BIO: Pia Singh is a Business Growth Strategist with 15+ years of experience in helping companies find ways to save on the bottom line and drive topline growth. She is a recognized Growth Strategist with excellent strategic planning capabilities.
STORY: Pia invested a substantial amount of her wedding money in a friend’s business. She lost everything she had invested and had to take a loan to pay for her wedding.
LEARNING: There are no shortcuts in investing; you must do your due diligence to succeed. Don’t make a rash investment decision without doing your research. Mistakes are inevitable, so be prepared.
“We make bad decisions all the time, and that’s okay.”
Pia Singh
Guest profile
Pia Singh is a Business Growth Strategist with 15+ years of experience in helping companies find ways to save on the bottom line and drive topline growth. She is a recognized Growth Strategist with excellent strategic planning capabilities.
She is a part of 2 World Records in Training and Business Growth and has authored four books on business startups and scaleups.
Nowadays, Pia is applying years of experience to build a Brain Health Company - The MindSmith.
Worst investment ever
Pia was 29 and was supposed to get married in about three to four months. Her parents went on and on about everything they needed to do for the wedding. The wedding planning got out of hand and out of budget. Pia started thinking of what she could do to help her parents.
One of Pia’s very good friends and her ex-colleague contacted her out of the blue and told her of a business she was building. The friend wanted Pia to be a part of it.
Pia met her friend, who showed her the business plan. It looked like a beautiful plan. It was all on paper; the numbers were all there, and they were achievable. Pia believed the business would give her good money in the next three to four months—which she badly needed for her wedding.
Pia pulled a substantial amount out of the funds kept for her wedding and invested in her friend’s business. Pia tried to apply all the processes to make money from the business, but four months later, she had not made any money. It was almost time for her wedding, and Pia didn’t have enough money saved. She had to take a loan to compensate for the funds she withdrew to invest in the business.
Pia eventually gave up on the business and had to pay the bank loan out of pocket. Pia experienced a double loss; the amount she invested in the company and the interest she paid for the loan.
Lessons learned
- There are no shortcuts in investing; you must do your due diligence to succeed.
- Before you invest in any business, talk to as many people as possible within that industry to see if this has been done before and if it’s viable.
- Pick the brains of the experts you have in your community so you can learn from their mistakes.
- Let the experts do their work if you lack expertise in a particular area.
Andrew’s takeaways
- Don’t make a rash investment decision without doing your research.
- Good things can happen to you through luck. But you can’t build a life around chance.
- Nothing good comes easy. And if you see something really good coming easy, start asking questions.
- Set up a process.
- Mistakes are inevitable, so be prepared.
Actionable advice
Do your research because nothing speaks to success more than the efforts that you’ve put in. If you have experts around you, talk to them. If you don’t know about something, and you want to get into it, talk to at least 20 people from different geographies and directions who are involved with that sort of thing, who have tried it, to understand what it takes to succeed.
Pia’s recommendations
Pia recommends subscribing to her MindSmith LinkedIn page to access resources and monthly lives on various topics such as self-esteem. You’ll also find tips and tricks, so you don’t have to wait for an appointment with a doctor or an expert.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Pia’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to build a task force across India that will ensure people are trained in primary healthcare so they can identify and refer people to get treatment before it gets out of hand.
Parting words
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”
Pia Singh
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