Investors, What Is The Price Of Peace of Mind?

The Price of Peace of Mind

        by: Brendan Magee


Consumers are used to paying money for services, and we have been conditioned to think that once I have paid my money, it is completely up to the store or vendor to deliver the value I am expecting. Perhaps with a car, restaurant, a stereo, clothes, a home repair, etc. that is an appropriate way to think. Unfortunately, that thinking doesn't serve people well when it comes to investing and achieving peace of mind.

It would be great if all it took was money, by itself, to achieve investment success. All a person would need is a certain amount of money to get access to the stocks, mutual funds, or adviser and from that point on all your money worries would be taken care of, forever. The reality is that we know that this is pure fantasy. We all know someone or have heard the stories of wealthy people losing fortunes from making bad investment decisions. Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford bilked the affluent, not the Joe six pack investor.

So if money isn't the answer, what is the answer? They are time, mind, body, soul, ego, and when they are not given in the necessary proportion, the investor will inevitably pay a far greater price than money.

I recently met with a woman, Donna. As it turned out, she was suffering from the same problems for the better part of 15 years and she realized she was in danger of running out of money in retirement. So we agreed to meet and prior to that meeting I asked her to complete a couple of homework assignments which would take a total of two hours over the next 10 days. The homework's purpose is to create the context for us to make sure all the problems she is experiencing are brought to the surface and we have a meeting that provides maximum value for the time we would be spending together.


She said she had no intention of completing the homework because she was way too busy with work and everything and she needed her weekends to relax (Time + Effort). So against my better judgement, I eventually met with Donna and ask her a list of questions that are fundamental to a person experiencing peace of mind with their money. It's no big deal, but she could only answer a few of the questions, and I can sense in her tone she is getting agitated. She doesn't know why she is being asked these questions. She says that she has been investing for the better part of 25 years and never even heard of the questions I was asking.

Honestly, I don't believe it was the questions, I believe Donna's upset was coming from the fact that she was being asked questions that she knew in her heart she should know the answers to, but didn't (Ego). She told me what she really wanted was not to be asked a lot of questions, rather she wanted me to tell her what investments she should be in. Where was it that she could make the most money was what she wanted to know. She wanted to see the track records of the top performing funds she could be investing in. She didn't want to spend the next couple of weeks answering questions she didn't know the answers to (Time + Body + Ego).

As I explained to her that if all we did was focus solely on products, we would be ignoring behaviors, decisions, strategies, and philosophies that were really at the root of the problems she was experiencing, she said that those were the responsibility of the adviser,not her. Once she invested the money, the results were the advisers responsibility, not hers (Ego). She said that she already knew how the stock market worked. She didn't need any lessons there, just the answers as to where to invest (Mind + Ego)

So what I am pointing out here with the parenthesis is the parts of the conversation where Donna was not willing to give what was really needed to fix her investment problems. At times she, like a lot people, needed to set aside her ego and acknowledge she didn't have the answers or knowledge that would fix her problems. There were other parts where she would need to devote more time, be present, and give the mental effort to get the answers to questions she couldn't answer. That would enable her to see what she couldn't. Unfortunately,she saw her problems as solely money problems.  In her opinion, all she had to do was move her money to the right investment and her problems would go away forever.

She didn't even want to begin to find out that perhaps she was using a faulty decision making process, nor find out what a good decision making process looks like. She didn't want to consider that the amount of time she was devoting to maintaining a good understanding of her investments was insufficient. Again, some how she has been conditioned to believe that investing is purely a money decision. She like a a lot of investors is sorely mistaken.

It takes time to put your listening in the right place to begin to absorb a conversation for prudent investing. It takes time to go through the questions and it takes humility to admit that you can't answer those questions. It takes humility for an investor follow a process you don't, initially, understand or create. It takes faith (not blind faith) to allow an investor to let a coach lead them to answers that on their own they won't see.
It takes committing to a process of follow up and continuing education. Investing is not a once and done process.

Money can't do any of that. Only the investor can. Only the investor can determine if they are willing to pay the price peace of mind requires.


Brendan Magee is the founder and president of Inevitable Wealth Coaching. With comments or questions e-mail brendan@coachgee.com or call 610-446-4322.