Never Let Anyone Tell You That You Can’t Do Something Because You Lack “Proper Experience”

I played football all the way from age 8 to 16, mainly quarterback, wide receiver, running back, and cornerback.

And while I’m a small guy I never let anyone push me around growing up or now.

I remember one time in our 9th grade – freshman football game – this giant kid who was about 1 foot taller and 100 pounds bigger than me, had a hard cast on his arm that he kept using like a weapon to hit people with after the plays were blown dead.

After hitting me and several of my teammates in the head, ribs, back with his hard cast after the play was over, I had it…

After telling our coaches, the opposing coaches, and the referees each multiple times what he was doing and that it needed to stop, I went up to one of the referees after the most recent time and said if they don’t put a stop to it and he does it again, we’re going to handle it.

Of course, no one stopped it and he did it again.

I was 10 yards away from him when I saw he late hit one of my teammates again with his hard cast… I lost it.

Instead of thinking that this guy is huge and outweighs me by more than 100 pounds I got into a full sprint and tackled him to the ground and started screaming and cussing at him.

The kid looked terrified when I finally let him up after the refs and my teammates pulled me from him.

I got kicked out of the game… The only time I was ever kicked out of a game but he didn’t do that to anyone else the rest of the game so I was proud of my decision to stand up for my teammates and myself in that situation.

I’m an extremely – often overly nice – and polite person.

But I’m also extremely competitive and loyal and don’t take shit from anyone.

And just because I’m polite and nice doesn’t mean I shirk from a challenge or haters or bullies.

I’ve never been afraid to stand up for myself and others I care about as illustrated by the story above.

So when someone told me last week in response to my posting that I was getting the itch to write the second edition of How To Value Invest, “Jason Rivera shouldn’t have wrote his book with only 5 years of experience, he should have waited until he had 10 years of experience or more”, I had to respond.

For context here is the entire conversation, with the person’s picture and name removed and then my polite response with a slight smart ass remark and proof at the bottom.

Person’s Response to me stating I’m getting the itch to write the second edition of my book…

Jason Rivera has been just 5 years investing, when he wrote his book. It is too short practice for a book. He should invest at least 10 years, before he wrote his book.

My response

I disagree, obviously since I wrote the book 😉

But why?

I wrote the book to help others like myself, who either can’t – like me due to health issues – or don’t want to go to college to learn these skills.

I’m a huge believer in sharing knowledge to help people learn valuable skills that can change lives.

If someone knows what they’re doing, is doing it well, and is willing to help other people what does it matter how much experience they have?

And as of today, I know and can prove the book’s principles work because in the first six years of my career, I’ve produced higher returns than the great Warren Buffett did in the first six years of his career.

Does this mean others will have these same results. No, but I never say that. I say if you continue learning and implement what I teach, you will become a better investor than most “professional” and non – professional investors.

And I can actually back up my results since I publish my performance yearly on my blog which can be seen here as of the end of 2017. {My note added here – and I forgot to mention now with students, clients, and coaching members results.}

https://www.valueinvestingjourney.com/…/2017-performance…/

Just because someone isn’t “formally” educated or has “normal” experience, doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing and can do that well. Or even better than 99% of others in the world.

***

Because I’m a bit of a smart ass I threw in those few factual jabs toward the end.

Shocker… He didn’t respond back.

Haters used to bother me a lot but not much anymore.

So if haters don’t bother me why am I sharing this with you today?

Because I want to tell you to never let anyone tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t do something because you lack their definition of “proper experience.”

If you can do something well, help others, and back up your results with facts, go for it.

For my full thoughts on this, I also included a Facebook Live video I did last week talking more about this.

Keep reaching for your goals and dreams and don’t let haters bother you or say you can’t or shouldn’t do something.

When they say that they’re talking more about themselves than you anyways.

What is something a hater said to you before? How did you deal with that? Let me know in the comments below.

I hope this helps,

Jason

P.S. While I contemplate writing the second edition of How To Value Invest, you can get a FREE copy here, right now of the first edition.

P.P.S. If you’d like to learn how to value and evaluate businesses like a world-class investor check out our three programs that can help you do this…

Our Value Investing Training Vault, our Value Investing Masterclass, and our $10,000 Coaching Program.