Post: #1

Do you think it's high quality? Do you find it useful?

I believe it's run by forum member Westcoast, but he doesn't post here anymore. I enjoyed his posts here, but I'm on the fence on WSP stuff.

Post: #2

(03-10-2018 01:13 PM)ComebackKid Wrote:  Do you think it's high quality? Do you find it useful?

I believe it's run by forum member Westcoast, but he doesn't post here anymore. I enjoyed his posts here, but I'm on the fence on WSP stuff.

Not super convinced by it.

They have some good ideas, but their extreme focus on money is too one-dimensional I think.

Their ideal scenario seems to be selling weight-loss drugs or something like that online because it targets "the stupid masses" and sells well. But one question you also have to ask yourself is if that's something you want to do in you life. For me personally that would simply be too unsatisfactory, even if it makes a lot of money. But that seems to be a thought that never enters their mind.

Also their stance on fame is bullshit. They argue that fame is a detriment to your life because you are constantly hassled by "regular people". In reality fame can open you a lot of doors, get you in touch with a lot of interesting people and obvi get you laid with hot girls.

Also their crypto advice seems to be quite bad, I think crypto is not their forte.

But generally the advice to have several streams of income and make sure that your life is antifragile at an as early age as possible definitely makes a lot of sense.

Post: #3

I've enjoyed it and have been reading for a bit over a year. I've bought their recent books Efficiency and Triangle Investing.
IMO I thought their focus had changed from money in recent months and shifted toward posting on themes of life and philosophy.

Post: #4

Hype.

Post: #5

I really like the blog. It's the only "life/business advice blog" that really speaks to me.

I have some issues with the approach that is advocated, the idea that you are a lazy fuck if you don't go to a top ten university before taking a job in finance. However, there's a lot of applicable advice for folks who don't follow the lifestyle plan mandated by the blog.

Importantly, there's a ton of actionable advice related to basing your success on owning a business, rather than having a job.

I don't think it's a useful resource for most of the sheep out there, but for anyone truly motivated, it's very valuable.

Post: #6

Good stuff

The chapter in Efficiency that resonated with me is finding what your intellectual strong suits are, and emphasizing them. There really aren’t many dumb people, just folks who excel at certain business aspects compared to others. You, naturally, have an edge in intellectual capacity in certain aspects of business compared to the general population. Recognize those aspects and profit from them

Post: #7

(03-11-2018 12:21 AM)LoveBug Wrote:  There really aren’t many dumb people...

Post: #8

When it comes to finance, I believe they know a thing or two.

But I don't like them*. They seem very arrogant. Nouveau riche, type. "You're stupid if you don't agree with me or do what I do". I might take financial advice from them. They might know a thing or two about women. But otherwise seemed like toxic people. Seem to enjoy talking about how smart they are and how stupid a lot of other people are.

But...being smarter than the lower half of the bell curve is not an achievement. And there's more to life than measuring it in currency.

G

*For full disclosure, at one point they said the manosphere was dumb or something to that effect. I tweeted in response, "Why?" and they just deleted the tweet which memory-holed my question and whenever I tried to comment on their blog thereafter, they just deleted them. I didn't post any bile, just two comments one responding to another poster and one asking Wallstreet a question and got the hint soon after.

Post: #9

(03-11-2018 12:40 AM)Geomann180 Wrote:  When it comes to finance, I believe they know a thing or two.

"They" would be "he."

Virtually all the articles, except for a few guests posts are clearly written by the same poorly written individual.

Post: #10

(03-10-2018 02:00 PM)Ice Wrote:  

(03-10-2018 01:13 PM)ComebackKid Wrote:  Do you think it's high quality? Do you find it useful?

I believe it's run by forum member Westcoast, but he doesn't post here anymore. I enjoyed his posts here, but I'm on the fence on WSP stuff.

Not super convinced by it.

They have some good ideas, but their extreme focus on money is too one-dimensional I think.

Their ideal scenario seems to be selling weight-loss drugs or something like that online because it targets "the stupid masses" and sells well. But one question you also have to ask yourself is if that's something you want to do in you life. For me personally that would simply be too unsatisfactory, even if it makes a lot of money. But that seems to be a thought that never enters their mind.

Also their stance on fame is bullshit. They argue that fame is a detriment to your life because you are constantly hassled by "regular people". In reality fame can open you a lot of doors, get you in touch with a lot of interesting people and obvi get you laid with hot girls.

Also their crypto advice seems to be quite bad, I think crypto is not their forte.

But generally the advice to have several streams of income and make sure that your life is antifragile at an as early age as possible definitely makes a lot of sense.

I agree that fame can open doors, but in general think about. It would be a fucking pain in the ass just going to get groceries. Let alone privacy...

I actually did have a chance to read their Efficiency eBook. The focus on money was very accurate to how actual street guys look at it. Their cocky attitudes and self worship was also very Wall Street-esque.

The book had some actual good game advice and touched on other areas that I haven't seen done such as "cloaking" ads and Facebook marketing. I wouldn't have sold any of the recommendations that they put in in that eBook though, such as bullshit pills, and to be honest I don't think they would either. Was just some ideas for people to find their own inspiration.

On their Crypto-currency advice, they have been proven wrong as shit lol.

Overall, WSP is 6/10 for me.

Post: #11

(03-11-2018 12:40 AM)Geomann180 Wrote:  But I don't like them*. They seem very arrogant. Nouveau riche, type. "You're stupid if you don't agree with me or do what I do". ... Seem to enjoy talking about how smart they are and how stupid a lot of other people are.

I think a big part of it is their advice on "smile nod and agree". They've done it so long in real life because it works. But then they can't help but feel contempt(especially for regular people) and if you keep it in then it spills out into the outlet on the internet where it can't ever come back to hurt you, then you're even more compelled to show what you're really thinking.

Aside from the over-focus on making money, I think they're super legit. Many years ago I'd read their stuff and think, wow they're super arrogant, but half their stuff is legit. The more and more I grow up and gain experience in life, the more of the stuff I originally thought was arrogance or pseudo-alpha bullshit I actually understand where they're coming from and why they would say the things they do. It sounds elitist but especially if you're in a country like NZ where everyone around you is anti-intellectual you sort of have to be to remain sane.

Does anyone in the crypto-sphere know why they're wrong about it? Reading Triangle Investing, they seem to know their stuff.

Post: #12

The whole fame thing is an issue of personality type.

Some guys think of fame as the same thing as a Cheers type situation where "everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came".

But in my life, when I go to the butcher or the tailor, they know me because I spent time befriending them and they do competent work and there is a value exchange between us. Of course that's nice to develop a shorthand and get a bro-hug when you enter.

But if I just wanted some Hungarian sausage and rolled into a deli, and the counter guy was all "hey... aren't you TooFine, that guy who does the stuff? Yeah... here's my random, uninformed opinion on that"...

That would be my own personal definition of hell.

Fame, from that standpoint, seems like a living nightmare.

Post: #13

(03-11-2018 02:52 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  "hey... aren't you TooFine, that guy who does the stuff? Yeah... here's my random, uninformed opinion on that"...

That would be my own personal definition of hell.

Fame, from that standpoint, seems like a living nightmare.

I never thought about it until you said it now, but that's what it must be like for any athlete or coach. Everyone has an opinion, but nobody really has any knowledge to back it up. Imagine that in your career every day.

Vitali Kitschko:
What’s the difference between chess and boxing? In chess, nobody is an expert, but everybody plays. In boxing everybody is an expert, but nobody fights.

Post: #14

..

Post: #15

As a younger guy I feel that efficiency e book really blew my mind. I realized I wasn't playing to my strengths career wise and taking a shot at that "1 percent" claim they made.

Post: #16

I'm pretty sure WestCoast is Wall Street Playboys. He stopped posting here to go concentrate on the blog.

Same writing style. There is some value in what he writes, but he likes to use an abrasive tone and is very one dimensional. As if working in investment banking is the only acceptable career path.

Post: #17

(03-11-2018 04:31 AM)Running Turtles Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 02:52 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  "hey... aren't you TooFine, that guy who does the stuff? Yeah... here's my random, uninformed opinion on that"...

That would be my own personal definition of hell.

Everyone has an opinion, but nobody really has any knowledge to back it up. Imagine that in your career every day.

My personal career skills development journey has gone like this.

• Had no fucking idea what I was doing, but convinced myself that I was naturally skilled and above average because it was too painful to admit to myself had badly I sucked.
• Improved my basic workplace skills to reach a level of respectable competence over a period of more than a year. Eventually recogized for being uniquely skilled by way of raises that I didn't ask for and opportunities that had not previously been available to me.
• Acknowledged that I could be more effective if I had approaches that worked better than the approaches I was currently familiar with, namely approaches that got the job done in the short term, but rarely lead to meaningful results in the long term. Changed jobs to free myself to experiment more on my own terms and discover more effective techniques for doing work in my industry.
• After flounder for a while at doing this, eventually became passionate and motivated enough to put serious effort into innovating new approaches that resulted in meaningful and measurable short term and long term results. Got down to business and spent 3 years doing research and engaging in product testing.
• After the several years at this, emerged with newly innovated products with proven results during the testing phase. I also acquired a significant amount industry knowledge, much of it cutting edge.
• Discovered that when I shared value, I quickly gained the respect of many people, including prospective clients and employers.
• Acknowledged to myself that I had become something of an expert in my field.
• Quickly noted that most people still felt that their opinion on the subject were on an equal level as mine. This was despite the fact that clients were now paying me as much as $100 an hour for my opinions and the folks who clearly believed their opinions to be just as valuable as mine had never been paid a cent for their opinions.
  

From what I've experienced (in my industry) this has a lot more to do with people's personal fears than anything else. I have the knowledge and experience to sit down with someone who has the goal of learning a specific foreign language and in ten minutes give them an extremely precise roadmap to becoming communicative in a foreign language. I've sold products to schools that are based on this road map. And yet, they respond dismissively, not because they have a real need to be smarter than me, but because the actionable steps I'm describing sound terrifying to them.

They are forced to disagree with me, because agreeing with me would mean confronting very real fears and they'd rather risk failing to achieve their goal than confronting those fears.

I've repeatedly had people tell me that they'd need a year of "building a good foundation first" to be ready to try extremely actionable activities that would require them to memorize only 15 vocabulary words to get started and would allow them to achieve significant results in a mere week.

Then you have opinions borne out of a need for significance. I'm a pretty opinionated guy. When I was younger, I annoyed the fuck out of a lot of people by acting like an expert on topics that I had no fucking clue about.

I'm glad I've grown since then.

Perhaps even those type of opinions (and the need to shove them down people's throats) are motivated by fear too -- the fear of being insignificant.

I don't want to be the guy who wants to tell others what to do. I want to be the guy who keeps his opinions to himself unless he is asked for them (or better yet, paid for them).

I've come a long way, but I'm still working on being better at being that guy. It's definitely become easy to not shove my opinions down other people's throat as I've grown as a man and actually achieved some meaningful things, but the temptation remains.

I am getting very good at not commenting on matters that I'm completely clueless about.

Post: #18

Yea, they come off as arrogant. I agree with a lot of stuff they say though. I like their focus on college students and getting on the right path in your 20s. I've seen a lot of guys with a lot of potential waste their 20s with bad colleges, bad jobs, too many drugs, accumulating debt and giving too much time to shitty girlfriends. Relentlessly getting this shit in line at the earliest possible age sets you up to have an easier and much wealthier life in your 30s and 40s. High standards, eradicating bullshit, aiming for the best college and starting wealth building strategies when you're say 22 pays astronomical dividends throughout your life and puts you in the top 1% of your peers at that age - many of whom will be in debt and spiritually/physically burned out by time they're 30.

Post: #19

Their arrogance is typical of IB. Coming from an IB background, and currently working for a top IB, I can tell you that 90% of the people in this industry view themselves as better than everyone else. This environment is so competitive that you have to, otherwise you're going to get left behind really quick and get stuck working a dead end job in markets or burn out and switch to consumer finance.

I agree with a lot of what they write, especially the need to focus on a recurring revenue model, and to avoid active investing in the market unless you're a millionaire (seriously, day trading IS NOT A PROFITABLE HABIT LONG TERM).

Their arrogance may turn some off, but at this point I'm so used to it that it doesn't really phase me.

Post: #20

Long-winded and tedious to the point of being unreadable, in my opinion.

Post: #21

I used to follow them religiously, but as I've gotten older and experienced more professional experience I started to see some of their flaws and shortcomings. As mentioned by many posters above they are solely focused on money. It's very much the wall street IB mentality, which kinda makes sense, but there is more to success than just making lots of money. But one thing that I do respect them for is that they admit it when they don't know something.

Their game advice is weak. They seem to have an attitude that you can shortcut many things, including game, with money. While that has its uses, true game is beyond money. They do admit that game takes a lot of time, time they would rather use to make more money than chase pussy.

Also their advice to grind as hard as possible during your 20s is solid. This is especially true in today's YOLO culture where 20 somethings feel like they have to live every moment to the max aka spend money they don't have. But their extreme cynicism towards all relationships (including family) is kinda disheartening and overly pessimistic.

Post: #22

(03-11-2018 06:40 AM)Suits Wrote:  I am getting very good at not commenting on matters that I'm completely clueless about.

Maybe, if you don't count posting memes.

Post: #23

(03-11-2018 02:08 AM)The Catalyst Wrote:  I think a big part of it is their advice on "smile nod and agree". They've done it so long in real life because it works. But then they can't help but feel contempt(especially for regular people) and if you keep it in then it spills out into the outlet on the internet where it can't ever come back to hurt you, then you're even more compelled to show what you're really thinking.

Aside from the over-focus on making money, I think they're super legit. Many years ago I'd read their stuff and think, wow they're super arrogant, but half their stuff is legit. The more and more I grow up and gain experience in life, the more of the stuff I originally thought was arrogance or pseudo-alpha bullshit I actually understand where they're coming from and why they would say the things they do. It sounds elitist but especially if you're in a country like NZ where everyone around you is anti-intellectual you sort of have to be to remain sane.

I struggled with this in college, especially second year when I had been reading the manosphere for about three years and noticed that most of my peers either stumbled through an unexamined life or just plain didn't have interest in anything beyond sleeping, sex, binge drinking, and varying degrees of academic 'achievement' from the obsessive must get all A's to D's get degrees.

I felt like I was smarter than most of them. Maybe more.

But I also knew that better men then I have been brought down by hubris, so I've tried not to focus on that, true or not.

I've always felt slightly alienated in sense, though. I've always been the oddball. Living half my life in Europe and coming back to the US to go to college and join the army, that was one of the few constants in my life along with change. In Europe, I was different, but I was an American and made sense. Back "home" in the US, I was all of a sudden a weird American. I didn't make sense to most people and found it hard to relate.

Having an extensive support group (parents, friends, mentor, family friends in whom you can confide different things) and a few close friends with whom I can talk about anything certainly helps.

Believing that I could learn something from anyone helps.

I'm starting to ramble now, but long story short, I think such a contempt for one's fellow man is toxic to the soul and sooner or later radiates outward. I mean, I also do the nod and smile. Or quickly change the subject. But that seems like something that's better left unsaid and unthought about so much as used as necessary (maybe WSPs were answering a question, but the impression I get is of self-aggrandizement).

G

Post: #24

For the better part of a decade I've been veering very heavily into believing that my contempt for my fellow man was more based on their lack of earnestness, than their anti-intellectualism.

Post: #25

(03-11-2018 06:40 AM)Suits Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:31 AM)Running Turtles Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 02:52 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  "hey... aren't you TooFine, that guy who does the stuff? Yeah... here's my random, uninformed opinion on that"...

That would be my own personal definition of hell.

Everyone has an opinion, but nobody really has any knowledge to back it up. Imagine that in your career every day.

snip

I've seen some of your posts in the business lounge, Suits. It seems like you have a great product and the fact that you want to share what you know (or previously, what you thought you knew) is probably a reason you felt comfortable teaching. You don't make that your profession unless you want to contribute to those around you.

Shutting up can be tricky, and I envy those who can make a conversation about what they do and not how they do it. If clients find your process daunting, maybe try to come up with a system of incremental rewards? Like how video games make it easier to go from level 1-10 than from 90-100.

Oh look at that, I'm giving unsolicited advice ;P

(03-11-2018 11:46 PM)Geomann180 Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 02:08 AM)The Catalyst Wrote:  I think a big part of it is their advice on "smile nod and agree". They've done it so long in real life because it works. But then they can't help but feel contempt(especially for regular people) and if you keep it in then it spills out into the outlet on the internet where it can't ever come back to hurt you, then you're even more compelled to show what you're really thinking.

Aside from the over-focus on making money, I think they're super legit. Many years ago I'd read their stuff and think, wow they're super arrogant, but half their stuff is legit. The more and more I grow up and gain experience in life, the more of the stuff I originally thought was arrogance or pseudo-alpha bullshit I actually understand where they're coming from and why they would say the things they do. It sounds elitist but especially if you're in a country like NZ where everyone around you is anti-intellectual you sort of have to be to remain sane.

I struggled with this in college, especially second year when I had been reading the manosphere for about three years and noticed that most of my peers either stumbled through an unexamined life or just plain didn't have interest in anything beyond sleeping, sex, binge drinking, and varying degrees of academic 'achievement' from the obsessive must get all A's to D's get degrees.

I felt like I was smarter than most of them. Maybe more.

But I also knew that better men then I have been brought down by hubris, so I've tried not to focus on that, true or not.

I've always felt slightly alienated in sense, though. I've always been the oddball. Living half my life in Europe and coming back to the US to go to college and join the army, that was one of the few constants in my life along with change. In Europe, I was different, but I was an American and made sense. Back "home" in the US, I was all of a sudden a weird American. I didn't make sense to most people and found it hard to relate.

Having an extensive support group (parents, friends, mentor, family friends in whom you can confide different things) and a few close friends with whom I can talk about anything certainly helps.

Believing that I could learn something from anyone helps.

I'm starting to ramble now, but long story short, I think such a contempt for one's fellow man is toxic to the soul and sooner or later radiates outward. I mean, I also do the nod and smile. Or quickly change the subject. But that seems like something that's better left unsaid and unthought about so much as used as necessary (maybe WSPs were answering a question, but the impression I get is of self-aggrandizement).

G

I hear you on growing up in very different cultures. It's a weird situation where being "abroad" makes you feel really nationalistic and special because of where you come from, and then you realize that you don't fit in back home. I never moved as much as the diplomat kids, but they must have really had a hard time. Then again, they mostly end up in similar jobs as their parents, so I guess it becomes a lifelong lifestyle.

The bold part is extremely true. The internet is very good for this stuff and it's pretty much the only reason I still have a Facebook account.