This is the #1 advice I give young people that ask me about investing:
Try to spend as little time as possible thinking about investing.
If you’re in your 20s or early 30s and spending hours trading, stock picking, and obsessing over markets… you’re probably allocating your time to the lowest-ROI activity available to you.
The beauty of investing today is that you can buy the entire global stock market in a single ETF, reinvest the dividends, and let compounding do its thing.
That means your time is better spent elsewhere.
It makes far more sense to focus on:
- Building valuable skills
- Raising your savings rate
- Increasing your earning potential
- Starting a business or advancing your career
Consider two people:
Person A spends years focused on trading and investing.
They manage to outperform the market by 3%… but only about 1% after taxes and trading friction.
Person B simply tracks the index.
But they focus their time on increasing income and consistently saving more each year.
Person A compounds at 9%.
Person B compounds at 8%.
If Person B grows their income faster and saves more aggressively, they’ll end up with significantly more wealth over time, despite earning lower investment returns.
In your early decades, contributions matter more than returns.
A 1% higher return won’t change your life.
A higher income and savings rate will.
Your career is your biggest asset in your 20s and 30s.
Your portfolio just compounds in the background.
Assumptions: Starting point (both people) Age: 25 Starting salary: $80,000 Starting portfolio: $0 Time horizon: 30 years Contributions made annually Person A — “Trader” Focuses on investing/trading, less on income growth After-tax return: 9% Savings rate: 15% of income Income growth: 3% per year Starts saving: ~$12,000/year Assumption: They beat the market by ~1% after tax through trading skill. Person B — “Builder” Tracks index, focuses on career + saving After-tax return: 8% Savings rate: 25% of income Income growth: 5% per year Starts saving: ~$20,000/year Assumption: They don’t try to outperform markets — just capture market returns and increase earnings.