218 | Financial Obituaries

Your investment experience will not define your financial life.

That is, as long as you've spread your eggs across a couple baskets, aren't using short-term debt to juice your returns, and aren't buying and selling based on daily movement.

Everyone's investment experience is too similar - all rise, all fall - for it to be any other way.

And if it’s not unique to you, how could it possibly get a line in your financial life’s obituary?

Even the worst-case scenario of everything going to $0 wouldn’t be that defining because financial wealth is relative.

And everyone else would be strapped in beside you for the ride down - leaving your relative wealth secure.

Our financial obituaries might say...

• He grew to love his work and changed the lives of clients and co-workers.
• She saw the value of things, not just the price.
• He knew money spent on relationships was an investment, not an expense.
• She never tried to predict the future, but was always calm when it arrived.
• He appreciated that "enough" was a lifestyle more than a number.

But they'll never say...

• She kept cash on the sidelines and then capitalized on every recession.
• He beat the S&P 500 in eleven different years over his lifetime.
• Their life would have been better if they'd made 2% more per year.