it’s time to move

Everyone is saying “Now is the time to buy” so we bought.
That doesn’t mean I always do what others says. Usually, I’ve found that if the masses are going in one direction, it’s better to head in the other.
We found what amounts to be a great home at a great price so we bought.
Timing is everything, I’m certain you’ve heard. But it truly is.
The key is to be prepared when an opportunity knocks.
The trick is recognizing the opportunity.
I can’t tell you how many great, I’m mean GREAT opportunities I’ve passed up for one reason or another. No, I take that back. Basically it was the fear factor.
I was fearful of the cumulative negative effect turning the potential opportunity into a disaster.
Countless times those same opportunities that were handed to me, which I passed on, others decided to go for. The end result was they were extremely satisfied with their decisions to go for the opportunity.
In the 70’s my printing company use to print items for Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker, and Gerald Baldwin, the founders of Starbucks’. They also told me to buy their stock. I didn’t know anything about stocks so I didn’t.
Also in the 70’s a friend imported a little thing called the Hokey – it was a small hand sweeper. He said I should start distributing these things to hotels, restaurants, businesses etc. I didn’t but he did and he is extremely happy these days having been retired for decades.
Take for example Bill Gates. I use to talk to him almost daily when he had a small staff. We even took helicopter lessons. He told me to buy Microsoft Stock when it was issued. Again, I never bought. Big mistake.
The last obtuse illustration is this one; While we were having a blast retired in Florida, I heard of an inside tip by very wealthy individuals of a great stock that was going to be introduced and I should buy some. I remembered the other multi-million dollar stock options I passed, so we purchased a ton of IPO stock at $55 per share.One month later, the stock had increased about 25%. I knew the ship had come in. Greed took over and I wanted to hold out until it reached $150.00.
Two months later the stock was worth 80¢. That was in 1999.
The most important lesson I took from my many past mistakes is simple; If I was going to have to navigate a landmine field, such as life is sometimes, then it makes sense to follow someone that has been thru it before and knows the way.
These times we are in, history is our best leader, in my opinion. All we need to do is look at the past which best correlates to the events of today. It will scare the heck out of you, but you already know the outcome and this time you can change it for the best.
I believe there are always opportunities available – even today. You just need to be able to see them and have the where-with-all to react.
Too many are rightfully scared to do anything right now and you can’t blame them. On the other hand, we can’t stick our head in the sand and wait for the sun to shine.
Each one of us has to do what we can in a positive way to move through this murky water we’ve managed to get into.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, so the best thing to focus on is the future.
Here’s to the future and timing and moving on to a positive future.