From grit to growth: A young investor’s journey to financial success

IMAGINE your financial life as a great journey across a vast continent. In your early years, you begin as a solo hiker, relying on your own physical strength, grit and stamina – your human capital. Your skills, ambition, and labour are the forces that propel you forward, allowing you to slowly ascend the mountains of your career and navigate its dark valleys.

At times, you may feel like a real-life Bear Grylls, surviving on your wits and tackling whatever the wilderness throws at you. You can only keep moving forward to cover vast distances, and your progress is always tied directly to the steps you personally take and the skills you sharpen along the way. Stop walking and your journey stops too.

Here’s the thing: hiking isn’t the only way to cross this continent. With every pay cheque, you have the chance to use some of that to not just help you walk, but also to lay down tracks for a future railroad. This is the gradual work of building your financial capital. For years, this railroad may not seem to progress or even feel as tangible and impactful as covering new ground with each step you take on foot.