Winning Investing & Planning Principles: Putting It All Together

Key Takeaways

• Congratulations on discovering our Winning Investing & Planning Principles series!
• Becoming an empowered investor is as much about identifying what financial serenity means to you as it is about understanding the mechanics of investing.
• Whether you’re new to investing or seeking a refresher course, we hope you’ll browse through our entire library of Winning Investing & Planning Principles.
• You can read (and re-read) our posts in any order. However, we also have structured them to come together as a guided tour.
  We hope our series will help you achieve improved financial outcomes through a more peaceful process. To learn more, please be in touch.

Yes, it’s important to invest wisely. Throughout this series, we’ve included key insights you can use to do just that. But, as we introduced in our initial post, financial security is also a lot like your favorite comfort food:

“The basic ingredients [for financial security] are universal. Everyone wants a comfortable roof over their head, good food in their belly, and the means to enjoy a rich, meaningful life in the company of loved ones. After that, there’s no limit to what you might add to your own recipe for financial security.”

As such, becoming an empowered investor is as much about identifying what financial serenity means to you as it is about understanding the mechanics of investing.

Becoming an Empowered Investor

Whether you’re new to investing or seeking a refresher course, we hope you’ll browse through our entire library of Winning Investing & Planning Principles.

We’ve carefully crafted each post to serve as a stand-alone insight essential to investment success. Requiring just a few minutes of your time, each piece covers practical steps and offers inspired advice about why and how to invest toward your financial future.

We’ve also designed our collection of Winning Principles to fit together into a cohesive resource for truly transforming your lifelong investment journey.

Winning Principles: Our Guided Tour

Please read (and re-read) our Winning Principles in whatever order suits your whimsy. However, we have structured these posts with a rhyme behind our reasoning. If you’d like to take our 19-step guided tour, we suggest the following order:

Getting Started

1. The Big Picture: You, Your Financial Security, and Recipes for Success
2. Your Top Priority: Lowering the Volume on Investment Noise

Breaking Bad Habits

3. Pitfall #1: Not Having an Investment Philosophy
4. Pitfall #2: Chasing Market Predictions
5. Pitfall #3: Trying to Outsmart Markets and Chase Past Performance
6. Pitfall #4: Failing to Diversify Your Investment Portfolio
7. Pitfall #5: Letting Emotions and Behavioral Biases Influence Your Investing

Going the Distance

8. Moving Past the Pitfalls: Taking Control of Your Financial Action Plan
9. Laying a Strong Foundation: Personal Financial Planning for Ages 25–35
10. Your Power Play: Personal Financial Planning for Age 35 to Pre-Retirement
11. Enjoying Your “Chill Out” Years: Personal Financial Planning in Retirement

Building Best Practices

12. Set Expectations and Add Accountability: The Investment Policy Statement
13. Creating the Winning Conditions: Evidence-Based Investing
14. Historical Roots: Evolving from Index- to Evidence-Based Investing

Applying Evidence-Based Investing

15. Investment Principal #1: Invest in Asset Classes
16. Investment Principal #2: Diversify Your Asset Classes
17. Investment Principal #3: Use Passive/Index Funds or ETFs
18. Investment Principal #4: Use Investment Factors to Pursue Higher Returns

Putting It All Together

19. Winning Investment Principles: Transforming Your Life Through Empowered Investing [hyperlink]

Realizing Your One Voice, One Choice

“For an empowered investor, there is only one voice—your personal financial plan—and one choice—the philosophy of evidence-based investing. By listening to that voice and making that choice, the empowered investor takes control, achieves success, and is transformed.”

— The Empowered Investor

The world can be such a messy, unsettling place. It may seem as if you have no control over your financial well-being. Imagine what it would be like to cut through all that confusing stress, to discover your one voice—your personal financial plan—and one choice—the philosophy of evidence-based investing—that makes sense for you and your family. The following illustration summarizes the orderly process available to empowered investors.

It all begins with identifying your One Choice, One Voice. That said, you don’t have to go it alone. If you have questions or comments—or you would like to receive a complimentary copy of our book, The Empowered Investor—please reach out to us today. We love hearing from our readers!