I ran and then jumped.

Forty-five feet of nothing but the rush of open air … and then the cold water of Lake Champlain. I’m sure people still do the same thing off the same cliffs near Burlington, Vermont.

Most of us have some story like this, something that you did when you were in your 20s. A bit crazy, but you did it because you didn’t want to miss out on the experience.

Today’s millennials are crazy for experiences. Where previous generations earned and saved to buy stuff — jewelry, watches, brand-name clothes and fancy cars — the millennials just want the experience. And then they want to tell their friends all about it.

Why should you should care? Because the millennial generation — aged 18 to 34 today — is the biggest generation in American history at 92 million strong.

When 92 million people strongly prefer something, you know that it’s a big trend. That means there are companies ready to capitalize on the trend. And investors are making big money from the shares of these companies.

Many millennials are driven by FOMO — fear of missing out.

You see, the millennials are constantly communicating with each other. That’s because most of them were born with a cellphone stuck in their hand. They are always on their phones.

And the moment someone does something, they post either a picture on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat to let everyone know they did it.

Millennials go to music festivals and provide up-to-the-minute recaps of who they just saw perform to their friends, along with pictures of them having a great time.

Others go on exotic, luxury, unique-experience, adventure vacations and post videos of the cool things they just did.

Personally, I can tell you that my indoor rock climbing gym in North Carolina is filled with millennials.  Indoor rock climbing is just one kind of experience that is experiencing a boom purely because of the millennial generation’s incredible numbers and their fear of missing out.

Yoga is another millennial experience activity that is also booming.

Now all this rush to experience the world by millennials has led to some huge gains in the stock markets. Anyone paying attention to the habits of millennials could have gotten in on this trend already and made big money.

Winning the Attention of Millennials

For example, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) has soared 350% in the last three years, because millennials use it nonstop to post their activities.

Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE), an Internet travel-booking site, is up 100% over the last three years because of high usage by millennials who prefer to arrange their travel over the Internet rather than use human travel agents.

Columbia Sportswear (Nasdaq: COLM) sells high-performance clothing for activities such as rock climbing. The company has benefited from millennials, gaining 80% over the last three years.

Under Armour (NYSE: UA) is another winner, soaring by 130% over the last three years.

The key to getting in on these winners is being able to identify what experience the millennial generation is going to latch on to next. They want an incredible experience that makes their friends desperately feel that they missed out and wish that they had been there — whether it’s skydiving, BASE jumping, underwater spelunking or exploring the African veld to chronicle the family dynamics of lions.

The next step is to figure out what company is going to give millennials the tools they need or access to that great experience.