The Two "Achilles Heels" of Sucessful Investing

On occasion I have listened to some "info-commercials" on the radio (CJOB in Winnipeg) for a company called Trained to Invest. Based here in Winnipeg they are a financial education company, run by Christians apparently. For a fee of several thousand dollars the company will teach you how to invest in the stock market and suggests that if you do their program properly you will make approximately 30% on your investments. How they do this is by teaching you to purchase stock that grows in value by 1% and then you sell. Do this every two weeks and you end up with 30% by the end of the year. I have spoken with a few people including a few friends who have been successful with it. Maybe someday I will try it myself.

One thing that has stuck with me from listening to the radio shows is that the gurus talk about two main problems that mess up investors, what I call the Achilles heel(s) of investing. The first is fear. Fear stops you from action. It prevents you from seeing potentially profitable deals and it prevents you from acting on them. Fear is what stops most people from investing. They don't trust their judgement, they are not willing to risk anything, and they continually tell themselves that it's just not worth it. Fear is the first enemy to successful investing.

The second enemy is greed. Greed is many ways the opposite of fear. Instead of preventing you taking action like fear does, greed prevents you from acting wisely. Why sell now when you could wait and sell for more? Why pay for management on a property when you could do it yourself? Or why settle for only 1% gain when by tomorrow my stock could go up another 1 or 2%. Greed says the profit is never enough, it always wants more. Greed motivates people to bend or break the rules sometimes, ignoring their morals. Greed is an enemy that is just as destructive and dysfunctional as fear.

I find it illuminating that the Bible speaks about both of these issues and admonishes us to get them out of our lives. Fear and greed are deadly for our souls . . . and our bank accounts. Although fear is occasionally an issue for me, for the most part I am not afraid to invest. Jobina may disagree but although I'm optimistic when approaching any opportunity I also am somewhat cautious. But usually not afraid. When we bought our first house I felt like it was the smartest thing we'd ever done - I felt way better about it then I did buying any vehicle we've purchased! No, my weak point is the greed. I want the maximum benefit of my investment - and occasionally it clouds my vision. We are trying to rent or sell a property right now and it probably would already be taken care of if my greed hadn't clouded my judgment. Ah well, live and learn. So which of these two do you have more of a problem with? And what are you going to do about it?

P.S. The painting is John Morgan's "Parable of the Talents." The man in the picture is the one burying his talent, instead of investing it. Definitely for him, his problem was fear . . .