The Colossal Fail: How a Hard Landing Can Make You a Better Investor:
When I was 16 years old, I aspired to become an airline pilot. Using the money I’d earned from a week of bagging groceries, I took one flying lesson a week at our local airport after school. Learning to land an airplane was an incredible experience. After you complete your first unassisted landing, you feel like you are at the top of your game. One day, my instructor set up the airplane on final approach to the runway. He intentionally set up the plane so that we came in too low with an airspeed that was too slow. It’s a condition called “being behind the power curve”—a concept I had not yet been introduced to. “You have the airplane,” my instructor told me. It was time for me to take over the controls and complete the landing. Related: 3 Things All Rookie Investors Need Before Diving Into Real Estate As I crossed the runway threshold I cut the throttle, just as I had done on every other landing (not that I had done many in my whopping five hours of experience). An...