Making a Comeback

IT WAS JANUARY 2009 and my world���like the world around me���was coming apart at the seams.

A year and a half after our divorce, my now ex-wife and I were finally getting around to divvying up our investment assets, and it couldn���t have come at a worse time. The world���s financial system was melting down, and the stock market along with it. Every day, the market was down another percent or two, and that was on a good day. There seemed no limit to how low it could go.

Compounding my distress, we���d agreed on the terms of our financial settlement back in the fall when the stock market was higher. Four months later, our accounts were worth 30% less and, because my ex-wife���s split was based on absolute dollar amounts rather than percentages, the entirety of the market losses would be tallied on my side of the ledger.

For more than 20 years, I���d been following the playbook for financial security and independence: socking away money in my 401(k), taking advantage of the company match, contributing to my kids��� 529 college savings plans, living below my means, and investing whatever extra money I had at the end of the month in broad-based index funds within a taxable account. I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing, and now���after all that diligent saving and investing���I was going to be left with barely a six-figure portfolio.

To make matters worse, the multi-billion-dollar tech company where I was working as director of public and investor relations was struggling financially. Its stock price had dipped precariously below $1 and there was talk the company might have to declare bankruptcy. I was worried about my position at a time when the job market was in the tank, and I was on the hook to pay thousands of dollars every month in alimony and child support.

I was 49 years old and nowhere close to where I needed to be financially at that point in my life. I was effectively starting over���and I was terrified.

Beckoning better times. Like most human beings, I���m a security-seeking creature. I don���t like taking risks and I crave the feeling of having solid ground underneath me, which is one of the reasons I spent nearly my entire career working for large companies before��leaving the corporate world��last year. You���ll never find me jumping out of an airplane or bungee-jumping off a bridge toward a rushing river below. It���s just not me. I like certainty. I like knowing I have resources at hand should I need them. I have backup plans for my backup plans. It helps me sleep at night.

To be facing so much uncertainty���in my personal life, in my career, in my finances���was deeply unsettling. I remember one particularly cold, dark night that January when I was lying in bed unable to sleep, thinking about my financial situation, and thinking as well about how strange it felt to be single again after 14 years of marriage. Worries circled around my head like a cloud of buzzing flies. Would I be able to meet my financial responsibilities? Would I be able to recover from this and get back on track? Would I ever be able to retire?

One of my job duties at the time was to interact with Wall Street analysts and help them build their financial models for my employer. Given the concerns about the company���s finances, I was spending a lot of time on the phone talking the analysts and investors through arcane balance sheet items, like accounts receivable and working capital.

For that reason, I suppose, I had balance sheets on the brain one sleepless January night. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, I found myself doing a frank assessment of my own liabilities and assets at this crossroads in my life.

On the liabilities side, I had a sizable mortgage on a house I���d bought the year before. But aside from the mortgage, along with child support and alimony obligations, I had no other substantial debt. I owned my car, and I always paid off any balance on my credit cards at the end of the month. Those were all positives.

On the assets side of the balance sheet, I had the equity in my house. Unfortunately, it wasn���t much since I���d bought the place near the peak of the market, before the real estate bubble burst. I owned, along with my brother, a piece of property in northeastern Pennsylvania where I hoped to build a cabin one day.

I had whatever scraps would remain of my 401(k) and our taxable account after the financial settlement. I would be entitled, at retirement, to half of my pension, although the company had curtailed the defined benefit plan a number of years ago and my benefit wouldn���t amount to much.

Overall, a rather skimpy accounting. No financial analyst would issue a ���buy��� rating on my stock.

But I had other non-financial assets that could not be discounted. I was alive and in good health. I had a fantastic, loving family that supported me. I had a good relationship with my three sons. I had marketable skills should I need to get another job. For all of these things, I was deeply blessed.

I also had a deep well of resilience. I���d been through a lot of tough stuff in my life���periods of depression and anxiety, a long list of accidents and mishaps���and I���d somehow survived. Along the way, I���d done a lot of work on myself and had reached a point where I knew deep down that I could get through anything.



I���d always been a seeker and a big reader and, through my reading, I���d discovered meditation, mindfulness and other Eastern spiritual practices, all of which had helped me immensely.

Lately, I���d been reading about the so-called law of attraction.��The basic idea is that human beings attract into our lives whatever we���re focused on, both good and bad, and that we manifest states and experiences that match the energy of the thoughts we are putting out. If we���re putting out positive, optimistic energies about a happy and prosperous future, that���s what we will get. Conversely, if we are filling our minds with dark imaginings of a hopeless future and fears of what we don���t want, we���ll get that, too.

According to the principle of attraction, if we want to manifest something in our lives, we need only state our desires clearly and unambiguously to the ���universe��� and it will be delivered to us on a platter. The more specific we are in our requests, the better the chances that we will get what we want.

Now, in addition to being a security-seeking creature, I am also a highly rational one���too rational at times, my girlfriend will sometimes tell me. For me to believe something, I need facts. I need to see some objective evidence that this thing I���m being asked to believe actually exists.

I was skeptical about this so-called law. Gravity was a law. Entropy was a law. The law of attraction? It sounded like new-age psychological claptrap.

Still, much of what I was reading made logical sense to me. I knew, from my time both on and off the therapist���s couch, that our unconscious thoughts and belief patterns shape our realities in very real ways. I���d learned how to defuse anxiety and panic attacks by paying closer attention to the things I was saying to myself. I���d become undeniably a more peaceful, grounded and productive person through my daily practice of meditation and mindfulness.

All of this was clear evidence to me of the power of rightful thinking and intention in creating our outward circumstances. I thought, why not try this law of attraction? What could it hurt?

So that sleepless winter night, as I stared up at the dim-lit ceiling, I stated my intention in precise detail. In 10 years, when I was 59, I would be happy, healthy and peaceful. I would have a wonderful, supportive partner in my life. She would have dark hair and be a yoga teacher. She would get along well with my kids. Financially, I would be secure and independent. My portfolio would be worth 10 times what it was at the moment���enough for me to be able to step away early from the corporate world and pursue my passion for writing and storytelling.

A 10-fold increase in 10 years. Sure, why not? If I was wishing on a star, why not go big?

Item by item, I laid out my wish list, envisioning a new, more fulsome balance sheet for my life. It didn���t seem possible at the time, as dark as the world was back then, that these things would come true. But from what I read about the law of attraction, whether my desires seemed possible or not didn���t matter. All I had to do was set the intention and then give power over to the universe to deliver it to me.

Making it happen. Having stated my intention, I went to work. The law of attraction is clear about that as well. It���s not enough just to put your intention out there and roll back onto your pillow. You need to actively take steps toward it.

I didn���t have a problem with that. I liked working hard. I liked setting goals and seeing myself making progress toward them. I had a decade to bring this plan to fruition. It was possible. I just needed to be persistent and have faith.

That was, as I said, January 2009. Two months later, the stock market finally bottomed and began a slow, tenuous climb out of the abyss.

I knew from my MBA and investor-relations training that, despite the terrible market sentiment at the time, things would turn around in the long run and this was a good time to be putting money to work in the market. I also knew of the power of dollar-cost averaging and was a firm believer in John Bogle���s philosophy of investing in low-cost, broad-based index funds. In addition to my 401(k) contributions, I opened up a taxable account and started investing a set amount every month in low-cost Vanguard Group index funds.

At first, I favored bond funds, since they were doing well and seemed safer at the time. But within a few months, I went on the offensive and began investing all of my money in stock funds, weighted toward aggressive growth companies in the U.S.

My company was also on the upswing. A new CEO had come onboard, promising shareholders a turnaround. I appreciated his no-nonsense, MBWA (management by walking around) leadership style, and he and I developed a strong working relationship. I was put in charge of global communications and given the job of telling our story to the media and the public in general.

It wasn���t long before our financial results, and our stock price, started turning around. We were hitting our numbers and granting bonuses. In addition, as a member of the executive team, I was entitled to annual stock option grants. As the share price rose, those options were suddenly worth something. Whenever I got a bonus or cashed in any stock, I put the money in the market.

Looking back now, I was probably being too aggressive in allocating so much of my investments to the U.S. stock market. But I just felt the market was so low that the risk was also low. What���s more, I had faith in American business innovation and felt that, over time, my faith would pay off.

With my investment strategy set, I sat back and watched the seeds grow. We all know what happened in the market since that dark winter of 2008-09. Since hitting a low of 676 on March 9, 2009, the S&P 500 has risen almost sevenfold. It hasn���t been a straight line up, of course, but through the ups and downs of the market, I have stayed disciplined and kept my investments on autopilot.

Along the way, life has tossed me plenty of surprises, as it is wont to do. In 2013, I found out I had stage three colon cancer and had to go through six months of chemotherapy. Fortunately, I caught it early and am now cancer-free.

In 2016, at age 56, I lost my job at the tech company after 28 years���a profoundly unsettling experience that I write about in my new book�� The Long Walk Home , published by Blydyn Square Press. I was fortunate, however, to quickly find another job at a large and very successful financial technology company. That same year, I met my current girlfriend���and, yes, she has dark hair and is a yoga teacher. We���ve been together ever since.

As the market continued to do well and my investment accounts grew, I decided to move my investments at Vanguard into a managed account under an investment advisor. That advisor, who is terrific, has diversified my portfolio to a mix more appropriate for someone my age.

Faith rewarded. In 2019, 10 years after I set my intention, I hit my target investment number. That year, I downsized, sold my house, paid off my mortgage and built my dream mountain house up north. I worked for another two years at the financial technology company as my investments continued to grow. Then, last September, at age 61, I stepped away from the corporate world to pursue my long-held dream of being an author. I am now in the second act of my career, and loving every minute of it.

Some might say that it wasn���t the law of attraction that enabled me to get to financial independence. It was just plain dumb luck that I was putting money to work during one of the greatest market booms in history���a circumstance that���s unlikely to ever happen again.

To which I would reply: It may have been luck that got me here, but it certainly wasn���t dumb. I set the intention, worked hard, scrimped and saved, and made investment decisions based on accepted market wisdom.

It also took faith���both in myself and in the markets. Anyone who was investing back in those dark days of 2008-09 was taking a leap of faith. The greatest investment opportunities are found in the greatest periods of uncertainty. The equation goes something like this: opportunity + intention + knowledge + hard work + faith = good luck.

One thing we know for sure: There will be more downturns in the market. Those are the times that create opportunity. When they do, I will be ready.

James Kerr led global communications, public relations and social media for a number of Fortune 500 technology firms before leaving the corporate world to pursue his passion for writing and storytelling. His book, ���The Long Walk Home: How I Lost My Job as a Corporate Remora Fish and Rediscovered My Life���s Purpose,��� is forthcoming in early 2022 from Blydyn Square Books.��Check out his blog at PeaceableMan.com . Check out Jim's previous articles.

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