The Remarkable Impermanence of Everything

(Photo by I.S. Chang on Unsplash)

Fifteen Years Ago

In June 2009, I finished a four-year baseball career at UCSD and interviewed with Edward D Jones & Company. As a young, innocent lad, I didn’t quite understand the extraordinary economic circumstances happening. With Wall Street and banks falling apart because of risky, leveraged bets on mortgages and housing, I realized much later just how unique it was for Edward Jones to be hiring at all.

Most of you know what I look like. If you don’t, most people consider me to look young for my age. Fifteen years ago, in July 2009, at the ripe age of 21, Edward Jones hired me as a Registered Representative (now known as a financial advisor). With that, I was tasked with going door-to-door and finding customers interested in investments like stocks and bonds.

(Again, I look younger than I am now. Imagine what I looked like fifteen years ago!?)

Our door-to-door training involved pitching an investment and asking questions to gather interest/information. I never really loved the idea of selling investments like municipal bonds and stocks to strangers. I believed there was something inherently off with recommending investments to people prior to knowing their financial situation.

However, that was how we were trained. When I questioned my superiors about this, my sales trainer said, “Muni bonds and AT&T are good for everyone.”

Regardless of the truth of that statement (it’s false), I learned something important; I loved understanding what people were doing with their finances and finding ways to creatively improve them. 99% of the time I could find something a prospect had overlooked with their investments or financial plans. And, for fifteen years, I’ve made avoiding or solving those pitfalls the cornerstone of what I do for people.

Yet, it has been a roller coaster along the way

What not everyone knows is how tumultuous and bumpy my career has been. Building a clientele from scratch by knocking on doors is difficult. Especially at 21.

Further, emotionally, it's bumpy having three kids and then getting divorced, re-married, adding three step-kids (bringing the total children count to six), voluntarily choosing to leave the only company I've known, and opening my new business with the risk of losing some clients I worked so hard to help and find.

All these things I mentioned above were never a part of my plans. I planned on staying married forever. Hell, I thought I’d be at Jones forever. I truly never thought I’d leave.

But I’ve realized life has a funny way of not caring so much about my plans. I’ve had to learn life is dynamic. It’s impermanent. Paradoxically, its impermanence is the only thing that is permanent.

Life is investing, and investing is life

By now, you’ve probably learned more about me than you care to know. You also might wonder what this has to do with investing?

Investing is part of life, and it’s subject to nature’s same forces of impermanence. Here are some examples:

• That stock you love so much that is doing so well (Nvidia) you won’t love anymore

• That economic issue you believe is holding back the economy will fade

• The economic policy you know is boosting the economy will stop

• The politicians you love (if you love any), will term out, be voted away, or die

• The euphoria of the bull market will turn

• The depression of the bear market will end

• Your financial identity of being a “saver” will need to change into becoming a “spender”

• Just when you think you have all the tax rules figured out, all the tax rules will change

And so on, and so on, and so on…

Being a prudent investor is not about clinging onto what is working today. It’s about accepting what is working today, and adapting when it no longer serves you. 

Our investments and plans need to mimic the dynamics of life. Otherwise, we find ourselves resisting what is for what is not.

Just like your life, you will have trials, triumphs, and tragedies in investing. Almost certainly, none of it will go according to plan. But that’s OK. If we are adaptable, we may realize how much change is working for us. For me,

• If I wasn't willing to knock on doors, I wouldn’t have a business to operate for you.

• If I never got divorced, I wouldn’t have found my next wife.

• If I never left Edward Jones, I would never have known how much better I could serve you.

• If I had never had kids, I might not have experienced unconditional love.

• If I had never had step-kids, I would not have as many opportunities to practice patience.

And so on, and so on, and so on…

While it can be difficult to unwind yourself from what you know today, change is something to be cherished instead of feared. Embrace change with life and investing. It can only do you good.

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