We have our first guest post! Full disclosure, this is from my mans. While I go a more traditional route with money, Cam embraces this new frontier. However, like a lot of millennials, he just couldn't find comfort in the conventional route. Being able to see the potential in new and changing courses within the world of finance, he decided to go down the path of cryptocurrencies and NFT collecting to find his success in finance.

How it started -

I will never forget the time I was offered 200 Bitcoin for the low low price of $20 back in 2010 about a year before it went up to $1 per coin. Of course, something like this wouldn't even be a blip on the radar of a life if it weren't for the fact that those 200 coins, today, would be worth well over $10 million dollars. Who would have guessed? Well, at the time that idea seemed like the punchline to a bad joke to just about everyone, except for the small handful of people who could see the potential of something like Bitcoin. I was one of those people who laughed at the idea of a digital currency. I had gone my whole life thinking that fiat currencies were the only way, and always would be, so of course I brushed off this $20 Bitcoin deal.

As much as I would love to sit around and gripe about that time I was almost a millionaire I would much rather use it as a learning experience. I learned a valuable lesson: never discount something because it’s new and different. To say I learned this lesson right away would definitely not be a complete truth. In fact, it took me years to even realize what kind of lesson I could even learn from this. Once I saw bitcoin hit a $1, then $30, then $100 and up, I finally learned my lesson. However, learning it was only half of the experience. I needed to find a way to make this positively impact the rest of my life. I needed to put to practice my newly found understanding of the constantly changing world around me. But how?

My family never had much money growing up so talking about investing or making your money make money was never very common for us. My folks grew up similarly to me; not much more than just what you need and, as adults, they never seemed to be able to get out of the rut of the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. I am fortunate enough, though, to have gotten my fathers work ethic and my mothers kind heart but less fortunate to also be handed down their lack of understanding in the world of finances. They felt doomed to keep up the knuckle-dragging soul-sucking 40 hour work week making money for someone else who pays them just enough to survive and with 5 kids it’s pretty hard to do anything but what will guarantee you a paycheck. So I get it. They did the best they could with the best they had. Thank you mom and dad. Truly.

How it’s going -

As I got older and made my way through what everyone else called “being an adult” I found myself going down the same financial path that my parents did. I would save up some money, feel like I was getting ahead, then boom - an emergency, a surprise bill, a hospital visit, or a broken down car and it was right back to square one. I had no idea how to fix this and I wasn't really doing anything to even try and alleviate some of my financial woes. I was stuck without even really knowing that I was. I was dragging through the mud a person who was capable of so much more, as we all are, and didn't know how to find dry land or even a step in the right direction. Until I was starting to come up on my 30th rotation around the light in the sky I never tried to look around and take note of what was going on around me. I went with the flow. I got jobs and just did the work. No matter how bad they paid or how terrible the work, I did it with the oh-so-common mentality of - “if you work hard you will be rewarded.” To a degree I was “rewarded” but to what degree? I still ask myself the same thing. Looking back, I was paid more in experience than my actual worth but the key is: I don't look at any of that as a loss and I believe many people, who struggle with the same lack of good habits, find it difficult to say the same. 

There is no definitive “one answer fits all” to financial problems and just because something worked for one person doesn't mean it will work for you. That was something I learned very early into this new adventure. I started out trying to do what people around me were doing. I saved a little bit here and there with each paycheck. I started a high yield savings and even tried to dabble in stocks for the first time. I saw people around me feeling good about their financial moves and as I made similar decisions to them I was actually mentally going the other direction. I felt like I was taking one step at a time on an unending staircase and, to say the least, it was absolutely daunting and defeating. You never realize how little money you make until you see it grow in the smallest increments while doing everything you can not to buy that new shiny toy or go out to eat every day, especially when you were never taught financial discipline. I started to feel like it was hopeless and that I could put away every single cent of every last paycheck and it wouldn't matter anyway. So I decided to go another route: cryptocurrency. Of course, this isn't some get rich quick scheme and it isn't some game I could just learn the rules of and win, it is an absolute endeavor and I am incredibly excited to find every last resource I can to make this work.

I started with the most simple step: learn how to acquire crypto. I Googled every question I had and for any I couldn't find an answer to, I turned to crypto experts across any social media platform I was a part of. I dove into the tips and tricks of reading the graphs, understating market cap and how supply of coins affects it, which exchanges are the most reliable and most trusted, then I made my first trade. I bought $300 worth of Etherium and never looked back. Once I found one coin I believed in I felt some comfort in this completely new space. Since then I have spent countless hours on forums, exchanges, and anywhere else crypto is talked about. I devoted my free time to learning the intricacies of crypto and everything it has to offer.

I have learned so much from expanding my social media reach, by not being afraid to ask questions, and most importantly; not being detoured by someone who talks down to my experience level or tells me I’m wasting my time if I had to ask. I knew before getting into this that those people would be lurking around the internet forums and social media pages so I didn't let it bother me at all. For every jerk who passed me off as a fart in the wind there were 10 other people more than happy to help and, honestly, I can't thank them enough. I have curated my, albeit small, Twitter following and followers to some of the most amazing and level headed people in the crypto world. It has become a resource for me that has netted me plenty and landed me some awesome opportunities like this current one - writing for this wonderful page.

Now I am not some crypto expert or the guy with the blue checkmark on Twitter who bought three Lambos and a house in the same day but I am someone who changed my own life and not everyone can say that but everyone can do it by not discounting what is new and different. The key to my success was not in being the best or the most successful but in being ok with not knowing and starting from square one. If you don’t ever start you will never finish.

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