Listen To That Inner Voice

All of us have that inner voice telling us what we should be doing, even if we later decide to ignore it or do something different.

Case in point, last Sunday at Costco we were shopping for food supplies and my wife asked me if we needed any batteries because they had them on sale. I told her no at first because I was trying my best to stick to our weekly budget and knew that batteries especially in the quantities Costco offers are pricey. However, I then changed my mind because my inner voice reminded me that I hadn't changed the batteries on the smoke detectors throughout our home since we moved in last December.

That was the last time I thought about that until at 2:AM this morning when a loud beeping sound on not only one, but three smoke detectors throughout our home, woke us from our peaceful sleep. Surprise, the batteries had run low and needed replacing!

How in the world my subconscious knew that was going to happen amazes me and I paid the dear price for not replacing the batteries I had purchased over the weekend when we returned home.

For me, it served as yet another good reminder of how important it is to listen and follow our inner voice. As traders and investors, this is especially important. All of us know when we choose to violate our own rules, ignore our inner voice and let emotions rather than facts cloud our judgment and our decisions. But we do it anyway because as humans we are fallible by nature. After all, that's what makes us human. If everyone in the world did exactly what we are suppose to do, it would be a boring place and there would be no opportunity in the market because it would be efficient at all times.

So, I share this story this morning in order to remind you that 1) if you haven't changed the batteries in your smoke detectors for awhile, do so now before they wake you up when you really need your sleep, and 2) to be cognizant of your inner voice so that you can be alerted to problems that you may not have consciously considered. That inner voice can often help you spot problems long before you have time to deal with them. When we ignore our own inner voice, we do so at our own peril.