Investing Safely

HOW CAN I BE SAFE?

Follow these rules!

If you have read the ‘About Me’ page you will see 3 fundamental reasons as to why investors loose all their money (why I have done and all the people who I have spoken to). Now there are plenty of reasons but these 3 are the ones generally everyone makes mistakes on because they are related purely to the investor rather  than the investment or any other person involved such as company or sales person etc. 

These 3 things are the most crucial aspects you must master if you ever want to be successful in the Investment world. I will explain in detail how these diseases can affect you and how you can remove them from your decision making process. What’s very interesting is that these 3 things don’t only just apply to investing, they will apply to every single thing in your life, master these things and you will have a much better psychology and stronger personality.

The text I wrote on the about me page:-

‘It then dawned on me and the truth starred me in the face. Yes I was that dumb F**k. I was allowing the same scammers to scam me again. I realised how firstly GREED, cost me money. Then how STUPIDITY cost me and then finally my EMOTIONS cost me! ‘

1 – Greed!

Easily the biggest culprit of them all. Greed is the one of the most powerful thing that’s comes between an individual making a good decision and a very bad decision. Now anybody reading from this website will know that yes greed is a bad thing, part of the 7 deadly sins blah blah blah, however in the context of investing, many people couldn’t careless what the investment actually is, which honestly is justifiable, only a small number of people invest in something that they like, like investing in a friends flower shop etc. the fact is plain and simple, we invest to make more money from the money we actually have, there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes in though, when we are presented with a number of investment opportunities, the number one deciding factor on the investment to choose is the one with the highest return on investment (ROI). Naturally this greed to earn more overshadows our cognitive thought processes, to be thorough in our checks, to be more vigilant. Many scam companies purely use Greed to draw in potential investors buy promising astronomical returns. That’s what happened with me on my first investments. 

The issue is this, not only is the representative feeding you the greed with a silver spoon, he is also affirming the greed not just by your returns but by presenting you with things you could potentially have with the ROI, for example, I was asked what cars I liked, the account manager of one of the companies, used to always say that I’m going to make a huge amount of money and have that dream car, however he would distract me on the ROI by constantly talking about my dream car, he was mixing my greed with my emotions, masking my greed with a materialistic object that I had an attachment to. Now obviously I’m not greedy for my dream car but try to understand here, I’m being made to be greedy for it. it’s a very simple psychological technique that was being used and unfortunately I fell for each and every single one of them.

Greed in my opinion is the biggest reason why investors lose money. Risk and all of its attributes are always thrown out of the window. Greed demands that an individual take a lot of risk, it demands you to ignore rational common sense and rather than investing makes you a gambler. You would be no better off than going to a casino and put all of your money in a game, at least you will lose it in front of your eyes in a legal surrounding. On the subject of gambling, ask yourself why does the house always win? why do addict gamblers lose everything they have, why can’t they make money and just leave with it? Simply because all gambling institutions will always feed on your greed, proven all over the world, to make you keep playing until inevitably. you make that one decision wrong and they will send you home penniless. You have been warned!

2 – Stupidity

Stupidity is a very simple one we must all master. Rather than stupidity I believe the word that should also be used is arrogance. What we are talking about here is straight pure and utter laziness. It being stupid enough to believe anybody other than yourself. When we don’t understand something, we tend to rely on people more that do understand things better than we do, e.g. we go to the doctors, because we believe he is highly educated we follow his advice and never question it, he says do this and do that, we will do it, but if a doctor has given you a medication for a problem you may have, would you ever go home, pull up the internet and check what he has prescribed you, the dosage and infact whether what he has prescribed you is the correct treatment for your issue? No you won’t, because you are putting blind faith into your consultant, why are your finances any different? We have been engineered as a general public to do as we are told! If somebody experienced like a scam artist is telling you fancy terms and about things you don’t know, he’s a guru to you isn’t he? He speaks no lie does he?! 

Question everything people, don’t take somebody’s word for it, especially in the finance sector. If there are things you don’t understand, or don’t get about investing, DO NOT INVEST THEN! Until you do know these things. Lack of knowledge and experience due to arrogance and laziness isn’t the scam artists fault, it’s all your fault, you have had all the time in the world to do the research, to study and to learn, if your choosing not to do it, whose fault is that? Now I’m not saying that you need to have a masters degree in economics and finance, however basic knowledge is a must, a simple general prospective, the question on this website, about Risk, one of the most important elements of investing, 9 out of 10 people don’t even know what it means!

The fact you are here on the website reading this now, is a statement that you are not a stupid person, you may have been or were going to be but the fact your here and reading this now means you’re learning, researching and preparing yourself for you next move. 

3 – Emotions and feelings!

Now ladies and gentleman comes the single most difficult thing any human being has to do in their life. Controlling their emotions. We as humans are crazy nutty irrational animals, we claim to be the smartest beings on earth yet literally all of our decision are made by emotions. have you heard the saying that 1% of the world has 99% of the worlds wealth. these people are masters of controlling their emotions. that’s what makes them different. When it comes to investment, yes sales people feed your greed but it’s your emotions that allow them into your personality. They ask strategically those questions that spark and emotional response, whether its happiness or fear or anger or sadness, they have unbelievable techniques to dig at your emotions causing you to make the biggest mistakes ever and thus you develop trust on these scammers. They play with emotions like a child’s toy. 

In my life’s example the following were some of the emotions I was made to feel hence I did what I did:-

Happiness was the first emotion used. I was made to feel happy that I’m going to be rich and successful and I won’t ever need to worry about money ever again in my life.

Excitement:– The feeling of being able to have all the things of my dreams.

Freedom:- I won’t have to work a 9-5 job and will enjoy my life. 

Fear – negative to derive a positive response. Being made to feel fear and worry that if I don’t take the investment now, I will miss out and thus my dreams and aspirations won’t come true. 

Sadness:- reminders of how hard I worked for the money that was lost and that I shouldn’t just leave it to that and make that money back.

Hope:- the worst one! to build hope and trust that all will be well, to be made to believe the lies and put a curtain over my rational thinking. Constantly building my hopes up from my dreams to spark yet more emotions.

Guilt:- Stemming from fear, that if I don’t take the investment I will regret it for years to come. 

Passion:- my wife was always mentioned to me that I can give her a life of her dreams.

Love:- stemming from passion, that I would be able to help those around me that I love, I can do things for my family and friends etc.

Supposed Honesty and Trust:- these feelings are developed for you to confide and put yourself under the control of the scammers.

I guess you get the jist of what I’m trying to say here. These 3 things are the greatest tools that scammers use in order to separate us from our hard earned capital and put our money in the back pocket of scammers. so as the page title says, what can I do in order to ‘Stay Safe’? 

Simple, make a decision ensuring that those 3 elements do not exist.

Tackle Your Emotions

How to tackle Greed, ignore the ROI versus other investments, way up the pros and cons and calculate your risk. Calculating risk automatically begins to drive greed out and rational thinking in.

How to tackle stupidity, research and have a checklist found easily online of a procedure you will follow for every investment you will take. Check the company credentials, meet with the representatives, check reviews, check Google and authority websites to ensure they are credible etc. 

How to tackle Emotions, investing is a business deal, there’s no room for emotions here, what does your wife and feelings have to do with a business deal? separate them. If in doubt, leave it out! Again like above, have a checklist, don’t make a decision based on a gut feeling, work it out and show to yourself on pen and paper that the pros of this particular investment outweighs the risks and so make a rational calculated decision.

I haven’t addressed all the things that need to be done, however the 3 things I have mentioned are enough for you to start developing yourself and your rational mindset.. Remember investing isn’t a punt or a spin on a roulette wheel, it’s a calculated decision that you make. 

I will leave you with this example of something many of us have done and so will have some experience, a scenario of a car that comes for sale and how a good investor matches to a bad investor:-

Barry is an investor / trader in cars and so is Adzy. Suddenly this advert comes up on a famous luxurious saloon car buying and selling webpage!

For sale:-  2015 BEAUTIFUL MERCEDES S-CLASS TOP OF THE RANGE, £7000 OFF THE RRP (RETAIL VALUE) A1 CONDITION – MUST BE SEEN, BE QUICK THIS CAR WONT STAY FOR SALE LONG! only £10,000!!!!

Barry’s Mindset – (the wrong mindset)

Greed – Wow £7000 off the cars value! this must be an awesome deal! I can buy it and even sell it and make a quick profit! who’s going to say no to this!

Stupidity:- It’s in A1 Condition that’s great, it will sell quickly for me.

Emotions:- this car wont hang around for long, I better quickly call the seller and go any by the car. 

Adzys Mindset – (the correct mindset)

Greed – Ow that car is cheap, hmmmmmmmmmmmm, there must be a reason for it. let’s have a look.

Stupidity:- let me go and speak to the seller, I need more information which regards to the cars service history to ensure its been looked after well and maintained, no point buying a car that will blow its engine up on the way home, maybe be cheap but the repair bill will outweigh the cost of the car. I think I’ll call the RAC and organise and inspection of the car to get a 2nd opinion. I’ll be the judge of it being in A1 condition thank you very much.

Emotions:- If the car sells, it sells, ow well it’s a missed deal but I rather lose £7000 profit than loose £10,000 of my hard earned cash.

Adzy because he lived close to the vehicle in question went to go visit the car first.

The vehicle was in fact in very good condition, it was clean throughout with all the paper work, a comprehensive main dealer service history all legitimate with stamps and holograms to prove and all the vehicle documentation was present.. After thoroughly checking the car and its paper work Adzy was happy but he follows strict rules when it comes to investing in a car, his last rule is an RAC inspection, However the seller of vehicle began to get very impatient saying he needs to sell the car quickly and Adzy is taking too much time in making a decision, the seller became persistent that other buyers are wanting this car very badly and that Adzy must make a decision quickly as the seller can’t wait for 2-3 hours for an RAC representative to come and carry out an hour long test of the vehicle. 

Adzys final rule was to await the RAC to come and inspect the car further before he parted with his £10,000 and so politely asked the seller to be patient whilst he completes his checks. Impatiently the seller became irrational with Adzy and asked him to leave stating that Adzy is not a serious buyer, he is wasting time and that he has other buyers that will buy the car with less headache, the seller refused to allow the RAC to inspect the car and asked Adzy to leave stating he will not sell him the car and that he has just missed out on a brilliant car for the money and lost out on £7000 worth of profit. Adzy walked away and said to himself Rule #7 never buy a car without the RAC inspection, he didn’t did allow me to do the inspection, I will not break my rules, I’m glad he didn’t sell me the car.

Barry made a phone call to the seller. Barry had a lengthy conversation, with the seller over the phone. The seller stated that many people are wasting his time, the first person now to offer the money for the car takes it (referring slightly to his experience with Adzy earlier). Panicked Barry instantly rushed to be the next one to buy this awesome car, he quickly had a 2 minute look over the car, saw the paper work was all there and handed over £10,000 cash to the seller and drove the lovely Mercedes to his forecourt.

6 months had passed, Barry had the car professionally polished and cleaned to put as the centre piece car for sale in his forecourt with a huge price tag for £17,000.

As much time passed on and to keep the cars value as high as possible, the MOT check and annual test was due so Barry requested his worker to take the car and get its MOT done so he could make the car more appealing to a potential buyer when he states it has just been for its test and passed for the next 12 months.

4 Hours passed and Barry became impatient as to why his coveted Mercedes has not come back to his forecourt, suddenly a tow truck arrives with the Mercedes on the back of it, Angry and Upset Barry screamed at his worker asking what he has done to the car and why it is on a lorry, assuming the engine has blown up or something mechanically going wrong.

The worker than hands not only a Failure of MOT but also an indefinite Refusal of an MOT to Barry and states the reason why the car is being towed back is because it is illegal to drive this particular car even an inch.

The MOT test revealed that this car was involved in a very huge accident, it was supposed to be crushed because it was a category B write-off (meaning it is not allowed to be repaired and must be crushed). The underside of the car was poorly welded and the car is actually 2 different cars welded together and so is unsafe and dangerous. 

Barry then realised he was scammed by a sweet talking salesman, he realised the mistakes he made not having the car inspected and doing his own checks before hand, he realised he couldn’t see anything past the £7000 profit plus the extra money and time he has invested into the car. Reluctantly, the car had to be crushed and Barry lost £10,000.

Later Barry told his issues to Adzy who was actually his friend, who stated he had also seen the car but did not buy it due to the fact the seller not allowing to do an inspection, he thought something was fishy and walked away and ended up buying a different Mercedes, a lot more expensive but stuck to his check list, he only made £1000 profit on the Mercedes he ended up buying…….

Moral of the story, Adzy now has £11,000 and Barry £0……….

Ow by the way the above example isn’t an example…………………..it’s a true story………..!