I was sitting by the swimming pool waiting for my swim advancement class and watched adults learning to swim for the first time. I could see their fear of the water. Whilst the teacher was helping them with floats and breaking the stroke down into bite-size deliverables, I started to think…
Maybe they shouldn’t be thinking about swimming at all.
There is a difference between swimming and not wanting to drown. Which is the greatest fear? Without a doubt, not wanting to drown. The basic purpose of swimming is not to drown. The pleasure of swimming is secondary.
What if the teacher changed their perspective? What if they focused more on how not to drown? That would mean holding your breath underwater; opening your eyes; blowing out all your air and sitting on the bottom. To be not afraid of water in your face. To relax underwater. To not panic. To be a “mushroom” in water by tucking yourself in tight and allowing yourself to float to the surface (something I recall as I played with my kids). Eventually, by realising you are not going to drown in the swimming pool, you can then focus on swimming.
So what has this story to do with investing?
As an investor, you have a massive choice. There are thousands of people to talk to. IFAs, Wealth Managers, Stockbrokers, Private Bankers, Fund Managers, Financial Salespeople…in addition, there are thousands of shares and funds to choose between. Whilst your aim is to invest for your future, their aim is to get you to invest with them. If someone can persuade you to invest in their firm, their fund, their portfolio first, the odds are inertia takes over and you feel everything is sorted.
Let’s imagine you have recently been divorced, or sold your company, or perhaps retired and have capital to invest. In many cases, your time horizon is the long-term. You, therefore, need to ask yourself a question. Are you more afraid of making mistakes (drowning) or wanting to deal with your financial problem now (trying to swim too soon)? The investment professionals selling their services mostly want you to make a decision to invest now? Why? When you have invested, they have secured their services against any other competing firms. When you’ve invested, you tend to focus less on your money and more on your own life. That’s perfectly normal. You had a money problem, which you have solved. You no longer have the stress of what to do about your money.
Which leads me to swim advancement. Why do I bother wanting to improve? It’s the way I’m made, I can’t help that. But to be able to swim up and down the pool, in control, is a wonderful feeling. Very few people can do it well. It’s the same with investing. If you spend time learning how not to make mistakes, your investment decisions become much stronger. You can also understand more about what you are trying to achieve. Admittedly, I cannot improve my technique without investing my time and effort, but the rewards are significant. Equally, you need to invest your time to build your investment knowledge, to educate yourself and that will lead to making better financial decisions.
So why talk to us?
In all likelihood, you’ve already engaged an IFA, Private Bank, Financial Adviser, Wealth Manager, Stockbroker. They have invested your money. At face value, it’s all good. You are happy. But do you really know what they are doing for you? Are you clear about the value these people deliver to you? That doesn’t mean they are doing a poor job otherwise you would have moved on. The point is that there are no second chances. In 10, 15, 20 or more years, you can’t restart the clock. You can’t find out you made a big mistake. Mistakes are very very expensive. So why are we any different? When you talk to us, we do not suggest you change your portfolio in any way. Why? You need to understand more about the basics before you change anything. This means you can have conversations with us in complete confidence that you can’t make new investment mistakes. There can never be, ‘jumping out of the frying pan into the fire’. You must have a great conversation before you ever take any action. To illustrate, we have been talking to a new client for over 12 months now and still, nothing has changed in their portfolio. But when they do, it will be with the right perspective to achieve clarity of objectives and outcomes.
So why not start your conversation today
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