Unfortunately, I realised afterwards that who you know is a lot more important than what you know, as well as that university is one of the best times to both meet interesting new people and get involved in new hobbies. Not knowing anyone afterwards probably made it much more difficult to get my first job afterwards, as well as to find startup cofounders and what not.
Also regret shutting down my first major internet community/forum site, since it was pretty damn popular at the time (about 300,000 posts/a few thousand users), and when merged with my later ones, could have become the base for a much larger community.
Also regret not jumping on a few internet bandwagons/gold rush scenarios too. Seeing how successful some channels became on YouTube/Twitch/whatever kinda makes me wish I'd made the investment and gone all in on one of these platforms back when they were starting out. Writing doesn't exactly pay anymore, and those who made the transition to video earlier have sometimes built entire careers out of it.
Not raising capital when it would've been easy.
Not understanding my customer despite having a #1 market position.
Not spending enough time with my daughter when she was younger.
Listening to the customer feedback I never heard anyone compliment our potency. Later on the hardware for vape carts evolved and new carts came out that could provide higher doses. Our oil did not taste good in those carts so we didn't make the switch. Then when the feedback started rolling in that our cartridges weren't strong enough (they just didn't vaporize as much oil..) we finally made the switch. By then we had lost our market position. Turns out customers liked our flavor but the reason they were really purchasing was the potency.
When you're on top you think it's your brand or your QC that's carrying you...when really it was just a potency game all along.
Be kind, but also be bold. Don’t live in fear, we’re all dead eventually.
I internalized a lot of rhetoric from other people that I simply had to accept myself or feel comfortable with a narrative of being "natural". Ultimately, after having a breakdown and taking effort to change my body/appearance did that prescribed self-acceptance finally happen. It just didn't happen on other people's terms.
The biggest takeaway I learned was not to lie to myself and not to accept other people's convictions too much. It was a lesson in individualism and boundaries.
You really dodged a bullet with this one. Kids right after high school? Not in this day and age.
Is there any relative that could keep her?
- Wasted a hell lot of time doing nothing meaningful.
- Held back myself, when I should not have.
Would probably have lost the wallet details anyway.
- I never had a honeymoon.
- I said a hurtful thing to someone a decade ago (she lost a son and I said something insensitive). The sort of thing you say when you don't have a good "filter" between your brain and your mouth.
- That back then, nobody told me I didn't have a good "filter".
I concentrated too much on minimizing long-term interest expense. I didn't think about how the money I was using to pay-down principal could have returned income over the long term. The real estate asset I was paying on hasn't appreciated at all in 20 years. I could have seen major investment returns on that money which would far exceed the interest expense I alleviated.