This is why most people should be investing in stocks
I had a whole newsletter written about ULTA and LULU and my analysis that led me to buying LULU a couple months ago. But it’s 11pm on Saturday night and I heard something today that made me change my mind.
So ULTA and LULU will have to wait for next week.
Instead, I wanted to share with you a couple quick stories from my corporate career that will help you understand why I think just about everyone should be investing in stocks, at least a little bit.
Story #1 - I don’t see you as a leader
I became a manager about 8 years into my corporate career, and honestly it’s not something I ever planned to do. I got promoted, changed organizations and was excited for the opportunity to lead a team.
If you’ve ever managed people, you know that it’s hard. I used to say it’s like 1,000 days of crap with a few of the best possible days you could ever have sprinkled in that kind of make it worth it.
Here’s what I mean:
Being able to tell someone who really deserves it they’re getting promoted and/or a big raise. Easily the best days of my career.
Everything else you deal with? Kind of sucks.
This is my daughter’s little baby hand. She was born around this time in my career.
But after I was a few months into the job, my current boss left and we got a new one. In my very first 1-on-1 meeting, I sit down and my new boss starts off by saying…
“I don’t see you as a leader”
This was someone who hadn’t really worked with me all that much in my career prior to being my boss, so I was a little confused as to what made them think that way.
Keep in mind, this was my first management job and I’m sure there was plenty that I could improve on as I was learning how to best lead others. But when I asked about what made them think that way and what I could do better, they said:
“Start walking with your head up in the hallway”
Yes, this was a real conversation. I was like…was this based on one experience where they saw me with my head down? Was I thinking about something that day? What a weird comment.
There was no “build relationships with your peers to lead by example for your young team” or “build a plan with each of your employees so they know what the next steps are in reaching their career goals.”
Nope. Walk with your head up.
This was now the main person judging my performance and determining my pay, raises, and bonuses - things that all seriously impact me and my (growing) family. Awesome.
Story #2 - One employee, two opinions
The best experience I ever had in my corporate job was during a 2 year stretch towards the end of my career. I was working for someone I really respected that had built an amazing team and we all had our place and what we did well.
Part of the team at San Antonio’s annual MLK march in 2017
When my boss brought me over to lead one of their teams, they said “you’ll be exactly what we need for that group. You’re a strategic thinker and a great people leader. Rockstar employees love working for you.”
Leading that group of folks and being responsible for that part of the business was the best 2 years of my career, because it just fit with what I did best and what I was interested in working on.
But as we know, good things don’t always last.
We had an organization change and our group (including my boss) got a new leader to report to. I knew my boss was already planning to move on to their next thing, but I was hopeful we’d be able to continue the work we were doing.
Our new boss reached out to me, asked me to put together some slides on a topic they wanted to know more about. So I worked on it that morning and we met that afternoon.
As we sit down, I hand them the slides and am about to go through the whole background on the topic.
“Oh, forget this, I don’t want to talk about this.” (The thing they asked for that I worked on??)
“Look, I know you know the work. But I just don’t see you as a very strategic thinker or a very good people leader.”
I was a little shocked, given how I came to the team in the first place. So naturally I responded with “actually…my opinion is that’s what I’m bringing to your team.”
So for whatever reason this person that hadn’t spent any time with me believes that I’m weak in the exact two areas that their predecessor thought I was strong.
This was now the main person judging my performance and determining my pay, raises, and bonuses again. Awesome.
What’s the point here?
First off, these were just 2 examples of changes in my career. There were 10-20 other leadership changes that were more normal. New people come in, they get to know you, make up their mind over time and as employees you keep working and doing your best.
Some bosses turn out to be good, some turn out to be not so good. We all experience this.
But the fact of the matter is that when you’re an employee there are key aspects to your income that are outside of your control. Yes, you can obviously do a great job and keep working at it to try to move up the ladder. But as much as we want it to be, it’s not a perfect.
Your bosses perception of your performance vs your own may not be the same
There may be others that people like more or think are a better fit
Your boss may not be very well liked and unable to promote people the way others can
Your boss may not be able to coach you in the things you need to progress in your career
Now to be fair, I used to tell my employees that they have the power to build relationships and alter people’s perceptions of them. Most importantly, they should never expect their manager to do all that for them (even when it was me).
Still…your boss is a huge part of how well you do in the corporate workplace because of how the system is designed. You don’t get to choose your boss, and in many ways are at the mercy to their own strengths and weaknesses for which you have no control over. These things impact more than just a performance review. It impacts our pay, which impacts our lives and our family’s lives.
But what if you could choose?
What if you could choose the person that paid you? What if you were the one that determined if they were doing a great job or not and you could decide to keep them or get rid of them?
Well you can…with stocks.
When you invest in stocks, especially individual companies, you get to choose who pays you. If you’re building a dividend portfolio you get to determine what criteria is important to you as you build your income stream.
I’ve decided Jensen is going to be one of the CEOs that pays me
If you’re building a growth minded portfolio, you get to pick what measures you’ll use to know if the company is meeting the targets you expect.
If they don’t perform, you can swap them out with someone else you like better.
Most importantly, the income you get from those stocks comes without:
weekly 1-on-1s
annual performance reviews where they just pasted the list of things you’ve accomplished from the email you sent them
critiques on how you walked in the hall that day
requests for slides that they never wanted to talk about in the first place
Plus, if you focus on companies with good dividend growth as an example - you could be averaging 8%-12% growth in your income every year.
How many times did you get an 8%+ raise in your job? Imagine getting an 8% raise every single year. And you didn’t even have to email your stocks a list of your accomplishments!
Solid dividend growth means never having to ask for a raise…
Yes, stocks come with a different type of responsibility - you need to dig in and learn enough to be comfortable investing your money into a company. While that can be hard, it’s just a different type of challenge.
The reality for me is that the more I invested in stocks during my corporate career, the more I realized that it was a much more enjoyable way to make money than what I was doing.
Which is why I think everyone needs to be investing in stocks, at least a little bit.
Experiencing a payment hitting your account from simply holding a stock is a beautiful thing. It’s the first step in seeing how money can be a tool for us to live our lives instead of being the thing we spend our whole life trying to chase.
Other than my initial research and monitoring each quarter or so, I did very little for this money
The more we build up wealth and income that isn’t directly tied to the number of hours we work, the more options we have in our lives on how we want to spend our time.
If you’re reading this newsletter, you probably already know this. But this weekend I overheard some folks complaining and stressing about things going on in their jobs, and it just reminded me of why I do this in the first place.
My McDonald’s (MCD) position may be annoying me because it’s down 4% from when I bought it, but it hasn’t once told me to walk with my head up. 😂
Quick Thoughts
I was looking at my thumbnails for my 2 videos this week and I didn’t realize that they’re very similar LOL. It probably looks like I did it on purpose style-wise, but I promise you I did not. Sometimes I just make things and don’t realize they’re similar until later on. The funniest part about it is that neither one is very good anyway. 🤷🏻♂️
Retail stocks have been reporting surprisingly good earnings this week. I’m curious what this will mean for LULU on Wednesday. All the analysts are saying to expect a company that’s struggling. But what if they just crushed it, too? We will see.
If you want more thoughts on markets and stocks throughout the week - consider signing up for my Discord community!
Have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you next Sunday!
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