Why Your Investments Are a Reflection of Yourself

Your investment portfolio is a mirror. It’s an illustration using the medium of money to reflect your personality, ethics, goals, temperament. Show me your portfolio and I will show you who you want to be. Show me your portfolio over 10 years and I will show you who you are.

The greatest challenge managing personal investments is not beating “the market” or merely keeping up with “the market” or even keeping up with the Joneses. No, the uphill battle is maintaining a portfolio that so keenly and acutely ties into your character, your risk tolerance, your time horizon, that you sleep soundly each night comfortable that the magnitude of any gyrations in your investment performance are within your tolerance. It is possible of course that you are stimulated by extreme swings in your portfolio balance, but that too would echo the sounds of your being.

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”
– George Carlin

Your circumstances are unique and trying to action your portfolio based on the daily noise from the financial media-sphere is impossible. Unfortunately, most every investor not only spends precious time seeking a silver bullet, but look to strangers, to see how they did, and what they forecast. And why is it relevant what these others are doing? Are they you? Do they share your lifestyle? Your family? Your choices? There are no gurus, only voices shouting over each other from the peanut gallery.