Ted’s Blog

Pretty dumb question, huh? Well here’s another one. Would you let someone greatly influence your financial success, your financial future, your retirement, without any proof they were any good at it?

No? Well here’s your 3^rd and final question.

You ever see the complete 10 to 15 year track record of your financial advisor.. the only kind of track record that really matters? The complete 10 to 15 track record of their firm?

No you haven’t. Because it’s almost certainly bad. But if they’ve shown you an overall track record of beating the market for at least 10 years and especially since say 2000, great. You’ve got that 1 in a hundred. Me, I don’t even try to find such a person. The odds are just too bad.

Here’s why I say this..

• 98% of all professionally managed stock funds underperform the market in 10 years
• Over 80% of all managed funds fail to beat the market each year, and the ones that do, change from year to year.
• From 1982-2002 the stock market rose an amazing 793%.. one of the greatest explosions of stock market wealth in history. So what was the return of those that trusted the “professionals” to invest their money? Are you sitting down? The average stock investor that trusted the professionals made less than 3% a year, adjusted for inflation!

Last of all try this..

The greatest stock market investment study in history was sponsored by the Financial Services Industry, using trillions of dollars of data provided by the industry and multiple research teams headed by a team from the Harvard Business School. They believed it would be a good marketing tool for them to use.

You ever hear of that study? No, you haven’t. And why? Because the conclusion of the study was that people who invested their money themselves averaged twice the return of the people who use professionals!

When the industry got the results they panicked, and buried that study so you’d never see it.

What you’re seeing here is that the financial services industry is little more than a casino, skimming away your money in commissions, expenses, trading costs and, most of all, utter incompetence.

The answer to all this is very clear. That you, and only you must invest your money yourself. And don’t go thinking it’s too complicated for you to learn how to do it, because it’s not. Money management is not complicated. They complicate it to get their hands on your money.

I can show you, in like 3 minutes, how to invest in the stock market yourself and do so far better than any “professional” is likely to ever to do for you. And you don’t need to trust me on this, because no less than Warren Buffet has been telling everyone the same exact thing, over and over, for the last 30 years or so.

The same thing applies when it comes to spending smart.. to getting what you deserve from the money you’ve worked hard for. Over and over, we’re told wrong things to do when it comes spending our money. Things that are great for business.. terrible for us.

Unfortunately, these campaigns for both spending and investing have proven to be highly effective and the results have been just awful..

• 2 people in 3 over 50 today cannot, will not, be able to retire.. 667,000 out of every 1 million people! What are they gonna do? Work at Walmart till they drop? Live in their kid’s basement?
• Most Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck! 7 in 10 don’t even have $1000 in the bank! Think of the stress whenever something happens, and it always does… a car repair, a medical bill, God forbid a job loss!
• Money is now the #1 cause of unhappiness in our society today.. the #1 cause of divorce!

No way you want any of this to happen to you and it doesn’t have to, because solving this problem is actually not that hard. All you need is to learn what does work. And that’s what my Money Smart Project is all about.

To learn more, please take a look at my Project Overview video. I promise you.. it’ll probably end up as among the best 9 minutes you ever spent in your life.

Say you make $50,000 a year and you can change that.. make say $75,000. Look at what that alone can mean. At about $17,000 after taxes, and at a 6% return, that’s an amazing $230,000 in 10 years, $400,000 in 20! Think of what that alone can do for your life, your future.

And how about working at something you like a heck of a lot more. What’s that worth?

For most people, I’m hard pressed to think of a better investment than investing in themselves. Surprisingly, however, most people never stop and take the time to learn how to do it.

To invest in yourself and win you need to do a couple of things right.

The first is do your homework. Extremely thorough homework is critical here. And that includes learning all you can about which companies and maybe which industries reward their people a lot better than others. Sometimes the company you work for, alone, can be such a key to your financial success.

The other thing is to be disciplined. Work at becoming as good as you can be at what you do and reliable and thorough at your work. Most people aren’t, you know, and who do you think it is that gets the best raises, the best promotions? The people who do these things, that’s’ who.

Also, if you can learn new skills or improve existing ones by getting some additional education, do it.

Last of all, when it comes to getting a better raise, a promotion, or a better job, once again knowledge is power. So here is what you need to do.

Invest at least 7-8 hours of your time to read up on the advice that’s out there on this subject just waiting for you.

I’m not sure I could ever come up with a more profitable use of your time. A bigger raise.. a better job? We’re talking a lot of money here, and quite possibly a better quality of life, so I think it’s fair to say that 7-8 hours of your time is definitely one heck of a good investment.

To get you started, listed below are several good articles for you to read. But after you do, go Google “how to get a raise or promotion” and start reading and taking notes on what you find.

Once you’ve done this you’ve seen to it that the power of knowledge will be working for you, not against you, on this extremely valuable task. Thorough preparation is worth its weight in gold when it comes to something like this.

There is also something else to consider. For most people, the fastest way to raise your pay the most is to job hop. Raises run say 5% a year while a couple of job changes will net you a lot more than that.

But should you do that? Maybe,,. And maybe not. Maybe staying where you are will get you a promotion sooner. Do you like the people you work for and with, the company you work for, the kind of work they have you doing? These things can mean a lot so you need to factor them in. Job satisfaction is a very valuable thing, so if you have it don’t take it lightly.

Last, and by no means least, if you haven’t already seen the 3 minute Project Introduction and Overview Video for my MoneySmart Project, please do so.

At the end of the video you’ll get a coupon to see Course #1 – How to Get a Better Price or Deal on Almost Anything for free. That course is priceless in its own right and it will also give you more good input yet on how to go get that better raise or promotion.

www.themuse.com/advice/the-ultimate-guide-to-getting-that-raise-you-deserve

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Promotion

www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2016/06/27/8-managers-share-the-best-way-to-ask-for-a-raise-and-get-it/#2222b2c274ff

Don’t sell yourself short. Way too many people set their goals and dreams lower than they should, settling for a life far less than they could have had. It is often so easy to convince yourself you can’t accomplish what you’d really like to accomplish.

If you find yourself doing this, or suspect that you may be, take a close look at the people, especially people you know, who are successful. You’ll often realize you have just as much going for you as they do or that they did before they became successful.

We’re constantly being hit with undermining arguments.. that you have to have money to make money, that you need the right connections or the right education, that you need to be a whiz at business, or that you can’t do it because you tried before and failed. The fact is that none of these things are true.

Many people believe they’re not smart enough to be successful beyond a certain level. This is also usually just not true.

What is intelligence? Is it your IQ? How well you did in school? Are the people with the highest IQ the most successful in life? The people who graduate at the top of their class? It may surprise you, but study after study is repeatedly unable to find any significant connection whatsoever between IQ and success in life.

Quite the opposite. A guy named Robert Sternberg studied thousands of people, looking for the keys to success. He found that successful people:

• Motivate themselves
• Learn to control their impulses
• Know how to make the most of their abilities
• Complete tasks and follow through
• Are initiators
• Aren’t afraid to risk failure
• Make mistakes, but not the same mistake twice
• Don’t procrastinate

It’s an interesting list, isn’t it? So where’s the high IQ? Where’s being smart? What you are seeing is that many things together make up being smart. Academic intelligence is just one of them and as it turns out not a very important one.

What about people skills? Artistic ability? Mechanical aptitude? Common sense? Street smarts? All of the things listed above? Aren’t they all a part of intelligence?

The fact is that it is these things, not the stuff we’re constantly being preached to about, that usually determine success and happiness in life.

So don’t sell yourself short. Think about these things and about the skills and aptitudes you do have, and how much you really do have going for you.

We’re all good at something and not at others. So do what you’re good at. It’s what you like best, it’s what‘ll probably end up making you the most money and, for sure, give you the best life. As to what you’re not good at, get others to help you. Trade your skills for theirs.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the power of positive thinking. Well I’m here to tell you it works. It really does. So always believe in yourself, and you should. I ask you… how many bad little kids you ever run across? Not many, right? How many bad babies? None!

So what’s my point. My point is that all of us are hit, all of our lives, and starting very young, with negative baggage.. from our parents who love us, from society. You can’t do this, you’re not good at that, you’re not that smart, and so on. Well it’s not true. We all start out good and that’s who we really are, deep down.

Take a moment and look at a picture of yourself as a little kid. What’s wrong with that kid? Nothing, right? He was a good kid. Well that kid is you. So don’t let the problems of others cloud your vision, your judgement. Always believe in yourself.

When you do you’re both making the right decision and also seeing to it that things will go well for you. Don’t for one minute think you can’t have the life you wish for, because you can.

When it comes to money and especially for your life as a whole, the number one key to your success or failure will be whether or not you have, or adopt, a positive attitude.

A lot of really smart people have talked about this down through the ages. Not that long ago it was covered in a book and then a movie called The Secret. Prior to that, Dr. Wayne Dwyer had a bestseller called The Power of Intention. Seventy years ago it was Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. All were saying the same thing: what you expect, you get. So if you really want all that life can offer, maintain a positive attitude. Believe in yourself. Don’t ever sell yourself short.