Following my own follies at trying to beat the market and pick the best stocks and hot mutual funds, I've gotten killed. Talking to lots of pilots that I fly with, this same story has also happened to them.

Even guys who read Barron's and the Wall Street Journal and delve into stocks really deep have mistimed or picked the wrong stocks and taken a shellacking.

What I think I've learned from the whipsaws the market takes and the fact that not even the average professional mutual fund manager cannot beat an index like the S&P 500 is this:

Pilots can fly airplanes, but they make lousy do-it-yourself investors.

This year I switched to one ETF, iShares S&P 500 (Symbol IVV), and Vanguard's VFINX. I figure if I keep dumping a steady stream of money over the next 20 years, I'll make market returns and make out OK. I won't have lost a large chunk of it due to trying to outsmart the market.

I'm honestly convinced that the better somebody starts doing in the market by picking hot stocks and mutuals, the more risks they start taking. So that when the market turns south, they're caught with their pants down. Even with stop-losses-- I figured they would save my skin and they didn't.

Sorry to pontificate here, but I believe that I'm not the only one who's been hit broadside by an airline pilot's investing ego. Just because we can fly planes doesn't mean we know diddly about picking smart investments.

Don't try to beat the market (like I tried so many years to do), as even if you do for one, two years, eventually you'll get clobbered and all those gains will get erased.

In sum, I now try to 1. invest conservatively, 2. invest often (IRA, 401(k), etc.), and 3.invest as much as I can possibly afford to.