Noise Causes Bad Fishing And Investing Decisions
Our lives are a series of decisions. Some decisions are paramount and can alter the course of your life, such as who you marry or which career path you choose. Some decisions are minor, such as what you ate for breakfast this morning and what color socks you are wearing. The trick is making more good decisions and fewer bad decisions.
Minimizing Bad Decisions
No matter the size and importance of the decision, no one wants to make a poor choice. Though mistakes are an inevitable part of life, it is possible to minimize bad decisions. The most important way to avoid bad decisions is to understand what causes us to make them in the first place.
We do not make our decisions in a vacuum. Our decision-making is subject to outside influences of many kinds. We must learn to discern that which is influencing us and weed out the negative while hanging on to the positive.
Causes Of Bad Decisions
Below are several things that cause us to make bad decisions, as fishermen and investors:
Bad Information
Having the wrong information can lead to bad decisions. If you inadvertently base a decision to go fishing offshore on water temperature, water clarity, and wind forecast information that is inaccurate, you could end up having a bad experience, getting skunked, and end up wasting time and money.
In investing, if you analyze two mutual funds based on their historic returns but have information for before tax returns for one and after-tax returns for the other, or are comparing average returns to annualized returns, you will most likely end up making a bad decision.
Understanding real investment return and knowing how all potential costs affect your bottom line returns gives you a clearer understanding and a better chance of making a good decision. In both fishing and investing, it is important to be sure of the information that you are using before you make your decisions.
Emotion
Emotion is probably the number one cause of bad investing decisions. Pride can cause you to hold on to an investment when common sense tells you that you should have sold it long ago. Fear can cause you to buy high and sell low, the opposite of what you really should be doing.
Emotions such as pride, fear and insecurity can lead to poor decision making in fishing as well. To avoid making unwise emotional decisions during competitions, some of the top professional bass fishermen even go to sports psychologists in order to get their emotions under control. Having emotions is part of being human, but recognizing how emotions affect your decision making and guarding against bad emotional decisions is essential.
Greed
We fisherman can be greedy on the water sometimes. As we seek out more and bigger fish, we can compromise wisdom and common sense. Our greed can lead us to risky behavior or foolish snap decisions. The same thing happens in investing. Many people trying to beat the markets and get rich quick end up with big losses. A voracious craving for wealth can lead to unwise decisions, such as exceedingly risky investments or cutting legal corners.
Incompetent Advisors
It seems like everywhere you turn there are people trying to give investing advice, from the guy at the grocery store to the local evening news. They almost never have any kind of credentials or past success to back them up, either. It is important to develop the ability to simply tune them out because listening to people who don’t know what they are talking about leads to bad decisions. You wouldn’t let a farmer tell you what kind of tackle to take on a trip to Alaska or long range fishing. He has no track record to show that he knows what he is talking about. For advice, you want to go to the old guy who has been on the water over 40 years who has seen more than most and always looking for ways to be a better fisherman.
For investment advice, it’s also important to go to someone with experience and a proven track record. Someone who has seen firsthand the ups and downs of the markets and has watched numerous fads fade into oblivion. At Sportfishing Financial, I offer 25 years of industry experience to my clients. I am not the latest investing internet sensation, but a tried and true veteran who has a proven track record of helping my clients make wise investment decisions.
If you want someone to review your investment portfolio or talk you through a decision you are trying to make, give me a call at 949-481-1807 or email . We can sit down for a free consultation and make sure wisdom and knowledge are driving your decisions, and not emotions or bad advice.
Meet Rick
Over a 25-year career in financial services, Rick has helped hundreds of business and personal clients meet their investment goals by developing risk-efficient portfolio management strategies. He holds degrees in Economics and Psychology from the University of California, Irvine.
The water is Rick's second home: He and his family have been fishing Southern California and Baja going on four generations. In the 1940s, his grandmother worked at the Cannery Restaurant in Newport Beach—when it was an actual Albacore cannery. In the 1950s, his father was on the crew that built two of the boats still in service at Dana Wharf Sportfishing.
To schedule a complimentary wealth consultation or to get a second opinion on your financial plan, contact Sportfishing Financial today. To learn more about Rick, visit his website and connect with him on Facebook. To ask a question or get our list of upcoming fishing trips, call 949-481-1807.
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