How many people looked brilliant in 2008, just before losing it all when the housing market crashed?

How about before the market tanked following 9/11?

Or any other time in history?

The past is littered with examples of people who “had it all figured out” until suddenly, they didn’t.

When I hear people talking now about what they’ve done over the past couple of years to become a huge success, part of me laughs inside. We’re in one of the greatest economic stretches in our history – of course tons of people are going to be successful.

I understand that success takes more than a hot market and luck, but we need to be careful about who we look to for advice.

If we listened in 2007/2008, we would’ve been told to overleverage in the real estate market and hand out subprime loans. Which then would have blown up in our faces.

It’s fine to listen to others and to theorize about why they are/aren’t having success, but we should be careful about putting too much trust in anyone who hasn’t been through significant external adversity.

Sure they might look good midway through the second quarter, but little do they know that a storm’s coming before the half.

-Brandon