I think the “pathetic” comment is aimed at the fact that if you’re running with the Alex Jones camp, you’re not really on planet earth anymore.
This is precisely the kind of advice that's the problem.
Nah, you'll just mooch off your stable unearned, unproductive income source for the rest of your life. It's called rent seeking -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking and it's the absolute core of the disease that is modern capitalism.
What made me more susceptible I think is that my father made his money grinding up, buying a few flats , moving into full on property development. I paid no attention to his business until it was too late for me to learn from him (he died). Sure I worked on his building sites as a teenager, grafted cleaning out flats after tenants moved out (this is while my mates enjoyed their school holidays). He did pretty well and I grew up in a pretty affluent way. The stress was awful for him. I believe it fucked him up a bit. I have a few bad memories of him being a bit horrible. I forgive him that now looking back at the pressure he was under.
After his death I was desperate to emulate him. I began to think working for a salary was a mugs game. I paid for some bullshit property courses. Never went all in on anything thank god.
Anyway, eight years later I've accepted what I am, I'm in a job I actually like. I'll plough my furrow doing software and getting better at it. It's modest, but it's more certain. And uncertainty is the root of stress for me.
One bit of advice he gave me when I was complaining about working and having a manager etc "son, the bank manager is my boss, he can call in my loans any time" I can see now that this is a great antidote to the bullshit financial freedom advice on YouTube
> "son, the bank manager is my boss, he can call in my loans any time"
that would have been true for him (being in property development). But there are people who build successful businesses or just work for themselves who never go into substantial debt and thus are free of any such 'creditor boss'.
It’s charlatans all the way down.
I am a fairly successful YouTuber, and the same thing exists in my space. It pains me to see the YouTube gurus out there, fleecing people of their money by selling them dreams. Dreams they themselves have not achieved.
Beware of anyone who is selling risk-free shortcuts to hard work. They also go by a different, less appealing name: get rich quick schemes.
This 100x! Many of the big influencers in these indie/startup/productivity niches seem to earn a lot of money at first sight. If you look deeper, a lot of these influencer seem to be making a lot of money from courses they are selling instead of operating the business they sell courses about.