Slightly depressed that (a) the question and (b) so many of the answers seem to equate monetary wealth with happiness. With the benefit of 25 years' hindsight the one thing I would have done aged 21 is to tell her I loved her instead of standing there like a waxwork. Because if I'd taken that chance and it had paid off, I strongly suspect that my life would have been infinitely richer.

1. I would have chosen Amazon FBA five years ago as my business model when the competition was much less. I would have researched and tested 2-3 products with the $5k budget that I ended up "wasting" on the wrong project (e-course production).

2. I would have got in on using Adwords for an e-commerce shop and for Adwords consulting 10-15 years ago when the CPCs were low and competition was low.

Save money from odd jobs, around 10K.

Invest in a mining private placement alongside the insiders. Look for the 4% (20% of the 20%) of people who have had consistent success in discovering mines.

Risky but extremely high returns.

I'm from a small town in India. Now I live in Singapore and I work as a software developer and have a side gig marketing consulting company.

I should've found a way to move to a City where a lot of startup action happens. Instead of just living in my small town. Exposure for sure matters.

* Work for free in a booming startup, gotten early equity on sweat.

* Read the book Millionaire Fastlane by Marco - I only read that last month. I wouldn't have made a ton of bad business and financial decisions if I had read that early.

* Read the book Choose Yourself

* Read the book Go Giver

What would i change if I would be 21 again.

1. I wouldn't get bachelor and master degree in University. At the end of the day in my country (Ukraine) it is not helping much with getting rich.

2. I would move to US earlier ( i moved here 24 y.o.)

3. Found a community (group) offline enterpreneurs - find their leader or the guy who making most of money (preferrable millions and will find the way to be useful for him.

For example:

- find best IT professionals relatively cheap in Post USSR country;

- repeat the money making steps in different geografic locations;

- pack the business so well that it can be sold as franchise.

4. Open my own company earlier.

You can read, discuss and make a wanterpreneur for a long time, but

- your miatakes and most painfull downs build a charachter, which can succed, noone can train you instead of you.

- only doing business you loking for grows and for more advanced people who can help you

- only doing your own thing you feel more Freedom and responsibility.

5. Would Stop watching NEWS on TV long time ago

Jason, sent you an email....you got a shirt :)

David, sent you an email....you got a shirt :)

I'm 28 right now, but if I were 21 I would take a good look at Gartner's Emerging Technology curve and pick a technology that seemed interesting to me. Then I would learn the skills that allowed me to work in that field, while simultaneously blogging/vblogging about it to gain an audience.

I would use the proceeds from my career to purchase silver coins and cryptocurrency alt-coins (Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Golem etc.) using a 10-10 strategy (10% of my total investment into 10 coins), assuming that one of the companies would at least 10x, if not 100x, and that one or two would go to 0.

This is basically what I'm doing now, but it would've been great to get started 7 years earlier!

It shall be worn with pride.

Yep. Just doing SOMETHING is much more powerful than anything else. Even today a person can just choose to start an email newsletter, spend a couple hours per week on social media, spend a few bucks (as little as $20 / month to start), and grow that newsletter. Do it now and focus on progress, not perfection or getting rich quick, and where will you be in 5 years?

Same goes for a website or a SAAS or a phone app or an ecommerce store or... anything. Stuff is so cheap right now that most people can afford the carrying cost to start something and put a 5 year plan to it and let it compound over time.

I recently turned 25.

If I was 21 again...

-I actually dropped out of college at that age. So I would still do that.

-Get a job sooner.I didn't work while in college aside from a few odd jobs, so it took me some time to get into the "money maker" mindset.

-Stick with fiverr. I had a decent run on fiverr doing Amazon reviews. I stopped when things were getting hot because I made a few hundred bucks and felt content with the side money. I could of transitioned to full on copywriting with my good rep!

-Dump my (now ex) girlfriend and move somewhere with more energy. Home is good, and still where I am now, but a change in scenery is necessary.

-Write books sooner. Thus, I would need to learn marketing sooner. So, I would know the basics I know now back then so at this point I'd know the advanced stuff!

-Buy Bitcoin. I know, I know everyone is saying this. But I actually knew about it when it was only a few hundred (or whatever it was). I had little money. I might not have been able to do this one anyway.

-Work out more.

There's still time. The clock is ticking.

I'd:

Travel a LOT more and to more places.

Start writing and publishing back then rather than later on down the road. (Get those mistakes out of the way!)

Take the newspaper editor's advice to get going with the writing business.

Good tips for life.....although you STILL can do this stuff too :-)

Oh nice, so this is only 4 years for you.

I think hindsight is 20/20 and back then it was really uncertain that BitCoin would even work, so I'll forgive you for that one.

However I do agree with the "job" one. People can learn a lot from a job. It shows you how a big company works and trains you to work well with people.

Totally agree with the skillset view. Learning the emerging and hot technologies of the times opens you up to crazy opportunities.

I'm writing this from San Francisco right now, and the hot things here are machine learning, AI, cryptocurrencies, VR, AR, API's and such.

Damn, great list of suggestion Dmitry!! I think the moving to where the action is at (for you the United States) is a real important one in gaining an advantage.

If you go to a place where there's lots of opportunity, there's just simply more opportunity!

I totally agree, if you go to a place with more exposure to technology and opportunity, it will simply be better for your career in the longterm.

Nice. I'm not sure investing alongside big people is always ideal though. A lot of times they have MUCH MUCH higher risk tolerances than the small investors, so they can invest $5,000,000 in something and afford to lose it.

Good suggestions. It's always useful to see where the money is flowing into, and if you think it will continue that way, then pounce on the opportunity!

That's cool and all Sam, but the direct purpose of this post was to figure out how to get rich.

Nowhere in the post did I equate money to happiness (although it's been proven over-and-over it sure as hell HELPS you be much happier) :-)

Thank you Jarrod. Any SPECIFIC skills you would've tried to pick up back then?

I did and I am. Just wish I'd done it when I was 21, I'd be sooooooo much further along! ;)

Thanks Neville. Much inspiration from you and thanks for putting brown people on the map =)

Bahahahah......it's true, I am the only famous brown person EVER!!! :-P

Well... I'm 22. I'm working in Cleveland for a tech startup, so I've ignored almost everyone's advice about moving to SF. BUT, I'm part of Venture For America and the value in that comes from the network, not the location.

You tell me, Neville, what are three things you would be doing if you were me right now? (knowing that 1- I'm interested in becoming an entrepreneur, 2- I follow your blog and share your interests, and 3- I graduated near the top of my college class with a marketing degree)