BFI has a 'what should I do with my life' thread roughly every 90 days. **** I made one myself back in 2013. I can't tell any of you what to do with your lives, but I can make some suggestions.

1) Explore sales. If you ever wanted to own your own business, or even if your goal is just to make really good money you owe it to yourself to figure out if you 'have it' or not. What do I mean by that? Sales has very low initial barriers to entry, is very hard to teach, and very difficult to do. It favors charismatic people, good looking people, smart people (I know we've all dealt with our share of idiotic salespeople... But the really good ones tend to not be idiots), and hard working people. It's such a flexible career area that there are people who are god awful at 3/4 of those things and are still successful. Work hard at trying out sales for at least 6 months before giving up.

2) If sales isn't a good fit you should hop on code academy and see if you can tolerate coding. Coding, like sales, is a skill that all but guarantees you a living wage.

3) If you suck at coding AND sales you should start looking into what you need to get hired as a federal employee. Also consider military service. You'll probably test highly on the ASVAB test. Try to get an MOS that involves some kind of technical skill. Perfect example would be some sort of mechanic position. The skills you pickup in the military will be transferable when your first tour is up, so quit and go work for an oil company. UPS here in Louisville pays 150+ an hour to the mechanics who work on their planes and those are Union jobs.

4) Learn a trade. Electricians, plumbers, etc all make a very good living. It's a bit of a grind but it's not a terrible life. The best way to learn a trade is to join the military and learn the skill... And then exit the military and use the educational benefits to get advanced skills in your field.

3/4) You left off nursing/healthcare which can be considered a trade and has a direct pipeline via military service.

Good suggestion.

A better title for this thread might have been "How do I stop being poor?"

Budgeting properly is half the battle imo

I would add that avoiding college while you ask yourself this question is a good idea.

Don't ever go into college like, "I have no clue what I'm doing but I'm sure I'll figure it out"

Its a good way to waste a ton of money and time.

There's an excellent reason why 'go to college' is nowhere in my OP

Coding is the new manufacturing. There are no real manufacturing jobs anymore and there never will be again. It will be all machines and the coders are the ones that will run and control those machines.

The best job advice I ever heard was "Find out what needs doing and learn how to do it".

Coders and engineers and health care (nurses) and good sales people are needed and those professions should be in demand for quite a while. Putting stuff together in a factory by hand is obsolete. Its a new world and people have to adapt. Plumbers and mechanics are needed and won't be replaced by robots. This is a service based economy.

I dunno, looks like manufacturing is due for a comeback

Manufacturing is in the last stages of automation. Bringing the manufacturing back to the US would be good for everyone, but most of the jobs won't return... Robots took those.

Basically in the future all factory jobs will be advanced technical jobs.

EDIT: This is how US factories can be competitive with factories in countries with 20/day wages. Cost of labor is a relatively small input at most major US manufacturers. There are some exceptions, like meat, but I don't think I'd ever actually recommend someone try to find a job that makes 20 bucks an hour for pure suffering. I didn't suggest becoming a truck driver either... And not just because they will get automated in the next 10 years. I didn't suggest being a truck driver because that job is literally being paid to suffer.

FYP

Lol'd at become a federal employee. Sadly that is probably good advice for many people. If you want to do nothing all day, surround yourself with idiots, and collect a guaranteed paycheck, there is no better path than becoming a fed.

I'm definitely at point 3, I spent too many years in comp sci before realizing I was pretty bad at it and hated it and I'm not a sales type. I'm not ready yet to suck it up and do something I will definitely not enjoy doing but I'll probably get there this year as I'm not doing well enough in the poker anymore--the lack of a resume is another problem I have, but oh well, many people don't like their job either. Suck it up buttercup.

Sorry Ahnuld... Comparative advantage is a supply side concept. IRL stuff manufactured here generates significantly more value for local economies.

For example if we import flip flops from China we can do it for .40 per flip flop. If we manufacture it here it costs .50. If we import it from China the entire supply chain that leads to the creation of the flip flop happens in china, then it's shipped to the end user in the US. If we make it here several layers of local business get a piece of the COGS on the .50 flip flop. And the parts of the flip flop get transported minimum 2 more times inside this country. That transportation is good for me personally.

You'd be right if we had free trade with our counterparties. We do not. They get to put absurd import restrictions on our products and rip off as much of our IP as they can grab with both hands.... And we get some slightly cheaper flip flops. It's a ****ty deal for our country. Would be disastrous for China if we stopped doing this. Hopefully we do.

For proof that I'm right see the trade policy of almost every other country on earth. Our 'normative' trade policy is just window dressing on the largest foreign aid project in the history of humanity. That isn't to say it was the wrong thing to do, literally Billions of people have gone from <1$ a day poverty to borderline middle class standards of living... But let's all cut the crap about it having been a net positive for the people of North America.

Think on this... Is comparative advantage relevant if the more efficient country has the capacity to produce ALL of good A and good B that it could possibly need to consume? If potential demand is in fact lower than potential supply does comparative advantage matter at all? Why would trade be the one thing in economics that diminishing returns wouldn't apply to? Seems to me that the California market is nearly big enough to be fully self sufficient with minimal outside trade. That isn't to say it's the most efficient setup, but the US economy is surely a big enough trade region to allow for all the comparative advantage one would need.

I'd put forward that if you haven't tried sales you owe it to yourself to try. It's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Pick something that you don't think is a scam and try to get a job selling that. Sales can feel downright charitable when the people you do business with end up better off for buying from you. This does a lot to reduce the emotional toll for most people.

Poker is a truly miserable way to make a living for most people. I, and a lot of other people on this forum, have had a similar experience exiting the game. The real world is actually a wonderful place for anyone smart enough to beat modern poker for enough to pay bills.

You're so ****ed in the head. It's one thing to be anti-fiat, it's another level of loonery to be anti-nurse or to think of nurses as a drain on society

regarding sales--I have the personality that rarely smiles (and nobody likes those people) and is generally really quiet and total crap at socializing (and nobody likes those people) and terrible at selling myself and I don't believe in the customer is always right policy much less the part where I wouldn't upsell if I didn't think the customer needed it or if the competitor had a better product for them I'd tell them to get that instead--think it's pretty safe to say I'd really suck at it. Only thing in sales I ever do is sell my own crap on ebay. (I don't like owning a lot of stuff) That has it's own share of morons, but at least I don't have to talk to them. like everything else in life, live has to be much worse, there's more idiots not on message boards vs non ones out there. (which if you've ever read politics threads should terrify you)

My own flaws are one of the main reasons I've been pretty skittish on owning and running a business, the other is I'm completely out of good ideas. I just don't see how I'd succeed at one right now.

Lots of people are dumb enough to hand over their life savings to people they like no matter how stupid it is. If they don't like you, you're gonna have problems selling to them even things they need; and I'm one of the latter with the general crowd.
at least, there is no chance in heck I'd tell customers to sign up for a stupid store card. **** off CEO, everyone hates that.

Invest in your wife if possible. Assuming you have a rock solid relationship. I have in mine and she's about to start making nice loot being a CRNA. Gonna be pretty nice when she starts bringing home a phat check. I've invested in many things and I always tell her she's my best investment yet, and it's the truth.

So besides poker what are you good at?

It's hard to find a programming gig without a degree with the job market as it is.

Not actually true. If you can actually code it's not hard at all. My brother has no degree and he's a software engineer. He's also the laziest piece of **** who ever lived. Seriously he can't be bothered to maintain decent hygiene. If you can code you'll never go hungry again.

@wheatrich, being good at socializing is at least as much a learned skill as it is a part of your personality (or not)

You're doing yourself a major disservice by presenting it as set in stone. Learn how to socialize/talk to people.

My Dad has been trying to get my Mom to work FOR YEARS!

Can confirm. Have grown exponentially in a social capacity since I started putting in the effort. I used to kind of have the same mentality as you did Wheatrich.

Nurses clearly worsen the trade deficit because work that can and is only done locally always worsens the trade deficit.

As much as one can glean from a few posts, I suspect the issue is not the type of work. I mean this genuinely (this was my problem), if you figure out what's making you unhappy work will get a lot easier if not downright enjoyable.

Majority of all work is about showing up (assuming you aren't limited by intelligence which is unlikely given you make a living with poker). This is nearly impossible to do consistently if something is genuinely wrong. Selling isn't actually hard if you're willing to just show up and ask people for the money, few people are willing to ask for the money.

I've known ugly mf'ers who could sell, no charm, terrible social skills the works. You sell by showing up, taking your reps and improving slowly. That's life, that's work. If the idea of that is unappealing there's definitely something wrong, figure out what it is.

Programming is the same, you become a coder by building something small. Making it bigger and more complicated, learning the tools you need to do so. After about 3-6 months someone will pay you $15/hour. 6 months later they pay you about $40k. 6 months after that $80k. I've run into programmers making $100k+ I'm positive couldn't fizz bizz. The work game is from a technical skill standpoint is very easy.