It was today in the morning @cryotosensei asked me 'let me know how it works out.' He asked me this for my comment on his post #509661 where I threw light on how I am now a teacher who only teaches as sevice to humanity and not for money. His question was so intriguing that I couldn't help to replicate all my previous life in words here on SN. Here's the story of my life so far.
I started working so early when I was only a kid, didn't get paid too much for selling Newspapers. After it I also tried to sell ink or indigo, worked on a grocery shop, on a book shop and at so many different places. But I somehow managed to study, cleared High School in 2002, pass intermediate in 2004 and then I made my first attempt at teaching some neighbourhood kids for around $10 a month.
After graduation, I chose teaching as a profession and self employed as spoken English trainer in my hometown in 2007. I was 18 then. It worked wonders for me because everyone in my country seemed to be in good need of learning English Speaking for various reasons. From there I could sneak with so much money that I never had to look back. (Feel grateful to God for this.)
However I got bored of teaching English Speaking for years and eventually left it. Then, I taught in schools and colleges as part time teacher from 2014 and could still earn the same. (I must inform you that India is a very good country for ESL teachers pay wise.)
TBH, there was almost noone who could spend that money so I started to invest it in Gold, stocks, some land. It was the time when I realised that my money can earn me passive income sources so as to retire early.
I was very much influenced by 'Cashflow Quadrant' from Robert Kiyosaki. My investments started working for me and I became so sure that I could easily get rid of job thing any day. But I continued working in colleges and schools as usual.
I established a primary school in 2018 but after a year COVID made things worse for education and I had to halt it for 2 years. I reopened it in 2021 and now we have more than 500 kids. I don't go there so often, our staff is great and they manage it quite well.
Then, in 2019, I made my first ever contact with Bitcoin. TBH, I did not pay much heed for the details and never bothered about my initial investment in it. The reasons being — first, it was not a very high amount and secondly I wasn't so much interested in it. It was only in 2021 when I came to realise the potential of Bitcoin, albeit price wise. I wasn't orange pilled by any one, I didn't have someone to guide me. In fact, I sold out most of my Bitcoin investment in the first bull run of 2021.
But as I had gained some confidence and knowledge about Bitcoin, I started DCAing for it. At first I was stunned due to the volatality but I could understand that the market was plummeting in reaction to all those sad events of 2022. So, I continued with it. I won't lie, I even had a little bit of exposure to some shitcoins, mostly for the staking baits. But, my amount of investment remained so small with them that I could utterly feel happy while seeing them almost buried under the dust.
Anyways, middle of 2022, my investment in Bitcoin became considerably high and for the first time I wanted to learn about it a little more deeply. For that I started with some "Bitcoin only YouTube channels and blogs", that sounded like they were trying to impose Bitcoin instead of reasoning for it. (I may be wrong about it, as I was just a noobie then, BTW.)
Then, I tried a few Bitcoin podcasts, books and even summoned a friend who I knew traded Bitcoin on a daily basis. You can easily estimate that, why would I summon a day trader when I was ready to HODL? In fact, until the start of 2023, I wasn't even sure about the whole narrative of Bitcoin as sound money.
The friend didn't help me but those books and podcasts did. I slowly started to fathom out why's, what's, How's and when's of Bitcoin. I must tell you that it wasn't easy to understand everything about Bitcoin with only self-study. Even 2023 passed, and I was still so much doubtful or confused in regards to many things, like what is Bitcoin Standard? What is the real need of Bitcoin? Why is Bitcoin Economy so inevitable? And many more.
Then some magic happened. On January 27, 2024, I clicked a link under an article from @cryotosensei on a media platform. The link took me to stacker.news and my first reaction was, ''How on earth did I miss it!!'' My first few days went in to understand SN as well as connecting myself to a lot of real knowledge about Bitcoin. I must say that in SN I found the real Bitcoin place with real Bitcoiners. SN is my orange pill and it has definitely taken me down the rabbit hole.
Don't be surprised if I tell you that before coming to SN I even didn't know about orange pill and rabbit hole. If I weren't on SN, It was near impossible for me to understand about the real worth of Bitcoin, let aside understanding the intricacies like lightning, UTXOs, Halving, and many more.
For all the knowledge about Bitcoin that I accumulate here, I want to thank each and every of real Bitcoiners here on SN. A special mention to @DarthCoin fot his guides which are perfect, @siggy47 for his extraordinary wisdom, @Undisciplined and @TomK for their immense understanding about Economic matters, @cryotosensei for his creative excellence, @kr, @k00b and @ek for being the torch bearers enroute the truth, and everyone else who enlightened my journey to reality.
It was just last year, I decided to retire from teaching and got married, I'm still under 35. Have a great life with so much time to caring for my ageing parents, loving my wife, staying with my siblings and experiencing the life fully and truly.
So, what's actually worked for me? I think I started to work very early, didn't marry or get involved in serious relationship. I just got married last year and happy that I'm already expecting a child.
I'm so grateful to God for everything, I feel that even though someone else may replicate everything I did, if he's not got enough God (luck) behind him, he can't achieve the same as I did. So, it's not I that did anything , it was my God who wanted me to live my life like this. It's not that never found difficulty but it was mostly in my childhood.
Phew! I didn't think writing it so long but that's fine, just hope you didn't get bored.
Lastly just a reaffirmation that I've not retired from work, just retired from paid teaching services. I don't charge my students now. I think that God gave me money when I needed it the most, now I don't need money. So, why not I use my talent of teaching (which is also God given) in the service of humanity.
After discovering the real worth of Bitcoin, money has definitely become secondary for me, and knowledge is primary now.