Hi, this is Garrett Gunderson and I just wanted to talk a little bit about where we get our financial advice from and what that means to the results. I mean if we look at this antiquated financial system that people have followed for tens and you know twenties of years, if we look at this, people aren’t getting better results and this is part of the problem.

Number one; if you listen to radio show hosts, they will give you very basic information off of almost no disclosure. So someone calls in, hey I’m looking for this; oh you’ve got to do that. So they don’t even have a full disclosure of the person’s financial assets and I think that’s malpractice, I actually think that they are setting themselves up for a lawsuit long term. Because if you only have a small piece of the picture and you give a strategy or technique, it may not at all solve the problem. Here’s the other thing that we face, there’s all these financial professionals that are actually just sales people.  They say that they are experts, but their expertise is in the charisma and articulating the concepts that move you forward to buying something. It’s not about management and maintenance once you get there. That’s another issue.

We also have this arrogance syndrome where people say that “I have been doing this for twenty years”; “I’ve been doing this for thirty years”.  But what we find is, a lot of times they have done the same thing over and over year in and year out, so that they have one years’ experience, twenty to thirty times over. The problem that I see is that a lot of people don’t learn from their mistakes because they don’t do very many different things or they are not asking better questions. So in the financial world when the Stock Market goes down, we see that all too often they are defending the position. “You are in it for the long haul; stocks are cheap, dollar cost average, asset allocate”. All kinds of excuse-based salesmanship, rather than saying, “is there a better way to do this? What could we learn from these losses? How could we prevent from this happening again in the future? “

The reason that it is clouded is because it’s a commission-based system and if you follow the commission you will see where the advice is coming from. Let’s face it, when it comes down to it, most financial planners are either Life Insurance salesmen or Mutual Fund salesmen when we get to the bottom of it. There aren’t people that are getting extraordinarily wealthy just because they bought an insurance policy or just because they bought a mutual fund. Instead wealth comes from within.

Wealth comes from understanding your PURPOSE when you cultivate your passions that are aligned with your ability then you deliver more value in the market place. Through your contribution you increase your cash flow, you stick with things you know. You invest in alignment where it’s congruent and where you’re passionate so that you will follow the trends, you’ll understand what’s going on and you have a little more faith in yourself.  So it’s not just about the pundits, if it were, we would all be wealthier. Or as a matter of fact there would be this magic product that they report to have, we would all be wealthy, we would just call an 800 number and there would never be a commission again. Don’t sell yourself short, don’t set yourself up for failure:  following the malpractice the stuff that is just setting these advisors up for a lawsuit in the long run because they are not being authentic and transparent by helping you with your situation.

So here’s the final rule, no one cares more about your money than you do. So make sure you know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how it’s going to benefit you and ultimately how it fits into your plan. The good news is, you don’t need to learn about every investment, only the ones that you choose to pay attention to and add into your life. If it doesn’t make sense, don’t do it ever again and you’ll save a lot of despair and frustration, and you’re not going to lose every time the economy switches. I hope you enjoy this tip. Follow it and you will find more peace of mind. 

In Utah there were many people that got involved with investing in “Holding Funds”. If you did not, you can learn from this post, but if you did the lesson will be much bigger- that is if you are willing to try this on.

It is interesting how people became philosophical “producers” when they were able to pull some equity out of a home and then put it in a holding company. Somehow, for many, they felt that this was personal production and they began to talk the talk of a producer. The simple definition of a producer is: one who creates more value then is consumed. To really be a producer though, it is critical to create value in a unique way using your Soul Purpose. “Passive” income doesn’t necessarily make someone a producer, in fact, many times it has caused laziness and was merely gambling. That is why I call it the lotto. Pull out some equity in a home, give it to someone else and there you go- freedom.

For so many, the talk of principles and producing was social programming. Each person’s Human Life Value wasn’t necessarily increased, the gamble just paid off- temporarily. Now, the language of the producer has been abandoned by many and the mentality of scarcity is the rule. I have seen forums where anytime that someone is being a victim there is a pouring out of compassion from other people posting , but as if that person had no responsibility or choice in the matter.

So what can be done now? First of all, I recommend people mentally let go of the money that was put into the funds. So many times people get caught up on what is wrong and hoping that it can be fixed rather than focusing on opportunity and what is possible moving forward. For many this will be a massive and painful lesson in gambling, control, Soul Purpose, and chasing returns to name a few. It is a very expensive tuition for many, but I applaud those that are moving on with creating value in the world and choosing to look at what can be done now and in the future rather than focusing on what went wrong in the past.

It is interesting to see the different sides-those that learned and are moving on and those that were greedy and now are pointing the finger to everyone else. I feel for the people that have lost trust due to this, but I respect those that learned from this. I have lost significant money in two investments in the past. The first was several years ago. When it was lost, the person I had invested with was not in communication with me and I began to go into scarcity and get really angry. It impacted my happiness and really left me being a person that I did not want to be. For a moment I wanted revenge. I wanted to trash the person’s name and I actually called and left a very harsh message. What did this have to do with happiness, opportunity, abundance, and love. Kindness is not weakness. The message isn’t to lose any accountability or to be wasteful; it is to live a life you love.

What changed for me was when I actually called the individual I invested with and apologized for my behaviour. Then I took a stance of creating value for him. I asked him questions to understand his situation. He had more clients than he had real estate projects to put them in. At this point I referred him to three people I knew that had plenty of projects. The tone of the conversation changed and so did our relationship. He took full accountability and is making monthly progress in repayment to me.

One of the greatest parts of this experience is that I created a tool for due diligence with investing. It has 18 questions that are critical to answer before making any investment. I wrote it looking at mistakes I had made in the past and asked “what would I have asked, knowing what I know now”? This tool is much more valueable than the the money I had lost. The key was to stop dwelling on the past and start looking to what I could do productive in the present. What was exciting about the future- this is what inspired me and is where I let go of anger, resentment and stress.

It wasn’t the easiest thing, but it increased my stewardship and even my wealth after a few years. We all have lessons to learn. Do people care more about your money than you? If not why give it to them without managing your risk? Learn the lesson and live. Was your life good the day before news you weren’t getting interest? What would it take for it to be good today?

More to come on the recession and personal investing.