The Media Who Cried Wolf (And Learning to Ignore Them)

My grandmother, Mary, made wine in the basement. Ziggy, my grandfather, opened Christmas gifts very carefully so that he could save the wrapping paper for next Christmas. As kids, they lived through the Great Depression. That experience was permanently seared into their memory, burned into them that something so dire could happen again.

I think in some ways the Great Recession did the same for investors. Since the recovery started in March of 2009, everyone has been waiting for the next big fall. Each time there is the slightest disruption in the markets, the financial media run to report it. They cry, "WOLF!!!! This could be the BIG ONE. WOLF!!!!"

North Korea is the latest one. According to the week's media reports, bombing could start any second. Markets marched on as pundits and bearish investment marketers cried, "WOLF!!! WOLF!!!"

There have been many before North Korea. I can recall:

Sequestration
The election
The first interest rate hike
Debt ceiling (I, II, III, etc.)
Healthcare
Greece
Brexit

There will be many more, and you can count on the financial media and bearish investment marketers to cry, "WOLF!!"

Don’t live your life waiting for the next big one. At some point the markets will drop. It’s a normal event. Instead, stop listening to predictions, and refocus on what you can control so you can create the retirement you want.

Traditional retirement planning doesn’t help you do this. It relies too much on saving and investing as the only solutions. This makes you almost totally dependent on the markets. This approach worked for your parents and my grandparents. They had shorter, less active retirements (plus they likely had pensions).

It doesn’t work so well for you. In retirement, you’ll likely live longer, be more active, and spend more money than any previous generation.

Over 27 years, I’ve developed Agile Retirement Management to help people like you take more control over their retirements (and ignore the cries of WOLF!!!).

Check it out here.