The best investment you can ever make is your work.
Steve Jobs said “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
I like that quote. But come on Steve, work can be a pain. No one loves getting up at 4:30am.
But after years and years of doing your work you wake up one day and realize, “hey, I might not have to work.” And that’s when you know you’ve found great work.
Steve Jobs was tough. He was a pain to work for. He was one of the hardest-driving CEOs of our time. He was a fighter.
Is current Apple CEO Tim Cook like his predecessor? Maybe. But there was only one Steve Jobs.
But there’s a lot of money riding on Mr. Cook today.
When I look at the Vanguard 500 Index or the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, one company shows up as the top holding: Apple.
The 500 Index sounds like things are spread out pretty good. But the reality is that the top ten names for both funds are the same companies. And both indices have a huge dependency on their top ten names which comprise close to one fifth of each index.
In 2008, the Total Stock Market Index and 500 Index where down 37.04% and 37.02% respectively. Where’s the safety in that?
If you’re going to gamble on one investment, make it YOURSELF. And don’t ever think investing is a matter of the heart. It’s far from it.
