I wish I started sooner...
It was the year of 2018 when one of my former bosses reached out to me asking if I was interested in taking control of my future and finances. My first thought was “oh no, they got you too huh? We lost another good person to the pyramid scheme”. Due to our relationship, I gave him a chance—which was another red flag since pyramid schemes preys on the existing relationships and the chances that you don’t want to deny your friend of their opportunity.
Nonetheless, my guard was up during his entire presentation, and long story short—this meeting changed my life forever. I got introduced to investing, which was something I’ve heard of before but never got into it because everyone around me would warn me about the volatility and risk. Ironically, the people giving me financial advice had never invested themselves, but I was young and foolish to believe they had my best interested in mind.
I would soon leave my financial adviser friend and embark on my investing journey. I couldn’t justify paying fees for something I could already do myself. Plus, every decision I made had to go through a third party, and I didn’t like the lack of control and having to ask permission. As great as a financial adviser is, I saw that they had an agenda to push certain stocks, funds, and bonds so my options were limited. I remembered expressing my interest in technology but was lead towards their choice of index funds (a basket filled with different companies to mitigate risk). Of course, this is just my experience and you need to do your due diligence to get the best possible result.
A lot of people will criticize, and it’s easy to do, but going through the process yourself will serve you much better for the long-term. That’s why the blame game is a pitfall for many because it’s convenient to blame someone else. It’s better to do it yourself so you only have yourself to blame. Once that happens, you can start to take ownership and make progress.
After going through hundreds of videos and articles on how to invest, I started to learn and eventually it became one of passions. Even veteran investors will tell you that they wished they started sooner, and I was no different. Years later, the same realization came when I started to read books again. Again with Brazilian Jujitsu, kickboxing, learning how to communicate, collecting plants, etc.
It felt as if the things I started to do lead me back to wishing I started much sooner. This wasn’t the case with everything as if only a few things called out to me. This was true in the case of going to networking events every week and joining associations to connect with people. It felt so inorganic and going to these events didn’t make me happy. In the earlier part of my career, I forced myself to go but felt I was in a social “rat race” like everyone else, vying for executives to see who I was and what I can do. I was extremely fortunate to meet one great person, who I’m closed with today, but the rest of the time felt like all fluff and no substance.
It became clear that an internal criteria for meeting new people or trying new things, even continuing to maintain and develop relationship or things came down to if I told myself “ I wish I started doing this sooner”. If that thought didn’t come to me, I rather focus on the more important things. I wasted a lot of time and energy doing stuff that people told me that was important, but only now a better source was inside all along. Super cliché, I know but the gut feeling you’ve been hearing about is absolutely correct.
I’d argue that if you develop your own system of how to sift through things you want to do and things you don’t want to do, life gets a little bit easier. Even if it’s unconventional, if you’re doing all the things you enjoy and it makes you happy, it’s hard to argue that the system is flawed. It felt as if even if I failed, it wouldn’t matter, it still felt like success to be able to learn and eventually solve those problems.
I had a friend quit a six figure paying job to work at a surf shop because he just wanted to surf and be around the surfing culture. He traded in a suit for board shorts and I’ve never seen anyone happier. I’d often ask if he misses the money and accolades, but he told me he just needed money for the surfboards. His job was taking away time from his main passion in life so once he got sufficient funds, it was a no brainer to quit.
I asked him if there was anything he would do differently, and his response was “I wish I’d quit sooner”.
Until next week,
Scott
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