“The Chains of Habit are too Small to be Felt until they are too Large to be Broken”

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Probably one of the most inspiring quotes I’ve ever read, stated by Warren Buffet and cited in the classic book “The Science of Psycho Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.  I read the book almost 10 years ago and that one line has been engraved into my brain since.

I bring it up today to talk about our Habits and Addictions and the effect that they have on our careers, businesses, and lives.  It’s a fact we ALL have bad habits and/or things we are addicted to, if you say you don’t then you’re perfect and you no longer need to be reading this post!

Back to the other 99.99% of us humans that have bad habits and addictions that may have once been “too weak” but now are “too strong”.  I’m here to tell you as strong as they may be, they CAN be changed… 

For me personally, I had a bad habit of “going to the extreme” with anything I did. Whether it was working or smoking, I HAD to do 12 hour days and smoke the whole pack!  Why? Well part of the reason is because since I was a little child it was instilled in me to “always be the best” and throughout the years those words, combined with the pressures of life and challenges of careers, made me a bit of an extremist.  I was dragging around my own chains of bad habit for years until I reached a point where I not only realized the chains were there, but they were just too strong to break!

Now as many of you probably already know, the feeling of being “helpless” is one of the most terrifying, intimidating feelings ever.  When I realized I had those chains of bad habits that were “too strong to be broken” I thought I was helpless, and doomed to a life that I didn’t want, nor ever planned for.  I need to change something and change it quick!

Now this isn’t an overnight or immediate change, but it happens gradually over time.

It starts with replacing the bad habit with a good or better habit- the trick in converting the replacement to a permanent change is replacing the habit with something you love and/or are passionate about (ie: writing, painting, singing, dancing, hugging your family more, teaching, reading, learning, watching movies, driving etc).

Now these are just a few of the myriad of things you can start with and I listed those because as you may or may not have figured out those are the things I’m passionate about.  What bad habits and/or addictions do you have?  What do you love? What are you passionate about?  How can you shift your focus to the good things and make those your new, better habits? 

These are the questions we must ask ourselves when we find ourselves feeling helpless, consumed by our habits.  Only through questions will we find the answers.  From there, it’s up to YOU to change!

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DOW 10,000 and Why….

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U.S. Markets seem to be especially volatile during election season, but the Dow is headed for 10,000 with or without a presidential election in the works.

Being a former trader myself, I am very familiar with technical patterns and market psychology.  “The chart tells all” a great trader once told me, and if you look at a 5 yr. candlestick chart of the Dow, it’s headed for disaster.

First of all, our 5 yr low was just above 6,000 and the preceding high was just around 14,000 which gives a 50% Fibonacci Line (or retracement level) at 10,000.  The candlestick chart is forming an “M” which as you may or may not know represents “Murder” or a subsequent lower market.  There is a lot of activity at the 13,000 level but once we break support to the downside we are going straight to 10,000.

Volume has been significantly decreasing over the past 5 years, at 25-50% of 07-08 levels.  This means that a few major players can move the market substantially or proliferate an existing trend, especially if there is a broad sell off.

I can’t, nor do I want, to comment on how the presidential candidates being elected to office will move the markets.  What’s important is that our country’s deficit continues to grow, and once foreign investors in our T-Bills and other U.S. Markets realize that our money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, we’ll be right next to Greece selling off all our assets for a fraction of what they’re worth!

I’ve always wondered when Gold & Silver coins will become our new currency standard like they used to be.  Whether or not either replaces the U.S. Dollar, I still think that’s the absolute best place to put any extra investment capital that you have.

And you never know, one day you may need that Morgan Dollar to buy yourself bread and milk….

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