Investing & Skydiving (reread)

4 minute read

Investing & Skydiving

What do these two things have in common?

The one has to do with little risk and the other has tremendous risk, right. Well so everyone thinks!

But let's have a look….

With Investing we watch videos of rich people that tell us to invest, download a free brokerage account APP, start to trade for free, and hope the shares go up. Easy.

However,

In Skydiving, we watch skydive videos all excited to jump, then realise it will be a 1 hour drive from the city,

we need 6 HOURS ground school training to not DIE,

write a test,

then MAYBE we will be able to jump with 2 instructors.

but that’s not all…

Then you will need 9 more jumps with instructors, and learn to pack your own parachute, then you will get an A licence.

Thats a MAYBE…

It is not easy to just jump out of an airplane! And it takes a long time!

If people will put 10% of the same effort into investing, it will be a different story!

Remember,

a tremendous amount of risk gets minimised with more awareness, and thorough knowledge…

Study Skydiving To Invest Better

2 minute!!!!

The call comes through….. Time to open the doors.

Put on the helmet, goggles, last equipment check, final goodbye…3,2,1 see ya!

So comfortable and relaxed!

It takes a person roughly 50 jumps and countless training hours to get this calm feeling, and think about flying and not thinking about jumping to your death.

The habit is created, the fear becomes fun!

The same way how many things in life takes time, so will investing also take time.

The beginning of investing is hard, because money that we use to spend and buy stuff with, is going into a brokerage account and we don't get anything from it.

Nothing to show!

So it is hard to have the prolonged gratification, just like the analogy of the kids with the marshmallow.

But just like skydiving we need to trust the process, and keep jumping into investing.

People always asked me after 195 jump if I still get nervous, and I say that “I still get butterflies yes, but I make them fly in order'“

Reserve Parachute?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of pain…

Just like in skydiving where we need a reserve parachute, so with investing we need factors to eliminate the risks. Such as not putting all your money in 1 investment….how cliché, but true.

The same way I was happy to have a reserve parachute when jumping out of a hot-air balloon for my 101st jump.

Wow what a relief!

Short story long:

In skydiving, your 100th jump is normally naked…

yes, just a parachute, helmet, goggles and shoes.

After landing my 100th jump, I ran all naked through a crowed of people, with the parachute around my body, to go and pack it for the next jump….

Rush, rush, rush! the hot-air balloon is waiting!!

So we went up in the air, so calm and peaceful (something everyone should experience, with a parachute of course ;). At 6000 ft it was time to jump…3,2,1 see ya! After opening the parachute I realised something is not right…

The parachute was packed badly, and I could not land it like this on a random farm with power lines, fences and rocks everywhere.

So I cut away the main parachute and opened the reserve….(The second time in my life I had to use my reserve)

At the end, I made it! I landed, got a ride with a farmer that passed me on the road and a story to tell you now, and my kids one day.

Just like the reserve parachute incidents, there were many investments I made that went down to zero.

So happy I did not put all my money in it… Also happy I had a reserve.

And it is worth mentioning it to you, and to remind myself again.

Thank you for reading, and keep buying assets.

-Stefan