Control Yourself, Not the World

The world’s fastest blind female sprinter, Terezinha Guilhermina, has darted out of the slums of Betim, Brazil, straight to the top of the podium at this year’s Parapan Am Games in Toronto, Canada. Once a barefoot and malnourished girl, whose only form of escape from local bullies was to outrun them, has become a world record setter who has run alongside the likes of Usain Bolt, and who now feeds herself and her entire family through sponsorships.

Misfortune may befall any one of us. But even in the deepest and darkest of disasters, we remain free to choose our attitude. Take it from Viktor Frankl – the Austrian psychiatrist who decided to continue to hope whilst a prisoner in Auschwitz.

The general sense of uncertainty in today’s global economy does reap fear in the hearts of many. But to hope that the exchange will miraculously lose its essential waviness from here on out is quite naïve; major drops and corrections in the market are not only a possibility, but an actual inevitability.

Times will be good. And times will be bad.

And what in the Dickens is that supposed to mean? Exactly what I just wrote.

Terezinha did not succumb to false hope, which would have been but a mask, worn by the angst which fed itself with the belief in the bullies’ sudden disappearance. She faced the bull, grabbed it by its horns, and invested in the resources she did have to come out on top.

She couldn’t see, but she could run.

In other words, she focused on what she could control.

You cannot control the future, nor can you govern the global economy. So why are you worried about either of them? And why are you not focusing on your attitude, and your assets?

There are diversification strategies that not only anticipate market corrections, but actually maximize post-drop portfolio growth.

It’s interesting to see that even in this age of unlimited access to knowledge, information, and wisdom, investors continue to disregard international investment moguls’ sheer joy at the sight of a dip in the exchange. It’s as though we all forget that that’s when we can make some money.

What are you controlling, and what’s controlling you?