Overview
My goal is to help you realize where to place your attention. You should place it on where you are trying to go financially, before focusing on how to get there. Too many people today focus exclusively on how to get there. They do not have any idea where there is! They spend too much time on investing and have no idea for what they are investing. A vague idea is not enough. When storms arrive in the form of an unfriendly market (in any market—stock, bond, real estate, commodity, etc.), people become easily lost and disoriented. They are no longer sure what to do. Confusion sets in because their focus has been in the wrong place to begin with.
The basic question: Are you trying to earn, through your wage or salary, a short-term income, or are you trying to grow and protect long-term wealth? The answer is long-term wealth, obviating the need for wage or salary income down the road. At the risk of oversimplifying, people become so focused on detail that they cannot see the forest for the trees.
What are their concerns and goals, and what are the priorities among those concerns and goals? People are inundated with the minutiae of investing information and daily tactics. They question what is happening right now and what should one do in response to it. What is the overall strategy? More importantly, what philosophy guides their strategy and tactics regardless of minute-by-minute or day-by-day changes? What is it they are trying to do? Where are they going financially? How do they know when they have arrived there?