Power to Change

By now, you know from your experience that your comfort zone determines the financial return from your investments. In compatible assets, your returns are high. In incompatible assets, your mistakes create losses.

Over the years, you will add to your portfolio and make changes in your asset allocation. Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, new jobs, lost jobs, retirement, unretirement; life changes require portfolio changes whether you want to make portfolio changes or not.

Always include an investment inventory in your investigation of new asset classes. If you look at emerging market mutual funds for your 401k, do not focus solely on the returns available. Study the embedded emotional trigger information in chapter 5. Then write out your resentments, fears, uncomfortable feelings, and impacts on relationships, and complete the rest of the inventory. See if emerging market funds in a 401k peaks your interests as well.

Rely on what you have learned from your inventory. If your investigations of any new asset class show the likelihood of very high returns combined with ongoing sales pressure, do not discount how sales pressure is likely to affect your returns. If people pleasing caused you to succumb to sales pressure in the past and resulted in poor returns, pass up the false promises of high returns and keep looking. Remember that your inventory shows that in the past, people pleasing led to buying at tops, selling at bottoms, and created havoc in your relationship.

Use the inventory process the rest of your investment life. This is all that is required for most of you to dramatically increase investment satisfaction and returns. However, some of you need more help.

Those of you who have done steps 1, 2, and 3, yet remain confused, discouraged, or hopeless need not worry. It may appear nothing has changed. Much has changed. You have come to realize there is a problem. You know the problem has to do with investing and your personality. You have made a huge leap. Having discovered the problem, you can now move directly to the solution. When you did not know there was a problem, you were in no mood to look for a solution.

So far, you have discovered much about investment characteristics and increased your self-knowledge. Yet knowing better who you are, your ability to choose compatible investments did not improve. It is because self-knowledge and self-acceptance is not enough. Self-change will be required if you are to live comfortably as an investor.

Sources of power

Self-change requires the intervention of a power other than yourself and greater than yourself. You cannot change yourself without the help of others. A broken mind cannot fix a broken mind.

Many sources of power can bring about personality change. Through 12- Step programs, millions of people have drastically altered their personalities for the better. Through Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step program, more than six million hopeless alcoholics turned themselves into non-drinking, productive members of society. More than a million compulsive overeaters and anorexics turned themselves into healthy eaters with the help of Overeaters Anonymous. Gamblers Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, and Workaholics Anonymous have allowed hundreds of thousands of people to improve their money habits.

Psychotherapy and psychiatry dramatically improves personalities. Relationships improve, attitudes adjust, and life becomes happy and hopeful. A therapist can show you how to improve your relationship with your investments, investment professionals, and those impacted by your investment decisions. Recognizing and discarding family scripts can lead to high investment satisfaction and returns.

Spiritual teachers have many tools to offer us to help with our investments. Regular use of prayer, meditation, spiritual counseling, and spiritual community has brought about dramatic personality changes and transformed the lives of many investors. Our relationship to money is a core issue in most spiritual practices. Transforming that relationship is common in all spiritual communities.

12-Step Programs

12-Step programs are not for everyone. Investors who are baffled by their behaviors can get help from many different sources. The primary 12-step program for compulsive investors is Gamblers Anonymous. However, if GA does not seem to fit for you, consider therapy or spiritual help. Before you dismiss GA, answer yes or no to the questions below.

Did you ever lose time from work or school due to speculating or gambling?
Has speculating or gambling ever made your home life unhappy?
Did speculating or gambling affect your reputation?
Have you ever felt remorse after speculating or gambling?
Did you ever speculate or gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
Did speculating or gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
After losing, did you feel you must return to speculating or gambling as soon as possible and win back your losses?
After a win, did you have a strong urge to return and win more?
Did you often speculate or gamble until your last dollar was gone?
Did you ever borrow to finance your speculating or gambling?
Have you ever sold anything to finance speculating or gambling?
Were you reluctant to use "speculation money" for normal expenditures?
Did speculating or gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?
Did you ever speculate or gamble longer than you had planned?
Have you ever speculated or gambled to escape worry or trouble?
Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance speculation or gambling?
Did speculation or gambling cause you to have difficulty sleeping?
Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to speculate or gamble?
Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few acts of speculation or a few hours of gambling?
Have you ever considered self-destruction or suicide as a result of your speculations or gambling?

Now total the number of yeses. Dillon from Chapter 8 answered yes to 16 of the questions. Four questions were no, though he is not sure how firm he is in answering no on any of those four questions.

Most compulsive gamblers will answer yes to at least seven of these questions. Dillon is clearly a compulsive gambler, though he has never set foot inside a casino in his life. Following the GA program will dramatically improve his life and improve his relationship with money and investing. Avoiding GA could lead to future bankruptcies, broken relationships, or even an extreme mental breakdown or suicidal depression.

Typical feelings for a compulsive gambler

Some people find it difficult to answer yes or no to many of these questions. However, they may find they identify with most of the feelings of a compulsive gambler.

A compulsive gambler finds he or she is emotionally comfortable only when "in action". It is not uncommon to hear a Gamblers Anonymous member say: "The only place I really felt like I belonged was trading online. There I felt secure and comfortable. No great demands were made upon me. I knew I was destroying myself, yet at the same time, I had a certain sense of security."

A desire to have all the good things in life without any great effort on their part seems to be the common character pattern of problem gamblers. Many GA members accept the fact that they were unwilling to grow up. Subconsciously they felt they could avoid mature responsibility by speculating on a futures contract or trading on margin, and so the struggle to escape responsibility finally became a subconscious obsession.

Also, a compulsive gambler seems to have a strong inner urge to be a 'big shot' and needs to have a feeling of being all powerful. The compulsive gambler is willing to do anything (often of an antisocial nature) to maintain the image he or she wants others to see.

Then too, there is a theory that compulsive gamblers subconsciously want to lose to punish themselves. There is much evidence to support this theory.

This is another common characteristic of compulsive gamblers. A lot of time is spent creating images of the great and wonderful things they are going to do as soon as they make the big win. They often see themselves as quite philanthropic and charming people. They may dream of providing families and friends with new cars, mink coats, and other luxuries. Compulsive gamblers picture themselves leading a pleasant gracious life, made possible by the huge sums of money they will accrue from their 'system'. Servants, penthouses, nice clothes, charming friends, yachts, and world tours are a few of the wonderful things that are just around the corner after a big win is finally made. Pathetically, however, there never seems to be a big enough winning to make even the smallest dream come true. When compulsive gamblers succeed, they gamble to dream still greater dreams. When failing, they gamble in reckless desperation and the depths of their misery are fathomless as their dream world comes crashing down. Sadly, they will struggle back, dream more dreams, and of course suffer more misery. No one can convince them that their great schemes will not someday come true. They believe they will, for without this dream world, life for them would not be tolerable.

Compulsive gambling is an emotional problem not a financial problem. A person in the grip of this illness creates mountains of apparently insolvable problems. Of course, financial problems are created, but they also find themselves facing marital, employment, or legal problems. Compulsive gamblers find friends have been lost and relatives have rejected them. Of the many serious difficulties created, the financial problems seem the easiest to solve. When a compulsive gambler enters Gamblers Anonymous and quits gambling, income is usually increased and there is no longer the financial drain that was caused by gambling, and very shortly, the financial pressures begin to be relieved.

If you are lucky enough to answer yes to at least seven questions, you are certain to find help in Gambler’s Anonymous. If you answered yes to less than seven questions, you still may find help in GA. If you identify with most of the feelings of a compulsive gambler, you also may be lucky enough to qualify for the program. However, if you cannot answer seven questions yes or do not identify with the feelings of a compulsive gambler, then consider help from a therapist. Therapy may be the best route for you.

The benefits of GA

Active members of Gambler’s Anonymous report tremendous improvements in their lives. After thoroughly working the program, members report that they have a new sense of freedom and a new happiness. They no longer regret the past, nor wish to shut to door on it. They comprehend the word serenity and know peace. No matter how far down gambling took them, they now see how their experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity has disappeared. They have lost interest in selfish things, and gained interest in other peoples happiness. Self-seeking has slipped away. Their whole attitude and outlook on life has changed. Fear of people and of economic security has left them. They intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle them. They realize that a spiritual power is doing for them what they could not do for themselves.

Your local chapter of Gamblers Anonymous is in the phone book, usually in the business section of the white pages. If you are unable to find the phone number, call the national office at 213.386.8789 and they will refer you to a local contact.

If you know you qualify for GA, but are reluctant to call, you may want to work with a certified gambling counselor to help you through the door. You can find a certified gambling counselor by calling 800.522.4700. That is the confidential hotline of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

12 step principals can help all of us

We can all benefit from the principals of Gambler’s Anonymous. Though most to of us did not become gamblers, our investment behavior affected those around us in many negative ways. GA suggests that its members make a list of all the people they harmed in their gambling, and then make amends, except when to do so would re-injure the person. GA members report that making amends leads to freedom from guilt and shame. It has been my experience as well that making amends improved the sense of well-being and comfort in my life.

Amends should only be made after discussion with your helper. It is important to get feedback from a disinterested person before going off and righting wrongs. Often a disinterested person will suggest a gentler approach to making amends or point out that making amends should be avoided if it will cause a new injury to the aggrieved person.

All of our characters from Chapter 8 could benefit from the amends process. Part of Kathleen’s motivation for eliminating stocks and quitting work is so she can make amends to her daughters. She feels she had abandoned them. She also wants to make amends to herself. She feels she has abandoned the mother side of herself by getting caught up in the work, save, invest culture.

Todd feels his obsession with tech stocks and trading as well as his financial losses has harmed his marriage. Several times losses led him to lie to his wife. Part of moving into his comfort zone is to let go of his obsessive investing habits, be honest with his wife about what he was doing and how large the losses were, and share with her whatever family funds remain.

Marcus’s investing habits led to the abandonment of his wife in retirement. He also dragged many of his friends through a failed real estate limited partnership. And his daughter had been affected by the goings on at the children’s clothing company. Making amends in many of these areas will be difficult. With the help of his minister, he can come up with a proper plan of action to relieve his sense of guilt and shame.

Dillon’s damages are extensive. He has harmed himself, wives, creditors, and employers. His first amends is to jump feet first into GA and dedicate himself to that program with as much energy as he dedicated to day trading. By doing so, he will no longer harm himself and those around him with gambling. Then through working the steps in the program with an experienced sponsor, he will be able to amend all the other harms he has done to himself and other. Thereafter he will live a life without guilt and shame over his trading losses and the harms he has done.

Psychotherapy

Many of you do not qualify for GA, yet you still have many uncomfortable feelings about your investment activities. Like Marcus, you may not be able to comprehend how changing your investments will help anything.

For now, it is not important what caused the feelings you are experiencing. Bad markets or unskillful investment choices may have nothing to do with what you feel. At the moment, just focus on the feelings and not the causes. Close your eyes a second, and focus on your breathing.

After breathing a minute, answer these questions, yes or no.

Do you have abnormal sleep patterns, such as insomnia or the need to sleep more than others do or restless sleep?
Are you experiencing fatigue, lack of motivation, and decreased interest in usual activities?
Do you have chronic pain, such as headaches or back pain?
Are you experiencing irritability leading to impatience, outburst of anger, or rage?
Are small stresses difficult to handle?
Do you have frequent anxiety, nervousness, panic attacks, or severe agitation?
Are you often in tears and crying, sad, or having a sense that something is wrong?
Do you have difficulty making decisions, thinking clearly, or concentrating?
Have you noticed a change in your appetite, either cravings for food or a lack of hunger?
Do you have little interest in sex?
Do you have frequent negative thoughts or guilt?
Do you feel insecure, self-conscious, or dependant on others?
Are you having thoughts of death?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you are in need of therapy more than in need of a portfolio overhaul. If you answered yes to fewer than three of these questions, consider another list. Answer yes or no.

1. Have you experienced a period of a week or more of inflated self-esteem or grandiosity related to investing or other aspects of your life?

2. Have you had a week or more in which you needed very little sleep; for example, you felt rested after only 3 hours of sleep?

3. Have you had a week or more in which you felt more talkative than usual or felt pressure to keep talking?

4. Have you had a week or more in which you felt your thoughts were racing or you had multiple flights of ideas about investment activities or other aspects of life?

5. Have you had a week or more in which you were distracted constantly by irrelevant or unimportant things?

6. Have you had a week or more in which you devoted every waking minute to your investment activities or to another single, goal directed activity like school or work?

7. Have you had a week or more of excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences such as high risk investing or unrestrained buying sprees or sexual indiscretions?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, therapy is indicated before changing your portfolio.

Many of you will not answer yes to three or more questions on either list yet you know there is something going on that is beyond you. Trust that feeling and seek help. A simple inability to cope with investing problems or with any other aspect of life is enough. Excessive anxiety is plenty of reason to seek help. It is better to seek help sooner rather than later.

If you find yourself using alcohol or drugs to cope, seek help. After investment losses, nine out of ten people do not use drugs or alcohol to cope. If you are in the group of one in ten that does use alcohol or drugs to cope, contact Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. They are listed in your local phone book.

If you have thoughts of suicide, or a plan for suicide, immediately call the suicide prevention hotline in your area and follow their instructions. The suicide prevention hotline is listed in your telephone book. Call 411 if you are unable to find the number and the operator will give the number to you.

Bad investing is sometimes a cover for self-destruction. Some savers and investors believe they need to get rid of their money but cannot give it away. Instead, they embark on a path of speculation in order to eliminate all their funds under the guise of attempting to make profits. If this pattern sounds like your pattern, therapy is indicated.

Once an investor has reached a certain stage of dysfunction, self-analysis and self-help books, including this one, are of no use. You must reach out. Staying alone and isolated with your problem will only make matters worse.

How to find help

The best source for therapists is through your friends and family. Ask for recommendations from people you know who have been treated and have recovered. Your health plan may also have a list of therapists that you can see under the plan. Find out from the health plan administrator which therapist is the best for someone experiencing your symptoms. If you cannot find help through your network or your health plan, look in the phone book under psychologists and mental health professionals. Interview at least three over the phone before agreeing to an initial consultation.

To see a psychiatrist, first contact your physician. Your physician will refer you to a psychiatrist. You can also find a psychiatrist through your network of family and friends or through your health plan or from the local branch of the American Psychiatric Association.

What to expect

You do not need a psychiatrist or therapist who specializes in money and investment issues. In many communities, there are no such people.

Dr. Carol Solomon, a prominent San Francisco therapist, who has treated many investors who suffered large losses from the tech crash, suggests you look for a therapist who makes you feel respected and understood. Some therapists have unresolved issues around their own money and investment behaviors and will not honor what you are going through. You need to feel a safe, direct connection with your therapist. She also suggests you find a therapist who will focus on the problems you feel are important and troublesome. You do not need someone who is delving into other issues when you want to figure out why your investment plans have gone so far astray. Be certain your therapist is honoring your needs. Therapy needs to be a collaborative relationship.

The cost of therapy varies widely. Investment losses may make you feel reluctant to pay for help. However, this is likely the best investment you will make. Your future returns will improve dramatically and your satisfaction with investing and life are worth a lot.

If your health plan covers costs, then you need only worry about a deductible. If you must pay yourself, the hourly rate in a small town may be $50, in a large town between $80 and $150. Some psychiatrists charge more. However, many therapists have sliding scales. Also, clinics have low rates or free therapy for those who qualify. Therapy can be found for any budget or for those of you who have no idea what a budget is.

Dr. Solomon suggests that at the initial consultation, you explain what you are feeling and what your goals are in therapy. However, retain some flexibility. At the initial meeting, the therapist may suggest that the root cause of your unhappiness is not from your investment behavior. Your investment behavior is merely a symptom of the larger issue. In order to get healthy, you need someone to help you get to the underlying issues. If this rings true, try to set realistic goals for your treatment. For example, you came to the initial consultation to discuss your pattern of always losing money in many different asset classes using many different advisors and approaches. For some reason, your investments never work out. The therapist may suggest you look at your family history around money and investing and see if you are playing out a family script. If that sounds like a reasonable approach, then expand your goals to include understanding your family patterns and overcoming them.

It takes a minimum of ten sessions to make progress on most problems. However, if you have gone to ten sessions and feel you are getting nowhere or that the issue you came for is not being addressed, you should change therapists. But do not give up on therapy. Simply seek out another therapist and keep at it. Investing patterns form over a period of years. They do not disappear right away.

Dr. Solomon states that when you feel you have met your goals in therapy, it is time to quit. You are the best judge of when those goals have been met.

Spiritual help

You may be certain that you do not need GA or therapy. On the other hand, you have worked steps 1, 2, and 3, and still you feel lost. You have come to wonder what the point is to investing. Good years are followed by bad years followed by good years and bad years and it just does not seem to lead to anything meaningful. Investing has become morose.

You are not alone. As our society has become increasingly affluent, the number of Americans who report being happy has dropped steadily. Once material wealth eliminates poverty and the threat of poverty, it does not contribute to a sense of well-being and long-term contentment.

Our society places great importance on making money from work and from investments. The consumer culture is dominated by the chase for more and better homes, cars, vacations, clothes, and foods. The equity culture is dominated by a quest for larger portfolios and higher returns. Financial advisors routinely ask whether you will spend your next dollar or invest it for future consumption. However, you may sense there is a third alternative or even a fourth or fifth alternative that few people are talking about.

There are many alternatives.

When investing has become meaningless, it is time to search for meaning.

Try this simple exercise.

Make a list of your values. What is most important to you in the world? Include everything you can think of including:

· Financial values like

o Good job,

o High income,

o Wealth,

o Financial security,

o Material possessions,

· Relationship values like

o Family,

o Friends,

o Social connections,

· Physical values like

o Good health

o Sports achievement or participation,

o Exercise,

o Sex,

o Laughter,

o Drinking,

o Parties,

o Appearance,

· Abstract values like

o Love,

o Fidelity,

o Service,

o Charity,

o Honesty,

o Truth,

o Goodness,

o Justice,

o Freedom,

o Liberation,

o Honor,

o Beauty

· Beliefs and interests like

o Religion,

o Politics,

o Creativity,

o Science,

o Arts,

o Education,

· Personal values like

o Self-respect,

o A sense of purpose,

o Pride,

· Social values like

o Respect of your community,

o Patriotism,

o Loyalty, and

· All other values that you hold dear.

Now rank your values from most important to least important. You can rank them individually or in groups. For example, if you have ten values, you can rank them 1 through 10 or you can rank them as three are 1s, three are 2s, and four are 3s. The point is to discover what your values are and to estimate which are your core values and which are secondary values.

Next, for each value on this list, ask if your investment activities further the pursuit of the value, have no affect on the value, or harm your pursuit of the value.

Let’s again look at the example of Marcus. Marcus, from Chapters 8 and 9, placed a high value on family and the respect of his community. These were two of his core values. He asked the question, does my investment activity improve family relationships, have no affect on family relationships, or harm family relationships? When he looked at this honestly, he had to say that his investment activities harmed his relationship with his wife and with his daughter. His wife wanted him to be retired when he was always off on one of his investment pursuits. He got entangled in a clothing business with his daughter and her friends and now they are no longer friends. As to the respect of his community, he asked did my investment activity improve how the community views me, have no affect, or harm how the community views me. Honestly, he had to say that his failed real estate partnership led to the disrespect by many members of his community.

When your actions are contrary to your core values, you have a spiritual problem. Marcus was facing a spiritual crisis. The solution is to seek spiritual help

What does spirituality have to do with investments?

Investing is about increasing material wealth. All spiritual teachings talk about the affect of materialism on our spiritual self. Your spiritual self is the part of you that loves and cares for yourself, your family, your society, and the environment. Your spiritual self acts to bring about the highest and best good for all you affect. Spiritual practices can be part of an organized religion or independent of any organization or structure. All spiritual practices attempt to bring our actions into harmony with our spiritual self.

Christian teaching includes the admonition that it is easier to for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Idolatry to money is discouraged in all Western religions. Buddhists practice letting go of attachment to material possessions. Native Americans speak of contentment with minimal material goods. Hindus speak of attaining peace through letting go of longing for more material goods. Jewish practice is to strive for neither poverty nor riches. The Tao Te Ching states, “he who knows he has enough is rich.”

Spiritual practice requires action as well as thought. Spiritual activities include:

· helping those with less material wealth,

· working for just causes, with or without pay,

· volunteering,

· prayer in many forms,

· meditation in many forms,

· study,

· teaching others,

· practicing tolerance and kindness at home, in the office, and in the world,

· building communities of like minded people, and

· modifying lifestyle, actions, and beliefs to prevent harm to yourself, to others, and to the environment.

It has been my experience that when my actions conform to my values my investment issues are non-existent. When I am volunteering, I have no time to worry about markets or to spend money I do not have. At the same time, life has great meaning, connection, and purpose. In the 1980s, I made myself an expert at many forms of investing and had tremendous returns on my investments, yet life became increasingly intolerable. Focusing solely on increasing my wealth, a dullness and depression set in. While materially my investments had made me a multimillionaire, spiritually I was a bankrupt. Since 1990, I have spent far more time on spiritual activities than on investing. Today life has purpose, connection, direction, and great meaning. All my activities, including investing, are now of great interest to me.

How to find spiritual help

We live in a culture where money is valued above spirituality. The equity culture dominated the late 1990s. Three out of four college students rank wealth as their number one goal in life.

Adopting spiritual practices is outside the norm of most groups in today’s world. Spiritual fervor has not been a dominant element of society since the Great Depression. It is important to seek support from others to reinforce your spiritual practices and to learn from those who have practical experience in living a spiritual lifestyle in an equity culture. Alone you are likely to relapse into sitting in front of the computer screen playing a lonely investment game. Committed to an active spiritual community, you will be too busy helping others and being held to remember the computer screen.

Spirituality is often criticized as being unscientific. However, many scientific studies show that those who practice spirituality have a measurably greater sense of well-being and satisfaction with life than those who do not practice spirituality.

If you currently practice a form of spirituality, formal or informal, seek out other practitioners and leaders who have dealt with issues of material wealth. If you do not practice any spirituality, but you had some religious upbringing, consider returning to it. Coming back with an adult perspective and a need to change may cause you to practice your former faith in a new way. If you have no background in spiritual matters, pay attention to friends, colleagues, relatives, and co-workers who practice some form of spirituality. Look for those who seem to be satisfied with their material wealth and ask them about their practices. Very often, if you do what they do, you will get the results they get.

Do not go to a financial planner seeking advice on spiritual matters. Many financial planners will discourage the pursuit of spiritual solutions. Though desperately unhappy themselves, they do not realize that the one-dimensional pursuit of wealth is the cause of their unhappiness and the unhappiness of many of their clients. Seek spiritual groups and practices that believe investment issues are only one of many blocks to happiness.

Most spiritual practices have classes and programs for beginners. Experiment. Look for practical programs that address not just belief systems but actions. Avoid groups that talk spiritually but act unhealthily.

You will be amazed at the changes you make in your life. I am not suggesting that you will donate all your investments and material possessions to a charitable cause and live off the land. However, do not rule out such a possibility either. Be aware that once you embark on a spiritual path, dramatic change in your thinking will be accompanied by dramatic changes in your behaviors. It may be that you have too much money and not enough community; that with less money you would be happier. Or maybe you have just the right amount and need to spend your extra time working for the environment or the homeless and not trading online. Spiritual practices teach us to want and enjoy what we have rather than yearn for what we do not have.

Love

Love is a power used in 12-step programs, therapy, and spiritual practices. Love is acting out of a true desire to help others bring harmony into their lives and your own.

Find love within yourself, and dramatic changes can be accomplished. Love will sustain a long-term commitment to recovery. Quick fixes rarely hold up over time. Difficult binds are not solved readily by twelve step programs or therapy or spiritual practices. A long-term commitment is required.

Love is often the key element in unraveling problems in families where there is dysfunction around both money and relationships. For example, wealth, even invested outside the comfort zone, can keep an unhappy family together yet continue to increase their misery. While divorce looms as a quick fix solution, wealth may an obstacle to divorce. Often letting go of wealth in a divorce is harder than letting go of a spouse. However, if one spouse finds the power of love, that power can heal the whole family and create an atmosphere where wealth can be shifted into the family comfort zone. Michael and Susan, discussed in chapter 2, had all their wealth in stocks when single-family houses were their comfort zone. Susan and the children felt alienated from the investments and from Michael, while Michael was obsessed with the investments. With the power of love, Michael could work the three steps. If the three steps were not enough for him, love, manifested as a long-term commitment to couples counseling, individual therapy, the appropriate 12-step program, or spiritual practices would solve his seemingly hopeless family dilemma. With a true desire to bring harmony into his family, Michael would be able to let go of his obsession with trading and his need to conform to norms at the office. Acting out of love, he would be able to heal his relationship with his wife and children and bring the whole family into the investment comfort zone.

Comfort zone investing brings your investments into harmony with your true self and with your family and community.

Every investor has a comfort zone. For those willing to do the work, the age of miracles has not ended. No matter how miserable your investments made you, you can find the power to change your investments or to change yourself. Though your ship once tipped into the sea, it will be righted, and come ashore.

It is my wish that you achieve as much harmony with your investments as I have been blessed with for the past decade. If you found the book or this article helpful, tell others who may benefit from it. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. You can reach me through this website.

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