Good morning & happy Monday!
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. To get something better, you know?”
– Miranda Kenneally, author
I am part of a men’s Bible study group that meets at 6:15 on Thursday mornings. I faithfully attend this gathering every week and am honored to be a part of this group.
Here’s the thing, my alarm goes off at 5:15am on Thursday mornings in order to attend this meeting. That’s nearly an hour before I normally wake up and every single time that Thursday alarm goes off I think to myself “why am I doing this?” I drag myself out of bed and rush the morning routine in order to be in my car by 5:55am to be on time for breakfast @ 6:15am.
Even as I am driving to the restaurant I have to kinda’ check my attitude because there is this little voice in my head saying “you should still be sleeping, you know you don’t HAVE to do this.” My 6:05am alarm goes off, indicating my normal wake up time, just a few minutes before I pull into the restaurant parking lot. I then walk my tired butt into the restaurant and sit at our normal table to start the dialogue.
As soon as I sit down, I am instantly glad I am there as we jump right into some great conversations and get a delicious breakfast. These are amazing guys who have become very dear friends. My price for nurturing these precious relationships is getting up well before the sun gets up on a weekly basis.
I was recently thinking about this weekly ritual and came to a really important realization: I never want to go, but I am always glad I went.
That got me thinking about investing. I’ve been in financial services for 25 years and I’ve never heard anyone say:
- “I like lots of volatility in my investments.”
- “The ups and downs of the market are exciting to me, the more the better.”
- “I’m super excited for the next market downturn.”
What I do hear quite frequently is things like:
- “I want to maintain my financial independence and never be a burden to my children.”
- “It is exceptionally important that I never run out of money in retirement.”
- “I don’t ever want to have to reduce my standard of living due to financial constraints.”
My friends, in order to achieve meaningful financial objectives, oftentimes the price to pay is volatility. Just like my price to pay for my Thursday mornings breakfast is a super-early alarm, the price to pay in investments is ups and downs and accepting a certain level of uncertainty.
No one likes uncertainty, but there are significant rewards that we as investors are able to achieve for accepting a certain level of uncertainty as long as we are patient, disciplined, and diversified.
It is my sincere hope that these weekly reminders will serve to reinforce the message of patience over panic, discipline over despair, and faith over fear in your investment strategy.
Even though investing is not always fun (example 2022), I wholeheartedly believe we will be glad we stayed the course. Just like I said about my Thursday group: I never want to go, but I am always glad I went. I hope and believe that we will say about our investment endeavor: I never wanted the rocky part of the journey, but I’m so glad that I took the path.
Please let us know if there is any way we can support you along your journey.
Hope you have a wonderful and blessed Easter and a wonderful week ahead! 😊