If you’re scared right now, you’re not alone, and you’re not foolish. Interest rates are on your mind, the news is loud, and every second headline tells you to wait. You may be lying awake doing sums that never quite add up. This is for you.
There’s always a boogeyman
There’s always a boogeyman behind your next corner. This week it might be an interest rate rise. Next month it might be an election, or a war on the other side of the world. Whatever you name, there’s always one waiting for you.
The media will fan whichever one stirs you most, because emotion is what makes you tune in, click and read. That isn’t a criticism of anyone. It’s how the news works, and it’s how a whole herd is kept moving the same way. But it means the loudest voice in your week is rarely the one looking at your numbers.
Any dead fish can swim downstream
Warren Buffett put it well: be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. In my opinion, when everyone around you wants in, that’s usually your moment to step back. When everyone around you is frightened, it’s often your moment to look harder.
I have a saying of my own: any dead fish can swim downstream. The current carries it. If you swim against the tide, against popular opinion and the way everyone else is heading, it can feel lonely. But if you’re the one person walking the other way to everybody else, you may simply be the critical thinker in the room: someone who won’t accept a thing just because it’s what you’ve been told.
If you’ve been told no
Perhaps a bank has told you no. Perhaps a friend, a parent or your own doubts have. That doesn’t have to be the end of it. I was told no three times, and each time I found a way. A no is often the start of a better question: not “can I?” but “how could I?”
Perhaps you’ve been burned before, chasing a return that turned out to be too good to be true. If so, you’ve got plenty of company, me among them. What you learned from it can make you a far wiser investor from here.
And perhaps what you want isn’t grand at all. Not a Lamborghini or a holiday overseas, but an air conditioner for the house, or a Movie World pass for the kids without checking the bank balance first. Those are good reasons to build something. They were mine.
What waiting costs you
Your fear is reasonable. Rates do rise. Markets do fall, sometimes for years. Nobody can tell you what next year holds, and I won’t pretend to. The past does not promise the future.
But fear has a cost of its own, and it’s quiet. It’s the property you didn’t buy, the plan you never made, the years that pass while you wait for the news to calm down. It rarely does. In my opinion, if you wait for a time with nothing to be scared of, you’ll be waiting forever.
None of this means you should jump in. Swimming against the tide only works if you can keep swimming: a property you can carry, a buffer for your bad months, and a plan you comprehend before you sign anything. Courage without a plan is just a different kind of risk.
A phone number from 2002
When I started MRD in 2002, I ran my first evening information session in a room my accountant arranged. Afterwards, I got talking with a few people. I can’t remember the exact question, but it was something like: what makes you different? I said I’d be there for the journey, and I’d never rush anyone. If they weren’t ready, they could spend the next few years learning, and I’d help. Whenever they were ready, I’d be there.
Then I said: keep this phone number. If you do nothing, ring it in 20 years. I’ll still be here, answering calls and helping people.
That was 2002, 24 years ago. The number I gave out that night still rings on my phone, and I still answer it.
So if fear is keeping you still right now, your first call with me is free. If I can’t help you, I’ll tell you.
Nicholas Lockhart