Engineer's Finance

I am an adherent fan of Warren Edward Buffett. I love him for what he is. He is a great human being. He has billions of dollars and still he does not throw up his weight around. He is a living legend. All the investors want to just copy him and make millions just like him. He believes in value investing and living in frugality despite his immense wealth. To top it all he is a great philanthropist.

I love his rules for the playing the game. He has two rules and they are as follows:

Rule 1: Never lose money.

Rule 2: Never forget Rule no. 1.

That’s really nice. We all want that and that is what we crave for. He has lived life with these rules and I am not sure whether he has ever failed or not. It is great to be successful always in life. But I think he must have had a fall somewhere.

Buffett started his ventures quite early in life. When he was thirteen he ventured into stocks and real estate and when he was 15 years old, he along with a friend of his spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in a barber shop. Within months, they owned three machines in different locations. This is why he has got into a position where we all love to reach. It is very difficult to start so early in life, I am 25 years old and have not had any business yet. I am working for someone else and making him rich and not myself and that is the truth. Most of us are just like this. We do not work for ourselves and we always want secure lifestyle. We study hard to become a slave. No matter whatever we study we end up being a slave to someone else. I don’t preach that everyone has to start a business or something; all that I would iterate is make yourself rich before making others. We have our own life to look after and it is important that we reach certain position in life.

Starting early in life gives us a leverage of making mistakes. If I had started investing when I was 20 years by now I would have learnt many things and would have made a descent amount of money. I don’t know how many will agree with me but this is truth, we can’t learn without making mistakes and when we start early we learn many things. We learn to get up after every fall this is much more important than anything else. We can also have the privilege of making mistakes and not repent much for it. Why I say this is because when you start early you will have less capital to begin with and if you lose that also it won’t hurt you that much. I am sure none will be dependent on you when you are very young. (I assume that most of us are from middle class family where parents do take care and don’t expect much from their sons and daughters). Even if we lose money we can always earn it and it is worth the experience. It teaches you millions of things which no one can teach.

My stand: start early in life and make mistakes, learn from it. Don’t keep working for someone else and make him rich, instead make yourself rich by working for you. Be your boss and live life happily.

Happy investing and All the best for the young guns!