A few months ago, there was an opportunity to help out at an investor event when my friend Willie asked if I was keen to be involved in the Diligence Tribe Tea Party, which was an annual event held for the investors in his community. Ever since I joined them last September, I have received lots of value, and so I immediately agreed to help support the event.
Most of the preparation was actually done by Willie and my main role was to help out with the registration, which I did together with another member. I am also thankful that I got the opportunity to share my investing journey with everyone, and hopefully they benefitted from it!
One thing we did not foresee was the huge turnout this year and the venue was fully packed! Members were allowed to bring one guest each and we had a total of more than 70 people packed into the Upper Room. Willie then kickstarted the event with his sharing, and after that it was time for food. While that was enjoyable, the highlight for me was the sharing by Jun Yuan and Thomas after that. Both of them are full-time investors with very different styles and there was so much I gleaned from them.
Thereafter, we had a break in between and it was during this time that I got to speak with some of the other members at my table. At the same time, I was also rehearsing what I would be sharing later on and eventually decided to abandon my scripted answer and just go with the flow. The 2 other panelists who were with me were seasoned veterans in their own right and have been investing for more than a decade while I really only started in the last few years. Thankfully, I was able to gather my thoughts and share my investing journey with everyone else :) It came as a pleasant surprise after our sharing that Willie had prepared a book as a gift for each of us. What a great blessing! We ended off the session by taking a group photo and I was also quite happy that I was able to catch Jun Yuan for a quick snap before I had to go off for dinner with my friend.
Before I end off, I would like to share my thoughts on one of the questions that I did not have time to answer:
Q: What does investing mean to you? A: I see investing as a means to slowly buy back time. Most of us work very hard in our 20s and 30s. If we are employees, we trade our time and energy to fulfill our bosses' demands in order to meet various company needs. Oftentimes, we are left so drained that we hardly have enough time to enjoy life outside of work. So I see investing as a way to slowly trade our active income for passive income. Every month when your salary comes in, set aside a portion of it to buy assets that generate income (for e.g. dividend stocks) and when you do that long enough, you will eventually reach the crossover point, where your passive income exceeds your expenses. One of my favourite quotes is from Morgan Housel's book The Psychology of Money. He mentions that controlling your time is the highest dividend that money pays, and I fully agree with him. When we are able to stick an investing strategy that we are comfortable with consistently over time, we will eventually reach a place in life where we can have control over our time and how we want to use it.
And that's a wrap for our event and me documenting some of my thoughts. If you are keen to follow my financial journey, you can find me at @financialpilgrim, where I document my learning in personal finance and share travel stories once in awhile :)
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