1. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, have a stomach for risk. "Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. It is a high-risk, high-reward proposition.
While we would typically encourage young people to start saving for the future as early as possible, it's unlikely that a budding entrepreneur will be able to do so," he said by email. "The entrepreneur will need every bit of capital available for the business, which will likely crowd out personal savings. This may not be prudent in the traditional sense, but it is necessary. The entrepreneur's business can be thought of as a highly risky, concentrated stock position. If it doesn't work out, you can be wiped out. But if it does work, the rewards can be "beyond the dreams of avarice."
2. "Work hard as hell. It doesn't hurt."
Be sure to work longer, harder and smarter. "That was the secret for Alexander Hamilton," he said. "That was the secret for me." He never mastered the idea of work/life balance, he acknowledged, remembering the first words he uttered when waking up from his heart transplant in 1996: "Can you get me a pencil and a pad?"
3. Find a company that is the right company, even if it is the wrong job for you.
"Once you get in the door, it will be a much wider opportunity," he said. While his career followed a mostly straight line from the founding of Vanguard in 1975 after he was fired from Wellington Funds, careers now, don't. "The world of technology has totally altered career paths," he said, by making it easier for people to start companies and for companies to replace workers.
4. When it comes to investing, get yourself on a routine.
The popularizer of index investing, Bogle suggested young people stick to low-fee index funds. Bogle suggested setting yourself up in a fund that is 75 percent invested in stocks — "get the stock market's return" — he said. After you're making regular contributions: "Never do anything. Don't open your damn statements. Don't peek. … These are the relentless rules of humble arithmetic." Someone contributing $500 a month for 45 years, earning 5 percent a year — roughly what Bogle suggested, though he didn't suggest an amount — would have nearly $1 million at the end.
5. Don't hire a financial advisor.
"Unless you need a financial advisor to help you get started in that routine, you probably don't need a financial advisor at all," he said, giving a nod of approval to, instead of a human advisor, hiring a low-cost robo-advisor to help you automate your investing. (Vanguard now offers such a service). "It's a personal choice. If you think you need a helping hand, then you do."
6. Stay in the game.
Citing George Bernard Shaw's life-force philosophy, Bogle told young people that he always had a determination to "get back into life to be part of life." Indeed, one of his surgeons said that he was placed on the transplant list at the relatively old age of 65 not because of who he was but more because of his will to live. "I recall a man … whose spirit was consistent with his approach to his career and life," said Dr. Louis Samuels. "He was fully invested."
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