There is no free lunch in investing, except one thing - diversification.

When you pick a single (a dozen different is still considered "single" in investing) security you are exposing yourself to idiosyncratic risk.
Nobody ever can predict what would shoot up and what wouldn't. all the happy stories you ever hear are survival bias. Just because somebody brags about their smart investment strategy, does not mean there is a thousand more, who used same strategy and lost.

All those pretty stories - invest into gold, invest into real estate, real estate return is shooting through the roof...

Ok, Gold was $2500, today is $3500 (I don't know where you got 4500) - 40% up
VEQT was $35, today is 48$ - 37% up

All the rave about gold is very stable is bullshit. Gold is marginally less volitile them market indexes. And on the long run, market outperforms gold.
Same with real estate. People say - "I bought my house = I am investing into real estate" - bunch of misunderstanding. Investing into real easte is taking $100 million, and investing into 10 different development projects. Short term, 5 years. Then sell the houses to "individual investors" and let them deal with this liability. Single house is not an investment. Cost of ownership is ridiculous. Volatility is at par with penny stocks.

Judging by your question above "What is TFSA and how to cook it?" - you are going to lose your money 95% if won't go with a safe, hand off solution.
btw, "losing money" not only mean actually losing initial investment, but when your investment underperforms alternative solution. If you could have 100% ROI in 8 years, but only had 80% - you are at loss of $100K