4 Things I Gained From Losing $40,000

It’s December boys and girls! Don’t you just love it!

Summer’s finally here in Old Sydney Town and everywhere you look people have that look of hope and joy and love in their eye.

It’s true what they say about the weather and how it affects people’s moods – have a look at this, unless you club baby seals in your downtime – it’s hard not to feel some warmth.

A photo from the internet.

MrsFrugalSamurai-to-be and I spent our weekend diligently planning our upcoming wedding next year. We even interviewed a couple of wedding photographers.

“Do you have a camera?” S…si senor

“Can you take pictures with it?” Si senor

“You’re hired”. But senor… I here only two weeks on tourist visa.

Wedding photography in action.

It was on the way to a meet that I randomly bumped into a friend on the street. KD said he was following the $40k series (I lost $40,000 through poor investment decisions) with interest and if I could post what I did after because he wanted to find out.

Geez KD, a “how you going?” first wouldn’t have hurt would it?

Only kidding KD! Great to see you again and hope those genital warts go away soon – fight the good fight buddy.

So following on from the previous articles here’s what I got up to help me with my financial journey:

Don’t be a lone wolf.

Aoooooo – hey stop that.

Sorry got carried away.

Don’t be a lone wolf, what I mean by this is that up to that point my entire financial journey was DIY. I did everything myself, the research, the decisions, the allocations, everything, all carried out by yours truly.

Another guy on a DIY financial journey.

This is what the cliches say right? If you want to do it properly, do it yourself. Caveat Emptor – buyer beware, do your own research. You are responsible for your own life. Etc.

Fair fair, these are good cliches… up to a point. You see, doing it yourself takes time. Doing it yourself means you have no frame of reference, no one to point out what it is you are doing right or wrong. No yardstick to measure progress.

It’s a pretty lonely journey doing everything yourself.

Trust in others.

When I realised that doing it myself ended up with me losing $40,000 – I thought, maybe doing it myself isn’t the right way of doing things. I need help. That’s when I made the conscious decision to trust in others.

This was a big turning point in my financial roadmap.

Financial roadmap up to that point.

You see, I grew up poor (not as in below the poverty line poor, but always turning off the lights and power-points after leaving the room poor, washing dishes with cold water only in winter poor), that’s just what my environment was.

Growing up this way means you develop a scarcity mentality, you don’t trust anyone and you have to pry every dollar out of my cold, dead hands.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it is very restrictive – if you don’t trust in others, you don’t share, you don’t share then others don’t know, if others don’t know then no one can help you.

So quite simply, I decided to do a 180 – I went on to as many investment forums as I could and started reading, then posting, then messaging, then meeting, before you know it – I accelerated my financial learning just by sharing and trusting others.

Find a Mentor.

They say finding a trusted mentor is the easiest way to move forward two steps at a time, learn from their mistakes to fast-track your own progress.

When I first reached out to people, I was genuinely surprised as to how many wanted to help me. You’d be surprised how altruistic people are.

I loved to connect with the old-timers, the ones who have been through the wars – most were no better than mere “punters” (gamblers aka pseudo-investors) but they were always ready to regale an old war story or two about their investment journey.

Not a suitable mentor.

History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme as they say – might as well receive a history lesson from someone who’s been through it.

Of course, then there were the REALLY successful investors – the ones who have seven or eight figure income streams – I learnt the value of patience and discipline through them.

I found mentors across multiple mediums – in person, on the internet, reading books, following blogs, and my personal favourite, the school of hard knocks – nothing is more memorable than say losing $40,000 on the stock market.

Stay Positive.

You know what the difference between the punters and the successful investors were?

Mindset.

The successful investors were always positive no matter what the underlying economic or financial conditions were.

A successful investor showing off his mindset.

I remember telling my $40k story to one such investor and he replied “It’s the best thing to have happened to you because it happened early, I lost half a mil last year and now it’s all back and then some – same will happen with you”.

That’s why whenever possible I keep on re-iterating affirmations and positive reinforcement via Youtube videos and podcasts.

My top 3 are Eric Thomas, Jim Rohn and Mel Robbins – check them out!

Hard to not be badgered and pushed this way and that in our lives I know – but you gotta stay positive!

Through discussing and talking to numerous investors, I slowly diverged from investing in the stock market to investing in real estate. The fundamental principles are the same (make money) but there are some distinct differences – come back and find out what they are!

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