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What was your biggest missed opportunity?
- Thread starter subpar spatula
- Start date
I came to post this EXACT thing. In 2011 I got some BitCoin to buy some LSD off the silk road. To split the risk, I had it sent to my house, my friend got the coin and did the transaction. He had a tiny bit left over, and years later he emailed me saying like, "I cashed in that Bitcoin I forgot about for like 2 grand!!!"
It would have been worth tens if not hundreds of thousands if he'd waited, and believe me I would not have cashed it in quickly if the roles were reversed.
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Holding my Bitcoin for longer. I actually had 150 - mined them myself a couple days after Slashdot first covered the new system way back when (back when CPU mining wasn't just possible, but the only way to mine since GPU and ASIC miners hadn't been created yet). I sold them a few years later for $12 each and bought a gaming PC - if I had sold at the peak I would have had over $2M.
OP
OP
Yeah, I remember my first job, my friend was talking about it. We actually bought... a lot. His PC bricked and we tossed it and basically gave up on it. Then when the thing hit high we were like, "damn". But we OK financially so it never really mattered but my god. Even bought in a little when it started to sky rocket.
I sold off a lot of Magic the Gathering cards back in 1996 around Ice Age coming out. While a few of the ones I had were certainly fakes with gold borders, I know for a fact that me and my dad own some of the moxes and the black lotus. Sold them all for a couple hundred dollars.
I'd love to say this but I'm still unaware if anyone felt that way.
Ha, I can resonate with this. I was terrible about reading those kinds of signals.
BitcoIn. I literally could be rich.
I had all of the hardware required back in the early days where you could actually get a decent chunk if you mined. I fumbled, got annoyed on setting up the wallet, and walked away. Given my personality type, I would've been the type of person to see it as not real money and would've left it there for years, forgetting about it until I found out the outrageous prices it was selling for.
Then I would've struggled to remember my password for a few days before logging into my wallet and cashing the fuck out.
I had all of the hardware required back in the early days where you could actually get a decent chunk if you mined. I fumbled, got annoyed on setting up the wallet, and walked away. Given my personality type, I would've been the type of person to see it as not real money and would've left it there for years, forgetting about it until I found out the outrageous prices it was selling for.
Then I would've struggled to remember my password for a few days before logging into my wallet and cashing the fuck out.
Bitcoin and not getting into property earlier.
My brother in law offered to get a joint mortgage with me when I was 18 so we could start a property portfolio. M dumb ass said no, he is now a multi millionaire who is basically retired at 45.
I did start investing in property but not until I was 28 so I missed out on 10 years.
My brother in law offered to get a joint mortgage with me when I was 18 so we could start a property portfolio. M dumb ass said no, he is now a multi millionaire who is basically retired at 45.
I did start investing in property but not until I was 28 so I missed out on 10 years.
I passed on the opportunity to pursue licensing Marvel characters for videogames in 2007 because, while they had a large roster of characters, they weren't very well known.
Bitcoin in 2012 when a friend told me he bought half a bitcoin for the lolz.
Apple Stock in 2004/2005. I asked my father if he would be willing to buy me apple stock for Christmas/birthday because I was not 18 yet. He said no because his colleagues told him apple is shit and doomed, the hate boner against apple in germany is huge lol.
And one sexual thing.
Apple Stock in 2004/2005. I asked my father if he would be willing to buy me apple stock for Christmas/birthday because I was not 18 yet. He said no because his colleagues told him apple is shit and doomed, the hate boner against apple in germany is huge lol.
And one sexual thing.
Buying bitcoin is an obvious number 1. I knew about bitcoin and crypto-currencies in 2013, but I thought it was only used for buying drugs or illegal things on the dark web. I didn't think they were worth anything special at the time....I was so wrong. Even when it was starting to blow up I didn't really jump on the hype-train until 2017. Such a loss.
Number 2 would be hooking up with girls in my teenage years when I had the chance. Looking back on it I can't believe how many girls from middle school / high school used to talk to me, flirt with me, pass notes to me and even hug me in class. But of course I was too naive, immature and sheltered to connect with them outside of school, or really just date them or do anything meaningful with our relationships.
Number 2 would be hooking up with girls in my teenage years when I had the chance. Looking back on it I can't believe how many girls from middle school / high school used to talk to me, flirt with me, pass notes to me and even hug me in class. But of course I was too naive, immature and sheltered to connect with them outside of school, or really just date them or do anything meaningful with our relationships.
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Could've stayed at my original college and paid a lot less for my education, stuck with the original major I declared and probably have a more fruitful career, and generally been more well off.
I went from living in a pretty big metro area growing up to a remote mountain town for my first couple of years of college. Being only 18 when I left made me kinda bratty about how much smaller scale and un-city-like the lifestyle change was. If I had gone there with my current 30-something mentality, I'd find it quite serene, and I wish I could've just chilled out instead of transferring to state college and paying so much more and settling on an un-useful major.
I was an Environmental Studies major there, which just generally dealt with ecosystem science. I transferred to a big state college and majored in English instead.
I went from living in a pretty big metro area growing up to a remote mountain town for my first couple of years of college. Being only 18 when I left made me kinda bratty about how much smaller scale and un-city-like the lifestyle change was. If I had gone there with my current 30-something mentality, I'd find it quite serene, and I wish I could've just chilled out instead of transferring to state college and paying so much more and settling on an un-useful major.
I was an Environmental Studies major there, which just generally dealt with ecosystem science. I transferred to a big state college and majored in English instead.
Got an offer in Aus to work in LA in '98 and didn't take it due to loyalty to coworkers. Didn't make it over here 'til '07. A few missed opportunities to move to and work in Japan for various reasons in the mix too. Whatevs, such is life, and life has been pretty good to me.
I thought about buying shares in Oculus way back before the first consumer edition had come out and never did. Whoops.
The acquisitions editor for National Lampoon approached me to write a book, so I wrote up a pitch and sample chapter to submit. It made it to the very end of the process before they decided against it, but the editor liked it and gave me a whole list of agents to contact and tell that she had referred me.
Never followed up with a single one of them. My heart wasn't actually very into the project, but today serious writer me would pounce on that opportunity regardless, just to see my name in print.
Never followed up with a single one of them. My heart wasn't actually very into the project, but today serious writer me would pounce on that opportunity regardless, just to see my name in print.
Everybody can think bitcoin, but you'd need to actually think at the time that bitcoin had the possibility of being a big investment for it to be a missed opportunity. Not a lot of people believed that bitcoin was going to be a good investment.
I would say investing in general. I could have invested more when I was a younger. Stocks, ETF's, whatever. At the time, it was fairly obvious that investing for retirement was going to be profitable. Instead I bought stupid stuff that really didn't provide a lot of pleasure anyway. Wasting money instead of investing was a missed opportunity.
I would say investing in general. I could have invested more when I was a younger. Stocks, ETF's, whatever. At the time, it was fairly obvious that investing for retirement was going to be profitable. Instead I bought stupid stuff that really didn't provide a lot of pleasure anyway. Wasting money instead of investing was a missed opportunity.
I missed a lot of dates with chicks and blew a bunch of booty calls because I'd rather play WoW or drink with my buds.
Fuck. Me.
Fuck. Me.
Talking my parents into taking me out of public school and homeschooling me when I was 12 years old. (They were already preparing to do so with my brother.) Fucked up my life, biggest mistake I ever made or probably ever will make.
I imagine this must be nearly everyone's answer. Could have bought a ton for dirt cheap when I first heard of it, but dismissed it as a libertarian wet dream that would just fade into obscurity along with my money.
Whoops.
I begged my parents to buy Amazon stock in 1999 and they told me I could make my own investments when I was 18.
Honestly I think if I had lucked into a huge sum of money via bitcoin or stock it would have ruined my life.
Honestly I think if I had lucked into a huge sum of money via bitcoin or stock it would have ruined my life.
I mean coin is too easy an answer, so I'll say not taking management position at my last job, instead moving to an equally low paying one. It was partially fear, partially feeling I wasn't paid enough, and mostly depression blaming that place for my mental state. People there rocked. I really don't like where I'm at now one bit, am making no more than I would have made there after two months from when I quit (they guaranteed me a two part raise), and have somehow been stuck in this hellhole for over a year now. I was at the last job for eight months.
Yeah, don't take that role you were already basically doing, 2019 Chris. Don't listen to literally all of your management and most employees saying you should take the position to make more while actually physically working less. Move to another store making fifty more cents immediately, that'll fix everything. Oh also the people at new store are by and large not good and cause stress and anxiety.
If I could go back just one year and tell myself then, "just ask for less work days for a while, it will help you so much and the people here make the job so much better than what you're thinking of doing," I would
Yeah, don't take that role you were already basically doing, 2019 Chris. Don't listen to literally all of your management and most employees saying you should take the position to make more while actually physically working less. Move to another store making fifty more cents immediately, that'll fix everything. Oh also the people at new store are by and large not good and cause stress and anxiety.
If I could go back just one year and tell myself then, "just ask for less work days for a while, it will help you so much and the people here make the job so much better than what you're thinking of doing," I would
My parents paid for my college but I was super immature and was only focused on my fraternity (ha) and chasing tail. Was there for like 5 years and hardly have anything to show for it except a giant bill for my folks... (and it was a private university in Tx..)
Theyve never held it against me but I still harbor some self hate for it and the older I get it, the more I regret it. sigh
Theyve never held it against me but I still harbor some self hate for it and the older I get it, the more I regret it. sigh
I will never know if girls liked me because there was a fine line bewteen teasing and flirting and coming from a all guys technical school I could not deal with girls, I paniced around them.
I missed out on Bitcoin in 2011 because I had a shitty laptop back then (AMD APU) and thought I couldn't mine enough with it (just mining like 5 bitcoins back then means I would have been able to retire early, fuck). This was before ASICS came into the picture so I still had a chance.
My next missed opportunity was not buying AMD stock back when it was ~$3 in 2012 (I was a broke college student back then so this was understandable).
My next missed opportunity was not buying AMD stock back when it was ~$3 in 2012 (I was a broke college student back then so this was understandable).
Going to college instead of trade school. Id be so much further ahead in life right now had I went with my gut instead of indoctrination.
Hey, it could be worse. You could have bought a lot of bitcoin, and then spent all that bitcoin on drugs.
I spent all but the last semester (this one) of my college years in a state of extreme depression and suicidal anxiety. I attack myself a lot for not doing enough or that I had to spend all this time in constant survival mode. Made no friends, no business contacts, had no adventures, created nothing, and just did a bunch of self harm. I know that I shouldn't beat myself up for having mental illness, but I feel so wretched about these four years.
I had Apple stock in the early 2000s. I rode the wave of the iPod and made a nice profit. Had I held on to my shares, I could have retired long ago.
My biggest "mistake" that wasn't an omission (eg crypto, I never even thought about it) was not making friends in college. I spent half or more of college on forums and actively alienated myself from people.
Not my biggest but I regret throwing away my Yugioh cards. I had the original deck and the Egyptian Gods, it's worth hundreds now.
-Maybe bitcoin but I was only in middleschool when it was introduced haha
-Didn't say hi to that cute girl that kept eyeballing me at the gym for almost 2 years (i came across her insta and she's a model figure haha)
-Shouldn't have quit the tryouts in my local football team last year. Was unmotivated by some cocky ass kid and now I felt that i could've done better. Season is probably cancelled anyways due to the pandemic. If it weren't for the pandemic and I stayed, i could've traveled to England for tryouts.
-Shouldn't have friendzone my friend back in HS. She was into me. oooopies
-Maybe I should've said hi to the OTHER cute girl that kept eyeballing me too.... yea i'm too dumb when it comes to women hahaha.
-Didn't say hi to that cute girl that kept eyeballing me at the gym for almost 2 years (i came across her insta and she's a model figure haha)
-Shouldn't have quit the tryouts in my local football team last year. Was unmotivated by some cocky ass kid and now I felt that i could've done better. Season is probably cancelled anyways due to the pandemic. If it weren't for the pandemic and I stayed, i could've traveled to England for tryouts.
-Shouldn't have friendzone my friend back in HS. She was into me. oooopies
-Maybe I should've said hi to the OTHER cute girl that kept eyeballing me too.... yea i'm too dumb when it comes to women hahaha.
Same here. I was so dense in high school. Looking back I realized there were several girls who were obviously into me.