My philosophy

People don’t have investment problems, investments have people problems

It is our very thoughts that keep us from prospering in stocks or real estate.

Google the level of the Dow the day you were born, the day you graduated high school, college, got married, had a child, retired, etc. You will see that the march has always been up. Stocks averaged a little over 10% for the last 100 years. Diversified Real estate has a n historical return of about 7.5%. Price appreciation of quality assets is most often noticed by people who stay in a residence for a long time. Somehow, they don’t notice the rest of the world’s assets going up the same or more!

The market is the great allocator, from the impatient to the patient Warren Buffett

There is nothing wrong with the stock market. There is nothing wrong with the real estate market.

There is only something wrong with people who let their errant thoughts control their actions. These people love to buy when everything is high and love to panic out at the worsts times. They flocked to houses and stocks in 2007 and ignore them at better prices. They must know the flock has gone ahead to clear the path. Their nerves are soothed by being the last one to act. And they get burnt. They are not bad people they just haven’t developed the muscles for self-control. They are ruled by impulse and not wisdom.

If you think the Stock Market is high now, wait 20 years. Nick Murray

The good news is that the qualities needed to build wealth are learnable. Mindful Money will give you those tools. And you are the only thing in your control. You must control your own thoughts to succeed.

Compounding the problem is the steady pounding of misinformation in the financial media. The financial media does not exist to make you rich. It exists to make money and confuse investors into thinking they need more useless misinformation. A CNBC headline of “how to play the fed meeting next week” is a pathetic and laughable instance of what their game is.

So, we must stop the madness. Know the basics. The basics are as simple as believing that quality equity assets go up in value over time. That is the basis for all investing. For if quality assets didn’t go up over time, no one would invest, and no one would grow wealth. The Mindful Money book and blogs will start the change you need to accumulate real wealth.

So, let’s get started!

Craig Verdi