When I was young I heard the advice many times to save 10% to 20% of your salary first. Automatically move it somewhere safe so you are not even thinking about it. This way you are always living 10% to 20% below your means.
This is great advice and would have done me very well if I followed it. Like most people things got in the way, my first house, traveling, eating out. Some of these I don’t regret, but I definitely could have saved more.
This is a discipline that I am helping my kids with at a young age so that they are used to going through the process.
But with the world-changing as fast as it is there is another type of investing that my kids should start at a young age. Saving money takes time before the compound interest effect starts to take off. It is a similar idea when you are building an audience. Two of my kids are still young, and I am trying to convince the eldest. If they start building an audience when they become adults, the audience may not pay off for 10-20 years. But when the time comes and they are ready to put their innovative ideas into the world, with that audience that they invested in 80% of the work is already done.
When they start building their audience it doesn’t matter what it is they talk about. What matters is they are being authentic and they are trying to do something of value for their audience. Their audience is going to connect with them and they are going to connect with the ideas. In the future when they are introducing their innovative ideas they will already have the trust of the audience.
I believe, and especially as a parent, that the building of an audience is one of the best things a young adult can do.