March Madness Blown Calls & Investing, Some Times Once Is All It Takes

Reffing And Investing, 

Some Times Once Is All It Takes

        by: Brendan Magee

With the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the fact that with one loss you go home, everything is at a fever pitch. As it was during the Northwestern/Gonzaga game one blown call changes everything, for the players as well as the referees.

As a ref of 15 years, I can tell you that you can be reffing and everything can be going along just fine and in the blink of an eye you can blow a call. Yes, it happens and I am not saying anything you don't already know. 

However, what you don't know is what happens to the ref who blew the call. He or she has supervisors they have to answer to. They will be asked why they made the call they did, or why they didn't make the call that should have been made. Their reputations and the games they will get in the future will depend on the answers they give.Future games and the thousands of dollars in paychecks can be taken away from them. It takes a long time to get to the level of a college official and in a second all that you have worked for can be lost and never be gotten back.

It can be that way with investing. How many people do you know lost a ton of money in the tech stock crash in the early 2000's or the housing bubble of 2008? It's sad and seems quite unfair, that like the hard working ref, that all that you have been working for your whole life can be lost in a flash and never gotten back. 

As it is with reffing (even with three refs), investors have blind spots, and the biggest most devastating problems will come from what you cannot see or account for. Now, the truly scary part here is that we always have blind spots. At no point in your driving life are you driving where you can see everything. It is the same thing with investing. How come you have blind spots? The answer is because you are human. The Creator only gave us eyes in the front of our heads, not the backs. 

So as investors how is it that we have blind spots? We have eyes, ears, brains. What's the problem? We are not infallible as to how we take in information. How many times has your wife or kids told you, you don't listen? Lets give ourselves some credit and say we listen at least 50% of the time. That leaves a good percentage of the time that we are not tuned in to what people are saying to us. Sound like a recipe for an argument? This is just one example of when we aren't totally tuned in to what is happening around us.

 This is why you have a coach and what you pay them to prevent. Because, unfortunately there are somethings in life where it only takes one time to make a permanent change to your life. 

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