Mistakes make you wise. No — just poor.

Mistakes make you wise. Wise is not rich.

On every stage there is someone explaining how valuable their failure was. By now I consider that a story that makes losses look pretty after the fact.

My most expensive mistake was not the one I took it for for a long time.

In 2006 I gave investors voting shares. They used their say to secure their distributions, not to move the company forward.

That was the wrong decision. But it was not the problem.

The problem was that it took me ten years to do something about it.

I did not say clearly what I expected. I did not draw the consequences. I came to terms with it and kept working.

Ten years. I cannot buy them back.

And here is the point I care about: I did not learn the lesson through the mistake. I knew it before. Capital and control are two things — it is in every textbook.

Experience did not give me knowledge. It only cost me money and time to confirm what I could have read.

• Knowledge is cheap. Experience is the most expensive way to learn the same thing.
• The real loss lies between recognising and acting. For me, it was ten years.
• You do not get rich by failing. You get rich by executing, persevering and having the courage to be uncomfortable.

What have you known for years without acting on it?