How do you make a lot of money if you aren't really smart?

Open a casino in Atlantic City and go bankrupt multiple times. Hire contractors and don't pay them. Don't pay taxes. Have a rich father. Be a jerk.

"I'm not smart but I want to make a lot of money" is pretty much the mantra of the sales profession.

Be a welder on the pipeline and make $5000+ a week.

sales wrote:

"I'm not smart but I want to make a lot of money" is pretty much the mantra of the sales profession.

+1

Seen it @ multiple workplaces.

Sales! Do not get me wrong plenty of intelligent people go into sales because they are competitive and like money. Though I will say I have met plenty of idiots who are great salespeople, but remember this fact. Sales is not for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to be pushy and not afraid to piss people off or else you are never going to get anywhere. Obviously you want to get people to like and trust you, but at the end of the day all that matters is that they buy what you are selling at all costs.

I know several idiot lawyers who are raking. You need a decent memory to be a lawyer, but you definitely do not need to be smart.

A little different take on the subject. My IQ is barely into three digits. Never made more than $58K in a year. I just picked a reasonable mutual fund for my savings and voila, 40 years later and I am retired with no money worries. Now I get to play for 30 years.

It's not always or often about intelligence, it's about working hard and taking risks.

There is a great series on NPR called How I Built This. It's interviews of all these people that founded some of the most iconic companies in the US, only a few of them would be considered "very smart". Many of them talk about how they were average or poor students, but they did have a very very hard work ethic and they were willing to take risks.

Sure there a few of the people that are truly brilliant, a few that come from means. Those people would have been fine no matter what, maybe not billionaires but they would have been more than well off; but a majority were risk tolerant and very driven, hard workers.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

Cheech wrote:

sales wrote:

"I'm not smart but I want to make a lot of money" is pretty much the mantra of the sales profession.

+1

Seen it @ multiple workplaces.

+1. Came in here to say that as soon as I saw the subject. BUT, if you're in IT today, you may not have the personality for it.

Become a prostitute.

snappin necks and cashin checks wrote:

+1. Came in here to say that as soon as I saw the subject. BUT, if you're in IT today, you may not have the personality for it.

I'm also in IT and would like to make bank, but sales scares me.

How about this wrote:

Become a prostitute.

A lot of dumb women choose this route but also some smart women choose prostitution. The dumb ones generally end up blowing their money as fast as they get it and have a lack of ambition. That's a vicious cycle to imagine. The smart ones save the money and pay off college or just bank some cash to get going. If they're really pretty they could just live vicariously through a man via marriage anyways.

Become a plumber or an electrician. Those jobs aren't getting outsourced to another country.

Did you ever watch Breaking Bad? Learn to cook very high quality meth. Supply the suppliers. Get in, make a ton of cash, and GET OUT!

Jesse's got the Cash wrote:

Did you ever watch Breaking Bad? Learn to cook very high quality meth. Supply the suppliers. Get in, make a ton of cash, and GET OUT!

Ummm....ever hear of that stripper from Mexia, Texas, who married that rich guy from Dallas?

How old are you and how long have you been working in IT?

I thought good workers in IT got paid a lot more.

I read about a guy who buys new cars in the US then sells them in Europe and makes $2 million a year. That seems like most people could do it.

ghult wrote:

I read about a guy who buys new cars in the US then sells them in Europe and makes $2 million a year. That seems like most people could do it.

Can you elaborate on that? I think it costs 5 or 10K to shift cars to Europe.

Start a business. You can be comfortable but you will never be rich working for someone else.