Good for you Trey!
It's perfectly okay to take some risk.... you just need to be prudent about it... and you need to be in the head space that says - Oops it went to zero... okay... no biggie - maybe next time. Rewards don't come without risks. They key is to not "gamble" with money that is crucial - or money that you have other plans for "shortly"... where you put yourself into a "must sell at a loss" situation.
Several years ago -- I invested in a start up company. The shares cost me .53 cents each... I bought a bunch of them... the company then went public about 2 years later and it opened at $18 and went to $28.... RIGHT BEFORE IT WENT TO $1.70... I never sold any of it.... I used to tell myself "hey! at a buck seventy I still have a triple in it"! MY POINT IS --- I didn't have to sell, I wasn't worried about the investment because it was money that I could do without. It was a very small percentage of what I have (had) to invest.
Eventually we sold it all, in an all cash offer from EMC @ $34
Was it risky? Hell yeah! Was it rewarding? Uh... just a little.
