“What lesson did you learn as a child that has helped you through the investment challenges of recent years?”

It was the toughest lesson of my life and I still grapple with it today. But if I hadn’t learned it, I could never have become an investor at all.

As a kid, I had an issue with making decisions. My parents called it procrastination. I believed I just wanted to ensure I got the decision right.

Imagine every decision taking as long as those country independents took to decide who to back for government? Well … that was my way of doing everything. The Guinness Book of World Records listed me for “most number of decisions made in the last possible second” for calendar year 1982.

But the real issue was that I had psychological fear of getting decisions wrong. I found being wrong painful.

I had to learn from the Nike slogan: Just do it. Not even Warren Buffett gets every decision right.

How has this helped in recent years?

If you make the wrong decision, admit it to yourself. Stop the losses. Get out. Move on. Don’t beat yourself up. Plenty of people got it just as wrong as you did. Don’t be scared. Get ready to make your next investment decision.

Like father, like son. I’m now watching my genes impact on my son, Ned. Watching him choose his breakfast is cute, but agonising. Thankfully, I have the diagnosis. I’m going to save my Little Man a teenagehood of heartache.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser.