When To Follow The Herd?

Play it safe

If you're not coming from a family with a strong financial knowledge, chances are you've been told to become something stable and secure that pays a lot. A doctor, a lawyer or perhaps in government/state positions.

Think about our parents for a second, of course they want the best for us.

But here's the thing: their best is compared to their experiences so far. And most of them followed the same herd of playing it safe.

I would call it luck that my parents did the opposite. They told me what not to become: neither of their roles. They only mentioned the part of finding a stable job.

The first time when I did not follow it

Until I got into high-school, I had no idea about what I wanted to be in life. I've had no aspirations. I remember that I was often saying there's enough time.

But the time to go pick a college came, and I finally said I want to become a programmer.

Said and done. There I was finishing the first college year of Computer Science, with 0 experience in real-life application as a programmer.

I don't know if this was globally, but at least in Romania, there was a very common problem: at the first job interviews after graduating the college, you were asked to have experience. Silly and unrealistic, but real.

Since I was afraid of getting stuck in this issue, I preferred for the first time not to follow the herd and decided to start adjacent, as a QA Tester, to gather some experience.

Not to confuse a safe role with a too niched one. A safe job teaches you skills that can be used in other jobs.

Looking back, seems very tough to do that again, as for 2.5 years I was between:

• College was between 8-18, with some windows, and sometimes with 3-4 hours a day;
• Working full time night shift from Monday to Friday, from 6.30pm to 2am;
• Trained 5 days a week in the gym.

Was it worth it? I'd say yes, as I accomplished my why. Two months after graduation, I got a new position as an Automation Engineer, which brought me to Java.

I followed and unfollowed it

I'll give you one more concrete example. I'm sure you've heard about Crypto space.

In 2021, while it was getting so much traction, that meant the herd was going into Crypto. So did I along with them.

After a lot of YouTube videos and some paid courses, I've got confident with investing it with the DCA strategy (a certain amount of money investing every month no matter how the market looks like).

So I was in with the herd. But when the market started to crash, most people sold almost everything as fast as possible, as the stress of seeing the wallet going down was too much.

I'll be honest, it was tough for me as well to deal with not doing the same. And I did it, I've sold nothing up until this moment.

So finding your balance is key to everything. Just feel when you need to start or stop doing what the majority is.

So.. is it a good thing?

There's a lot of talk about always avoid what the herd is doing. But what if you're on the same page with it? Then the problem arises, because you will avoid your thing only because "the herd" is doing it.

From my experience, following the herd depends so much on what the herd is about, that can either push you forward or draw you back.

There is no good or bad, it is about how good or how bad.

Is that herd on the same path as yours? If yes, there's no reason to do otherwise. By the way, you can change your actions at any time, won't be a one-time decision.

You can even follow it partially until you feel it's worth it, and switch it doing it your way afterwards.

Until the next letter, I wish you success in everything you're up to!