A Gift To My Children (1)

A Gift To My Children
Jim Rogers
(A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing)


Chapter 1
Don't let others influence you


My dear daughter,

This is my message to you to help you succeed in your life and in investing.  Remember these words when you grow up.  Your father is an investor.  He is a man who worked very hard to learn all that he could to earn money, and was able to retire at the age of 37.  And I want to share with you what I learned through my experience.

I was a poor boy from a rural town, and all I wanted was enough money to have my own freedom.  I started my first business at the age of five.  Eventually, I went to Wall Street because I realized that the greatest opportunity for me to make money was there.  I was able to retire because I had accumulated enough wealth so that I didn't need a job, and I could travel wherever I wished in the world.

From the time I was a child, I always enjoyed working being successful.  But now, what brings me more joy than anything else in the world is you, my dear daughter.  And to you I want to explain those things that are important to know so that you can live your life successfully.

Use your own intelligence

The first point I want to talk about is "to think for yourself and not let others influence you."  There are going to be moments in life when you must make very important decisions.  There will be many people ready to offer you advice if you ask for it.  But remember this -- you are born with the ability to make decisions that are in your best interest, and the life that you lead is yours and nobody else's.  There are going to be times when someone's advice proves to be utterly useless.  You must then rely on yourself to do the research, think on your own and determine what is true on your own.  By doing so, in most cases you will make the right decision and take the right action.  This is better than going against your will and following someone else's decision.

In the past I made certain investments based on opinions other than my own.  Oddly, each of those investments ended in failure and I had to suffer losses every time.  So I stopped allowing myself to be influenced by others, and acted on decisions that I made myself.  I was past 30 when I finally realized this was the better approach, but I know I was rewarded with success because I operated on this principle without ever thinking that it was too late.

(to be continued....)

You may check the author's biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers.