The Tanach is filled with amazing individuals who, through divine intervention, exhibited what we might consider “superpowers.”
Moshe: Used his staff to part the Red Sea, bring water from a rock, and initiate the plagues in Egypt. He also turned the staff into a serpent.
Yehoshua: Stopped the sun during the battle of Gibeon to prolong daylight.
David: A young shepherd boy defeated the giant Goliath with a sling and a stone.
Shimshon: Had extraordinary strength, which he used to defeat the Philistines.
Eliyahu: Performed miracles and prophecy. He called down fire from heaven, resurrected the dead, and ascended to heaven.
Elisha: Miraculously healed Naaman’s leprosy, multiplied oil, and resurrected the Shunammite woman’s son.
These figures all show divine power and intervention working through individuals to achieve remarkable feats and deliver Bnei Yisrael from various challenges.
Investors also possess superpowers that can help them overcome financial challenges. If implemented, they can help families – even those with modest incomes – achieve wealth and prosperity. In my practice, I come across folks like this frequently. Despite never having a high paying career, they utilized what I call the “three investing superpowers” to propel their wealth to the top 10% of U.S. households. This gives them the opportunity to improve their lifestyle and the community around them. The three superpowers are:
- High savings rate: A high savings rate is more important than trying to achieve high returns. Future returns are impossible to predict. Companies experience financial difficulty and go bankrupt. Money managers go in and out of favor, as do asset classes. Investors can exert far more control over how they choose to allocate their cash flow. Therefore, deciding to maintain a high savings rate throughout your working life is one of the best tools investors have to secure their financial future.
More savings means more funds to invest for the future. This extra money will help increase the probability for investors of all levels of wealth to achieve their goals. Striving to save 10-20% of your income every year will help in overcoming whatever financial challenges may present themselves over time. If someone needs to stop working due to illness, company downsizing, or any reason, a prior high savings rate will afford them the financial flexibility to weather the storm until they find another job or perhaps allow them to retire early.
- Long time horizon: People procrastinate when it comes to savings. This is a grave mistake. One of the most important assets in successful investing is time. This is why it always makes sense to start saving when you earn your first paycheck. Remember, compound interest is the interest earning on the initial amount as well as on the interest that has been added over time. It’s essentially “interest on interest,” which leads to exponential growth of the initial investment. If you start saving from your very first job until you retire, that is more than four decades of compound interest. For example, if you save $5,000 a year, growing at 8% a year for the next 45 years, your $225,000 in aggregate deposits will be worth over $2.2 million dollars in retirement. This isn’t magic. It’s simply math.
There are many expenses associated with living a frum lifestyle. However, this should not stop you from saving something every year. Even a modest sum, if invested early and consistently, adds up by compounding over a longer period, resulting in a significantly larger nest egg. The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes to accumulate wealth, since compounding has a shorter time frame to work its magic.
- Consistency: Sticking with something is one of the most difficult things to do. This is true regarding any pursuit, whether it’s losing weight, developing a new skill, career success, relationships, and so forth. I am reminded of an interview I recently heard with legendary soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo, who said that his routine to be one of the best players in the world is not hard to understand. Everyone can theoretically do it. However, very few people have the discipline to stick with it day in and day out to become a world class player. It’s the consistency that is difficult.
Consistency is the secret ingredient that can bring greatness in all areas of life. This is especially true when it comes to investing, where there are so many distractions. There are always going to be better performing, more exciting, and more exclusive investments. Yet, the people that are the most successful in building wealth are the ones who can stick with a strategy for the long haul and ignore all the noise around them.
One prominent example of someone who utilized these three superpowers was Ronald James Read. The reason you may not have heard of him is because Read was not a public figure. He was a janitor in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Read grew up in an impoverished farming household. He was the first high school graduate in his family. He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II and upon an honorable discharge from the military in 1945, he returned to Brattleboro, where he worked as a gas station attendant and mechanic for about 25 years. Read retired for one year and then took a part-time job as a janitor at J. C. Penney for the next 17 years until 1997.
In 2014, when Read died, he received media coverage from outlets around the country after bequeathing $1.2 million to Brooks Memorial Library and $4.8 million to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. In total, Read amassed a fortune of almost $8 million by investing in dividend-producing stocks, avoiding the stocks of companies he did not understand, living modestly, and being a buy and hold investor with a diversified portfolio of stocks. He also had the benefit of a long-time horizon, passing away at 93 years old.
The cynics reading this may be thinking “Mr. Read didn’t have yeshiva tuition to pay or need to purchase kosher food.” That’s true. However, Mr. Read also didn’t have the same earnings potential, yiddishe kop, and strong social ties that come with being part of a frum community. What Read did possess are the aforementioned three investing superpowers. He lived within his means and saved/invested a lot of his money every year. He invested for decades, which allowed the power of compounding to work its magic. He also stayed consistent with his process of buying companies he understood and that were financially stable. Over the course of his investment career, there is no doubt that more “exciting” investment opportunities presented. After all, he did live through multiple stock market bubbles. Yet, he stayed consistent and disciplined for all those years and didn’t pursue higher returns or more exotic opportunities.
As Jewish Press readers take stock of their own personal finances, it’s worth being introspective. If a janitor from Brattleboro, Vermont can amass a fortune and become a noted philanthropist, then what’s stopping you from harnessing these three superpowers and doing the same?
