25 Life (And Money) Lessons for 2025
Reflecting on life and money truths I've learnt over the years.
Happy new year, dear readers! Here are 25 things I learnt about life (of which money is a subset) over the years that I would like to carry into 2025 and beyond.
1. "Make money, spend less than you earn, invest simply, and wait patiently" is probably the most underrated financial advice ever.
2. Getting your personal finances in order is more important than debating about which investment to buy.
3. We are already wealthy if we consider the relationships we have in our lives, often overlooked in pursuit of more tangible things.
4. Stock picking is not for everyone. Most investors will do well investing regularly in index funds (linked to point 1).
5. Mindfulness is an important skill to learn for investing, and by extension, life.
6. Timing the market is futile. Time in the market > timing the market.
7. Everything compounds, including money, habits, knowledge, and good relationships. A 1% improvement every day equates to 37x better one year later.
8. Defining your enough will do wonders for your sanity.
9. Volatility is a feature of the stock market and not a bug. You don’t have to do something when volatility hits. Just stay the course and focus on the long term.
10. The stock market hitting all-time highs is not a sell signal.
11. “Rather than just focusing on saving up for a big pot full of money that you will most likely not be able to spend in your lifetime, live your life to the fullest now: Chase memorable life experiences, give money to your kids when they can best use it, donate money to charity while you’re still alive. That’s the way to live life. Remember: In the end, the business of life is the acquisition of memories”. — author Bill Perkins from “Die With Zero” book
12. Have a beginner’s mind. See life through the eyes of a toddler — all curious and having no preconceived notions of how things should work out.
13 . Embrace the first-principles mindset to learn new things and solve problems. Keep on asking “why" till no more whys are remaining.
14. “Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backwards. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed.” — the late Charlie Munger
15. Have a bias towards action and be willing to course-correct. Progress often comes from taking calculated risks and adapting as you go, rather than waiting for certainty that may never arrive.
16. Bear markets (defined as a fall of at least 20% from peak to trough) are common. They occur every 3.6 years on average.
17. The Law of Reversed Effort is real. There’s power in letting go since most things in life are beyond our control. This is not to say that we should give up because we can’t control our lives; it’s the opposite. For instance, when it comes to investing, instead of worrying about factors that we can’t control such as inflation and geopolitics, focus on what we can control — like sticking to a disciplined investment strategy and not panicking during a market correction (linked to point 9).
18. The path to peace is to relax in the uncertainty — to surrender to the ebbs and flows of life and accept things as they are instead of resisting them. Learning to accept what we cannot change can bring peace and clarity. Acceptance is not resigning to a life of just putting up with things. It is simply accepting the truth to allow things to be as they are. Sometimes we cannot change reality, even if we want to (linked to point 17).
19. Follow your intuition. When you do that, you are guided by the intelligence that we all have within us. We don’t have to know everything. We just have to trust our intuition and have faith that our inner wisdom will show us the way forward. Surrender, trust your intuition, take the next step just in front of you, and let the Universe do the rest.
20. Challenge your money beliefs that you may have been told as kids. You can choose not to carry them with you as adults.
21. Begin with your “why”. The rest will follow.
22. Live your life in this moment. The past is gone and the future is not here. It’s called “present” for a reason.
23. Live as if it’s your last day. But save as if you still have another day. If you have ten marshmallows today, save some for tomorrow, but enjoy the rest today.
24. Nothing is permanent in life. Change is the only constant. When faced with a challenging moment (eg. a stock market crash causing your portfolio to plummet), remember: this, too, shall pass. The opposite is true as well.
25. Remembering that we will die one day — memento mori — is a powerful tool to give us perspective. Though it may seem morbid, knowing that our time on Earth is limited provides clarity. At the end of the day, we can't bring our social status or material possessions to the grave. This awareness encourages us to focus on the things that truly matter in our lives, such as cultivating meaningful relationships, finding purpose, or making the world a better place.
