My Path to Buying My First Bitcoin
My Path to Buying My First Bitcoin
We are 8 months into the year and if nothing else happened this year, I would consider it one of the most interesting years of my life. It’s a bold claim, but here’s why:
Like most people in January I set some New Year’s Resolutions, and like most people I found myself unsuccessful after just a couple of weeks. It was towards the end of January that I decided I wanted to make 2016 the year of learning.
The first thing I started to doing was meditating. I found a couple of very good talking tracks to guide me through meditating which I tried to do a couple times a week. The main guide I used was a mobile app called CureStress. My wife participated as well and is a big believer in its power to help you control your mind. I wish I was more disciplined, because the habit has fallen off recently, but I still highly recommend doing it.
In addition to meditating. I started reading. The hurdle for reading has always been the cost of books and finding time to sit down to read. Thankfully, I was introduced to OverDrive and Hoopla where I could use my San Francisco Library card to login and get access to a huge database of digital books and audiobooks. I started listening to books all the time including on my commute, during my work out, and especially while doing the dishes every night (we don’t own a dishwasher). I have included a list of every book I remember reading with a ranking from 1 to 5.
(Books rated 5 are must reads, 4 are really great books that I am glad I read, 3 are good books but not critical, and 2 are books I could have lived without reading)
You can probably tell from the list of books, that I am interested in books relating to business, self-help, and psychology. As I read, I became fixed on the concept of passive income. My first ideas were around starting a online marketing company, blogging, and building a website about how to land your dream job after college. Each idea lasted a couple weeks and I learned a lot from each endeavor.
Next came my interest in the economy, which led to shorting in the stock market, and ultimately investing in gold via physical coins and mining stocks. My reading was now complemented with YouTube videos and podcasts and articles via SeekingAlpha. I am constantly consuming articles. My favorite medium for consuming content is through podcasts. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how powerful podcasts are. Podcasts are like 30 minute books about current events. They’re are a lot of great podcasts, here’s my recommendations (listed by personal rank):
We Study Billionaires - The Investors Podcast
The Smart Passive Income Podcast
All of my reading, listening, and research has landed me into my newest interest, blockchain. Which is how I found Steemit. I’m fascinated by Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all things blockchain. Blockchain combines my interest of technology and finance beautifully. I can’t wait to see what the last 4 months of 2016 will bring in this year of learning.
Follow me on twitter at @montspencer. With a business partner, I will be launching a website around blockchain in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned!
It looks like you do have a very good foothold in to this year. I like the book list and I am going to jot down some titles for next time I am in the library.
I try to do as much as I can in the first 6 months of the year and then try to do even more during the last 6 months as more of a challenge. Keep it up and you got this!