Podcast: Investing and Risk

[craigr]

I put up a podcast talking a bit about risk from a start-up entrepreneur perspective:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160324133 ... o-podcast/

Feedback welcome...

[ozzy]

Good talk Craig, thanks!

[dualstow]

I don't know if it's your end or mine, but the audio sounds better this time around.

[craigr]

I don't know if it's your end or mine, but the audio sounds better this time around.

I don't know what changed. Maybe I changed some mic setting?

[Lone Wolf]

This was a great talk.  I'm glad that I finally got a chance to listen to it.  Now that's a proper Variable Portfolio. 

When you think about it, many investors take a very safe career path so that they can save.  Unfortunately, they then proceed to gamble it some risky investment strategy.

In other words, a very conservative career is often used to enable a very risky investment life.  But like you said, why not do it the other way around?  Why not allow a very conservative investment life to enable greater freedom and flexibility in your career?

[craigr]

This was a great talk.  I'm glad that I finally got a chance to listen to it.  Now that's a proper Variable Portfolio. 

When you think about it, many investors take a very safe career path so that they can save.  Unfortunately, they then proceed to gamble it some risky investment strategy.

In other words, a very conservative career is often used to enable a very risky investment life.  But like you said, why not do it the other way around?  Why not allow a very conservative investment life to enable greater freedom and flexibility in your career?

I understand too that some people may not be able to do risky things in their career. For this reason I fall back onto one of Harry Browne's rules that you can't replace your wealth. I really hate seeing advice that tells investors to take huge gambles with their life savings. I've known people get really pummeled following that advice. I think anyone looking to gamble money should first consider taking that gamble on themselves before giving their hard earned money to others to gamble for them. IMO.

Yes, I have a different perspective on these things than others. I just think many investors convince themselves to take risks in many wrong places when the best investment they have is in their own abilities and ideas!

[sophie]

I just think many investors convince themselves to take risks in many wrong places when the best investment they have is in their own abilities and ideas!

Thank you Craig, for a wonderful podcast.  The idea of becoming "financially independent" is closely related to this, although I haven't heard it stated so succinctly.  It would certainly be easier to take risks in your career if you didn't have to live in fear of job (and income) loss.

[Jake]

Great podcast, I really enjoyed it. I really appreciated the message of betting on yourself and your career as wealth generation and then treating investment as a way of keeping what you've made, with modest appreciation but low risk. There is a lot of support for the wisdom of this approach in Thomas Stanley's surveys of people who became millionaires within one generation. I'm reading his book "The Millionaire Mind" at the moment. He doesn't go into specifics of their portfolio allocation, but the basic message is that most of the people he surveyed who became millionaires took risks on their own entrepreneurship to generate wealth and then were conservative investors.