“Investing- Easier Than Golf”

Steps 2, 3, and 4 are recurring themes is this blog and if you go back and read my post dated November 10, 20ll you will find what you need.  The “fundamentals” spelled out there are worth repeating over and over again.

Mastering the “fundamentals” in every aspect of life is essential for success.   I have recently come to the realization that I am now old enough to take up golf.  (Prior to this I only enjoyed sports that allowed contact or created some element of danger.)  Taking my ego out of the process I hired a true professional to teach my wife and me how to play the game.

In our first lesson, he kept stressing two things:  one, there is a lot of variance among great golfers in their game; their grip, the arc of their swing, their stance etc. etc.  I won’t bore you with the details but he pointed out that every great player in the world had three fundamentals in their swing that are the same.  If they forget these fundamentals they will not be successful.

The analogy to investing hit me all at once.  Many of the best Financial Advisors I have worked with have written excellent investment books, the most recent being Kim Foss.  Some are lengthy with lots of great detail about the Financial Services Industry, economics, statistics etc. while others were short and concise using real world examples.  As I was reading Kim’s book it occurred to me that every single one of these different books focused on the same two fundamentals, diversification and discipline. I can assure you, that if you forget these fundamentals you will be setting yourself up for a lot of investment double and triple bogeys.  Fortunately “investing par” is a lot easier and less time consuming than par in golf.