I have many reasons why I invest my money.
The primary reason I invest is to secure my future. My family is not rich. I do not have a big inheritance coming. I, like most people, have to work hard for what I have. I do not get cars, houses, and money handed to me on a silver platter. Investing allows me to work hard now, so that when I am older, I can live a comfortable, financially secure life. Investing gives me the opportunity to build a solid financial foundation, benefitting me for the rest of my life, and future generations of Investing Winners.
I treat investing as a business. The investing business is not easy. Years of learning, reading, and research are absolute necessities for being a successful investor. The learning, reading, and research never end. Each day I am building on my knowledge and understanding of the financial game. The same is true to be a successful entrepreneur or business leader. I must understand the nature of the game and the players involved. I must calculate risks, odds, and rewards, just like a CEO. I must have a solid financial plan or strategy in place, or else my business will fail. I am my own boss. As such, I must make business and investment moves with precision, thoughtfulness, and attention. If I don’t do my due diligence, my investing business will fail and I will be out of a job. Investing gives me complete control over my job, which I love. I never liked having a boss ordering me around, making me work weekends, or doing the dirty work to make them look good.
Investing also allows me to explore myself in ways my previous jobs have not allowed. I can realize my full potential.
Investing is partly logical. I do a lot of research. Each day I wade through fact and fiction. Logical thinking is a requirement for investing. I must completely understand my investments and calculate my risk versus rewards. Without logic-based decisions, investments are based on emotions. Emotional investing will bankrupt me. Emotions cause one to think irrationally, making poor, rash decisions without utilizing calculated logic and reasoning.
Investing is also partly mental. I think like a winner. I trade like a winner. I invest like a winner. Every successful investor has had huge losses and has made numerous mistakes. The mental game is not allowing bad investments and mistakes ruin your investment attitude. I learn from my bad trades and horrible investments, rather than dwelling on them and letting them mess with my head. Investing takes nerves of steel. In the long run, most stocks and investments will go up, but short term they may go down. This is where many investors fail – they see one bad day in the stock market or a bad year in the real estate market, and they get discouraged. These people are mentally unfit and unprepared to invest and trade successfully.
Money. This reason is self-explanatory. Money is another reason why I invest. My entire life I didn’t have much of it. But I learned finance, accounting, business, economics, trading, and real estate. Financial and business knowledge helps me understand how money works, and more importantly, how to make it. New cars, gigantic houses, and flashy jewelry do not interest me. Doing what I want to do, when I want to do it, however, does interest me. I can’t take a trip to Europe if I don’t have any cash. Money is the means to do what I want.
Investing allows me to build my own future. To determine my own outcomes. To develop myself mentally and emotionally. To make money. To get out of the rat race. To have financial freedom.