8 financial titans share their advice for young people on how to succeed at work and in life

• Financial tycoons shared their advice for young people to succeed at work and in life.

• Billionaires Leon Cooperman, Jeff Greene, and John Calamos said passion and hard work are vital.

• Kevin O’Leary, Nassim Taleb, and Ross Gerber said they need to be responsible and disciplined.

Between foreign wars, political division, an affordability crisis, and AI replacing workers, many young people fear they’ll never have the careers or lives they imagined.

Business Insider asked eight financial tycoons for advice on how they can get ahead.

Leon Cooperman

Passion is the fuel for a long and successful career, Leon Cooperman said.

“Love what you do — it’s too demanding and difficult not to,” said the billionaire investor and former chief of Goldman Sachs’ asset management division.

“Pursue it with a passion,” Cooperman added, saying that he enjoyed his 25 years at Goldman so much that it never felt like work.

Kevin O’Leary

Narrow your focus, learn to listen, and start investing early, Kevin O’Leary said.

Young workers should pick the three most important things they need to get done each day, and not allow anything to distract them from completing them, the “Shark Tank” investor said.

Doing this will make you “a very valued employee,” he said.

Entrepreneurs often talk too much, instead of listening, O’Leary said.

“You have to learn how to shut up,” he said, adding that listening is a “superpower” that enables you to anticipate problems and address them.

The business tycoon known as “Mr. Wonderful” also urged young people to invest their savings into a balanced portfolio.

“Start in your late 20s, and you’re retired at 65,” O’Leary said, adding they’ll have “millions of dollars in the bank” if historical market returns continue.

Burton Malkiel

When choosing a career, young people should “be flexible and realize that you could very well change your mind,” Burton Malkiel said.

“Don’t close off any opportunities,” advised Wealthfront’s chief investor and the author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” adding that unexpected detours can make life “richer.”

The former Princeton economics professor, advisor to President Gerald Ford, investment banker, and US Army lieutenant encouraged young people to “put a little aside each week” and invest it in a diversified portfolio of index funds and similar assets.

“You will be very happy that you did later in life,” Malkiel said.

John Rogers

“Build your career around areas that you love to read about and study and think about,” John Rogers said.

The founder, co-CEO, and chief investment officer of Ariel Investments, a $14 billion asset manager, said he tells college and graduate students to nurture their relationships.

“When you meet really smart and thoughtful and ethical and honest people, keep those relationships alive for your career,” he said, underlining the value of having trusted advisors.

Rogers, a former captain of Princeton University’s men’s basketball team, also urged young people to “show up as a good teammate” and honor their commitments.

When people “know they can count on you, that you’re going to deliver on time and not make excuses,” he said, “success follows and you get more and more responsibility, more and more opportunity.”

Jeff Greene

“Love what you do,” Jeff Greene said. “You have to follow your passions.”

“If you find something that you’re good at in life, and you enjoy it, then you’ll want to do it more, and you’ll want to do it better,” the real estate billionaire added.

Sticking with something you really enjoy should mean “you’ll be more inclined to put in the extra energy,” he added.

Ross Gerber

Every generation of young people faces challenges, Ross Gerber said.

“When I was a kid, the cost of housing was high, and interest rates were 7.5% on a mortgage, and there was an earthquake in LA, and you couldn’t get a job,” he said.

The CEO and cofounder of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, a $3 billion asset manager, underscored how cheap and easy it is to start an online business, and hailed the wealth of career opportunities created by the AI boom.

“This couldn’t be a more abundant and opportune time to be a young person,” Gerber said. College students who “apply some skills and work hard for a few years” can earn six figures, and people without a college degree can earn the same as electricians or plumbers, trades he said were “just killing it.”

Gerber said it’s vital for kids to pay attention in class, build social networks at school, and learn from their parents and peers, as many are growing up with a “complete false expectation of reality.”

“They don’t have a trade or a skill other than playing Roblox, and then they come into work and they’re all entitled, thinking that work is a four-hour-a-day job and then they can work from home,” Gerber said.

John Calamos

Young people shouldn’t expect success to be handed to them, John Calamos said.

“You don’t get out of school now and say, ‘OK, what is the government going to give me?'” said the founder of Calamos Investments, a $40 billion asset manager. “It’s not what the government’s going to give you, it’s what you can do.”

Calamos, a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, added that being creative, determined, and setting goals are key to achieving great things.

Nassim Taleb

Previous generations have done better than their parents, but that’s no longer the case for many young people, Nassim Nicholas Taleb said.

The author of “The Black Swan” and former hedge fund manager advised developing “essential” skills that are harder for AI to replace, such as gardening, nursing, cooking, plumbing, and masonry.

He championed exercise, saying that many people with sedentary jobs don’t do enough to support their long-term health. He also said it’s vital to have the “discipline to stick to what you promise you’re going to do, and do it in the best possible way.”

Taleb added that success was “looking at yourself in the mirror and not being ashamed,” and that this spans not just wealth and career but also ethics, family, community, and providing value to others.

Read the original article on Business Insider