so it's 2022 and if you're anything like me you're already regretting your new year's resolution
sorry gym membership maybe next year i say that every year you're probably listening to a lot of
people's investing plans for 2022 allocating this much to stocks that much to crypto maybe some gold
or even some real estate in there nice the big issue here is the same one as listening to other
people's new year's resolutions in general it doesn't really help you with your own it's just a
data point so how come it doesn't help well that's because of something called the behavior gap
which is the difference between the returns of your investments like stocks and cryptocurrencies
and the returns of your investments as in when you actually decided to buy and sell them
the thing you may not realize is that this behavior gap isn't just about investing money
this could be the difference in the possible returns of your gym membership and your returns
based on how much you actually used it it could be the difference between your possible return on
time spent watching finance youtube if you watch the right stuff for you versus your returns in
actually clicking the first thumbnail that catches your eye the difference between your plan and your
actual execution of that plan is the essence of this behavior gap and your new year's resolution
as an investor should be to close it so in this episode that's what we're going to do your time
is valuable so let's get right into it the first thing we're going to do is clearly define our goal
why are we investing there's no wrong answer here but you need to be specific
are you setting yourself up for retirement are you trying to supplement your existing income with
more passive income are you growing an account for a specific purchase like a house or a car
do you have multiple goals be clear exactly about why you're investing and when you're trying to
achieve your goals then go to a compound annual growth rate calculator and literally lay out your
goal i have twenty thousand dollars i want to afford a brand new tesla model 3 in three years
which costs fifty thousand dollars give or take so i'm looking for an aggressive 36 percent compound
annual growth rate over the next three years that's more than the market returned last year
should i adjust my goal if i'm willing to wait one more year the growth i need goes down to 26
per year instead of 36 if your goal is more general like building a nest egg or supplementing
your income that's great just be clear about how much money you're putting in and realistic
about how much you expect it to grow money in money out and don't forget to account for taxes
there's no right answer but when you have a specific investing timeline and goal you
can start researching specific ways to achieve it by the way the further out your goal the more it
makes sense for growth stocks to be a part of your plan to achieve it the sooner your goal the safer
you should play it not the other way around each portfolio should have exactly one goal that can be
measured so you can clearly track your progress along the way if you have multiple goals set up
separate accounts that way you can accurately track your progress for each goal over time
instead of being in a constant state of stress this is our first step to closing this behavior
gap if i ran a fitness channel i'd be saying the same things except for your exercise routine
instead of your investing routine and speaking of your investing routine that's the next step we're
going to clean up our bad habits now that you have a real goal the bad habits are easy to spot
they're the things that get you further away from achieving your goal instead of closer to it
just like you have a real diet you also have a media diet and just like your real diet is
mostly caffeine and fast food your investing diet could probably use some work as well
in my opinion if it's got lettuce it counts as a salad so in 2022 i'm cleaning up my investing
media diet i'm getting rid of the tools and services that i don't use cleaning out my social
media and unsubscribing from youtube channels that don't do a good job of valuing my time
unsubscribing and unfollowing is a win-win for everyone this isn't reverse psychology it's
common sense it's good for you because you reduce unnecessary distractions and get your time back
it's good for that channel since they probably just lost an inactive and unengaged member of
their community and it's good for the platform like youtube since it will probably adjust its
future recommendations based on what you keep versus what you decide to cut also you shouldn't
only be keeping the media that you agree with having a biased view on the world in general and
on the stock market specifically is a great way to crush your own returns you should be keeping
the media that gets you closer to your clearly stated goal or at least makes you feel more
informed or entertained or relaxed as a result quality over quantity is a powerful way to clean
up your current and future investing media diet if you stick around till the end of the episode
i'll tell you my plan for this youtube channel that way you can decide whether to cut me or not
in 2022 now that you have a clear goal a realistic timeline for that goal a solid list of resources
that you're keeping and some time back from all the things that you're cutting the next step is
to form a plan and build some habits when i get to my desk i check cnn's fear and greed index i
do it every day because it provides me with a lot of high level information fairly quickly and it
updates daily it's a good habit the aaii sentiment survey only updates once a week on thursdays so on
thursdays i check that too in the know with kathy wood comes out on the first friday of every month
i have a google calendar reminder set so i don't miss it when it comes out it's become my routine
for you maybe it's a great finance channel or newsletter that you want to start making time for
maybe it's a specific website or tool that you want to check daily or weekly build a
little routine to check those few sources that you learned about in 2021 and promised yourself that
you'd start checking but never really followed up on it trust me i get it things fall through
the cracks all the time our investing resolution in 2022 is to not let the most important ones
fall through the cracks anymore here's the thing if you're anything like me you need someone else
to hold you accountable a gym buddy a personal trainer an app a class with a schedule whatever it
is you might need external motivation especially in the beginning investing is no different it's a
skill you build over time and one of the biggest things institutional investors and fund managers
and analysts have had for years is a powerful network co-workers conferences financial journals
well guess what retail investors have access to those things too this year you're going to
join a community pick a couple and just try them maybe it's a reddit community or maybe it's a paid
community on seeking alpha or the trading floor of kathysark.com whichever communities you choose
remember they should align with your overall goal it's a place for you to connect with people with
similar goals exchange plans and resources hold each other accountable and even make a few friends
not sure which ones to join most youtubers have a community on slack or discord where
you can chat with other members about the kinds of investments that that channel covers for example
my discord community is all about investing in disruptive innovation right now it has a channel
for every major type of innovation that arc invest covers like 3d printing virtual reality and the
metaverse robotics electric vehicles genomics and space exploration it also has a few channels where
people can talk about their highest conviction investments the stock market as a whole and the
latest episode of this channel after i release it joining my discord community is absolutely free
and it has around 4 500 members right now so if you're looking for a place to talk about advanced
technology tech stocks growth stocks arc invest and the metaverse this is a solid community to try
and if you're interested in joining i'll leave an invite link to that community in the description
below a lot of my members keep me accountable and have helped me close my own behavior gap
as a result if you're focused on passive income and dividend investing this is not a community
that will help you achieve those goals see how it all fits together alright speaking of the ticker
symbol you community let me give you the pitch for my channel so you can decide if i belong
in your investing media diet or if you should cut me in 2022 remember if i'm a bad fit for you
everybody loses my background is not in finance i have a bachelor's in master's in engineering
and i spent eight years as a scientist at mit where i worked on telescopes radars and other
sensors to track rocket launches so mostly applied math after that i was the head of data analytics
at an e-commerce agency where i helped executives from big publicly traded companies invest their
tech budget to grow their online business up to and through the first waves of the pandemic
so mostly applied math the trends i saw and how these companies were spending their technology
budgets are the same ones kathy wood in arkan best research talk about and invest in i think they're
on to something big really big so i quit my day job this past summer to focus on investing in
and making content about disruptive innovation as well so mostly drinking wine and crying while
staring at my portfolio in 2022 i'm going to keep focusing on investing in disruptive innovation
while reducing the amount of noisy content i produce what that means in practice is i'm going
to spend less time worrying about macro economics and market crashes and instead i'm going to put
out more deep dives on individual companies especially the ones that are fundamentally
misunderstood by the market the rokus the teledocs the palantirs and even the facebooks of the world
i'll also keep covering the biggest changes inside the funds that hold them like arkhanvest's rk and
meta the round hill ball metaverse fund i really do believe in the metaverse and the technologies
that it's being built on i also strongly believe in arkhan best's long-term vision on innovation
and technology so i'm going to keep talking about the research into the products and services
that's causing their funds to hold the stocks that they do i'm also going to start covering the
most important technology events that investors should pay attention to but may not know about
nvidia's gpu technology conference tesla's ai and battery days big fintech conferences and
maybe even cryptocurrencies since arc invest covers blockchain technologies
that's how all the content on my channel already fits together and i'm doubling down on that vision
in 2022 since the channel has 5xed in size this past year i've been able to land a bunch of new
interviews with the founders of awesome tech companies i've landed a couple relevant sponsors
with great offers for investors and tech nerds alike and i'm finishing up some pretty cool side
projects that i hope will keep taking your tech and investing knowledge to the next level after
all this is the channel that invests in you so if you're interested in having all that as part
of your media diet consider liking this video and subscribing to the channel with all notifications
turned on that's not just for me that's for you and for youtube as well and if that doesn't align
with your investing goals and plan going forward that's great you just got some time back each and
every week and you should be treating your time as an investment because it's the most valuable
resource that you have so stay long stay strong and thanks for watching until next time this is
ticker symbol u my name is alex reminding you that the best investment you can make is in you
you