What is most important to you?

What are the things you value most in life? What motivates you? What principles are a part of your decisions? What are you trying to accomplish in life? These are just a few of the questions you will discover in the Proud to Own Process.

It is very easy to get caught up in the grind of everyday life. We do not stop to smell the roses. We are so busy yet we often miss some of the most important things in life. It is those who take the time, realize what’s important, and create a plan to make it happen, that will with reap the greatest rewards.

Unless you discover what’s really important in life, than it is very difficult to make progress toward living your ideal life. Without knowing what is truly important to you, goals have little meaning. When there is no meaning, you have very little motivation to accomplish your goals.

What’s Your Vision?

In order to create the vision, you will need to uncover exactly what excites you. The Proud to Own Process involves a self accessment in critical areas of your life. By examing yourself and what makes you tick, you can then look around you at all of the opportunities that are right in front of your face. If you find companies you are familiar with and have first hand knowledge about, it becomes more personal and exciting to track progress. How do you find these types of companies? You can find potential companies using the 4 P’s.

The 4 P’s:

What do I love to do? – Passion

What am I good at? – Purpose

Where do I spend my money? – Purchases

Where do I earn my money? – Profession

4 P’s = Proud to Own

When we look at buying companies, they should be companies that we are proud to own. In order to do this, we must make it personal. To be personal, we must understand exactly what the company does, what types of products or services it produces, what type of management team they have, and what the company’s mission and value statements are just to name a few.

When you look at buying a company, don’t you want it to be something that you are proud to own. This is a starting point when looking at where to put your money. What we invest in is our way of voting our values. Just like our purchasing decisions, we validate or avoid companies that align or violate our moral compass. By buying or investing in companies, we endorse that company. If we do not do our homework, we may be inadvertently supporting companies that blatantly violate our value system.

The key is to become aware. What are you moral hot buttons (abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, homosexuality)?  What about social hot buttons (tobacco, alcohol, gambling, the environment, etc)? There may be one or more of those hot buttons that are extremely important to you. Now, if that is the case, the companies you own should not violate those hot buttons.  Instead, they should line up with your faith, morals, and belief system.

This does not mean that by lining your faith with your investments that those investments will not fail financially. Instead you should look for companies that are both morally and financially sound.  This involves:

1) Avoiding negative companies: ones who violate your hot button(s)

2)  Supporting positive companies: investing in companies that you are proud to own

3) Companies with strong financials and strong profit potential

Principles are extremely important, but don’t forget about evaluating a company from a financial standpoint to get a better handle on its investment potential. This is such a critical point many people miss.  Principles should always come first, but don’t skip the rest of the homework;)

If you don’t stand for the principles of the company you are buying, is any profit worth the price? Instead find companies that are  profitable and stay true to your faith!  There is a great responsibility that comes with investing. Investing is one of the most morally charged things that we can do as individuals. If we are privileged enough to be able to invest, shouldn’t we make sure that we are doing the best that we can to maximize the money that God has blessed us with? At the same time, shouldn’t we make sure that we are not profiting at the expense of others misfortunes?


This Week on The Jay Peroni Show:

“How to Find Investments You are Proud to Own” – Interview with Finny Kuruvilla, Portfolio Manager of the Eventide Gilead Mutual Fund

Here is the Morningstar Report on the fund

Here is a link to the Eventide Funds

To hear the interview CLICK HERE