Over the past 30 years, the S&P 500 index has generated a total return of 1,770% (as of June 5). That performance supports the view that the stock market is one of the best asset classes for growing your wealth. A starting sum of $10,000 in this benchmark in June 1996 would be worth $187,000 today. The gains have been even more remarkable over the past decade.

Understanding that this kind of performance can have a profound impact on your financial well-being, it might be time for new investors to direct some of their savings into the stock market. Given how daunting it might seem, it can be difficult to figure out where to even begin.

Here’s where Warren Buffett comes into the picture. The great investor is also a wonderful educator whose advice is well worth considering. If you’re new to the stock market this month, listen to the Oracle of Omaha’s suggestion.

WARREN BUFFETT ERA ENDS AFTER 60 YEARS AS CEO WITH GREG ABEL TAKING OVER

Keep it simple

Buffett is known for his exceptional capital allocation skills, having compounded Berkshire Hathaway’s share price at a yearly clip of almost 20% for six decades before stepping down as CEO at the end of last year. But his advice for most investors is surprisingly simple. He basically recommends buying a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.

This perspective probably comes from the fact that the average person doesn’t have the time, ability or desire to want to pick individual stocks and manage a portfolio. And it stems from the inability of expert fund managers to beat the market.

THIS SECTOR HAS DOMINATED ETF RETURNS SO FAR IN 2026

Active management strategies generally have a bad track record. Data shows that the vast majority of large-cap fund managers lose to the S&P 500 over the long term. Whether these professionals trade too often, charge high fees or just aren’t adept portfolio managers, that is a very disappointing statistic. And it makes you wonder why more investors don’t choose the passive route.

Consider this popular exchange-traded fund

One of the best options is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. It comes with an extremely low expense ratio of 0.03%. Over several years and decades, investors will pay a significantly smaller amount than what active managers typically charge. The difference leaves more money in your pocket.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
VOO	VANGUARD S&P 500 ETF – USD DIS	677.70	-1.98	-0.29%

This ETF tracks the S&P 500 index, so its holdings match the benchmark. The top five holdings are Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, clearly showing a strong position within the information technology sector. Investors will…

Most people have a relatively consistent wakeup time. Fewer have a set bedtime, which could be the reason you feel lacking in free time during the day, says author and time management expert Laura Vanderkam.

The logic works like this: Without consistent sleep habits, most people can be generally productive but struggle to stay consistently focused all day, every day. Without consistent focus, your task list can build up, leading you to frantically rush to get things done. And when you’re rushing, you make mistakes. Now the time you intended on saving is being spent backtracking or playing catch up.

“The problem is that people will get enough sleep over the course of a week overall, but it’s very disordered,” says Vanderkam, who’s written eight books about time management. “One night, you’re staying up too late and getting up too early in the morning. The next night, somebody’s crashing on the couch … and weekends are all over the map.”

In spring 2021, Vanderkam surveyed over 150 participants who spent nine weeks implementing nine preset rules for productivity, including sticking to a consistent bedtime. “One of the people in my study called [setting a bedtime] the least sexy, but the most impactful rule of all of them,” says Vanderkam.

A July 2025 study published to Nature, a peer-reviewed medical journal, came to a similar conclusion. Researchers observed over 79,000 working adults in Japan and found that irregular bedtimes were linked to lower productivity and more disengagement at work.

A bedtime “gives shape to the entire day,” Vanderkam says, adding that it helps you know how many hours you have to work with each day, which helps you schedule your time more effectively. “We know the day has a beginning — people are a lot fuzzier on this notion that each day has an end, but it does. And everything you’re going to do has to fit within that time. It’s kind of a puzzle.”

Vanderkam set an 11 p.m. bedtime for herself years ago, and says the routine “allows me to make more rational choices about what is actually going to fit in my day.”

Disordered sleep can also negatively impact your circadian rhythm, or your body’s innate sleep-wake pattern, Rachel Salas, a sleep neurologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, told CNBC Make It in July 2022. To find yours, observe what time your body naturally wakes up without an alarm for a few days, and make 30-minute adjustments if you need to, Salas recommended.

“Sleep is a basic human need, and a lot is at stake if we don’t get enough of it: our cognition, our memory, our digestion,” said Salas. “I can’t think of one thing sleep isn’t important for.”

Most adults need around seven hours of sleep per night, according to the Mayo Clinic, but sleep experts typically say that each person tends to need a different amount. Once you determine how much sleep helps you feel mentally sharp each day, use that figure to reverse-engineer your ideal bedtime, Vanderkam advises.

“Look at what time you have to wake…

Bobbie CEO Laura Modi has a nightly ritual that helps her stay confident while running her baby formula business, she said in an Oct. 7 episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast.

Every night, Modi does a “personal and professional check-in,” and mentally ranks her day on a scale of one to five from both perspectives, she said. The routine helps her reflect and process her feelings as she gets ready for bed, she added.

“There’s moments where you have to take the internal check-in and remind yourself that you’re being human, that’s OK, and then put your thick skin back on,” said Modi.

Modi, a former director of host operations at Airbnb, quit her job to co-found Bobbie in 2018. After having her first child two years earlier, she was frustrated by ingredients found in typical baby formulas, she told CNBC Make It in July 2023. The company, which sells organic U.S.-made baby formula, brings in an estimated $64.84 million per year in revenue and has raised approximately $185.01 million in total equity funding, according to FactSet.

While Modi has always had thick skin, she said, her nightly check-ins help her celebrate her wins and recover from rough days while growing her company and raising her family, she said.

“I think sometimes you have to regulate your feelings and emotions on a wild ride, personally and professionally,” said Modi, now the mother of four children. “The good months or the good years come and go [and] the daily moments just allow me to stay focused and grounded.”

Former Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg had a similar emotional regulation habit while at the helm of company, which he ran for seven years before leaving the role in October. Each morning, he’d rank his mood on a scale of one to 10 to help him get in the “right mood and right energy” to lead the business, he said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2023.

His sweet spot was when he felt he between three and seven, he said: That meant he felt “energized” and able to work and collaborate at high level. If he felt any lower, he usually secluded himself in his office until he was in a better headspace to work with others, he added.

Learning how to regulate your emotions is a form of emotional intelligence, or emotional quotient (EQ), that all leaders need to master, leadership expert Scott Mautz wrote for CNBC Make It in July 2024. Reflecting on your missteps and successes, in particular, can help you build your mental strength, he wrote.

“Mentally strong people understand that we’re defined not by what knocks us down, but by how we get back up,” wrote Mautz. “They treat mistakes as missteps and not ‘mis-leaps’ meaning they’re careful not to exaggerate the negative impact of a setback.”  

You could take an extra step and write those reflections down in a journal, too. “Self-reflection through writing provides measurable cognitive and emotional benefits by helping process experiences and clarify thinking,” psychiatrist Drew Ramsey wrote on March 25.

“Meta-analyses…

If you want to raise successful, resilient kids, help them find activities they actually like, says psychologist Angela Duckworth.

Instead of forcing your children to try a specific sport or instrument, spend time exposing them to a variety of extracurriculars and take note of what they spend the most time thinking about, Duckworth said on an Oct. 13 episode of “The Mel Robbins Podcast.”

Guiding kids to activities they’re interested in can help them find their passions, hobbies and maybe even their future careers, said Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who researches mental and emotional “grit.”

“I think great parenting, a lot of it is noticing what your young people is thinking about,” Duckworth said, adding: “When we begin to notice where our mind lives, when we begin to notice what attracts our attention spontaneously, that is the beginning of discovering the interests that can make us something of a genius about what we do.”

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to using AI to communicate better

Kids who learn to stick with their interests, even on difficult days, can develop their confidence and resilience — two traits that can help them find success later in life, said Duckworth. Your child might pick a sport or hobby and then decide they don’t like it, but it’s important for them to finish that athletic season, or keep rehearsing that musical instrument just through their next concert, she added.

Duckworth referenced her own experience as a parent. Her child Lucy “hated doing homework and practicing her viola,” but when Duckworth looked at Lucy’s iPad, she noticed that “all of the tabs were open to baking videos,” she said. Duckworth also saw Lucy reading their family’s cookbooks, she noted.

Lucy ended up “volunteering in restaurants washing dishes, [then] was allowed to assist the pastry chef,” Duckworth tells CNBC Make It. “She was doing pastry literally every weekend and every summer all the way from 8th grade to, I guess, 12th grade … Her lifelong interest in food and cooking is still evident.”

Not every interest has to become a full-fledged career. If you just follow what you like to do, you might not necessarily make much money, bestselling author and New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway told CNBC Make It in 2019.

“Don’t follow your passion,” Galloway said. His advice instead: “Find out what you’re good at and then invest 10,000 hours in it — and become great at it.”

For Duckworth, interest is just one of four building blocks on the path to building grit, which her research shows is the most common characteristic among successful people in any field. The others include hard work, purpose and hope.

“Anybody who becomes great at what they do, there is a curiosity there, right? Their mind comes to this subject and wants to stay there,” Duckworth said. “When you start talking about something that you really care about, you’re a genius [on it], because that is where your mind lives.”

Want to…