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Applying Discretion In Your Financial Investment

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@samminator
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A few weeks back, one of my friends brought a seemingly nice investment opportunity to me and I understood that it was done in all sincerity of heart, but many things were not right about the investment. I mean, there are many things that pointed out to red flags in the investment, including over-inflated ROI (return on investment), shady outlooks, ponzi-like nature, and many others. At that point, my instincts negated the business and I told her to give me a little time to do more research about the investment. She tried convincing and persuading me with "I have already invested, trust me it is a good opportunity." I still insisted on not jumping into it without a research. I was still trying to gather information about the business after some days and the business had already gone down the drain with investors' monies. If I had gone against my instinct to invest too, it would have been a case of "if I had known."

It is not enough for an investment to look good, you still have to understudy it to know if it will be right for you or not. You will agree with me that even though an investment may not be bad for others, it does not mean you should jump into it. The truth is that some investments that some people fail at are not always caused by something scammy, but some can be caused by lack of knowledge. You have to understand what works for you and what does not, because this will help to determine the kind of investment you should go into. Imagine someone that is heavily on the shy side or introverted going into marketing of consumer goods, how will the person relate with people on the products they are marketing?

More so, when investing, there is often a secondary voice that normally sounds at the back of your mind in relation to the investment. Some people may call it instincts, hunch, or intuition, because sometimes your mind sees what your eyes may not be able to see at the moment and tries to save you from that particular investment. There was a time a very close friend introduced me to a particular business. At first, my instincts negated it but because the person that told me about it was not someone I could easily tell "no," I decided to go against my instincts. Well, I said to myself "the business may be good at the end" and I tried to convince myself with those words. After investing on sentiments, a few weeks later, everything went south including my friend's funds too. My only luck was that I invested just a little amount of money, if not, my life would have been rekt.

That particular wrong investment thought me a very hard lesson in life: when it comes to financial investment, you have to learn to separate feelings from it, separate sentiments from it, separate emotions from it and stick with the research you have made. No matter who has brought you the investment, it does not mean you should not do your own research, and when you want to invest there is a need to put discretion into it. If something does not seem right about the investment or if a detail is not clear enough, you should seek clarification first before investing.

While investing, there is also a need for you to diversify it, and do not put your entire funds (including the one your saved for emergency) into that particular business to avoid the statement of "had I know." Another thing to know is that if someone is applying pressure on you to invest in a particular business or giving you less time than you need to research, then something might be fishy about it. Do not allow anyone to prey on your psychology and make you to do what you do not want or compel you into investing against your wish. Learn to say a firm "no" and stand by it without feeling a need to explain yourself.

Another thing to look out for that should point towards "red flags" in a business opportunity is if the terms of investment are unrealistic or unsustainable. Imagine someone promising you an ROI of 1000% in 3 weeks for example, how does he hope to sustain that kind of outrageous returns? Or someone giving you fake promises that you can easily decipher, so do not sweep it under the carpet as "it does not matter". The little detail you overlook today may become your greatest bane tomorrow. More so, more often than not, it is "it does not matter" that actually matters the most in the long run.

Thanks for reading

Peace on y'all

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