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Weekend Edition – Take My Word on It

By Dividend.com September 02, 2012, 08:21:50 AM EDT

You can't help but turn on the television or computer right now and see all the hoopla surrounding this election season. Promises are a dime a dozen at this time of the year.

Everywhere you turn, someone is telling you to take their word on it, whether in big or small elections. The list of promised accomplishments addresses the poor to the rich, those with jobs and those without, and so on. While I do my best to pay attention to the big issues, I come to realize as I get older, the more you have been around the block, the less politicians actually accomplish in relation to their promises.

I know this concept of useless politicians is no revelation to most folks out there, but in my line of work, I have to look at numbers as well. When I see data telling us that inflation is a non-issue, yet practically every bill I pay has gone up year over year, not to mention the rising daily expenses we all face, it becomes obvious that governmental words and numbers can't really be trusted. You have to be able to figure out for yourself how much money you actually need to afford things like owning your own home, and not listen to a generalization from every market commentator under the face of the sun, that "there has never been a better time to own a home EVER!" Note they seem to say this same thing year after year, in good markets and bad.

In the professional world, this concept is no different. You'll likely be promised many things throughout the course of your career ("we don't have money at this time for a raise, but you are going to be first in line when the time is right", "I know the manager there and you are as good as hired, when they actually will need someone of course", "I will get right back to you with this if I ever can make enough time to do so"). How many of these promises actually paid off? Not many, I'll bet.

You see, most people have the right intentions - and even the right words - but the actual results tend to tell a different story.

Now here's the upside to the world of empty promises. This is a great time to take advantage of bad information. If you have the passion and can identify the right path to take in your career, your finances, and your personal life, you are going to leapfrog the many who remain stuck in the same place with the same excuses and with the worst results.

Actually delivering what you say you will these days is what stands out. We get numerous e-mails from subscribers who are ecstatic that they are able to see real results from their investment portfolios. It's almost as if they were expecting the opposite to happen! People have been conditioned to be disappointed over and over, so when you actually show them some real results, they are amazed.

So if you take a good hard look at some key issues in your life, and ignore the noise surrounding them, I'm sure you'll be able to make some big improvements. You can take my word on it!

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And here's one last thing to remember about what we do here at Dividend.com. It's not just the names that we recommend that can help you build wealth, but also the things we try to steer you away from that are just as important. Forget about speculative or penny stocks, chasing unprofitable IPOs, and listening to the manic talking heads in the business media!

Thank you for sharing part of your weekend with me, and please be sure to pass this post on to anyone you think we can get inspired and educated about money, building wealth, and using common sense to do so.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks , as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here .




The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.


This article appears in: Investing, Stocks

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