Are the Bears Trying to Tell Us Something?
We spend a lot of time worrying about investment returns, even though that’s the wealth-building superpower we control the least.
A remarkable number of bears have been showing up in Colorado towns this year, hungry and looking for food. There was even one standing on top of a garbage truck near me just weeks ago! That got me thinking about a different kind of bear—the one investors worry about:
The bear market. Is it coming? Does that mean now is a bad time to invest? Should we change something?
I don’t write about investing all that often, but it is part of the puzzle. At some point, understanding and managing your money has to connect to the bigger question: How does our money actually grow? And how much of that can we actually control?
Years ago, I came across a way of explaining compound growth (the way invested money can keep growing on top of previous growth) that I’ve never forgotten. Rob Berger, in his book “Retire Before Mom & Dad,” describes compounding as a kind of Money Multiplier and breaks it into three “superpowers”: time, amount, and return.
I love that because it takes something that can sound technical and makes it super simple. I've been thinking lately about another part of it: we don’t have the same amount of control over all three.
Take time. If you start saving and investing earlier, you give compounding more years to work. That doesn’t mean you’ve missed your chance if you start later, but it does mean time is powerful when you have it. It’s one of the reasons starting with a modest amount can matter so much.
Then there’s amount. This is the one that can feel obvious, but it’s so important. The more you consistently put to work, the more there is to grow. And during your earning years, this is one of the biggest levers you have. A raise does not have to disappear. A bonus does not have to be spent. Even a small increase in what you invest, repeated year after year, can change your long-term picture.
And then there’s return. Of course returns matter. Over a long period of time, even relatively small differences can have a big effect. But this is also the superpower people tend to obsess over (or worry about) the most. And it's the one we control the least!
We can make thoughtful investment choices. We can diversify. We can pay attention to fees. We can take an appropriate amount of risk. But we can't force the market to give us the returns we want this year 🤪
That’s why I think we sometimes put our attention in the wrong place. Meanwhile, there are two incredibly powerful questions we could be asking ourselves:
How much money are we putting to work for our future?
And how much time are we giving it?
Remember HENRY? A higher income gives you more capacity to build wealth, but it does not guarantee that you will—not unless we put our money to work and give it time to grow.
The encouraging part is that wealth building is not usually about making one perfect move. It’s about using your superpowers: starting when you can, increasing the amount when you can, investing wisely (not cleverly), and then giving the whole thing enough time to work.
💪 Remembering my superpowers… and yours,
Dee
P.S. If you’d like help seeing where you can use your own financial superpowers, you can learn more about my Financial Mapping Session here.
