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My 17 rules for investing (regardless of the investment)

I love investing. Stocks, real estate, businesses, you name it.

Here are the 17 rules I invest by.

  1. Every investment has a return: Either money or education.
  2. Don’t be an investor: Be an engineer. Don’t invest in anything you can’t control (and learn the levers that will provide a return).
  3. Redefine your idea of risk.
  4. It’s impossible to completely derisk any investment.
  5. Invest primarily for cash flow.
  6. Define why you are going to invest in something. (For me, I almost always build my investment decisions around what a business’ sales funnel looks like.)
  7. Define what would make you sell it: List specific triggers with all possible exits.
  8. Do your due diligence.
  9. Become an expert in just a few things: You can’t fully diversify so instead go the other way and become an expert on a few things.
  10. There is no such thing as passive income.
  11. Reinvest a portion of your income into more investments.
  12. Be courageous — things will fluctuate.
  13. If you want to scale, you need a system.
  14. Master yourself and get comfortable with uncertainty.
  15. Be a contrarian.
  16. Decision, action, and commitment are the 3 qualities of an investor.
  17. There is no perfect time or perfect investment. There is only “pretty good right now for me.”