

Others have said it, but it depends on what you are trying to do. I know NYSE, so particular recommendations may not be applicable to you.
Find a sector you believe in. If its tech you can go for something like the NASDAQ fund QQQ. If you want a little more risk/reward, follow the industry, then find who is the big players. Dont sleep on support businesses too. So if you like AI, NVIDIA is the obvious answer, but conpanies like GE Vernova who do a lot of power gen solutions for ai companies offer a growth opportunity with the industry you like, but offers a little more diversity.
If you want highest risk/reward, you want options. There are safe ways to use options and other strategies are simply chaos. But you need to do the above before you start to think about options.
Lastly, dont think wallstreetbets is your friend. You wont learn anything there
Just gotta celebrate it. We need people to do jobs in every aspect of society. Even those “lesser” jobs need to be done. Even if the follow up is, “oh what’s that like? Do you like it?” It can get the person talking and lead to other topics
My kids are starting a new school in the fall, so ive been asking this question a lot. Ive learned so much about people and their interest by just starting there