On... Survival Skill

The money is not the most important, the making of the money is. What does that mean? 

Having a stable job and accumulating wealth is a must for retirement, however the ability to make money is even more important. I can probably rely on my wife (who has a stable job) to keep us going and saving her salary to prepare for retirement. However, I feel that just gives me a false sense of security. Two things happened in my life that led me to think this way. 

I used to have a good paying and relatively stable job. At some point in time, I left that job and moved to Australia. At probably the worst time as the oil price tanked and I got laid off. My professional skill was not in demand anymore, which highlights just how fragile it is. 

I own two houses. One was wrecked by the tenants and the other got broken into. That shows how easily your wealth can be taken from you. 

So, I had money before and was building my wealth. But wealth can disappear easily. My ability to accumulate wealth also easily disappeared due to the fragility of a white collar job. I never thought those things would happen to me. But it did. If you think you're safe and have your net worth stored up or your career is stable, then think again. It might be a false sense of security. 

The most important thing is to have the skills to make money. And it has to be robust if not anti fragile. As long as you have that, you need not fear losing your wealth or your job, because you know you can make money anytime. 

Winning a  million dollars in a lottery is relatively useless to me, because it can easily disappear. But the skills to make a million dollars - that's the most important. It's a survival skills I might need one day in case shit happens. And that is what trading is to me - a survival skill.