It’s very easy to let anxiety rule you. And when anxiety rules you, it rules your decisions, too. When I worried about money, I made decisions that were ruled by fear. And, almost always, decisions ruled by fear and anxiety are bad ones. What kinds of decisions? Mainly, I stayed still when I should have moved. I turned down the opportunity to buy my condo and kept renting, missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in property value increase. I let my 401k do all of my investing work, never taking charge of where my money was going, despite being a passionate tech geek who knew more about the market than I was giving myself credit. And I didn’t put enough of my money into investing portfolios. I was too afraid of having my money non-liquid. I wanted to have as much as possible ready to go at any moment. But this, too, was preventing me from making money from my money. When I look back, I missed out on a fortune because of fear. But here’s how I stopped worrying and learned to love investing, in three easy steps. I looked at the long run Investing for retirement—which is what most of us are aiming for, I’d imagine—is playing the long game. Whether you’re starting out at 25 or 45, we’re still talking about letting your money accrue over decades. When I started to view investing this way—as something that was not just an investment in the conventional sense, but an investment in my self, in my future, my health, my retirement, it started to make more sense to me. 2) I learned more about compound interest Albert Einstein once said, ““Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it.”” Let me give you an example of the power of compound interest: If you start with $6,000 in your IRA and invest the maximum, $6,000, every year for 40 years you’ll end up a millionaire. And that’s with a conservative return estimate of 6%. Without compound interest? That million shrinks to $240,000. Compound interest is like a superpower—are you going to utilize it? 3) I Started Investing With Other People’s Money Because I was afraid of money—specifically, losing it—I was afraid of investing my own into the stock market. I didn’t know what I was doing well enough. Then I learned I could invest with other people’s money. There are many prop traders that let you use their capital to invest, but I chose Try2BFunded because it gave me the most opportunity and the most money. Let me explain: after opening an account with Try2BFunded I had to prove myself. Over the course of 6 weeks, I learned how to trade, how to invest, and how to balance risk. Once I’d made it past the first round, I was given access to $100,000 to invest with. With the growth of the $100,000, I was able to take home 60% of the profits. Finally, I was making money off an institution instead of them making money off me.