Everyone is looking for an edge, and there are influencers, gurus, talking heads, and quasi-experts all giving advice on how to gain this edge. There are all kinds of peddlers on every type of social media and web platform touting how changing your routine in the morning will pave the path to success.
If you wake up at 4:00 am and just follow their morning routine, you’re guaranteed to not only find satisfaction with your career, your relationships, and life in general, but you’ll be able to achieve those big dreams you’ve never been able to accomplish before.
The problem is this. It’s hard for most people to break habits and conditioning they’ve built up for years and even decades. If someone’s been waking up at 7:00 am for three decades, getting them to change their routine, starting with waking up at 4:00 am, will be a tall order. They may be able to muster up the motivation to do it for a few days, but most will fall back into old habits.
The problem is the levels of conditioning built into each person’s psyche. It all started at home, where your parents’ philosophies, habits, approaches and advice, and even reactions to struggles are impressed on their children from a young age. Then, the school system digs its claws into the psyche from kindergarten to higher education. After that, it’s the workplace, corporations, politicians, the media, Wall Street – anybody and everybody trying to get a hand into the molding and influencing your opinions and decision-making. Politicians want to divide you. Wall Street wants to box you into a corner – making you think there are only three options to invest in.
I’ve been talking about conditioning, ingrained habits, and preconceived notions – formed from years of social influence – but what is my point?
My point is that big changes are coming. Unless you’re willing to step outside your comfort zone and reverse a lot of the conditioning, habits, and preconceived notions about investing ingrained into you by family, society, and industry, you may have a rough road ahead. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there is a lot of uncertainty swirling around the economy at the moment, and recession is the current buzzword.
Here’s a headline that sums it all up.
“From Elon Musk’s ‘super bad feeling’ to Jamie Dimon’s warnings of an economic ‘hurricane,’ CEOs are shouting that 2023 is going to suck. Here’s what ten are predicting.” -businessinsider.com
Here are some sobering revelations from the same Business Insider article:
91% of US CEOs anticipate there will be a recession in the next 12 months, according to a KPMG survey.
The economic uncertainty has prompted dozens of major companies to announce lay-offs and hiring freezes.
Following the most recent Fed rate hike, economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal rated, on average, that the probability of a recession within the next 12 months is 63% — up from an average probability of 49% in July.
One statistical model from Bloomberg Economics says there’s a 100% chance that the U.S. economy will tip into a recession within a year.
Anyone in denial of an impending recession is in jeopardy of suffering severe financial pain. The good news is, there’s still time to prepare and get your financial house in order. However, the key to survival is nothing you’ve been indoctrinated with in the past. The key will require getting out of your comfort zone and bucking everything you’ve been instilled with.
Remember as kids playing marbles on the playground? The older kids would always crash the party and take your marbles. Most of the kids would shrug their shoulders and pass it off as a fact of life that the older kids were always going to take the younger kids’ marbles. However, I was simply one of those kids who was not resigned to the norm. I merely picked up my marbles and moved to another part of the playground, somewhere far from the older kids’ hunting grounds. Here’s the thing about playground bullies. They picked off the easy prey and weren’t about to follow the ambitious kids not willing to play by their rules.
During the next recession, will you have the courage to buck the Wall Street norms and separate yourself from the masses?
Because it will take breaking away from Wall Street to survive the next recession. To give you an example, during the Great Recession, the stock market dropped more than 50% from its high. It took the stock market seven years to make a full recovery. If you stay in the sandlot, you will lose your marbles.
If you want to know what the brave kids are doing, they’re going to another playground. The playground they choose to play in is the private markets where they can invest in alternatives like commercial real estate and private equity – assets non-correlated to Wall Street, with some segments boasting reliable and consistent income and growth even during downturns.
By relying on alternative assets, savvy investors can rely on consistent cash flow and appreciation to withstand any downturn.
Kyle Jones is a co-founder and Key Principal of TruePoint Capital, LLC. Kyle is responsible for the company’s strategic planning, investment decisions, asset management, and overseeing all aspects of the company’s financial activities, operations, and investor relations.
Kyle obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas State University – San Marcos, where he also played Division 1 Baseball.
