Ep 37 | The Lie Wall Street Sold You

Wall Street wants you to believe that performance is everything. That the only way to “win” with your money is to beat the market, pick the next hot stock, or time things just right. But here's the truth: chasing returns is gambling. And it’s keeping you distracted from what actually builds wealth: goals-based investing.

In this episode, Priya Malani debunks the myth that return is the most important metric in investing and explains why it’s time to stop treating your portfolio like a casino. Whether you’re a spreadsheet-obsessed performance chaser or someone who feels totally confused about how to invest, this episode will show you the smarter (and less stressful) way to grow your wealth.

Tune Into This Episode to Hear:

• Why even the pros can’t consistently beat the marketand why you shouldn’t try

• The emotional and financial cost of chasing performance

• What goals-based investing is and why it actually works

• A real client story that proves you don’t need to take big risks to build big wealth

Follow Priya Malani:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Youtube | Stash Wealth

THE STUFF OUR LAWYERS WANT US TO SAY: Stash Wealth is a Registered Investment Advisor. Content presented is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to make an offer or solicitation for any specific securities product, service, or strategy. Consult with a qualified investment adviser (that's us) before implementing any strategy. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. There…we said it.

Transcription

So if the pros can't consistently outperform the market, what chance does your cousin Steve have while trading Tesla and crypto between his lunch breaks? Spoiler none.

Who the fuck am I to tell you what to do with your money? My name is Priya Milani, currently managing millions of hardworking dollars. Enough foreplay. Let's talk. Debbie, welcome to the F word Smart Money. No form.

Hey guys. Welcome back to the F Word. I'm Priya Milani, founder of Stash Wealth. The financial advisory firm for high achieving 30 somethings who want their money to finally work as hard as they do today, we're tackling one of my favorite myths that the return you get on your investments is the single most important thing to pay attention to.

This lie has been pushed so hard by Wall Street, your uncle who thinks he's basically Warren Buffet and the CNBC talking heads that it's basically become gospel. Here's the truth. Chasing returns in the market is not investing, it's gambling. If you're serious about building wealth, about funding your goals, about sleeping well at night, it's time to finally put this lie to rest.

Let's get into it. So let's talk about what is the problem with chasing returns? Don't we all want to get better returns in the market? There's no doubt that the average person believes that the name of the game is performance. Beat the market, find the next hot, stock, nail the timing. So Wall Street loves this narrative.

Why? Because it keeps you dependent on them, and the money rolls in to their pockets, not yours. With every actively managed trade. The more complicated investing seems, the more you feel like you need an expert promising to outsmart the market. But the math doesn't lie. 80% of active fund managers underperform the very benchmark they're looking to be eight 0%, and that's from the studies that are kind of nice about it.

I'm talking about people with Bloomberg terminals, MBAs, armies of analysts, and they still can't do it. So if the pros can't consistently outperform the market, what chance does your cousin Steve have while trading Tesla and crypto between his lunch breaks? Spoiler none. I get it though. Like chasing returns feels logical.

Who doesn't want more money? Who doesn't want their investments performing and doing well. That's not my point. After all, people are getting super rich with the market somehow. Right? So here's the catch. When you make performance the goal, you're essentially swinging for the fences and keeping your fingers crossed.

Doesn't that kind of feel a little bit more like gambling, like what you'd feel if you were at the slot machines, like, I hope this works out. So the point I wanna get across is that gambling is not a wealth building strategy. Just like in every casino, the people who pull the slots and win the jackpot, get the lights, the sounds, the big music, the big scene, and it pulls attention away from the other 4,999 people who are still pulling at the slots.

What's worse is by confusing investing and gambling, you are putting yourself on a total emotional rollercoaster. When the market is up, you're a genius. When the market is down, you panic. You sell out, you lock in your losses and swear never to do it again. That's essentially how most people lose money trying to make money.

So let's talk about a smarter alternative. Goals-based investing This. Is where your focus should go. Instead, if you've been around here for a while, you've heard me say this a thousand times, focus on your goals. Goals based investing essentially flips the script instead of asking, how much money can I make in the market?

You ask, what am I trying to accomplish? Wanna retire at 55, buy a second. Home, travel internationally every year. Put your kids through college. Great. For each of those goals, you probably have a ballpark estimate of what you need to be able to accomplish them, right? Like a trip abroad is gonna maybe be, I don't know, eight to $10,000 a really nice one.

Each of your goals has a number attached to it and a timeline. These are literally the two things you need. Then you can reverse engineer the smartest investing strategy to ensure you're on track for the thing you want to accomplish. Great news. You don't have to invest as risky as the market. Maybe you don't need that much risk to be able to accomplish your goals.

Frankly, that's the magic. With goals-based investing, performance doesn't matter in a vacuum, your portfolio is no longer being graded against. What did the s and p do? What did the Dow do? It's being graded against the plan that you've designed for your life, which obviously means you have to design your life and it starts.

By articulating your goals, and that starts, and that process begins by really sitting down and thinking about your goals. So let's talk a little bit about why this is actually a less risky and definitely more efficient approach. Sometimes I'll hear people say like, now isn't this the more boring way to invest?

Yeah. And that's the point. When you invest based on your goals, you can take advantage of historical averages. Passive investing and a well diversified portfolio. You're investing in the least risky way possible to ensure everything you care to be able to do or see or buy. You're on track for, because quite frankly, the riskiest thing you can do isn't miss out on a few percentage points in the market.

It's missing out on hitting your goals. It's because you spent years gambling on performance instead of planning for your life. Let's go real world example. I once worked with a couple in their mid thirties. They both made great money. He was obsessed with beating the market, had his spreadsheets, was tracking daily moves.

She. Was exhausted by it and a little nervous. When we ran the numbers on their investment portfolio, they were already on track for their goals, early retirement, yearly travel, a big home purchase without actually needing that extra risk that he was exposing them to because he was obsessed with this competitive nature of chasing returns.

He was investing them way, way riskier than they needed to be. Obviously that led to sleepless nights, the uncertainty of volatility and fights. Once we recent their portfolio and their investment strategy around their actual goals, around their life goals, two things happened. The first, you could probably guess stress levels went way down.

Also, they realized that they didn't need to swing for the fences. They were already on track to win. The things that they cared about. So if I leave you with nothing else, my bottom line here is that chasing returns is a distraction from real investing. It's gambling, dressed up in a suit and tie. Goals based investing, on the other hand, is about clarity and confidence, but it does require you to actually sit down and think about what you're investing for.

Then it helps you invest exactly as you need to. No riskier, no more conservative to hit the life targets you actually care about. And quite frankly, not to sound cheesy, but that's the only scoreboard that actually matters. Before I let you go, it's time for best bite where I give you my. Favorite thing that I've eaten or drank in the last week.

Okay. I'm gonna do a throwback this week. It is my old stomping grounds on Stone Street in the financial district in Manhattan. There's a pizza place called Adrian's, and it is so freaking good. So they do sort of an old fashioned kind of pie, the square, and I got really, really simple sausage and red onions, and it was.

So delicious. I absolutely loved it. That was my best bite of the week. Alright, you guys. That's it for today's episode of the F Word. If this resonated with you and you're tired of wondering if your money's doing enough, it might be time to explore the stash plan. The Stash plan is our flagship service, specifically for ambitious 30 somethings who wanna balance living today with getting on track to secure their future.

Remember, the goal isn't to win with the market. It's to win with your life. Alright. See you next time.

Thanks for listening to the F Word with Priya Milani. If you like what you heard, hit subscribe wherever you're listening and leave us a review while you're at it or approval. Junkies. Don't forget, you can find a ton of great resources, content courses, and other freebies. At Stash wealth.com. Now for the Capital S stuff, our lawyers want us to say, stash Wealth is a registered investment advisor.

Content presented is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to make an offer or solicitation for any specific security, product, service, or strategy. Consult with a qualified investment advisor if that's us, before implementing any strategy. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principle.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. There we said it.