Chapter 31 Set a limit for worry

Do you want to know how to make money on Wall Street?Of course, there are over a million people who want to know that.If I knew the answer to that question, my book would sell for $10,000 a copy.However, I know there is a good concept that many successful people have applied.The man who told me the following story was an investment advisor named Charles Roberts. When I first came to New York from Texas, all my money was $20,000, which my friends gave me to invest in the stock market.I thought I was good at the stock market, but I didn't expect to lose a penny.good!I made a few profits in some businesses, but lost them all in the end.

If it's just about losing all my money, I don't care much.But I thought it a very bad thing to lose all my friends' money, even though they were all rich.After this unfortunate outcome of our investment, I was terrified to see them again, but to my surprise, they were both optimistic and open about the matter. I began to seriously analyze myself, where did I go wrong?I made up my mind that before I entered the stock market again, I must first understand what the stock market is.So I found and befriended one of the most successful forecasters, Burton Casers.I believe that I can learn a lot from him, because he has been very successful for many years, and I know that people who can make such careers cannot be done by chance and luck alone.

He asked me a few questions about me and how I used to trade, and then he told me one of the most important principles in stock trading.He said: "Every stock I buy in the stock market has set a minimum standard that can no longer be lost. For example, I bought a stock with 50 dollars a share, and I set myself The minimum standard that can no longer be lost is $45." That is to say, if the stock falls in price and it is $5 lower than the purchase price, it will be sold immediately. In this way, the loss can be limited. Within $5. The master continued to say to me: "If you bought smartly at the beginning, you may make an average of $10-25, or even $50. Therefore, after limiting your loss to $5, even if you have more than half of the If your judgment is wrong, it can still make you some money."

I got the hang of it pretty quickly and have been using it ever since.This approach has saved my client and me a lot of money.After a period of time, I discovered that this "stop here" floor principle can also be used in places other than stock investment.I started to set a "stop here" boundary for myself on worries other than finances. I added a "stop here" limit to all the troubles and unpleasant things I encountered, and I got great result. Let's take a simple example: I often have lunch with a "very unpunctual friend".He used to arrive well past my lunch hour.And now I told him: "The limit of waiting for you is 10 minutes. If you arrive after 10 minutes, then our lunch will fail, and you will never find me here."

How I wish I had learned years ago to apply this "stop here" limitation to everything about me—my impatience, my temper, my desire to adapt, my regrets, and All mental and emotional stress.Why hadn't I thought of this before?Why didn't I say to myself, "This matter is not worth worrying about so much, and I can't take care of it anymore"? Still, I think I'm doing okay with at least one thing, and it was a serious situation—a crisis in my life.At the time, I almost watched my dreams, my future plans, and years of work come to naught.That's what happened:

When I was just 30 years old, I decided to write fiction as a career for the rest of my life, dreaming of being Jack London or Hardy II.At the time, I was living in Europe for 2 years with a boundless passion for it.In the period after the end of World War I, it was still very economical to live in Europe in US dollars.I stayed there for 2 years and wrote my "masterpiece", titled The Big Snowstorm for that book.The title is so good that all publishers treat it with the same ruthlessness as a blizzard roaring across the Great Plains.My heart almost stopped when my agent told me relentlessly that the work was worthless and that I had no genius for fiction.I left his office in a daze, not surprised that he'd hit me with a club -- I was stunned.I found myself at a crossroads in my life right now, with a big decision to make.

What on earth should I do?Which direction should I go?It was weeks before I woke up from my daze.At the time, I had never heard the phrase "draw 'stop here' boundaries for your worries," but in retrospect, that's exactly what I did: I devoted myself to writing that novel Consider it a valuable experience, and move on from there.I went back to my old profession of adult education, writing biographies and non-fiction whenever I could. Am I happy that I made this choice for myself?Now whenever I think about that incident, I feel so proud that I want to dance in the street.I can honestly say that since then, I've never had a day or an hour regretting not being second to Hardy.

When Franklin was very young, he also made a mistake that he has never forgotten for 70 years.When he was 7 years old, he fell in love with a whistle that was on sale in a toy store.He ran into the toy store excitedly, put all the change in his pocket on the counter, and bought the whistle without asking the price. "Then, I came home," he wrote to his friends 70 years later, "whistling all over the house, very proud of the whistle I had bought." But his older siblings found out he bought the whistle When someone overpaid, everyone made fun of him.As he later said: "For this, I was very annoyed, and I was so angry that I cried a lot."

Many years later, when Franklin became a world-renowned figure and served as the American ambassador to France, he remembered paying more for the whistle himself, which caused him far more pain than the whistle brought him. happy.From this lesson, Franklin learned a truth "When I grew up, I saw many people behave as if I paid too much for the whistle. In short, I think that human suffering is partly caused by They misvalued things, which means they overpaid a lot when they bought the 'whistle'." Gilbert and Sullivan overpaid for their whistle, as did myself. Yes, I believe "having the right values" is one of the biggest secrets to mental peace.And I also believe that as long as we can set a good personal standard for ourselves, half of our worries can be eliminated at once, which is what is worth comparing with our life.

So, before worrying destroys you, change the habit of worrying. Here's step seven: Whenever we want to spend money to buy things that are not necessarily cost-effective, let us stop and ask ourselves the following three questions: First, what is the relationship between the problem I am worried about and myself? Second, the thing that worries me, how do I get to the minimum "so far" and forget about it altogether? Third, how much should I pay for this "whistle"?Am I paying more than it's worth?