Preface：
After leaving a company, many people realize for the first time that all they truly own might be just a work experience.
At this point, we need such an ability more than ever—one that doesn't require waiting for others to hire us, nor loses value as we grow older.
Why the earlier one starts learning about investment, the less afraid one becomes of losing one's job?
A few days ago, my cousin was chatting with us and mentioned something that had recently happened at his company.
He's around forty years old and works for a car rental company. The business has always been stable, with decent income. But just a few days ago, the company suddenly announced: starting this month, everyone would receive only half their salary each month, and work only half the month.
The news came out of nowhere.
Before, he'd occasionally thought: "What if I lose my job one day?"
But such thoughts always passed quickly.
Every day, he left home early and returned late, clocked in on time, and by the time he got home, he was completely exhausted—how could he possibly have the energy to seriously think about the future?
Only when facing real change did he realize he’d never actually prepared for it.
We spend our entire lives building careers, yet rarely cultivate a crucial skill.
At that moment, I suddenly realized: Many people don’t actively plan their lives; instead, they’re simply carried forward by the inertia of work.
Go to work, come home, get paid, pay the mortgage—year after year.
We mistakenly assume this stability will last forever, but we rarely ask ourselves: What can we rely on if one day the company no longer needs us?
After leaving a company, many people discover for the first time that all they truly own is a piece of work experience.
They don’t know how to start their own business, aren’t sure what else they can do, and end up sending out resumes again, waiting to be hired by another company.
But by the time they reach forty or fifty, their age advantage gradually fades, and opportunities grow fewer.
That’s why, at this stage, we need a different kind of ability—one that doesn’t depend on being hired by someone else, and one that won’t lose value as we age.
I thought of investing.
I once believed the stock market was a fallback option.
I’ve been in the stock market for six years now.
To be honest, I’m a bit embarrassed—I didn’t enter with any clear goal.
It was just a random chance that led me to open an account.
Back then, like many others, my main impression of the stock market was: “It’s very risky; lots of people lose money.”
But fate played a cruel joke.
I entered the market at the end of 2019, just as a bull run began.
In the beginning, almost every stock I bought made money.
I even thought:
“Maybe making money in the stock market isn’t as hard as people say.”
But soon, the pandemic hit.
The market went into wild fluctuations, and the profits in my account vanished quickly—soon turning into losses.
For the first time, I truly understood what market risk meant.
And from that point on, I realized:
I knew almost nothing about the stock market.
The real barrier comes after you enter.
During the pandemic, nearly every industry ground to a halt.
Ironically, this gave me more time to calm down and re-learn investing.
Coming from a finance background, understanding financial statements wasn’t difficult.
I could roughly grasp a company’s revenue, profit, and cash flow.
But what really felt unfamiliar was the industry itself.
Why would semiconductors rise?
Why have optical modules become hot?
Why does the AI supply chain attract global capital?
If you don’t understand why a company makes money, you can’t understand why you should buy its stock.
So I started pushing myself to learn:
Learn industries.
Learn business models.
Learn macroeconomics.
Learn corporate competitiveness.
Learn market sentiment.
Over time, I increasingly realized:
The true threshold of the stock market isn’t when you open your account.
It’s after you open it.
Because there’s no graduation certificate here.
No one will tell you when you’ve truly mastered it.
Finance, business, industries, risk, psychology, human nature…
Each topic is enough to study for years.
It’s more like a university that never ends.
Later I realized that the stock market truly trains not trading
Many people enter the stock market for the first time with the goal of making money.
So did I.
But after several years, I came to understand that what the stock market really trains isn't trading itself—
it's judgment.
Judging whether a company is worth holding long-term.
Judging whether an industry holds lasting value.
Judging when to patiently wait.
Judging when to admit your mistakes.
And finally, you must judge yourself:
Are you greedy when prices rise?
Do you fear when markets fall?
Can you still think independently amid the noise and chaos of the market?
Only then did I gradually realize:
The stock market doesn't train your trading skills—it trains your ability to think.
Investing is not a job, but a lifelong skill.
Many people only think about entering the stock market when they're at their wit's end.
I was one of them.
Later I realized that by then, it was already a bit too late.
Because investing isn't a shortcut to overnight wealth.
It's more like medicine, law, or accounting—a profession that takes years to truly master, and one you may never fully finish learning.
It doesn't lower its standards just because you urgently need money.
Nor does it reward you immediately just because you started at age 45.
What really matters isn't how much you earned today.
It's whether you built your investment capability early enough.
More and more parents are now consciously cultivating their children’s financial awareness.
I have such friends around me. The birthday gifts they give to their children are no longer just toys, but a fund account.
Warren Buffett began learning about investing at a very young age.
Later, he turned it into a lifelong pursuit of continuous improvement.
What’s truly worth emulating isn’t which stocks he bought.
It’s his decades-long commitment to refining his investment framework.
Why does starting to learn investing early make you less afraid of unemployment?
My cousin’s company situation made me seriously reflect:
If one day we leave our jobs, what will remain?
I believe the answer won’t be a single stock or a bank deposit.
It will be a skill—
the ability to keep learning, making decisions, and allocating resources.
Jobs can end.
Industries can change.
Companies can lay off employees.
But investment thinking never retires.
It matures with experience and compounds over time.
If someone asks me today:
"Why should you start learning investing early?"
My answer is no longer about making money.
It’s about having more choices and greater confidence when life changes.
Because what truly accompanies us through a lifetime isn’t necessarily a company or a career.
But investment capability might well become one of them.
