Health, Happiness and Financial Success

• I'm healthy, happy, and successful because I take proper care of my mind and body, which enables me to earn my success (i.e., I eat right, exercise, get enough rest, focus on my goals, seek and apply relevant wisdom and skill, and support a positive, can-do attitude).
• I'm living an honorable, mutually beneficial life. I'm bound and determined to enjoy my life, to live as well as possible, in harmony with others, and with the environment that we all share. Good things naturally flow towards me and to those around me because I work to achieve that end.
• As a student of life, I've come to realize and accept the following apparent facts of life:
  1. It's in our best long-term interest to always Do the Right Thing now for all concerned (to engage in Enlightened Self-Interest).
  2. Obviously, we're not all created equal, we all have our own strengths and weaknesses; but when we work together, we can leverage our strengths to create synergistic solutions to our common problems that can far exceed the individual efforts of even the best among us.
  3. Clearly, we all have attributes that make us unique and we love to focus on the differences; but when we consider everything required to make us whole, we find that we're all pretty much alike, especially in the ways that truly matter in life. We're all about 99.5% genetically identical, and we all share the same set of motivational factors (listed in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). Furthermore, we can all choose to be the best person we're capable of being, to make good use of our time, to earn our own success, and to engage in activities that are likely to generate happiness and fulfillment.
  4. We're all subject to error, and occasionally say and do things we later regret. But that's okay, we can learn from our mistakes; and we're all worthy of forgiveness for our minor transgressions, especially when we express heart-felt remorse.
  5. A positive mindset (a genuine can-do attitude) can greatly enhance our ability to set and achieve truly remarkable goals.
  6. The way we live our life (our words and deeds) does a far better job of defining our character than the circumstances of our birth.
  7. Good fortune can happen when preparation meets opportunity; and the combination is empowered by life-long learning, having an open, inquisitive, analytical mind, and being willing to just go-for-it when life offers up a favorable opportunity.
  8. What goes around comes around (we tend to inherit the world we create around us); and that's why I put a smile on my face, compassion in my heart, and work to leave the world a little better place in my wake.
  Let's all work to create a better world, preferably a world where we help each other to earn our own success, be fulfilled at the top of Maslow's Pyramid, and to enjoy shared abundance without all those unhealthy feelings of attachment and entitlement.
• I'm focused on our prioritized objectives. Thinking globally, I act locally by iteratively performing the following steps to achieve my prioritized goals:
  1. Verify that my objectives are in-line with and support our broader objectives.
  2. Consider the various ways that I can achieve my goals. Look for opportunities to create synergy and reduce risk. Select those solutions that offer the best risk/reward (cost/benefit) profile.
  3. Using the solutions selected in the prior step, prepare and maintain a detailed, measurable, step-wise plan to achieve each goal.
  4. Execute the next planned step as planned, and then
  5. Compare the results of the last step against expectations in the plan; and when presented with new information use that, where appropriate, to revise the plan and/or the process.
  While iteratively performing these steps, I exercise patience, persistence and attention to detail to bolster success.
• I am a successful Portfolio Manager because I know and apply the following time-tested rules to trading and investing success for retirement:
  1. Understand my Financial Freedom Number, Track my Financial Progress, and use both to Manage my Expectations.
  2. Study Economics, Business, Investing and the Market's Nature to understand What works on Wall Street and Why.
  3. Master the Tools and Techniques of the Trade. Every investment begins and ends with a trade, and having an effective and efficient User Interface to the Market and market related information can truly enhance investment results.
  4. Beware the Trading Idiot (our quick-to-action persona and greatest enemy on Wall Street). We need to study Behavioral Finance to understand and avoid all those perfectly natural and costly beginner mistakes.
  5. Keep My Operations In-Sync with the Health of the Broader Market Trend. This is my Ideal Stop-Loss Mechanism.
  6. Focus the bulk of my Time and Capital on Survivable Investments, that will pay me a Market Rate of Return to hold, and that are very likely to see higher prices sooner or later. This is my Optimal Stop-Loss Mechanism.
  7. Trade like a Big Professional Value Investor — Buy Low and Sell High. Be a buyer at below average (discount) prices and a seller at above average (premium) prices, and where appropriate break-up the buying and selling power to convert the single buy and sell prices into two averages that can be managed and optimized (turn the buy low price into an average Price per Share and high price into an average Rate of Return). This is the best way I know to improve individual position results.
  8. Employ a Diversified Asset Allocation that is slightly Biased towards Likely Economic Outcomes. This is best way I know to simultaneously improve total portfolio returns while reducing total portfolio risk.
  9. Develop and maintain a Watch-List and an associated Iterative Analytical and Trading Methodology, a repetitive process that is so simple an Idiot can understand it and can make money using it.
  10. Use the Wisdom above to Find Favorable Trading opportunities, Plan Out each Trade, Trade the Plan, and then Learn from the Results. This is the best way I know to grow from a Trading Idiot to a Consistently Profitable Trader (a CPT can grow wealth at a compound rate) to a True Market Professional.
  11. Because rate of return is a function of time, I need to Find and Operate (be a CPT) in my Optimally Effective Timeframe (OET). Start by learning to be a CPT in a longer and easier timeframe (e.g., an economy's boom-and-bust cycle). Once CPT status is realized, use a very small percentage of my trading power to probe the next slightly quicker timeframe. Only allow clearly successful trading results to employ more capital. Repeat the process until I'm unable to achieve CPT status in the next quicker timeframe, meaning that the bulk of my capital is in my OET in the current market environment using my current skill set. But markets can chance and so can my abilities, so OET is always subject to change.
  12. Be about the Business of Growing My Wealth, a True Market Professional, which is someone who can make a living in the markets because they understand and will manage all the factors, everything above, that affect their P&L. This is all about having the right mindset and persistently doing those things that are likely to generate prosperity.
  Click here to learn more about my rules.

^*My Daily Mantra: Every day, while swimming, biking, walking, or just in a quiet, singular moment, I meditate on this because this type of self-talk is how I program my subconscious, which makes it all possible!

Stan Benson