Earlywood: Take My Advice, I’m Not Using It

Publisher’s note: Happy Saturday, happy Earlywood, a free excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes, it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog entry published in 2017. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. We hope you enjoy it.

One year, years ago, I had three distressing encounters with teenagers in my classes and lectures. At the end of the event, the teens came up and said: “I want to be you when I grow up.” And then they asked a terrifying question: “How do I get to where you are?”

I hate to give advice. But I also hate to be a jerk. And so I gave some after-school-special answer about working hard and never listening to adults.

The honest answer is: Become a hedge fund manager for five years, make more money than I will in a lifetime and “retire” to building furniture for clients and writing about woodworking.

As we don’t need more hedge fund managers, here is a list of things I…