If You Could Rewind Time, What Would You Do Differently?

[Desiny Smith]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking to build my network to have a supportive team prior to investing in my first mixed-use commercial / large apartment deal. Albeit eager, I'm willing to take this crucial time to prepare myself the right way. I know that there's no one size fits all, but if you could go back in time to your younger self, what advice would you give? How would you build your network and go about finding a mentor? How would you secure funding for your down payment?

I've learned that certain things just can't be rushed, despite my efforts to in the past. I want to start my investing career off on the right foot.

Thank you in advanced! 

[Michael K Gallagher]

@Desiny Smith welcome to the forums! I love the "what would you go back and change" question becuase of course everything we go through has purpose to who we are now, but in general when i reflect back on what I could change or tweak it would be that I woudl trust less in the "system" of getting a good engineering job, and relying on promotions etc to make income jumps,  I did a lot of free work as a salaried engineer, and made the companies I worked for huges sums of money on an annual basis from cost savings, and I never saw a lick of that. That's fine that's how it goes, but had i realized what was happening sooner, I'd have spent those earlier years like some of my peers in a tech sales roll with scaleable income.  

Don't get me wrong there a ton's of other little things, but being able to go back to 2012-2013 and start pulling in $150K + a year as a fresh grad with little expenses would have substantially altered the trajectory of my life, but then again, who knows if I every would have found these forums...

other than that most of my regrets are centered around not figuring out "myself" and how I work and interact with people sooner.  that's what has really unlocked the next level of things for me in recent years.  Time spent working on you is most often the most valuable time you can spend.