Being a Contrarian Set Me Free

Nobody wants someone to rain on their parade, and I empathize with that, but I am only stating what I’ve observed and learned and what I believe to be true.

I am not a soothsayer. I am not a predictor of the markets any more than anybody else can be. But I’ve been around and paying attention long enough to pick up a few things.

I have grown and invested my capital base, primarily through tangible assets like real estate, for over 4 decades.

I ran a business profitably for decades and when I decided to leave it, I converted my business equity into tangible assets that provide me with more passive income.

I’ve lived through and invested throughout several market cycles and have learned how the cycles function.

I’ve learned that no one can predict or time the markets, but I can roll with the larger waves while maintaining stability throughout tumultuous uncertainty.

Being a contrarian is difficult. It’s very hard to stick to what you know is true and go against what everybody else says to do in life.

When everybody else is seemingly hitting home runs here and there, and when they say to speculate in this and that because the market is just right, it’s hard to resist.

The market can be at a particular high point in a bull market, and it can be pretty convincing to jump in with everybody else. 

It’s easy to play the traditional game of how much money I can mitigate taxes on or defer by saving in a 401(k) or cash balance plan.

It’s easy to get involved in “innovative” niches and schemes like cryptocurrency or captive insurance for conservation easements. It is easy because it is what everyone else is doing. One needs only to follow the cues most advisors and media outlets give.

What’s difficult is staying focused on what’s always worked – having a profitable business, being disciplined about your lifestyle and saving, and taking your excess capital and investing in long-term, and passive income generating assets like real estate. 

The reality is that the majority are looking for a silver bullet, going from one perceived gold rush to the next, instead of pursuing the hard and disciplined fundamentals of investing in long-term assets. 

Instead of putting your money in lock boxes like 401(k)s or investing in moonshots in a bull market. What does it look like to be a long-term investor? And create more passive income in your life?

Most Need More Experience, Here’s How To Get It.

Some hard lessons come only through experience. Experience alone does not guarantee wisdom, it must be paired with observation and willingness to implement.

Those who have not gone through a full market cycle are in the same boat as those who did but failed to learn from the experience. 

Market cycles operate and react in a certain way, and understanding their patterns, particularly in whatever asset class you decide to invest in, requires becoming your own expert in that asset class.

Don’t get me wrong. You should not learn or invest on your own. You need to find other people with whom you have a philosophical commonality.

You must pour as much effort into learning as you do your technical expertise. The CE you take to become more proficient is important, but the piece many people miss is finding the inflection point in their wealth-building.

This is when an action based on a critical principle can create an inflection in the growth of your wealth. Your wealth can then grow exponentially as you keep putting in the same amount of work or even as you decrease the amount of work you put in.

Imagine putting in less work and having your capital base grow even faster. It’s possible. It happened to me and the hundreds of doctors I work with.

Yet, instead of moving the needle in your wealth-building, most people surrender it to third parties and Wall Street. They watch their wealth go up and down with the volatility and if there’s growth, it is very stagnant.

Most are then surprised in their 50s, 60s, and even approaching 70s by the low growth of their capital throughout the years that they’ve followed traditional financial advice.

They have virtually no passive income because they never learned how to create it. Passive income comes from investing in assets where you don't have to work every day to produce income. It’s what sets you free.

Learning to Create Passive Income

Don't wait until you're trying to exit your career or sell your business to learn how to invest passively. Once you have sold the equity from your business, it’s a little too late to learn what to do with it.

You’re sitting on a potential minefield. If you make a mistake at that point in your life, what can you do to make up for it? Go back and work like you did in your 30s and 40s? 

Yet, I see this happen every time there is a market cycle correction. People who thought they were in good shape invested in one aspect of the market are blindsided when the market takes a turn. 

Their wealth suddenly dropped 35-50%, and now they must exit retirement and reenter the workforce.

Learn how to invest your capital the same way you learned to be as diligent as you are in your professional practice.

It's not complicated, but you will need people who have done it before. 

Your next step is to find people that can fold time for you. Find people who can teach you how to create passive income faster than you could on your own through investment models that make sense. 

You don't have all the time in the world. Time runs out on all of us. The sooner we adopt the philosophy of, we can't buy back more time, you'll make the most of your time and make sure every effort in your life is focused on freedom.

Don’t wait until you’re 65 or 70. You can start gaining freedom as you go right now, and you’ll find you can enjoy the ride as you progress toward complete financial independence