You have been financially brainwashed for pretty much your whole life. It may not be all your fault. It probably started with your parents who were strongly influenced by emerging media and corporations with new financial offers to buy stuff they could not afford.
Some parents made it through without being brainwashed but as we see how we continue to spend our money the bad habits have been passed on to the other generations. We have been brainwashed to love debt and fear investing.
I Don’t Love Debt!
You may say “I don’t love debt!”
Oh really?
How much of your life will you/have you lived in debt? Probably a majority of your life. So you in fact have no problem with debt. If you did you wouldn’t live with it so regularly and I’m mainly talking about consumer debt...
On the other hand, how much of your life have you invested your money? Not much? Have more debt than investments?
Sorry…you have been brainwashed.
Somehow we believe investing our money which could in fact give us a return on our investment is dangerous, so we rarely do it. On the other hand, we freely spend our money, go into debt, and stay that way for most of our life with NO chance of return.
Brainwashed By Advertising
Oh sweet marketing and advertising…what have you done to us? Credit cards, car dealerships, mortgage and home companies and every other corporation has conditioned our brains to think that living with debt is no big deal.
It also shows the poor marketing on the side of financial companies as well who have a superior product to build wealth and yet many people continually fear it. Probably comes from the fact that small investors don’t make much money so you may not be the target. We just can’t seem to educate ourselves enough to trust investments. Families that have experience investing usually have kids that invest…funny how that happens.
You Are Already An Investor
Whether you realize it or not you have been investing your whole life. What you spend your time doing is an investment. The time and where you went to school – investment. The money you currently spend is an investment whether it is groceries, phones, cars, or mutual funds.
In fact, guess what your biggest investment has been for most of your life. You have been an amazing investor of debt.
You are great at spending money and getting no return, you’ve mastered that for the majority of your life. Wouldn’t you rather take some smart risk and get some gain as well? Why are you so uncomfortable with that idea? Because you have been brainwashed. It’s time to rewire your brain and get you on the right path to building wealth instead of handing it out to others.
Your Current Investments
Look you have probably invested hundreds of thousands of dollars already. Have you bought a home? Investment. That is a pretty serious time commitment and money. 30 years and paying almost double what it was initially worth because of interest! You are an investor.
Yes, I know you keep the house (hopefully) and it can build wealth over time, but the point of this discussion is you already take risks all the time in life with your money. You have already spent hundreds of thousands on a house or will, but not a few grand to invest in the market because it might go down? What the hell?
How about marriage? Isn’t that an investment in time and finances? That commitment seems much riskier than $3,000 to start a mutual fund. Marriage can be blissful and the best investment you make in life can be rough and not work out and cost you a lot of money. Hmmm….kind of sounds like investing.
Look, life is investing. You already do it. Stop the fear.
But The Market is at the Top!
The market is at the highest point it has been in a long time. There are multiple ways to look at it. One is to continue to do what you have always been taught and to fear what will happen next so just stay on the sidelines forever. Hooray living paycheck to paycheck!
Some of us have been able to enjoy the ride back up to the top. We’re also putting ourselves in a position to be ready no matter what else happens up or down because we have a long-term perspective of life and investments.
If the market goes back down, which it generally does and will do, then we’ll be ready to buy the market at a discounted rate from what it is today. You like discounts don’t you? What about a mutual fund that is now 40% off?
Or you can take a look at your diminishing 401k at work and freak out, maybe cash out, and once again miss out.
Investment is Life – Takes a Lifetime
Most wealthy people are not overnight success stories. Those are the ones that get talked about the most, but the vast majority have worked hard for a very long time to be where they are at today.
Hard work doesn’t equal wealth, but smart and hard work over time usually does.
The second group has a greater perspective on life and the value of money and knows that extra effort today pays off even more down the road. If you want to build wealth you need to allow time to build wealth. If you want to pick stocks day to day and be rich tomorrow then go for it… you will see why people fear the market…and why casinos in Vegas as so big.
Life is about smart and calculated decisions. Your best lessons will unfortunately come from making mistakes. But you learn nothing standing on the sidelines complaining about everyone else being rich. I’m not sure why you are complaining…it was you who helped make them rich because of your spending instead of taking some time to learn and to build wealth.
If we all took the time to learn to invest instead of spending on things that give us no return we would be bumping into millionaires all over the place but we’re not. Look, you are already an investor and have done it whether it’s with debt, home, cars, or marriage.
Time to rewire your brain.
