don’t always follow-up. Don’t always answer all your emails. Use “purposeful procrastination” in your favor.

Conclusion

Be selfish before you can be selfless.

BE STRONG,
ERIC


PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101 by ERIC KIM

ERIC KIM x HENRI NECK STRAP  by HAPTIC INDUSTRIES // Portrait by Benjamin Thompson

If you want to make a living (or a killing) from photography, download:

PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP MANUAL by ERIC KIM


KEYS TO SUCCESS

Table of Contents

Learn how to make a living from your passion:


Photography Business 101

How to Make Money with Photography

Photography Marketing 101


SELLOUT ERIC KIM

How to Hustle.

Entrepreneurial Principles

How to be a Full-time Photographer

Photography Blogging

How to Teach Photography

Social Media

How to Save Money

START HERE >