Last week , My phone was not working properly.
It just wouldn’t work and was so slow that I couldn’t take it.
I took it to the phone store to see my upgrade options.
I brought my close friend .
While I waited to get a new phone, he watched the World Cup game in the store.
My friend Javed proclaimed that Belgium was playing Japan.
This was big deal.
(And in a moment, I’ll tell you how it all relates to investing.)
When we left the store, the score was 0-0 at halftime.
We were still confident belgium would win.
There was talk of how Belgium could go all the way.
It seemed a sure bet against Japan.
(Belgium lost to France in the semifinals on Tuesday.)
In the car , I asked Javed to tell me the score..
Belgium was down by two goals and still hadn’t scored.
It was quickly turning into one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.
Javed said to me ,
“You never know… They can come back. It’s not over yet!”
I saw his face was mixed with disappointment and hope as he is from Belgium.
I replied with a weak moment of adult realism:
“I don’t know , it seems doubtful. Sorry dude.”
I felt bad the way a friend does when he’s gotta break bleak reality to his friend.
Five minutes later, he said “Oh yeah, ? Look now!” I nearly crashed the car when
I saw on his phone that the score was now 2-2.
I was screaming with glee with the windows open.
It must have looked strange to anyone standing on the street.
When I got to hotel , we ran inside to watch the final minutes of the game.
Belgium scored an injury-time goal to win 3-2.
Javed and me started jumping around.
Belgium turned what would have been the biggest upset in the
World Cup into the biggest comeback.
Aside from being a fantastic game, there is a point to this story…
You see, I was ready to throw in the towel on Belgium.
Psychologically, I had given up.
There was plenty of time for a comeback—improbable as it was.
But my mind had written off that possibility and given in to despair.
Sure enough, I was dead wrong.
And that’s the point…
Emotion is the true enemy of investors.
It can lead to despair and fear.
And that can cause you to make drastically wrong decisions.
If Belgium were a stock, emotion would have told me, “I can’t take it anymore!”
I would have sold at the exact bottom.
It took me a long time to learn how to overcome emotion as an investor.
Ultimately, the most important thing I had to master was my own mind.
Like most people, I have a knack for doing the wrong thing at the worst moment
when I act based on emotion.
crypto positions will move up and down, day-to-day, and week-to-week.
The market itself will get bumpy from time to time.
Yet we still act on our feelings when it happens.
The key to overcoming emotion is to stay rational—especially when things get bumpy.
There are two ways I do this:
Stay patient. I need to remind myself that investing in crypto is a long-term game. I need to stick to my system and not sell out of fear.
Stay focused. When I feel overwhelmed by emotion, I find it helpful to take a walk or do something to focus my attention on something other than what’s bothering me. For me, listening to music or watching a nice movie calms me down and helps me refocus.
Emotions cause us to react.
Logic dictates that we stay disciplined.
Patience and focus will get us to where we want to be.