Barbara Eisner Bayer: It's like Back to the Future -- sort of -- except this time, I'm bringing the knowledge with me that I've learned over the past 25 years, but making my first investment choices today.

When I started investing in the mid-1990s, I had a relatively short-term focus that was primarily based on fear and inexperience. If I made an investment and it went up quickly -- even if it was just a few hundred dollars -- I'd sell it and lock in the profit. No, I wasn't a day trader, just someone who got so excited making money, I didn't want to lose it. Boy was I wrong!

One of the stocks I bought shortly after its IPO on May 15, 1997 was Amazon.com (AMZN 1.80%). (I don't remember the exact date I bought it or how much I paid, so I'll use its IPO price of $18 for purposes of illustration.) However, the stock was so volatile and my stomach so temperamental, that I sold it a few years later. Yeah, I made a thousand bucks or so, but boy did I miss out. If I had invested $10,000 at the company's IPO and held onto my shares, I would have had more than $12 million bucks today. Would have.

I've learned over the years that true wealth is created by holding companies over the long term. All growth companies are going to be volatile on their journeys -- that's just part of the market's MO. Growth stocks need time to, well, grow, and that doesn't occur over a straight line. Companies will make errors and, hopefully, learn from them. But if you understand the industry and keep your eyes focused on the long term, it's possible to turn that $10,000 into $12 million -- if you don't sell your shares.

So what would I purchase today if I had $5,000? Why, Amazon.com, of course! As my colleague Sean Williams writes, "it's a fast-growing freight train that no company seems able to derail." Amazon controls 44% of all online sales and boasts more than 150 million worldwide Prime members. But its major growth is coming from Amazon Web services, its infrastructure cloud segment. And the company shows no signs of slowing down anytime in the near future, especially since the COVID 19 pandemic has forced more people to shop from home -- and they're likely to keep doing it that way no matter what happens.

But this time, I'm not selling it -- no matter what. Because I believe if I fast-forward another 23 years, Amazon will either still be growing or have taken over the world.