I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No guilt, no excuses - just a 6-week programme that works

by Ramit Sethi

I bought stock in a company called JDS Uniphase (JDSU), an optical communications company. The stock effectively went to zero. I bought stock in a company called Excite, an early search engine, which was renamed Excite@Home after being acquired. It went bankrupt. And then I bought roughly $11,000 in a little company called Amazon .com. My investment of a few thousand bucks turned into $297,754. I should be proud of myself, right? WRONG. It might seem like I won, but you can learn a lot of counterintuitive lessons from this example. What are the lessons here? THE SUPERFICIAL LESSON: “You’re so smart for picking Amazon!” THE REAL LESSON: That is exactly the wrong lesson to take away. If that’s your reaction, please read carefully: It’s very important to know WHY you win and why you lose. I won with this Amazon investment, but it wasn’t because I was a good investor. It was, purely and simply, luck — a freakish once-in-a-generation winner. THE SUPERFICIAL LESSON: If you pick the next Amazon, you’ll be rich.