I have been wondering many years why most people are not able to invest properly after attending expensive courses and many seminars. I have seen many smart people and professionals like lawyer, doctor, CFO, Managing Director, accountants, engineers, scientist, etc still are struggling in their own investment planning and meeting their investment goal. I have finally found an answer after going through 1 on 1 private portfolio review and consultation with more than hundred students and seminar participants. In summary, it is only down to The Misalignment of Want, Passion & Commitment.

Want

Everyone wants to make money through investment or trading. This can be seen from the attendance of the free seminars and paid courses. People go from one seminar to another seminar, attend course after course searching for the “best system to make money”. We can see many people use their smart phone to take pictures and taking notes, some of them even record the seminar or course content with or without permission. We can see the “Want” is strong in the people and they want to learn the “How”. Since their “Want” is so strong and they may be learning the Best Investment System but why are they still not doing it right? The problem lies with their Passion.

Passion

We know we learn well in the subjects we are passionate in. We will do extra mile to excel in the subject and spend more time learning it. I remember myself were a noob 9 years ago when come to investing. I graduated with an engineering degree and know nothing about finance and economy. To my surprise, I fell in love in investing after attended the 1^st investment course in 2009 and I always put investment and trading as my 1^st priority.

80% of people give up after attending classes and the most common excuse is “I don’t have time”. However, I always told them that “It is not about whether you have time or not, the key question is whether you have the passion to put learning investment as your 1^st priority”.

Commitment

I spent a lot of time learning Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis and Macro-economy. I monitor the stock market every day to see how’s the price movement correlates to different economic news, monetary policies, company earnings, etc. I watch how the central banks’ monetary policies affect the currency movement, how the US Dollar’s movement affects the Crude Oil and Gold Price besides the demand and supply. I learned and traded different financial derivatives like CFD (Contract for Difference), Futures and Option. It is not easy for an engineer to learn all these financial stuffs while having a full time corporate job as senior management.

I received an email from one participant from my seminar asking whether my course can guarantee making money for investment with minimal effort. She told me that she does not want to waste her money attending another course because she did not take any action from her previous investment course with other trainer. My blunt reply to her “If you don’t practice what you have learned in the class, you will never start investing. I would suggest you don’t waste your money to attend classes if you don’t put any priority and commit yourself to practice. It is not about the amount of money, it is a question whether you are committed to get started to invest. No action = no grow of capital.”

Summary

“Wants without Passion & Commitment” — in my humble opinion, is the main reason why most people cannot achieve their investment goal.

If you want to achieve your investment goal but you know yourself you don’t have passion in learning all those financial jargons & economic theory, or you have other priorities in your life, or you would like to spend more time to pursue your other passion like gardening, travelling, reading, e.t.c, you may engage an Independent Financial Advisor to help you to construct your investment portfolio to achieve your financial goal.

Kenny Loh is a Senior Consultant of a largest Independent Financial Advisor in Singapore. He won 4 Awards in 2017, there are: Financial Alliance Quality Class Merit Award, Top 5 Investment Asset Under Advice (AUA) Award, Rookie Consultant of the Year Award and Best Practice Consultant Award. He specialises in building Diversified Investment Portfolio for Retirement and currently having Asset Under Advisory of Millions.