In our lives, time is the most underappreciated investment ingredient. We underestimate its importance and think that lost time can always be made up for. That is where our troubles begin. Most people do reckless things like trading, selecting the wrong products, taking high risks, and frequently changing investment actions, in the belief that they will become richer in less time. But these actions achieve the exact opposite result. We lose years when we make investment mistakes. People almost always realise this much later as an afterthought.
Here is the truth we refuse to accept easily: it is never easy to make up for lost years. You need the best investment expertise to correct mistakes and put you on the right path and to accelerate your financial recovery. Catching up requires diligent heavy lifting and minimal mistakes. So, why don’t people tread the obvious path of getting expert help early, staying with the right advice, and growing in the right way from day one?
The reason is simple. People want to prove that they can do it without formal help. They think that informal help is a substitute for formal support. They genuinely believe technology is a great support. The ease of transaction technology provides, is seen as the best facilitator for creating wealth.
It is precisely this ease of transaction that has created an unprecedented loss of time for crores of middle-class Indians. They make more costly mistakes using the power of technology, by increasing decision frequency and acting in haste. Then, they fail to rectify their mistakes on time. While decisions that end up as mistakes are made in great haste, no effort is made to rectify them quickly. The loss of time after making mistakes is the biggest problem investors create for themselves. Ideally, these mistakes should not have happened in the first place.
Experimenting with personal finance is what caused this situation. It is the financial equivalent of self-medication. While a few people know how to support their needs comprehensively, the majority have neither the ability nor the time to do it effectively. They make a series of mistakes leading to the loss of money and more significantly to the loss of time.
Structured relationships are always more accountable, time-bound, measurable, growth-oriented and focused on outcomes. Yet, why do investors fail to create them early in their lives?
Investors have a simple choice which they still fail to make. They can measure relationships in terms of expenses. Or evaluate relationships in relative terms with the outcomes. Most people make the big mistake of taking outcomes for granted and expenses as dispensable.
Having lost both time and money, investors struggle to make up for it. Those who wait to act wisely in money matters will pay the price—not just in rupees, but in the irretrievable currency of time. This quest to regain what was lost, ultimately leads them to a path they once rejected.