No Mercy Given By What You Can't See
by: Brendan Magee
I can't imagine the anguish that the parents of Austin Stephanos And Perry Cohen are going through right now. No doubt you have read or seen the news on the two boys who have been missing off the coast of Florida when they went out on a fishing trip about a week ago. To have your 14 year old sons lost at sea for days has to be about the worst nightmare come to life for any parent. My prayers go out to those boys, their families, and the men and women who are conducting the search. I hope everyone is home safe and sound real soon.
Looking back your vision is always 20/20. We look and see things that we should never have engaged in and clear alternatives to decisions that turned out badly. Perhaps, Austin and Perry's parents would have never let them take a boat out by themselves under any circumstances. Perhaps, the parents would have told the boys they couldn't go fishing until an adult who had years of experience and a license could accompany them. I have to imagine there is a lot of second guessing going on in their minds these days
With investing we can also see clearly looking back. If an investment went bad, no doubt there would be things that would have been done differently. For example, "My gut was telling me that investment adviser's recommendations didn't feel right and if I had to do it over again, "I would have held off on investing that money in that fund!" In the moment prudent decisions can be hard to see. We get excited, scared, misread, misunderstand over estimate under estimate, etc.
None the less, we can't go back and change the things we've done or the impact they have had on our lives. The big problem is that we don't always have the opportunity or the wisdom to double check what we can't see in making our decisions.
I would imagine that neither Austin or Perry knew that a storm was brewing off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately that lack of knowledge or foresight could prove to be fatal and life altering for their families. I would imagine that in November of 2008 when investors took $58 billion out of the market they couldn't see the rebound that was coming in less than six months. I imagine the investors who absorbed huge losses when China's Stock Exchange plummeted earlier this month couldn't see that coming either. If they threw caution to the wind and loaded up on Chinese stocks they absorbed a loss whose impact is most likely permanent.
The point is it is easy to lose perspective. We get confident in abilities that we do not have. We convince ourselves that the bad things that happen to people when they break the rules of investing won't be too bad or only happen to other people. That is when we pay a price we never bargained for and couldn't imagine how painful it could be.
The better part of valor is to swallow our pride and enlist the help of someone else who will act as another set of eyes and ears to see and hear what we can't. We can't always tell we've had too much to drink, but our friends can. We can't always see when we are about to break the rules for investing, but a coach can. In either case the better outcome is to not drive and not make a decision that could cost you everything. You will live and one day you will look back and thank God somebody stepped in and cared enough to stop you.
Brendan Magee is the founder and president of Inevitable Wealth Coaching. With questions or comments go to www.coachgee.com or call 610-446-4322.
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