To clarify, I am not specifically advocating for people to leave their careers after some known number of years, but I am recommending that they prepare for the possibility that their careers terminate for unpredicted reasons. I somewhat arbitrarily proposed a 10 year expectation, since this is what I have roughly determined to be the amount of time required to accumulate a self sustainable asset pool. This will be different depending on spending habits, earnings, or investment performance. In addition, after 10 years, you would probably have attained a level of seniority and specialization such that it will be difficult, or at least time consuming, to find equally attractive job openings.
I also acknowledge that my comment is more applicable to people who are in the middle to end of their careers. However, I believe that it is crucial for even new people to know basic skills like personal investing and to cultivate a diverse skill set that will differentiate them from their peers. On top of that, it is important to develop a long term asset growth plan as early as possible. This will prepare you for future financial hardship, and will increase your risk tolerance for new career opportunities later on.
You got some so cal industrial developers looking to throw money at you to put into the market? place is crawling with them, but i’ve learned all their NW is tied up in deals, house boats and cars.
$10mm is my bare minimum to manage and not live like a pauper longterm. but I"m doing real estate, not sure what the economics are for a manager doing stocks. I’m about 20% of the way there, but get by just fine for now. If you can build a cash reserve to get started, you can find a way to survive a long time while you ramp up – it’s actually pretty fun living lean after you’ve been fat, drunk and happy for a while. So my advice would be to not worry about getting to $10mm out of the gate. Build a cash reserve to live on and get to $1mm AUM and build from there. The freedom is the thing you’ll end up valuing most in the end anyway.
Ohai brings up a good point… I do believe that depending on your field, your career level, your geographical area and potential marketplace hiring biases it is possible to start to approach an expiration date within one’s career starting in one’s 40s – and with the window closing just a bit more with each year of age. This trend is also exacerbated by the rising trend of automation, outsourcing and corporate cost-cutting.
We would all be wise to at least consider the possibility that retirement could possibly come to be reality sooner than expected (or desired).
So, what are these books you “don’t want to recommend”. Please recommend them to me. I’m taking some down time in July to rest… but I still want “to grow as a person” and such.
Fine, here is a partial list of books I’ve found interesting in the last 10-15 years (in addition to the Kahneman one you mentioned – note, these are books for leisure reading only; I’ve left off the ones that I own for the “technical” part of my library):
Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller
Labyrinths of Reason and Fortune’s Formula by William Poundstone
Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan and Antifragile, all by Nassim Taleb
Currently reading “Fooled by Randomness”. Anyone else find Taleb brilliant… but would want to punch him in the face if met in person? I mean, he is obnoxious, right? LOL
People are always saying that about him, but they keep reading it. It’s good stuff. I feel just as much vitriol for the charlatans he calls out across his books as he does. I live vicariously through his writing – if, as a writer, you can’t express yourself fully, why bother? I deal with enough fake people and biting my tongue at work. Preach it, Nassim.
My best friend is this guy I kinda hate… I can only put up with him for about an hour before I start yelling at him (or I just have to drink a lot). I continue to keep him around those because every time he makes me mad I have think about why. Sometimes be is just being a dick. He is arrogant, disrespectful, and rude. But he is also really honest and tells things like he sees it… so sometimes he is making me mad because I know he is right. Then I learn something I would not have had the courage to see on my own. Therefore he has value.
Taleb is like a mild version of my friend. A good read should make you uncomfortable from time to time. If what you are reading all goes down easy, no growth is happening.
That’s interesting. After 10 years in financial services I, like most people, am thinking about a “plan B” as well somewhere down the road.
But unlike most of you, instead of gaining knowledge by reading books in order to prepare for that, I have a hobby-business on the side, which hopefully will be scalable enough to live from one day.
Honestly I would rather bet my money on you guys, though, seeing the ridiculous profits I am making. But I least I am having a fook load of fun.
Please tell me your secrets so I can “hopefully” have a scalable hobby one day! What an idiot thing to say…I guess professional success and reading are mutually exclusive.