We all make mistakes.
Anyone who says they don’t are either lying or they’ve never tried anything in their life.
Imagine making a million of these mistakes throughout your life and never making another one after that.
Needless to say, every time you make a mistake, you learn and grow.
Knowing this, what would you do?
I know what I would do—I would want to make these mistakes early in life. When the stakes are lower, the tradeoffs are smaller and the runway longer.
It’s important to take on risks when you are young, because you have a much lower downside.
Several of my friends tell me their kids want to start YouTube channels, small businesses, or even pick up investing, and I’m always flabbergasted when I hear that they try to stop their kids from doing so so they can concentrate on academics and get into a good university.
First of all, there’s no reason why you can’t do well in academics and have a side hustle.
Secondly, this is the period where they are able to discover their passion, interest, and learn about themselves—what are they actually good at besides studying?
As a society, we expect people to choose their profession, go to university, pay large tuition fees and commit four years before they even get to discover what they like to do, even if all they’ve ever studied are math, science, history, and literature.
I see this often in investing too, with many asking if they should wait till they have their first $100k before they start investing.
My answer?
A big fat NO.
You should start young, start when you have a smaller capital. It’s much easier to earn back $10k than $100k.
Everyone makes mistakes, they don’t feel good, but we learn from them.
For those of you who think they’re too old to take any risk, let me close with this: the best time to take risks was 10 years ago, the next best time is today.
An important caveat is that it must be a calculated risk of course, don’t do anything that’ll make you lose reputation, relationships or wipe you out financially.
There’s a lot more to be said about how to take risks intelligently, but that’ll be a topic for another day.
Take smart risks,
Thomas
PS. Intakes for the Steady Compounding Investing Academy open tomorrow! This is your last chance to join for 2023. This course will equip you with the skills to analyze stocks from start to finish, perform your own valuations, and build your portfolio.