April 18th 2018 Be Careful When a Naked Person Offers You a Shirt
Yup Joe's and Joette's another obscure title but this one comes to us all the way from Africa. So how did it make it's way on my list of possible topics? Through Evan Carmichael's The Top 10 Rules for Success. I was reading the Maya Angelou section, when this quote hit me. I feel like we can all benefit from this quote.
Before you ask it let me answer it. This is just a cooler way of saying if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. It's an old saying but it still holds true today in 2018. How you ask, because we as humans all want the same thing. We all want to find and take shortcuts. Sometimes finding the quick way to do something, creates history. Just take a look at the invention of cars, airplanes and Uber. The only problem is they were invented to save time and make life easier. This quote is not referring to them but rather to all the other shortcuts in life. Snake Oil, the alleged cure to any illness and a term that I will be using from here on out.
Listening to the radio at work, I hear a lot of commercials. One of the commercials I get tired of hearing is the real estate course commercial. The person rants about how easy it is to make money flipping houses in the trip state area. This person reminds me of the Snake Oil salesman. Sure you can make money in real estate, but that's mainly if you are going long term. Flipping houses can make you a couple of dollars but it can put you massively into debt. Unless you have a massive bank roll, it's going to be hard to flip houses long term. The gains are heavily taxed and the homes that make profits are fixer uppers. In other words, it's not duplicatable.
Another form of Snake Oil that I see everywhere is the secret to success courses. Where do I see these courses, online on blogs and YouTube channels. These so called life coaches promise to teach you the secret to succeeding in life only if you buy their course. But Josh, they need to pay their bills and if you had a course we would buy it. I'm not mad at the person for trying to make a living rather I'm upset that they are trying to sell a secret to success. The only way to achieve success is to work hard and smart. If someone promises you that you can become successful without hard work, run. This post was inspired by a book that list the rules for success and guess what... They all talk about hard work. There is no magic shortcut to the top.
The final form of Snake Oil that I want to touch upon deals with where we invest our money. No this isn't another paragraph about crypto currency, I'm talking about the real Snake Oil. Yup I'm talking about the lotto. This is one of the worst forms of Snake Oil because so many of us fund this daily. I know what you are thinking, Josh people win the lottery all of the time. That is true but those who win the lotto end up broke in a matter of years. They were unable to manage their funds before wining the lotto so how could we expect them to manage lottery winnings. The winners are given the burden of managing their finances and fail. I know their are some lotto games that pay you weekly for the rest of your life but whats the odds of you winning that. Before you say that succeeding in business is just as slim, let me stop you. You can control your chances of succeeding the lotto is random; it's almost as if it was a lottery. Let's say you spend twenty dollars a week on the lotto, which works out to about a thousand dollars a year. Over twenty years that's is twenty thousand dollars which is a decent chunk of change. If you invested that same money that 20k would be worth over FIFTY thousand dollars. Crazy right, that's why I don't play the lotto.
Joe's and Joette's , that's basically it for this post. If you enjoyed this post thanks, if not oh well. Either way feel free to leave me a comment down below. If you want more content, you can subscribe to the Books By Josh Show on ITunes, Google Play Music and Stitcher. If you want more content then that you can check us out on YouTube. To get notified whenever we post make sure you follow us on Twitter or Facebook. If you wish to support the site, the best way is to tell your friends about us. If you want to show more love feel free to subscribe or support us. If that still isn't enough, feel free to become a patreon or buy a signed copy of my book from our store page. All of the links to everything can be found at the bottom of this post and like always...... I'll catch you guys in the next one, see-ya.