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Since childhood, my father has been teaching me that I should never follow anyone in any work but I have learned a lot by watching people. That is, if I learn a task by watching a person, then I am satisfied when I follow my own rules while implementing it. If I make a mistake, I can learn from it, and it will be a lifelong lesson.
Anyway, now let's come to the issue of risk. Before investing anywhere or starting a business, risk analysis is one of the most important tasks. Because if you are successful in risk analysis, you can be successful in business. Because the main prerequisite for business or investment is to reduce potential risk. And since investing in one field has the possibility of profit, just as there is the possibility of loss, a major step in minimizing risk is to decentralize investment. Which fully supports your opinion.
The family rule (never follow) is so classic, but the real world laughs at dogmas. No one works in a vacuum, everyone is borrowing code. If you “never follow”, you reinvent fire every time. If you only follow, you never get out of Plato’s cave. You have discovered the third rail: watch everybody, but never imitate anyone. Fail, test, adapt; standard issue for actual progress, not just self-help rhetoric
On risk: people are obsessed with analysis, but the true risk is in the blind spots: things you never thought of, the so-called unknown unknowns. Diversifying investments? Good. But we rarely discuss diversifying worldviews. Why isn’t “portfolio of mentors” as common a phrase as “portfolio of assets”? We have to divide our social and intellectual risks as aggressively as our financial ones, and no one puts that in a spreadsheet
You work all this to de-risk and then life throws you a black swan and all your spreadsheets are worthless. After a great loss, most people rebuild, but they never get back to the same "rational" attitude. They are not taught to be analytical only, but to be emotionally insulated. That is the gap that no MBA or trading app will teach: non-attachment. You would like to be good at business, learn to separate your self-worth and your balance sheet. The greatest underestimated hedge in any market? Being fine with losing, and not making it your identity. In the end, opportunity is not only economic, but emotional as well
You have made a very logical point, one of the parts of success in life is to keep yourself fit with failure and not to get discouraged. You always have to be patient and optimistic. Above all, you have to be steadfast in your goal, just like a lion does when hunting. And another important aspect of business or investment is learning to make the right use of opportunities.