Page 6 - SixMistakesSuccessfulWomenMake22

Mistake #3:

Following the Crowd

I suspect we have all been warned by our parents at one time or another about the
pitfalls of following the crowd. For those of you who have kids, you may even
have shared the exact same advice yourself. Of course, your children will probably

push back against this truism: “But mom, everyone else is doing it!” No doubt
your reply is the same as countless other parents before you: “If everybody was

jumping off a bridge, would you jump too”?

But ask yourself this: are you failing to heed your own advice or that of your

parents? Are you following the crowd? Before you answer, let’s consider some-
thing very important. First of all, when it comes to the world of investments, if

everybody is doing it nobody is doing it. Here are some sobering statistics:

According to Forbes, the top 1% control 43% of all the wealth in the United States,
and the next 4% control 29% of the wealth.* Basically, the top 5% control almost

75% of the wealth, leaving crumbs for the “crowd to fight over.”
*Source: Forbes.com 3/21/2012

According to Statistic Brain:

Out of 100 people who start working at the age of 25, by the age 65:

Will be considered wealthy 1

Have adequate capital stowed away for retirement 4

Will still be working 3

Are dependent on Social Security, friends, relatives or charity 63

Are dead 29

There’s that top 5 percent again; looks like the crowd is heading in the wrong
direction. Rollo May, the distinguished psychiatrist, wrote a wonderful book called

Man’s Search for Himself. In this book, he argues “the opposite of courage in our
society is not cowardness, it is conformity. And there you have the trouble today.

It’s conformity. People acting like everyone else without knowing why, without
knowing where they’re going.”