I met a legend over the weekend…

[ad#Google Adsense 336×280-IA]He’s a now-retired international sports hero.

I don’t want to share his name today, because he told me quietly that he could use some financial help, and he probably wouldn’t want that word out in public.

I didn’t really answer him when we were together.

But as I thought about it later, the right advice for him is the same advice that I would give to you…

This is serious stuff.

I urge you to take it seriously, and commit these ideas to memory. Let’s get started:

1. Nobody will care more about your finances than you.

This is critical for you to embrace, immediately. Nobody is going to care more about your finances than you. You simply can’t just find somebody smart and hand your money responsibilities off to them.

You can’t just hand off your life and hope it goes okay – this is your life we’re talking about! How many rock stars and sports stars have you read about that are broke today because they handed off this responsibility? Don’t do it.

The quicker you take control and ultimate responsibility with your money, the quicker you will start building your legitimate fortune. And you can’t ever give up that responsibility.

Let me be clear… It is alright – even smart – to work with smart people, and to delegate some of your money responsibilities to carefully chosen people. The important part is, you just can’t “check out.” You have to be the team captain here… the captain of your money ship.

2. There is no magic bullet, or shortcut.

You didn’t become a sports legend by taking shortcuts. You had to work harder than the next guy, learn more than him, and focus with more intensity than the next guy to achieve your goals.

If you want to invest successfully, you have to do the same thing. You can’t get by on one hot tip after another. The shortcuts don’t work. This leads us to the third idea…

3. If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it.

It’s easy to get dazzled by promises of big profits… It’s even easier to get sucked in when the promises are accompanied by slick brochures and fast talk with a lot of words that you don’t understand.

You’ll save yourself a lot of loss (and time) if you remember this: If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it. Don’t ever cheat on this one. It will cost you.

4. Buy investments that are 1) cheap, 2) hated, AND 3) in an uptrend.

I’ve built my wealth and reputation on this philosophy. In short, you can’t buy what’s already incredibly popular – because if you do, chances are you’ve already missed it. Instead, you have to buy what people are skeptical of.

Separately, waiting for an uptrend is a crucial part of this strategy as well… It helps take the risk out of the idea, and it helps “confirm” that your investment thesis is “right.”

If you want my opinion today, property is probably your best bet. Here’s why:

It’s surprisingly affordable (when you factor in today’s record-low interest rates). I say “surprisingly” because most people look at house prices versus incomes, and they wrongly assume that house prices are expensive. The correct way to look at it is relative to monthly payments (interest rates). And based on that, house prices are plenty affordable after all.

Also, investors are skeptical about property now, wrongly thinking that it is overpriced. (So it is hated – or at least not loved). AND property is in an uptrend. PERFECT.

Best of all, you can understand it. You hold the keys, you paint the walls… with YOUR property, you control your destiny.

My money is where my mouth is with this one… Back in 2010, I owned no property outside of my home. Today, property makes up the biggest percentage of my own financial assets – by far.

Property is what I’m doing with my own money.

You will always hear about ways to make higher returns, or faster ways to make a buck, than property. But chances are today you’d be risking much more than you can imagine, relative to the potential reward. It’s simply not worth it.

Again, right now, property is affordable, unloved, in an uptrend, and understandable. You control your destiny, to a better degree than with other investments. Particularly if you are not an expert in investing, and don’t intend to be, then property makes sense for you.

I could go on and on about “do’s” and “don’ts” when it comes to your money… But I won’t.

Instead, let’s leave it at these simple-but-absolutely-critical points…

  1. Nobody will care more about your situation than you, so don’t hand off your finances.
  2. There is no magic bullet or shortcut. (The “hot tip” doesn’t exist.)
  3. If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it. (If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.)
  4. Buy investments that are cheap, hated, and that have started their uptrend.

That’s it. Commit these points to memory.

Again, property, right now, ticks a lot of these boxes. That’s where I’d suggest you start…

Good investing,

Steve

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Source: Daily Wealth