Confront or Turn The Other Way?

Confront or Stay Silent?

by: Brendan Magee

Today, I am filling up my car with gas, thankful that I paid .30 cents less per gallon due to my super market's bonus points program. A young couple pulls up at the next pump to fill up their lawn mowers and pick up truck. The guy is pumping gas while his lady passenger sits in the front seat with the window down smoking her cigarette. I am having visions of the movie The Towering Inferno. What do you do? Let the couple know they are putting themselves and everyone else at the gas station in danger and risk getting punched in the nose? Honestly, I chose to pump my gas, stay silent, and get the hell out of there as soon as I could.

It doesn't get much more personal than telling someone that their behavior or choices are the source of their failures.This is the dragon that Investor Coach and investor have to slay before investors are going to start achieving the success.

I saw a post on Facebook and the woman was blaming Wall Street for the Crash of 2008. It's easy to blame someone or someone else for our shortcomings. The President, Congress, my ex-wife, my parents, Wall Street etc. are so much easier to blame. If it's their fault I don't have to feel the sting of responsibilities I have failed to live up to. I also stay stuck, but the reality is investors really don't have Wall Street or anyone else to blame for their investing problems.

Yesterday I saw a statistic that was pretty amazing. U.S. Large Company Stocks since 1926 has had annualized returns of a little more than 10%. To put that in perspective, that means that roughly every seven years an investor would have doubled their money if they deposited the money in that asset class and just left it alone. Imagine, that in spite of Depressions, wars, oil embargoes, terrorist attacks, Presidential assasinations, etc. that you would have made out so well.

The key word in that last paragraph is left it alone. Investors behavior has not been consistent with leave it alone. In that same set of statistics investors have been shown to make changes to their portfolios roughly every three years. What they are doing is selling investments that are not performing or have lost money and buying investments that have done better or are expected to do better in the future. In actuality they are buying high selling low.

As opposed to the 10% return of U.S. Large Company Stocks, the average annualized stock mutual fund investors returns are hovering around 3.25%, barely enough to stay ahead of inflation.

So what are we supposed to do? Do we not have the uncomfortable conversations? Do we never give the investor an opportunity to see that they are the ones responsible for crippling their financial security? Do we never give the investor the opportunity to taste and feel the amazing sensation of transformation?Imagine how your life would change if all of a sudden you could stick to the behaviors that will get them to the point where they are doubling their money every seven to ten years? What does that make possible?

Now imagine on your deathbed you had the revelation that that conversation and all the possibilities it would have created for you and your family was withheld from you, simply because it was safer?


A very wise woman once told me that our power as human beings is in being responsible and being generous. I think this applies to coach and investor. We need to own up to where we are not being responsible. We might have to own up to the fact that we are avoiding difficult conversations because it's safer. We might also have to be generous to ourselves and not make ourselves out to be terrible human beings for making mistakes in the past, maybe knowingly and turning a blind eye to them. Perhaps in forgiving ourselves, it will make it easier to forgive others.

We can't do much worse then we've been doing.


Brendan Magee is the owner and founder of Inevitable Wealth Coaching. With question or comment go to www.coachgee.com or call 610-446-4322.