Ask HN: Best non-crypto non-personal-home investment you ever made and why? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best non-crypto non-personal-home investment you ever made and why?

24 pointsl2silver20 comments

Investing is hard. What was a great investment you made in the past, and what led you to believe the investment would work out? Let's exclude crypto and personal homes, and probably self worth stuff (like school to change careers).

(Context: I've been reading biographies of local politicians and some of the issues that would have changed the value of commercial real estate in the city, and I was just curious what other sources of information people have found to generate successful investments)

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From 17 to 20 years old, I was obsessed with learning how to get into a loving relationship. Still enjoying the fruits of that when I noticed I mastered enough of the skill at age 20. I remember at age 16 thinking: shit, I won’t ever be with a girlfriend. In hindsight, I was probably right. I was really passive and scared for rejection. I learned how to put myself out there and meet the world. Meet enough people and you’ll find someone that matches well with you. I’ve approached thousands of people in general. For the first 2 years it felt soul crushing and painful. After that it became a lot of fun!

That was my best investment. I’m 30+ now.

Can you elaborate on what resources/tips/rules/etc you used to achieve your goals? I'm really interested in improving my social skills.

Check out your local PickUp Artist

Jokes aside, PUA material has been incredibly helpful in my experience.

Sure, you need to sift about all the canned jokes which work 1%, a few criminals and a bunch of fraudsters - but the community helped me out to find out good resources to become a better salesman (basically a bunch of studying psychology) and improve every aspect of your life (from gym routines, to earning more money, to fashion, etc) ultimately ended up becoming a "sure, you had your fun , now use your PUA skills to conquer the one you love".

15 years later I'm still in touch with some of those people and, while someone is still lost in the number game trying to hit some ridiculous pokemon-like numbers (the pure selfish hedonists who believe the world will end soon and we shouldn't burden the world with more children), most actually moved on and are preaching about having a loving monogamous relationship and kids.

A lot of us think chasing women for status was a waste of energy (even if it was a chance to get better psychological knowledge and self improve) and we would have been better off as virgin until marriage.

Haha, I'm not an artist. I stumble and fumble my way to the romantic life I wanted :')

I'm curious how you learn about sales. I've studied psychology too. Maybe I got too much stuck in the programming as entrepreneurship thing.

> A lot of us think chasing women for status was a waste of energy

I can see that. For me, that's not the case. The stories of my early 20s are fun!

> most actually moved on and are preaching about having a loving monogamous relationship and kids.

Yup, same. To be fair, I never wanted to hit ridiculous pokemon-like numbers. I just wanted to be in a romantic relationship. And I got my wish, and it is an even better experience than I thought it would be when I never had been in a romantic relationship.

The whole: "it will come", yea, didn't work. The whole: "don't search for it", didn't work. Hardcore goal direct action! That worked! :D

Feel free to reach out if you're up for a chat.

For me the biggest things were:

Learn about playfulness. Then understand how you're already playful by nature and hook into that (that took 3 years, once I got that down I got the results I wanted). Be playful and let her know sometimes (aka every 3 hours a small compliment) you're romantically interested in her. Some people see it as "playful and confident". If you can do that, that's it. Yes, really!

Learn how to deal with rejection (you'll get rejected a lot).

Have a solid strategy. Mine is: volume * conversion = amount of women who are romantically interested in you. My conversion is around 1%. So I need to talk to at least 100 women (during the day time or on Tinder).

Tinder, I can't say a whole lot there (I can coach you on it, email in profile). I don't think the folks on Tinder like my approach, but the women I've dated do!

Meditate. I went to a 10 day Vipassana retreat a few times, got me more connected to my body and emotions. It is direly needed. This is the reason why my name is mettamage (metta means loving-kindness in pali [1]). I did my retreats at dhamma.org

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitr%C4%AB

Take improv classes. Every city has them and it definitely helps

I agree that it helps, but with the express intent to develop your playfulness.

This has to be developed in conjunction with going on actual dates or cold approaching people (I prefer approaching women in the day time, a year ago I needed to do it again, it still feels like hell but being alone feels like a special kind of hell, so I know what poison I prefer).

Other than improv classes, I'd suggest to take bachata classes (explicitly bachata, not salsa, not anything else). Do not try to find your girlfriend there, it simply makes you more attractive to be with on the psychological side but also on the "I can dance a bit" side (former more important than the latter).

Final skill I'd suggest: learn how to tell a simple story. No hero's journey required, nothing grand. More on the tune off: I woke up today as usual and went running about as usual, I felt like a well oiled engine today. My mom called, and she was like "how do I turn on the computer?" And I love my mom, I really do, but I just get sooooo tired of her asking that for EVERY SINGLE DAY! It's fine, it's fine. I know it's fine. I guess I am not as well oiled of a machine as I thought, lol.

Or: I saw a cat cross the road really quick. I know cats are like that, but it still took me by surprise.

Basically the key is to express how you emotionally felt about whatever happened. The thing is, I feel things, I just never expressed them. The moment I learned how to do that, I was a lot more relatable to many people, all of a sudden.

Final thing: dare to say you think someone is cute or attractive, without needing anything from her. It should be shared as a "this is simply how I feel, interesting isn't it?" To feel this vibe more I recommend to read non-violent communication. Though, for the purposes of saying this particular thing, that book is way overblown. Still a good book though.

If these ideas seem appealing but you don't know how to implement them, I coach very low-key on the side (1 person at a time, for a few days to 3 months). I call it a hobby job. Feel free to email me.

I guess this is self-worth, but physical fitness. It's a priori useful and healthy, but in addition, attractive people are more confident and successful.

In a world where almost everyone above college age is a fat slob it's not at all difficult to set yourself apart.

Good street bike and accessories like saddlebags. And then making an effort to take care of it and make it trackable. Also spray painted the frame a buncha fruity colors, which actually helped me tack it down.

But yeah saved a lot of money, lost a lot of weight.

Also made some good investments in lithium at the right time. Pick a couple industries and go deep, like DEEP, and then do some classy gambling.

I bought AMC call options for a 1 year out near the end of the pandemic.

Usually big shifts like this - war, famine, pandemics etc. -- are good times to make moves/gamble on because of the volatility.

As the pandemic eased, I had noticed AMC hadn't recovered (before it became a reddit craze), whereas the pandemic was easing at least in people's minds.

So I bought call options that expired a year later, since I didn't know when the rebound would happen, but knowing that it would.

I made 5x on it. If I had held 48-72 hours longer it would have been a 20x.

Seemed like a stupid easy way to make a good ROI.

My investing strategy is "picks and shovels" and "buy what you follow, but not what is hot"

IIRC my best return so far is AMD at $8 a share and ASML when it was similarly cheap, as I was reading a lot of EE/tech news at the time.

Investment funds because I don’t enjoy gambling with my savings. I prefer to let professionals do that for me.

I heard that investment funds, or monkeys randomly placing orders, are on average doing better than DIY investors.

Rubles had crazy interest rates for a long time. Low confidence given defaulting is the national hobby - but it doesn't happen that often.

More boring: A startup, I decided to invest only after talking with the C-suits and understanding they had what it takes to sell to investors and good numbers. I tried to use my past experience as a founder and think if with their skills and with their numbers I would be able to sell the company.

Companies that I believe are exceptional at what they do. Those investment usually take a few years to yield.

So far I got the best return on TSMC shares. I bought them way before the Intel to Arm transition, I believe that's when many realized the potential of the company. TSMC also pays decent dividends. Others in my portfolio that did great - Apple, Amex, Visa, BRK.B.

Wanna share with us the biographies, or the things you learned from them?

How We Changed Toronto: The inside story of twelve creative, tumultuous years in civic life, 1969-1980

Accidental City: The Transformation of Toronto

Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City That Might Have Been

Estrogen.

Also, Brazilian treasuries. Our interest rates are ridiculously high here.

For a reason. Brazil has high persistent inflation historically, and there's a huge currency devaluation risk.

I just wanted to concur here. What some times happens is that fear of inflation leads people to get rid of the currency. The state then increases interest rates to convince people to hold the currency. So if you see high interest rates you should ask why.

Basically if someone tells you you can have low risk and high reward you should immediately assume they're lying to you.

VTS (VTI in the US)

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