Career advice I wish I’d been given when I was young
I&#x27;ll give an answer:<p>The most important thing in life is family.<p>For family and more, the most important raw material is financial security.<p>In the US, the main path to financial security is to start, own, and run a successful business.<p>In the US, for nearly all the businesses, the most important <i>Buffett moat</i> and, thus, protection, is a <i>geographical barrier to entry</i> -- for the business you are in, it is a big advantage to have no competition more than 100 miles away so that if do well in a radius of 100 miles will likely do well.  Next, pick a business where you have lots of customers, not just a few really important ones.<p>This owning a business is important:  It can be just super tough even to buy a house when working for someone else.  Commonly they just don&#x27;t have to pay that much.<p>Beware the usual, <i>mainstream</i> media:  They are at best smelly bait for the ad hook and otherwise propaganda for special interests.  They are NOT serious sources of valuable information.<p>DO exploit compound interest, in an index stock fund, real estate, etc.<p>Unless are already wealthy, avoid restaurants and eat at home.  Restaurant food is MUCH more expensive, and the cost really adds up.  Eating at home is MUCH cheaper.  E.g., I have developed a recipe for a pizza for one meal for one -- ready to eat at anytime within 20 minutes with 10 of those just waiting on the cooking.  Cost per pizza $0.40 to $1.00 depending on the toppings.  Cost of the flour, $0.09.  It&#x27;s better, cheaper, and faster than frozen, carry-out, or delivery.  Do much the same for 6-12 dishes, and call that mostly ENOUGH.  The $1 version is better than $10-20 in restaurants.  The extra $9-19 really adds up -- put that in a piggy bank and then in an index fund for 30 years and will really have something.  I wish I&#x27;d known that.<p>These days often can get buy wearing blue jeans.  Do that.  They were and are made of canvas originally designed as cloth for sails for sailing ships -- DARNED tough.  Don&#x27;t need the expensive, famous, fancy brands. Similarly for shoes -- boating shoes are good because they are still good in rain and light snow.<p>For education, learn enough so that you can learn more as needed and how to filter the good stuff from the 99% which is junk, even in the best academics.<p>What to learn for your business?  Mostly have to learn that year by year or even month by month to RESPOND to what the MARKET wants.  Master&#x27;s and Ph.D. degrees (I have both, in the STEM fields, from one of the world&#x27;s best research universities) can help a little but, except in rare cases, do not replace the learning in response to short term market opportunities.<p>Make friends, associates, acquaintances whenever and however you can, just casual and even superficial can be much better than nothing.<p>Don&#x27;t waste time, e.g., don&#x27;t watch TV.<p>Learn about human psychology, e.g., as in common psychological counseling.  Hopefully you don&#x27;t need the counseling, but you DO need to know what it is about the maybe 50% of other people who DO need such counseling.  E.g., you need to know about emotions quite generally and also anxieties, obsessions, libido, duplicity, manipulations, deceptions, etc.  The best single source I found on human psychology is E. Fromm, <i>The Art of Loving</i>, but alone it is not enough.<p>Learn about organizational behavior.  Learn about management and, in particular, borrow some points from the US military.<p>Know how politics works, and, when you need to, play the game.<p>Learn about law -- mostly try to avoid it since there mostly only the lawyers make money.<p>If you have any hope or intention of getting some financial security, then before getting married have a good pre-nup.  To s LOT of people, from whatever in their personalities or backgrounds, the meaning of <i>love</i> is not very strong and, even if it is, usually can blow away, <i>Gone with the Wind</i>, at anytime in about three years.  Just accept that in that famous Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving, nearly everyone at the table is acting.<p>You have to be the CEO and COB of your own life; a good co-CEO would be TERRIFIC but in practice is asking for a LOT -- without some really good evidence, don&#x27;t bet much on a good co-CEO relationship lasting.  Here are some things that have a good shot at lasting longer than a good co-CEO relationship -- a leather belt, a wooden chair, Casio wrist watch, a bedroom chest of drawers, a good pair of boat shoes, a bottle of red wine from <i>Corton</i> in France, a piano, a violin, a collection of stemmed wine glasses in the kitchen, nearly any new car, a cast iron frying pan, even most Teflon frying pans, a house that initially meets code, a good index fund account.<p>From Fromm, &quot;Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same.&quot;  Learn about the difference.