Barry shares three lessons he'd tell his 30-year-old self: invest consistently in diversified assets to compound wealth, set clear spending limits and give strategically, and treat health as wealth. He believes these principles still work if you start now.
If you were to go back to Barry, 30-year-old Barry, you know, you say, I want to share some nuggets of knowledge. If you wanted to go back 10 years, what are the top, let's say, 3 things, if it's more than 3, I'm quite happy to hear, that you'll be sharing to say, okay, this is what I'll do if I were to go back 10 years ago.
Yeah, all the same, uh, to put it in context, yes, I should have been consistent in, um, investing. And, uh, with the benefit of hindsight, that allocation, probably if I was doing £300, £400, £500 every month, that would have—
10 years, that would have been quite a significant compounding.
I've always believed in investing in myself.
Okay.
Uh, which I try to do. One other thing I think I should have probably enforced quite early would have been boundaries, um, or setting, ensuring that in my budget I ensure that fine, this is the allocation I'm going to give for this. Um, I've prioritized my health, I've prioritized, um, my finances, and I'm working things out. So my younger self would have been, uh, I don't have the crystal ball to say my younger self would have been a lot better than what I am today, but I'm grateful. Mm-hmm. Where I am. And I know very well, uh, with consistency and improvements—
Yes.
That I may not get back the 10 years, but I could do a lot, lot better, uh, from the knowledge base I have now done that and using all of these principles, uh, put— to put in place.
So one, you advise your younger self, you had to go back 10 years, Take care of— be consistent in investing because compounding is the game. Okay. So number 1, be consistent. And being able to do it consistently means you have to have clarity, the consistency, which could lead to compounding, consistently investing in high value companies, whether it's through a broad, well-diversified index fund. Number 2, you said you were going to set boundaries in terms of you're going to still be generous, but there will be strategic generosity. So you still give money, but maybe you might allocate 5%, 10% of your income is going for strategic generosity. That way you're not feeling guilty and you're still doing what you can without actually also crashing your own economy because you still need to grow this economy, your personal economy, to be helpful. And number 3, which is really helpful because a lot of people talk about money, um, not realizing that health is wealth. Mm-hmm.
