I worked at Oracle back in the late 90's during the .com boom. I probably lost $30,000+ in stupid trades and excitement from former stock traders and wannabes, yelling out from our cubicles, BS Trade tips we had from "friends", LOL. That was my first, expensive lesson in stock investing. It taught me not to be an idiot and actually LEARN on my own how to do it. I then read, "The little blue book that beats the market" in 2005. I took the portfolio i set up according to the author's magic formula and it felt like a good strategy. I realized i was too impatient to buy and hold, so I found a couple of the value stocks were volatile.. I then went on a tear and turned $500 into $20k on a stock PTSC. It started falling back down, and I got out of stocks with $15k, and got caught up investing in RE properties. I blew that up to about $2Mill, and almost went belly up bankrupt in 2008 recession, when many tenants were laid off and couldnt pay rent.. ..yet somehow I crawled out of that mess with my wife and kids, alive... Investing of any kind is great, but you need to read alot and practice, and it will teach you to be humble, and practice risk and wealth management. The key is to read reputable books/courses, and learn to decipher between BS Gurus and the truth AND then doing it yourself, and learning from your mistakes. Once the economy got better in recent years, I became VERY gunshy about any kind of investing... Naturally, I am much more cautious now. But, I dabbled recently with day trading and earned a modest 20% in a few weeks of swing trading. I opted to take David Green's Become A Day Trader course on Investopedia last weekend. I found it to be very good, but as my humble years of wisdom taught me via failures, is that he too is a guru, just like those RE investment guys years ago and creeping up again now on TV, teaching you BS RE Investment courses on how to etc etc. BUT, David G's course DOES seem more legit to me than many of the other BS stock classes on Udemy, etc. My suspicion is, that he cultuvates a new class of traders, and then brings them into his prop shop? I could be wrong, but my instinct tells me that. )Yes, learn to trust your instincts too, lol). Sorry for the long rant, and hope my blurb gives some help to any young guys/beginners wanting to conquer the known world. Sift thru all the BS out there, read books classes and go out and do it. LEARN from your mistakes, get your ass back up off the boxing ring floor and HAMMER the opponent in the nose - while guarding yourself. If you stay at it long enough, you will learn how to become a good fighter, and hopefully one day, even a contender! No matter WHAT kind of investing/business you do..
