Originally Posted by
Gunfighter
I've run into a tremendous number of "lucky" millionaires. Most of them were prepared for opportunity and knew what it was when they saw it. I've caught some great opportunities, but also missed some great ones because I didn't see them. There are numerous people, who were presented with the same opportunity (SBUX, AMZN, NFLX, 2007-2012 real estate), with access to similar financial resources, but didn't know what they were looking at.
I actually lost a friendship after handing over one such opportunity. I didn't have the financial resources and bandwidth to take on two storage facilities simultaneously, so I took the largest one I could while handing over the second. The friend passed on the deal over a 5-10% price difference, then became increasingly bitter as it became apparent he had walked away from a 7 figure payday.
Luck is often found at the intersection of Opportunity and Preparation. If you stay on Preparation Road long enough, you will reach the Opportunity intersection. It's only a matter of time.
I think it was John Gruden who said “ When opportunity knocks, it’s too late to prepare.” Anyone who had cash on hand after the 2008 crisis, had their pick of cheap high quality stocks or real estate investments. This pandemic, not so much. Yes, there was a substantial drop for a month or two in the markets, but real estate never got cheap, in fact, just the opposite happened.
What cash I had on hand during the drop in March/April, I wanted to keep liquid because of uncertainty, and I expected the pullback to last a lot longer, which it didn’t. But I have done well trading this year and have done well in my 401K.