It would be nice to hear more from HD readers who have been there and done that. And to answer the question, “Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?”
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I would have been intentional about establishing and cultivating relationships with others that are better, smarter, more successful, more experienced, and more wealthy than me. I could have learned much more much faster. Also, I would have focused more on being more coachable.
I read once that you should take everything that you wish you could tell your 18 year old self and tell it to your son. That is what I have tried to do – he might have even listened to a little bit of it! 😏
From a total life perspective, it took me a long time to truly appreciate how much easier it is to be kind and thoughtful to fellow humans, and how much more satisfying it is. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I ever did cruel things (other than to my younger siblings, and that ended 55 years ago), but I certainly did thoughtless and hurtful things. I’d like a mulligan on that.
From a financial perspective, I am pretty sure that I had to make every stupid financial mistake in the book in order to knock it into my head that the only way to get wealthy is slowly, by saving, investing, and spending less than you have. Fortunately, I did figure it out in time.
M. Scott Peck’s book begins with a line containing this phrase: “Life is Difficult”. I read this in 1978 and realized that “while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
I’d experienced two very serious injuries in the 1950s and one nearly killed me. As a child I really didn’t know how to handle it, but I soldiered on and not only survived but was shaped by and was better for these experiences.
Frankly, I wouldn’t change a thing, although there were some stupid moves on my part that caused problems or discomfort for others. On reflection I would have avoided these. I did learn and I did alter my future behavior. We would say “They can be taught”. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it were not for the decisions made in the face of choices, and there is always a choice. As Peck states, there is pain and there is suffering. They are not the same. It is possible to transcend difficulties, no matter how severe.
I don’t think I would have made a different decision, but there was definitely a fork in the road back in the early 70s. I was a techie working for an international megacorp in my native UK. The BBC offered studio tours to prospective employees and I went because it was probably my only chance to see the studios. I wound up with a job offer. I turned it down, and a couple of years later the megacorp sent me to the US on assignment. If I had taken the job offer I certainly wouldn’t be living in the US now.
I wouldn’t change a thing, for the simple reason that every decision we make changes the path of our lives forever. And I’m so happy with my life now that I’m happy to live with all the blunders I made to get here — some of which had clear positive effects.
Mike, I’m 100% with you. I made some “non-optimal” decisions along the way, but I wouldn’t change any of them. They all lead me to where I’m at now, and I’m pretty happy with that.
OMG, that’s an easy one for me. I wouldn’t sell our starter home and would have kept it as a rental. We live in a fabulous rental market (college town) and could easily have kept it rented. It’s worth 3-4X now what we sold it for. We had an $800/month mortgage and could have paid it off years ago.
Dr. Lefty, we have the same regret! At the time It seemed like the right thing to do as we had been upside down on the home for the majority of the time we lived there (early 1990s) that once we could sell it and move to a whole different area we pounced! With 2 small children and a husband who was going through a career change I was too fearful about bad renters and being able to manage 2 mortgage payments. Within 6 months, the house had appreciated $50k and continued to do so. Eventually I had to stop watching it and just come to terms with the fact that this appreciation and asset wasn’t meant to be ours!
Exactly! All we can do is carefully make the best decision we can, based on the information we have at the time, and then eventually come to terms with it — or if needed and possible, adjust it.
We have a lot more control over our decision-making than over the outcome.
I never thought Amazon could be profitable. Little did I know, AWS was on the horizon. Every company should strive for a high-margin component. I wish I had not been so cynical.
In our company, we added one. We had a low-margin component (commissionable equipment sales) that fed a new high-margin maintenance and repair service department.
Amazon proved that to be a winning combination. So as you evaluate investments, look for that combination.
Don’t think any of the things can be about finance/money. If they were everyone has moments where in hindsight they’ve left big gains on the table.
It probably has to be about a wider philosophical perspective on a life well lived or otherwise. And there there too are probably opportunities missed and other circumstances that we made the best of. And lots of them will have been contingent on other people and their agency. So regrets like I should have tried harder for that promotion or I should have fought harder for that relationship wouldn’t necessarily have given us “better” outcomes.
I’ve asked myself that question many times over the years, usually when things weren’t going that well.
The only thing I can truly say now is that I should not have resisted moving into our condo as I did. We should have moved at least five years sooner.
I periodically questioned my decision to stay with my employer nearly fifty years. Ultimately I reached the top rung, but could it have been sooner, could I have earned more?
It doesn’t matter. I met every goal of all types I set for myself at age 18. It took longer perhaps, but at this stage who cares.
All I know is we are very fortunate and very appreciative of what we have and accomplished.
I believe the paradox here is that, regardless of the decisions you made during your life that helped create your resulting journey and current position or situation, the question posed, a very good one, cannot be answered, except in one’s imagination.
Your life has value far beyond what the eye can see.
You just explained why I can’t think of another thing regarding my life. However, I have no trouble thinking of business decisions that could have been better “in my mind”. Thank you.
Around 1990, my father told me that the reason he had so much money was that he had put his 401K/bonus money in the Large Cap Value fund and just left it there. Why didn’t I do that? I’d have another two or three million if I had done what he had done.
I would have paid more attention to my scoliosis which has worsened since it was diagnosed . It’s possible that I still would be where I am now and I have to say I’m happy where I am in terms of pain and discomfort. finally, I would have tried to have a better relationship with my father who was stubborn as a mule.
I absolutely would have made different decisions, and ended up rich as (fill in the blank). Still I just can’t have any regrets because of the place that I have ended up in. I have a great life (knocking on wood), kids, grand-kids, the woman of my dreams. We’re not rich but we’re probably better off than 99% of the world population.
Financially, I certainly wouldn’t have continued allocating 50% or more of my portfolio to fixed income in my 20s, 30s and even 40s. And I would have held on to the free company stock I’d received in 1988 under TRASOP instead of being suspicious and selling it when the company spun off my division. The good news is, it doesn’t really matter at this point.
My fourth and hopefully last spine surgery was delayed for two years by my doctors. All of us thought there was no harm in waiting. I developed foot-drop that I believe could have been avoided. I now recommend that anyone delaying any resolution involving bones or muscles have a PT monitor them for changes during the waiting period.
I believe the muscle loss in my calf would have been noticed long before I accidentally picked up on it.
Richard, I should have had my right knee replacement surgery a year earlier. The last year was pretty much a waste, especially a pre-planned trip to Italy.
I would have bought Bitcoin back in 2009, when it was selling for $0.00099.
I knew about it back then because I was buying a watch from a guy in Eastern Europe, and he asked me to pay in Bitcoin. I looked into it, got about halfway through buying Bitcoin from some sketchy-looking Russian website, and backed out because I was concerned that they were just trying to get into my PC.
I console myself by thinking I would have a) forgotten the complicated passcode, or b) lost the data on the hard drive, or c) sold it when it hit $10 per coin, thinking I’d made a ton of money.
I could have ended up like the guy in the UK who spent years searching trash dumps looking for his discarded hard drive that now has $800MM worth of Bitcoin on it.
As I have written recently, a coworker’s husband told me to buy some Apple stock when Steve Jobs was returning to the company. My response was, “No I’m an index investor, I spread my bets.” You know the rest of the story. But then again we turned out “fine”, but it could have been “fantastic”. However I probably would have sold way too early because my mindset is to not get too greedy. What is it that Gordon Gecko said? Greed is good!
I bought Bitcoin when Morgan Stanley offered it. My portfolio is well-balanced with only 35% in equities. I never have too much of anything. Interestingly, Bitcoin now ranks as my third-largest single investment. My advisor thinks it should never be sold, and it might just be a hit for my heirs.
I would have been intentional about establishing and cultivating relationships with others that are better, smarter, more successful, more experienced, and more wealthy than me. I could have learned much more much faster. Also, I would have focused more on being more coachable.
I read once that you should take everything that you wish you could tell your 18 year old self and tell it to your son. That is what I have tried to do – he might have even listened to a little bit of it! 😏
From a total life perspective, it took me a long time to truly appreciate how much easier it is to be kind and thoughtful to fellow humans, and how much more satisfying it is. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I ever did cruel things (other than to my younger siblings, and that ended 55 years ago), but I certainly did thoughtless and hurtful things. I’d like a mulligan on that.
From a financial perspective, I am pretty sure that I had to make every stupid financial mistake in the book in order to knock it into my head that the only way to get wealthy is slowly, by saving, investing, and spending less than you have. Fortunately, I did figure it out in time.
M. Scott Peck’s book begins with a line containing this phrase: “Life is Difficult”. I read this in 1978 and realized that “while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
I’d experienced two very serious injuries in the 1950s and one nearly killed me. As a child I really didn’t know how to handle it, but I soldiered on and not only survived but was shaped by and was better for these experiences.
Frankly, I wouldn’t change a thing, although there were some stupid moves on my part that caused problems or discomfort for others. On reflection I would have avoided these. I did learn and I did alter my future behavior. We would say “They can be taught”. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it were not for the decisions made in the face of choices, and there is always a choice. As Peck states, there is pain and there is suffering. They are not the same. It is possible to transcend difficulties, no matter how severe.
I don’t think I would have made a different decision, but there was definitely a fork in the road back in the early 70s. I was a techie working for an international megacorp in my native UK. The BBC offered studio tours to prospective employees and I went because it was probably my only chance to see the studios. I wound up with a job offer. I turned it down, and a couple of years later the megacorp sent me to the US on assignment. If I had taken the job offer I certainly wouldn’t be living in the US now.
I wouldn’t change a thing, for the simple reason that every decision we make changes the path of our lives forever. And I’m so happy with my life now that I’m happy to live with all the blunders I made to get here — some of which had clear positive effects.
Mike, I’m 100% with you. I made some “non-optimal” decisions along the way, but I wouldn’t change any of them. They all lead me to where I’m at now, and I’m pretty happy with that.
OMG, that’s an easy one for me. I wouldn’t sell our starter home and would have kept it as a rental. We live in a fabulous rental market (college town) and could easily have kept it rented. It’s worth 3-4X now what we sold it for. We had an $800/month mortgage and could have paid it off years ago.
Dr. Lefty, we have the same regret! At the time It seemed like the right thing to do as we had been upside down on the home for the majority of the time we lived there (early 1990s) that once we could sell it and move to a whole different area we pounced! With 2 small children and a husband who was going through a career change I was too fearful about bad renters and being able to manage 2 mortgage payments. Within 6 months, the house had appreciated $50k and continued to do so. Eventually I had to stop watching it and just come to terms with the fact that this appreciation and asset wasn’t meant to be ours!
At the time It seemed like the right thing to do
Exactly! All we can do is carefully make the best decision we can, based on the information we have at the time, and then eventually come to terms with it — or if needed and possible, adjust it.
We have a lot more control over our decision-making than over the outcome.
I never thought Amazon could be profitable. Little did I know, AWS was on the horizon. Every company should strive for a high-margin component. I wish I had not been so cynical.
In our company, we added one. We had a low-margin component (commissionable equipment sales) that fed a new high-margin maintenance and repair service department.
Amazon proved that to be a winning combination. So as you evaluate investments, look for that combination.
Don’t think any of the things can be about finance/money. If they were everyone has moments where in hindsight they’ve left big gains on the table.
It probably has to be about a wider philosophical perspective on a life well lived or otherwise. And there there too are probably opportunities missed and other circumstances that we made the best of. And lots of them will have been contingent on other people and their agency. So regrets like I should have tried harder for that promotion or I should have fought harder for that relationship wouldn’t necessarily have given us “better” outcomes.
I’ve asked myself that question many times over the years, usually when things weren’t going that well.
The only thing I can truly say now is that I should not have resisted moving into our condo as I did.
We should have moved at least five years sooner.
I periodically questioned my decision to stay with my employer nearly fifty years. Ultimately I reached the top rung, but could it have been sooner, could I have earned more?
It doesn’t matter. I met every goal of all types I set for myself at age 18. It took longer perhaps, but at this stage who cares.
All I know is we are very fortunate and very appreciative of what we have and accomplished.
Moving is a significant life event for most of us. I should have realised sooner that our plan to age in place was doomed as our health declined.
I believe the paradox here is that, regardless of the decisions you made during your life that helped create your resulting journey and current position or situation, the question posed, a very good one, cannot be answered, except in one’s imagination.
Your life has value far beyond what the eye can see.
You just explained why I can’t think of another thing regarding my life. However, I have no trouble thinking of business decisions that could have been better “in my mind”. Thank you.
Around 1990, my father told me that the reason he had so much money was that he had put his 401K/bonus money in the Large Cap Value fund and just left it there. Why didn’t I do that? I’d have another two or three million if I had done what he had done.
I would have paid more attention to my scoliosis which has worsened since it was diagnosed . It’s possible that I still would be where I am now and I have to say I’m happy where I am in terms of pain and discomfort.
finally, I would have tried to have a better relationship with my father who was stubborn as a mule.
I absolutely would have made different decisions, and ended up rich as (fill in the blank). Still I just can’t have any regrets because of the place that I have ended up in. I have a great life (knocking on wood), kids, grand-kids, the woman of my dreams. We’re not rich but we’re probably better off than 99% of the world population.
Financially, I certainly wouldn’t have continued allocating 50% or more of my portfolio to fixed income in my 20s, 30s and even 40s. And I would have held on to the free company stock I’d received in 1988 under TRASOP instead of being suspicious and selling it when the company spun off my division. The good news is, it doesn’t really matter at this point.
Ah, TRASOP. That brings up memories along with PAYSOP. I kept all the shares.
My fourth and hopefully last spine surgery was delayed for two years by my doctors. All of us thought there was no harm in waiting. I developed foot-drop that I believe could have been avoided. I now recommend that anyone delaying any resolution involving bones or muscles have a PT monitor them for changes during the waiting period.
I believe the muscle loss in my calf would have been noticed long before I accidentally picked up on it.
Richard, I should have had my right knee replacement surgery a year earlier. The last year was pretty much a waste, especially a pre-planned trip to Italy.
I would have bought Bitcoin back in 2009, when it was selling for $0.00099.
I knew about it back then because I was buying a watch from a guy in Eastern Europe, and he asked me to pay in Bitcoin. I looked into it, got about halfway through buying Bitcoin from some sketchy-looking Russian website, and backed out because I was concerned that they were just trying to get into my PC.
I console myself by thinking I would have a) forgotten the complicated passcode, or b) lost the data on the hard drive, or c) sold it when it hit $10 per coin, thinking I’d made a ton of money.
I could have ended up like the guy in the UK who spent years searching trash dumps looking for his discarded hard drive that now has $800MM worth of Bitcoin on it.
As I have written recently, a coworker’s husband told me to buy some Apple stock when Steve Jobs was returning to the company. My response was, “No I’m an index investor, I spread my bets.” You know the rest of the story. But then again we turned out “fine”, but it could have been “fantastic”. However I probably would have sold way too early because my mindset is to not get too greedy. What is it that Gordon Gecko said? Greed is good!
David, those final 2 paragraphs are exactly what I tell myself.
I bought Bitcoin when Morgan Stanley offered it. My portfolio is well-balanced with only 35% in equities. I never have too much of anything. Interestingly, Bitcoin now ranks as my third-largest single investment. My advisor thinks it should never be sold, and it might just be a hit for my heirs.
I told them to cross their fingers.
Do you know the process for passing on the Bitcoin?
Spent more time cultivating friendships with a few non-work friends to carry over to our retired years.
That’s a conundrum I’m slowly rectifying.