1. PRIORITISE HEALTH

If your mind and body aren’t working properly, life can be pretty miserable. Finance is an industry known for long hours and extended drinking sessions with colleagues and clients. If there’s one guaranteed outcome of this behaviour, it’s that it will end badly. In 2021 I attended the funeral of a close friend and colleague. I miss him, and think about the countless examples of people taken from this earth too early, all because they did not give enough attention to their own wellbeing.

2. BE NICE

Life is so much easier when you’re nice (and ‘nice’ doesn’t mean being a pushover). A recruiter friend of mine once told me about accidentally bumping into another commuter on the train into work and immediately apologising. The other individual responded by calling him…(the worst swearword you can think of). Later that day my friend entered a meeting room at work to conduct an interview for a high-level role. He immediately recognised the candidate as the swearing commuter and ended the interview before it had even started.

3. THINK BIG

Your life is only capped by what you imagine is possible. In 2016 I had reached a career plateau and despite my best efforts to get to the next level (interviewing for new jobs, educating myself, networking) I came up against roadblocks wherever I went. I vividly recall thinking to myself “well this is it, this is as far as I can go, so I may as well just accept it.” Shortly after, an opportunity to interview at a new firm was offered to me and I almost turned it down because I didn’t have the energy to keep experiencing failure. With one last try, I interviewed, got the job, and within 4 years I had increased my income by 5x.

4. PLAY THE LONG GAME

I used to be incredibly impatient until I realised impatience is essentially a desire for the entire world to operate on my timeline, which is obviously ridiculous. Consistently doing the right things will pay off in the end and you’ll be a winner from compounding alone. Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to think past tomorrow, especially if there are money issues that need to be handled today. If you can, put a system in place that covers basic money demands today, which then allows you to think in decades, not days. Playing the long game also allows you to bear more risk. For example, two individuals (Ben and Candice) receive £18,000 on their 18th birthdays in 1998, just as the internet is starting to change the world. They just ordered a book online (wow!) so both decide to buy Amazon shares. Ben sells his shares in 2001 on his 21st birthday for £56,160 and buys a sports car. The 9/11 attacks happen later that year and Candice’s shares fall back to £21,600. She’s annoyed, especially when Ben picks her up in the sports car, but she ignores the shares and promises to leave them untouched for as long as possible. In 2020 on her 40th birthday, Candice sells the shares for over £11.3m and retires early.

5. LEARN TO SELL

Everything in life is a sale: convincing the kids to eat broccoli, getting that date with the person you’re attracted to, landing the contract you really want, etc. You don’t have to be a sales expert, and in fact becoming mildly competent at sales and marketing will make you better than most people because the vast majority of people think that only salespeople need to be good at selling. The best product or service in the world will never make a profit unless a) people know about it, and b) they understand how it will provide them with value. A friend of mine was recently looking for a new ‘quant’ trader to join his team (these guys are usually maths wizards). There was one candidate, an Oxford graduate, who completely aced the technical interview, but then at the end when he was asked to tell a joke (trading floors need an element of fun), the candidate completely froze. He was speechless, because he didn’t know how to sell himself through humour. The upside of getting good at sales is that you also get better at selling yourself on ideas, which is another way of saying you become better at overcoming fear.

6. TAKE ACTION AND ACCEPT RISK

Only action tells you whether or not the decision to pursue an outcome will work, or whether it was the ‘right’ decision. Endless hours of reflection, analysis and research will always miss the vital ingredient – action. To take action you have to be a rational optimist, which is a skill that can be learnt. Action will involve risks, so get comfortable with risk. I know two very smart individuals who used to plan their exit from the ‘rat race’, walking together on lunchbreaks, discussing the future. That was 15 years ago. Today, both are equally successful, but only one is an entrepreneur, working for himself, to his own schedule. One of these friends has not yet left corporate life, but still regularly talks about it.

7. THINK FOR YOURSELF

I have worked with a number of CEOs and investors that made their fortunes by taking risks when their competition were paralysed by fear. ‘Contrarian’ is a word often used for some of the best business people on the planet. A famous Steve Jobs quote is, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Another well-known quote is, “Observe the masses, then do the opposite”. These are both examples of thinking differently, but in reality, you can get into a lot of trouble behaving this way, so while your foundation for thinking in business should be to question everything, there has to be an overlay of critical analysis. When most investors started to buy equities again in 2009, doing the opposite would have meant you missed out on investment returns of more than 200% over the next ten years. Sometimes the crowd is right, but you should never accept its actions at face value.

8. USE DEBT WISELY

The use of debt (or ‘leverage’ as finance people like to call it), can significantly accelerate returns and shorten the time it takes to build wealth. However, misusing debt can quickly lead to ruin. The best use of debt is to fund the purchase of assets that appreciate in value and more than pay for the cost of debt (a rental property for instance). The absolute worse use of debt is to buy a depreciating asset that provides no income and therefore does not pay for the cost of debt (for example, a car). The misuse of debt can force entire countries into bankruptcy (or ‘default’ in finance speak).

9. ADAPT

I once asked a very wealthy investor to share his secret to success. He thought for a minute, then told me: “Always live to fight another day. Control your losses on the downside and go big when you have belief in an opportunity and see it working. Don’t believe the hype around successful people, because the reality is that anyone can do it, you just have to adapt when things move against you, remain faithful that it can continue when things are going well, and have the discipline to act this way 99% of the time.”

10. LIFE MOVES IN CYCLES

Nothing lasts forever. When things are going well they are likely to get worse at some point and when things are going badly, they will turn and start to get better. This can happen naturally because most things in life move in a cycle, but you can also exert control over the cycle so that the general trend is in the same direction over time, or the negative parts of life are shortened as much as possible. I know countless numbers of investors who got complacent with strong returns, so took their eye off the ball and consequently went through extended periods of losing money. Companies are the same. Amazon has been innovating and improving almost constantly over its 30-year life, but the share price still fell over 90% in 2001 and over 50% in 2022. Over the long term though, Amazon shares continue to move higher.

11. THE WORLD DOESN’T OWE YOU ANYTHING

Life is hard and most people will look out for themselves before they look out for you. No matter your background, or how hard you have fought to get where you are today, the opportunity that comes along tomorrow could be lost if you think you have earnt the right to certain privileges. Sometimes luck or chance works against you. Keep fighting every day for what you want because you are probably worthy and deserve it, but never succumb to entitlement. I know one CEO that never interviews candidates from a well-known university because he thinks most of them are too entitled.

12. DO THE RIGHT THING

You know what it is, so do it. Always. Never waver.