An Antidote to Doom & Gloom Investing

In our last post, Soul-Satisfying Investing, we explored the relationship between money and quality of life, and how there’s a big difference between investing for your life, versus investing becoming your life. One way to go about making this important connection is to begin with an optimistic outlook.

For starters, you’ll probably feel better more often if you maintain a positive perspective. Beyond that, there’s plenty of empirical evidence that you’ll stand a better chance of achieving your most challenging goals – be they financial, personal or professional – if you remain upbeat along the way. Consider this quote from a Harvard Business Review article, “Positive Intelligence.”

Most people believe that success precedes happiness. ‘Once I get a promotion, I’ll be happy,’ they think. Or, ‘Once I hit my sales target, I’ll feel great.’ … In fact, it works the other way around: People who cultivate a positive mind-set perform better in the face of challenge. I call this the “happiness advantage” – every business outcome shows improvement when the brain is positive.

While we don’t want to go through life with overly obstructive blinders on, a daily dose of positivism can be powerful stuff. On that note, I thought I’d share an upbeat post I ran across recently, “50 Reasons We’re Living Through the Greatest Period in World History.” Consider Reason #12, for example:

According to the Federal Reserve, the number of lifetime years spent in leisure – retirement plus time off during your working years – rose from 11 years in 1870 to 35 years by 1990. Given the rise in life expectancy, it's probably close to 40 years today.

For all the doom, gloom and sensationalism out there, maybe things aren’t so bad after all.