Do You Have What It Takes to Become a Top Investor?

Interview with Corey Poirier

Award-winning speaker and author Corey Poirier shares the personal qualities that can help you become a successful investor. Find out why passion is important and why you should always keep an eye on the bigger picture.

Douglas Goldstein:  I’m very excited to have on The Goldstein on Gelt Show TEDx speaker, international bestselling author, and award-winning speaker Corey Poirier. You may have seen him on TED, or perhaps you’ve heard one of the thousands of interviews that he’s done with what he refers to as ‘enlightened super achievers’.

If you are a speaker or are interested in becoming one, Corey will, at the end of the show, tell us about a launch that is happening soon - The Speaking Program. It’s a program to help people who want to become professional speakers. Corey, what are some of the positive personal qualities that you think are necessary for someone to not only be successful, but also be successful in the world of investing? 

Positive Qualities That Successful Investors Possess 

Corey Poirier:   A personal passion for what people get involved in. I don’t think that can be overstated because a lot of people say you don’t need passion if you’re making money.

My experience is that people won’t be consistent or stay the long haul, as it pertains to investing or personal achievement, without passion. They won’t stay the course if it’s not related to something that they’re personally passionate about.

Douglas Goldstein:  I’m afraid that the concept of personal passion might sound to someone like, “Well, I really have to love money to be a good investor.” Is that what you mean?

Corey Poirier:  It’s more important that they love why they’re doing it. What is your reason for it when it comes to money? Is it personal freedom? Is it because you have the opportunity to change the world? Steve Jobs was known for saying that his purpose was to put a dent in the universe, i.e. change the world with his product. I’m sure he was passionate about investing in Apple and Pixar. He was passionate about what the company he was investing in actually spent their time doing and the purpose they were serving.

It comes back to being passionate about why you are here, why you are investing in the first place, what it’s going towards helping, and the cause it serves.    

Douglas Goldstein:  I heard an interesting speech around 30 years ago by a fellow named Howard Jonas. At the time, he was a multi-hundred millionaire. In his speech, he said that he and his wife donated 20% of their income to charity. I was really impressed by that. I went home and suggested to my wife that we should do the same thing. This was long before we had a big investment company that made it a little bit easier, but that was the personal passion. It was no longer about how rich I could get. It was about how much good I could do. What else does someone need to have in order to become a top investor?        

Corey Poirier:  They need to focus on learning. I talk a lot about lifelong learners being leaders. In both investing and personal achievement, you have to have a love for growing and developing.  Once we stop growing, we might as well start dying.

One should be aware of what they are investing in. Spend time learning about the organization. Who is going to be using your money? Are you actually feeding your mind? I call it feeding your mind. We spend so much time feeding our body that sometimes we forget the importance of feeding our mind.

Douglas Goldstein:  Personal passion and pro-learning. Give me one more trait that a top investor should have.

Corey Poirier:  Top investors hire for their weakness. If you are not an expert in what you are investing, or if that’s not your dream or passion to become the expert, then you should seek out the expert and hire for your weaknesses.

Michael Gerber spoke of the ‘E-Myth’, meaning that you should spend more time working on your business than in your business. If it’s not your core thing, you need to hire for your weaknesses. Get the right people by you to make sure that you’re making the right decisions. Secondly, limit the time you spend on your investments if it is not your passion area.           

Douglas Goldstein:  Michael Gerber has been on The Goldstein on Gelt Show a couple of times. Listeners who missed those great interviews can go to YouTube and look up Goldstein on Get and Michael Gerber. He wrote the E-Myth, a fantastic book.

The Importance of Looking At the Big Picture

Douglas Goldstein: Everyone wants to have personal financial success overnight. People these days want things to happen quickly, but the reality is that that does not happen. How should people deal with the failures that are inevitably going to happen along the path to financial success?         

Corey Poirier:  It has to do with the bigger picture. Things go up and down, but if you look over the long haul, it always corrects itself and works itself back out. It’s having an understanding that it will swing and come back around. Timing your investments only works for a small portion versus the people that save over the long haul. Look at the history and surround yourself with people who can give you the right advice. People shouldn’t jump ship as soon as they don’t have immediate success.

Diversification is also key. Don’t’ put all your eggs in one basket. You should have your niche figured out, but it’s also beneficial to have backup plans.

Anthony Robbins says that he has a business that he plays in and he has one that is a rock solid business for the money. He has a business that makes sure that he always has that income there and that allows him to take a lot more risk with the second business.

Douglas Goldstein:  He’s also a huge giver to charity. He’s involved with one of the charities that feeds the hungry and has already bought 100 million meals for people. He’s a person you can look to and say, “Wow, he really started with nothing and built himself up.” I think a big part of building himself up was his desire to help other people. By doing that, he was ultimately able to help himself and help others on a scale that the rest of us would just dream of.

Corey, people often put up their own barriers to success; make themselves unsuccessful. What are some of the things that people do to inhibit their success?

Corey Poirier:  One of the major impediments is being dependent on technology. Nothing wrong with technology per se. You and I are able to do an interview like this thanks to technology. I use various technologies every day and I’m doing a launch where I’m going to be taking advantage of emerging technologies.

At the same time, we can become dependent on it. If we use the phone as the example, we can get to the point where we are more focused on the phone than we are as a person. We bring that from home into the workplace and into the business world and it’s a recipe for disaster.  One thing people should stop doing is relying on the device and making it the priority.     

Douglas Goldstein:  That sounds like fantastic advice. Sitting and watching your phone all day is not going to make you a better investor. Corey, what is The Speaking Program about, and how can people learn more about you and your work? 

The Speaking Program

Corey Poirier:  I kept getting questions from people who want to know how to launch a speaking engagement, or how to start charging fees.  Many want to know how they can use speaking as a leverage to grow their business, their name or their audience.  

After getting those questions, I decided to launch a 90-day program to help people do just that. We’ve brought in a bunch of experts who will be revealing their secrets and the fundamentals that they’ve learnt over the years. We are sharing this with potential future speakers and people who want to use speaking to grow their business and/or personal life.     

Douglas Goldstein:  That sounds fantastic. Where can people go to find out about it?

Corey Poirier:  They can simply take a trip over to thespeakingprogram.com and it will provide all of the details. 

Corey Poirier:  The other way to connect would be thepassioncure.com. From there, they can read my blog and listen to the show, as well as check out social media links.   

Douglas Goldstein:  All right, so we will put links to all of that at the show notes of today’s show at goldsteinongelt.com. Corey Poirier, thanks so much for your time.  

Corey Poirier:  Thank you Doug, it’s been an absolute pleasure.