 Good day, fellow investors. As discussed yesterday, today we'll talk about my net worth and how it went over time. And that's coming from a comment of yours. So Ramzi said that I should share my network and how much it came from investing as a distribution to really be transparent. I first was hesitant because, okay, where I come from you usually don't share your network, but I said I thought about it but said why not? I think it really can motivate and it's always good to be transparent with whatever I do. So let's start. So the first thing is I come from an ex-communist country from a 2,000 person in small place in Croatia on the Mediterranean Sea. It's beautiful but calculate that where I come from the GDP per capita is five times smaller than where I live now in the Netherlands or anywhere else in the developed world and it was even smaller during the war in Croatia that I grew up. So my start is really from zero in let's say a poorer country. So that's one. Nevertheless at 16 years old I was at zero. So my savings, okay I had some savings about perhaps 500 or 1000 bucks which was a lot of money to have as a high school kid then in Croatia. Then I didn't look for a job that was paying about two bucks an hour. All my schoolmates were working for two bucks an hour. I started to do something for myself and that was to dive and catch the bobbit worm that I was selling to all the fishermen in my small place and he also exporting to Italy. So I would come back from school rush to the sea dive through the winter and save sell those worms which are about two meters long and sell them, sell them and during from 16 to 19 I accumulated about I don't know 7,000 bucks which in my currency would be around 50,000 in the Croatian currency. Then at 19 I started investing and I invested at a great time in my life and I was really lucky to be there at that point in time and started investing. If you look at the Croatian stock market index where I invested you see that in 2002 when I started investing was about 1000 and then it went up to 5000 in 2007. I entered the market in 2002 was adding up to 2005 so I was adding at a great point in time about 80% of what I made I was saving 80% saving rate then I was selling mostly everything 2006 2007 I sold everything I could have made more money on the way up but I had a 110 bagger that started with a dividend yield of 33% it was a very illiquid stock but I didn't know what illiquidity means and that's why it was the premium it worked out well I had one six bagger and then another I think two bagger based on the six bagger so I had two let's say 10-12 baggers which made my 50,000 and additional investments go to about one million so at 23 I was 24 I was a millionaire however in my currency which would be around 150,000 net worth in US dollars however I didn't like that because everything that I did was oriented to savings save save save save which let's say I didn't like the lifestyle I prefer to develop as a person than to accumulate net worth so I sold I think all my stocks about just about a small part that I invested in the American market in 2008 so I sold all my money I was in cash and I spent on a boat I bought a very nice boat which I dive across the Mediterranean traveled so I spent a lot of money on traveling developing myself diving courses and things like that that I really enjoyed and really added value to my to my life then in 2010 I started my PhD that I financed by myself so I invested really in that and that took apart from the tuition a lot of time and a lot of money for other things so I invested in the PhD and let's say spent a lot in other things and and that let's say from 2006 that halved my I lost a little bit money in 2008 of course as anybody else so that let's say halved with the spending that halved my net worth in 2009 as you can see I went back into the market but the stock market didn't do well but I did extremely well because I invested in tourist stocks that were very cheap on the Mediterranean you saw where I'm coming from and I really found them as a bargain there were dividend yields of 10% and growth of 20-15% per year and that index did extremely well so I had another five baggers and I was constantly adding till 2012 so from there I again did very very well so with the spending and everything let's say the stock market appreciating the returns which were on average 18% from 2002 till now really gave me a good buffer to do the next steps in my life which were finishing the PhD moving to London we moved to London and we didn't take a room in an apartment with 20 other people we really take a flat we lived nice we spent a lot of money because it costs to live in London for the two of us and I didn't get the job in London for the first three months because I didn't speak English I invested in myself to go there to be in England and learn to speak English when I learned then I managed to get a job at Bloomberg that was paying very little money so we didn't even pay the rent of the apartment we had so a lot of money went out there then from London I decided to go back to teaching which will give me more time to develop something else that I want an investment fund research what I'm doing now so I again spent on moving to the Netherlands again finding a nice flat because we didn't want to renounce on our lifestyle so that was an investment in us to make us resist living in all these new places then I got a nice job at the university then I got a nice job for a US investment firm and my salary got good stock market returns got well we bought a house invested again a lot of money in the house but from 2009 to till now with all the spending with all the traveling with all that we spend family car or everything we are now at somewhere around 300 000 is net worth with if I go back to my currency is about two to something million so if you put in perspective from my currency I was a millionaire I could have retired in 2006 and live just of the dividends I would have now about five ten percent dividend yield on that million which would be great for living in Croatia and having a fixed life but I prefer a dynamic life where I invest in myself as I grow as a person and my only goal is to have enough to have a security buffer to do the things I want I resigned from a well-paying university job that I had two months of free time a lot of holidays and I was doing this this very well organized so I did have a lot of time for doing the US job for an investment firm that I resigned last week so from now I'm completely dedicated to doing my own research so I hope that in about seven days the quality of the videos the content the added value of YouTube will increase exponentially so that's my goal the net worth is here around 300 000 we are planning to move again so there will be again depending the stock market might push it up down the housing market depend how it goes but I'm not really that focused on the net worth I'm focused on creating income sharing what I do developing my business investing a lot in my business investing a lot of money in and time in myself because the more value I get gather as a person the more experience the more a value I can give to you the more will I create value over time and that's why I don't really like the net worth comparison because it depends so much on external factors that are different within each of us and we all have different goals so just to share a little bit where I'm from where I'm now where I'm going my goal is now to develop a business scale whatever I do add value to as many people as I can be it free on YouTube be it premium on my in-depth research platform so I think I'm doing a good job I think I can share a lot of experience and I have renounced very good salaries to develop this and I'm now making much less money because that's how it goes but I hope in the future I'll be happy with what I do and that's the key and the money hopefully with will come so this is in short part of my life I hope I motivated you there is so much I can talk about this because there is so much that I have done over the last 15 years so I will keep sharing that with you with the goal that I add value to you and ease your financial decision making and planning so that you can reach your financial goals which can be different than which are different than anybody else's goals and that's why you have to see the risk reward of what you're doing in relation to your goals that's the key in finance and that's also the key behind this channel thank you for watching looking forward to your comments I hope to see interesting comments share your stories to add value to this thread see you in the next video