- What is my biggest financial regret
when it comes to earning, investing and saving?
(energetic pop music)
I'll give you more than one, I'll give you two.
First one is, when I started making some money,
I was spending money on dumb things,
because I was insecure.
I was getting the new car, I was blowing money,
on just dumb, dumb, stupid shit, right?
Because I thought, that that's what you're supposed to do,
when you have money, you kinda show it off,
and you would say
"Hey, look at me, and I'll buy people dinners."
All these stupids things,
because I didn't know when you make money,
you're supposed to invest,
and re-invest, and keep it growing.
When you're at a young age,
when you're, mid-20s,
money are flying in, money are coming in so fast,
and you think that will last forever,
which I thought it would last forever,
that's not how it works.
So that's my biggest financial regret.
I wish I had put more money aside.
I wish I had started investing earlier.
I wish I wasn't so dumb.
I wish I wasn't so insecure, making decisions,
doing stupid things, buying things to impress people,
that really doesn't really matter, right?
The saying, in my book I talk about it,
'F.U. Money', that most people buy things
that they can't afford to impress people
that they don't even like.
That's what I was doing.
That's why I learned the lesson.
So that would be the first one.
The second one, would be
I was investing in things I didn't understand.
So that's later stage in my life,
when I thought "Okay you know what,
"now you have some money, I could invest in
"certain tech companies and things like that
"as an angel investor."
And thinking, "Well you know what,
"it is going to be so easy,
"I'm just gonna put in the money
"and the entrepreneur would work very hard,
"and in a few years, we'll have an exit,
"and I would make a lot of money."
Well I invested in 10 of these suckers,
all 10 lost money, all 10 motherfucking deals lost money.
Unbelievable.
Stupid, so today,
I only invest in stuff I understand.
I only invest in stuff that I can control.
Meaning I am a very, I'm an active investor.
If you're gonna invest in something,
I wanna be involved, I wanna have some say in management.
I wanna have some say in the direction of the company.
I wanna have some say in strategies.
Now I'm not gonna micromanage,
but I want to be involved.
I want to be very active.
I want to see how I can add value to the company.
I want to see how I can help the entrepreneur,
not just give him capital.
Capital is easy, as an entrepreneur,
you can get capital, that's not the difficult part.
The difficult part is finding a strategic partner,
that not only provides you with capital
but other forms of support.
It could be mentorship, could be connection, network.
It could be a team.
It could be social capital, social following, brand power.
It's much better when you have a strategic partner
who gives a shit about your business,
when you take on him or her as an investor,
they can bring much more to the table beyond
than just capital, beyond than just one thing.
And that's what I invest in today.