Debt Free

It’s been postulated the 4 things you need to successfully grow your investment portfolio are the same 4 things you need to be a successful athlete; strength, balance, speed and coordination. If you think about it for a second, you’ll realize there are more parallels than you thought. 

Investing strength – You need strength, good solid investments you can bank on to support your portfolio. Weather you are primarily in equities, debt, real estate, commodities, or some other investment instruments, you absolutely must have pillars to support your portfolio. It’s much the same in athletics. You usually need some strength to achieve high levels of performance.

Investing balance – In your portfolio, balance helps keep you moving ahead. In this case I’m speaking of balance in the sense of some diversification to mitigate risk. You usually don’t want to put all your investment eggs in the same basket, lest it topple to the ground. In sports, it’s often those with great balance that perform stellar athletic feats.

Investing speed – When you are investing you want to be able to both recognize trends early, and move quickly when it’s required to take advantage of great investments. That speed can serve you well if you’re able to jump into the game early and in the right place. Again, in sports, it’s often the athlete that exhibits impressive that gets to the goal, base or finish line in first place. The athlete that can rapidly move and change direction when it’s required is better able to avoid the tackler, fist, or foot that’s coming their way, and deliver a strike of their own.

Investing coordination – All the speed and strength in the world is no good if you’re unable to use it as you desire. In sports you’ll often find those with outstanding coordination are often able to prevail over those that are stronger and/or faster than they. After all, you have to make contact with the ball in order to get the base hit. All the strength and speed in the world will do you no good if after your powerful swing all you hear is STEE-RRIKE! Likewise in your investment portfolio, you must coordinate the various parts to work effectively together. The whole should be greater than the sum of their parts, and able to ride out little problems like the ones plaguing the Dow for the last 3 days.