I left New Zealand yesterday after six weeks, spanning both the North Island and the South. On the last day, just 48 hours after doing a bungy jump for the first time, I went up 53 floors in an elevator to the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower, the southern hemisphere’s highest building, at 192 meters tall, and jumped.

Height is known to be one of man’s innate fears. People don’t cope well with the sensual data, delivered to the brain, when they are exposed to elevation. At this tower, many back-out at the last minute, still having to pay, since it’s non-refundable. There have been cases of clients losing consciousness, while circling the ledge.

Even A.J. Hackett, the person, who commercialized bungy, knows that you can’t sympathize with fear, though, so he doesn’t refund, if you look at the task ahead and pull out. Indeed, you must conquer fear, no matter what it is.

For years, when analyzing my own life, I’ve always been conscious of fears, cropping-up to the surface.

At a very young age, I feared death. I remember lying in bed, thinking about how this world would go on merrily, not losing a single beat, after I’m gone, as if I didn’t matter. This fear birthed a passion for delving deep into finding significance, purpose, and for not compromising, leaving a positive mark.

My father’s bankruptcies, which occurred between the ages of 13 and 23 for me, sparked the fear of poverty in me. Getting over it took me on a journey to find the principles of wealth, spending about 6-8 hours a day reading, every available second I had, about business and investments. I literally would not stop until my eyes would shut.

At age 22, my wife (then my girlfriend), freed me from one of the most crippling fears – that of criticism. Her belief in me gave me the strength to pursue a life of entrepreneurship, which has a success ratio of 1:28. Most people fail at business – it’s just a fact of life. She encouraged doing it my way.

Fear, to me, is the ultimate motivator to take massive action. It leads to the nurturing of the most important character trait a man can possess and use: unwavering faith that THINGS GO RIGHT in the end.

It’s extremely rare to find a man that has mastered this mental skill completely, one who has no doubts, but when you encounter such a person, it makes you shiver a bit. It humbles you. It is that noticeable in everything, from his posture to his demeanor, his voice, facial expressions and the rest of it.  

I strive to trust more every single day because faith breeds the habit of setting goals, formulating plans around these goals, and pursuing them without cease. It gives you the energy to execute and bulldoze through seeming walls.

Right now, investors are absolutely terrified.

Courtesy: Zerohedge.com

<The sentiment is really negative, as in doomsday-dark, yet no one is shorting stocks, either; very few are of the opinion a recession is due next year, and the VIX isn’t above 30 even.

The major indices are red for the year, nonetheless. More than half of the component companies are, officially, in bear market land (dropped more than 20%).

As I said on several interviews that I was recently asked to be a guest on, the FAANG/Crypto mania of 2017 might have already been the peak for the markets, but it’s too early to say.

When it comes down to it, we all must focus on the facts, on the basics of investing; otherwise, just like standing on the edge of the Sky Tower gets the heart beating at 140 BPM, so do investors lose perspective of reality with the trade war, the tightening cycle, or whatever else fills the airwaves with horror.

Be ready to buy, when the time comes.

Fear lingers below the surface, bursting out at times, but the truth is that we, humans, tend to survive it all, thrive and build the future in ways that are beyond belief!

Best Regards,

Lior Gantz
President, WealthResearchGroup.com