Friends,
Over the past month, I (Stoffel, here) had lunch with two friends who find themselves newly unemployed -- one by choice (working in the aviation industry), and one by chance (a victim of recent AI layoffs).
They shared some interesting similarities:
- Skills: Both are highly regarded in their industries, with decades of experience and the chops to perform at the highest levels.
- Dissatisfied: Both voiced an opinion that they were tired of feeling like a cog in a much larger, more cynical corporate machine.
- Stuck: Both are very good at the content of what they do, but aren't sure how they could turn their skills into a profitable business.
This sounded familiar to me. For the last 16 years, I have loved researching stocks, ranking them, buying and selling them. In short, playing the game that is investing.
At the same time, I hate marketing myself. And when it comes to the details of setting up a business and actually making it work -- well, that's my own definition of hell.
This is a key reason writing for The Motley Fool worked so well for me for over a decade. Besides being a fantastic mission-driven company, others took care of the marketing and the back-office dynamics. I just focused on what I liked.
But I could never strike out on my own.
That is, until I joined forces with a few other Brians. It took a few years to figure out how to make it work, but consider:
- Feroldi is an excellent marketer. He's got a knack for catching people's attention and adding value along the way. That's why he has well over 1 million followers across his social media platforms.
- Withers has an uncanny knack for making sure systems run smoothly. He launched a community from scratch three years ago, and it is still growing today.
And I get to focus on what I actually enjoy: teaching the game of investing.
If my friends (or YOU) ever want the freedom that comes with being your own boss, I encourage you to learn from this.
You don't have to do it all.
Instead, cultivate relationships with people you respect and who excel in the areas where you have your greatest weaknesses. Create win-win situations. It'll probably include more than a few difficult conversations, but -- like all such things in life -- over the long run, it'll be worth it.
Wishing you investing luck in the months ahead,
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Brian Feroldi, Brian Stoffel, & Brian Withers
Long-Term Mindset
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