Most of us suffer from the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). We’re paranoid about missing opportunities, so we tend to follow crowds that seem to know where to find them.
Sometimes the crowd is right, but sometimes this FOMO can blind us and lead us into situations with short-term rewards and long-term losses.
We’ll go out drinking with friends on a Tuesday night, forgetting about how bad a day in the office with a hangover can be.
Despite knowing risks, people around the world will follow their friends into gangs and crime because they are afraid of missing out on quick cash and glory.
In the mid-2000’s many wealthy investors — including banks and hedge funds — were flocking to invest in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, a Wall Street fund. Most of them should have known better since questions about fund soundness had been raised from as early as 1999, but they didn’t want to miss out of the seemingly guaranteed returns.
In 2008 it was revealed that this fund was an elaborate and gigantic Ponzi scheme that ended up collapsing with over $50 Billion in losses. The fund’s chairman, the infamous Bernard Madoff was arrested that same year.
We must learn to ignore the FOMO.
Not doing the same thing that our friends, family and peers are doing (despite the chances that they may be right and that we may be wrong) because we believe that it’s going to result in long-term gains will make us more independent.
Just like Curtis Jackson (AKA 50 Cent) who saw through the FOMO associated with dealing drugs in the 1980’s “crack epidemic” and followed a path into music and business, hopefully this independence along with hard work and lots of luck will direct us to long-term gains and many more opportunities.
Final comment: I sent out yesterdays blogpost with the typical “clickbait” type heading “You’ll never believe this trick I discovered for learning a new skill” intended to try to create a sense of FOMO. A higher than normal click rate would have made a great story.
Yesterdays clickbait
Unfortunately, the click rate was less than half of what it usually is so there is no story, just a blog post with a little less traffic than normal.