My mother and my grandmother were both amazing gardeners and were extremely knowledgeable about plants and horticulture. [My Mom still is]
I just love to get home in the evening and walk around the garden or water the plants. It’s a time of peace for me. Well …….. most times!
Having grown up in Africa, my frame of reference was dealing with Lions and Elephants and Leopards. Recently, I had to make a whole paradigm shift in order to protect “my territory”.
You see, there is this little patch of lawn that I have been nurturing for a while and it was just starting to look wonderful. I leveled and loosened the ground, added some good Miracle Grow soil to it, planted the seeds. I was so happy with my little patch of lawn and would check it out every day.
Until one day, disaster struck! Some alien had come in the night and destroyed my little patch. It looked like a playground for Monster Trucks! I was shocked. Who on earth would destroy my little acre of happiness so deliberately? 
What I found out later was that I had also created a wonderful little patch of happiness and source of grubs for a family of Raccoons. This was a new phenomenon to me and I was determined to eradicate my garden of this most dangerous and highly stressful plague. Nevertheless, no matter what I tried, I could not get rid of the Raccoons. Electric fencing, Coyote Blood, automatic lights, pellet gun, chasing them with a big stick in the middle of the night. I was starting to feel like Chevy Chase and the gophers in Caddyshack.
The lions and elephants and leopards would have been easier to get rid of. During my exhaustive research I learned via Wikipedia the following:
Zoologist Clinto Hart Merriamdecribed raccoons as “clever beasts”, and that “in certain directions their cunning surpasses that of the fox.” In a study by the ethologist H. B. Davis in 1908, raccoons were able to open 11 of 13 complex locks in fewer than 10 tries and had no problems repeating the action when the locks were rearranged or turned upside down.
What has this got to do with Finances?
- We all have our little patch of finances that we work hard to build up. We prepare, we struggle, we put away what we can.
- Investing the money is like the fertilizer – it can make it grow faster.
- We all get pleasure from seeing progress and growth in our portfolios eagerly want to see progress.
- Without knowledge of what threats there might be, we can make our plans but can be devastated and blindsided by threats that we did not expect. [I was expecting lions and elephants and leopards remember]
- Once we have suffered a loss, it could take a long time and a lot of effort to ever get back to where we were before.
I guess the biggest lessons that I would take from this experience are:
- There is often more value in avoiding the losses than trying to pick the winners.
- Planning for possible threats could prevent many of the losses.
- Often we should get advice from experts on the subject in order to avoid costly mistakes.
Oh and the Raccoons – they eventually went off on their own as the season changed. I do expect them to be back again sometime but this time they are in for a surprise. I recently purchased 100lbs of dynamite as a welcome gift for them on their return …………………
Whether it be for College Planning or Retirement Financial Planning, let’s PLAN
Dave Coen is CEO of College Planning America and a Registered Representative at Sageview Advisory
Tel: 714-813-1703 davec@collegeplanningamerica.com
Apply for a College Planning America Scholarship