I was inspired by nostr:npub1rtlqca8r6auyaw5n5h3l5422dm4sry5dzfee4696fqe8s6qgudks7djtfs

Here’s my story

In my mid twenties I was living with my girlfriend and working as an engineer. We got engaged and shit got really rocky between us and we ended up breaking things off. And I spiralled, I quit my job on a dare to do my side hustle full time but financially it was a bad move it wasn’t making enough money and I had a mortgage and bills. I thought I could make it work.

I ended up moving into the city and renting my apartment out below what my mortgage was and began working PT as a valet while still trying to make my business work. But I was going broke. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the city but things financially were not working out.

Finally the real estate market rebounded and I sold my apartment for a small profit and decided to go traveling to SE Asia and Australia and learn to surf. It was amazing and I met a new girlfriend who had invested in her friends bitcoin company. I asked her a million questions about it and bitcoin, she knew nothing she just trusted her friend. I bought some on coinbase and it started going up. I was hooked. I had no idea about bitcoin tho I just knew most investments didn’t appreciate so quickly.

I bought more bitcoin than shitcoins, again I had no clue what I had stumbled on but my gut said I was on to something. I bought more on my credit card at 20% interest. I thought I was going to be a trader I was making money. I went to a coffee shop and traded almost every day.

Eventually my trip came to an end and I was making money and thought I was a genius. Then the market crashed 80% and more on the shitcoins. I became depressed, and anxious I was in a bad financial situation I had debt from my business and blown the profit on my apartment from traveling (worth it haha).

But I didn’t sell it all I just consolidated most in to bitcoin and just Hodl not buying any I was broke. I met my now wife we started dating she was very smart and successful, we have a passionate love affair and I got her pregnant. We had our first kid together I went back to my old engineering job and the everything crashed again and my net worth went negative in 2020 I had some investments and my bitcoin but they went lower than my debt. I cried. I had a family now and was broke. But I had an income and we made it work.

Then bitcoin rallied and I started buying again and finally started to really learn about bitcoin. I sold my shitcoins went all in on bitcoin and saw my net worth skyrocket (for me). And things were good.

Price crashed again but this time I understood what Bitcoin was and I was still in much better shape then in march 2020.

This time is stacked hard. I took it serious, I knew what I was buying. I understood what Bitcoin was. This time was different. I was positioning myself for the future. For the next cycle and the ones after that, low time preference, lower price means more sats.

Bitcoin hits $100K and life is good not perfect but good. All the ups and downs in bitcoin are a good analogy for life. The principal of rhythm, tide goes in tide goes out, ying and Yang.

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nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqmjxss3dld622uu8q25gywum9qtg4w4cv4064jmg20xsac2aam5nqyvhwumn8ghj7urjv4kkjatd9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wshsz9mhwden5te0v96xcctn9ehx7um5wghxcctwvshsqgrfe4aedrum5fttkgjztrg0tez2ssau0jm5cputc73x24qqluceev6w4twk

Myself and nostr:npub1kndtw0ejlpmt5n93a8lrhrexa9eny8sptjkwxlgp77e6getffrrsf2xf02 got one of those fancy world maps to fill in.

Country flag= we've both been there

Red flag= I've been there

Blue flag= she's been there

However, I’m not as smart with thinkythoughts as nostr:npub1rtlqca8r6auyaw5n5h3l5422dm4sry5dzfee4696fqe8s6qgudks7djtfs and people follow confident voices who they trust can give them a blueprint to repeat the path they took.

My paranoia about people knowing how wealthy I am has provided me some ground cover so far, but it also made me less credible (why would you take a former child magician’s financial advice when he can’t even afford a razor, and lives in a normal house like yours because he can’t get a mortgage.)

For the people around me, there will be signs.

There have been signs (the real estate purchases for family members, the trips, the RV, donations and investments).

A few years ago they started speculating … “brad can pay, he’s a millionaire.” “Don’t worry dear, you’re a millionaire.”

I never confirmed nor denied, never told anyone in my family the number.

I just dealt with it awkwardly, and felt weird.

They will start to get a picture of the level of wealth I have soon, and I’m going to have to face more awkward conversations.

I’ve been dealing this year with my negative beliefs and limiting beliefs around this.

Why do the words “rich” and “millionaire” trigger negative feelings?

I discovered that your reaction is a reflection.

What do I believe about rich people?

Is it true?

How can you fix that?

Doing the work to create Citadel Mind has been helpful this year.

I also run into the opposite problem where people assume I’m way wealthier than I am because I got into bitcoin in 2011.

I’ve been very public about all of my hacks, losses, bad sells & other lessons learned to advocate buy & hold.

IE I sold half my coins at $30, I tell that story a lot to illustrate the value of “saving” not “investing” or “trading” … but I also tell that to temper people’s curiosity if I’m one of those made-every-right-move early billionaire bitcoiners 😅

My coach Dan Martell told me the other day that my secrecy around my success is the only thing holding me back from helping more people, and if that truly is my goal, I have to face it or give up on it.

Lots of folks are public with their wealth like Michael Saylor, Jason Williams, American HODL, etc.

On the flip side, people like nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx, nostr:npub1qg8j6gdwpxlntlxlkew7eu283wzx7hmj32esch42hntdpqdgrslqv024kw, nostr:npub1ahxjq4v0zlvexf7cg8j9stumqp3nrtzqzzqxa7szpmcdgqrcumdq0h5ech, nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a, nostr:npub1s5yq6wadwrxde4lhfs56gn64hwzuhnfa6r9mj476r5s4hkunzgzqrs6q7z and others are very influential and I do not believe they ever talk about their net worth.

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to thread the needle of having obvious signs of wealth, influencing regular ppl towards bitcoin effectively at mass scale, while not disclosing how much BTC you have or what your rough net worth is.

It seems kind of like once you live a certain lifestyle, it becomes obvious that you have a high net worth, and there might be some mystery brand value around not disclosing it…makes ppl want to lean in to try to figure it out.

These are questions we’re all gonna to have to deal with on the way to $1 million per coin and beyond.

I think I will probably just start being more public about my upgraded lifestyle, talk confidently, and not give specifics.

Once you disclose, there’s no undoing that (especially on Nostr.)