Students today are a pretty solemn lot. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time.
So one of the great advantages that I had in my career is I started trading 24 hours a day in my early 20s, and I had to learn to delegate to people. I had to learn to trust people, and I realized that success was going to be born in hiring really bright people – very self-motivated, very able to make good judgment calls day in and day out. And if you look at Citadel today, that’s really the founding principle of the firm is a real pursuit of talent, a pursuit of people who have a passion for finance, and a pursuit of individuals who make good decisions day in and day out.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
