There’s always this absurdly grandiose imagination playing out in the head of the beginner investor when he finally decides to buy his first stock.
He is picturing himself going through a tunnel, not unlike those that football players come out from and into the stadium.
Except he’s alone with none of the teammates beside him.
He walks towards the light at the end of the tunnel, then slowly picks up speed into a jog, then into a sprint, and ultimately bursts out into the glorious splendor as he presses the button “confirm order”.
A moment to celebrate with thousands upon thousands of spectators cheering him on for his divine feat of risking his blood, sweat, and tear (AKA money) for humanity (AKA his life and financial freedom).
When in fact, nobody actually cares.
I mean, technically there is because you’ll be the only person that cares about it.
One day you don’t have a stock portfolio and the next day you’ve got one after purchasing your first stock.
That’s all there is to launching your dividend growth portfolio.
Your journey can’t begin until you’ve bought your first stock.
Unfortunately, some of you reading this might not buy your first stock.
There are a lot of reasons why but one of the big ones is that people keep on researching thinking that they need to have all their bases covered.
You’ll never have all of your bases covered and you won’t even know what the bases are until you’ve bought stocks.
It’s like preparing for a marathon.
You can read all of the books you want but until you put on your shoes and actually start running, you’ll never know what it’s like.
On the contrary, you don’t even need to know all of the benefits of running before you are able to derive those benefits from running.
You just need to start running.
There is a reason why I created the Simply Dividend Guide so you wouldn’t have to question whether or not you got everything in order.
The goal of this guide is to let you see the big picture so you know what to look for along the way.
The goal is to give you the confidence to start investing even when there are risks and uncertainties.
It’s a map, not an excuse for you to wait a couple more weeks or months.
Whenever I have an idea and I don’t do it within 3 days then I won’t bother with it.
That means it wasn’t that important to me.
I’m not saying you should have a 3-day limit but you should set a deadline for yourself.
Don’t overthink it.
Your dividend growth portfolio isn’t a goose that lays golden eggs on day 1.
Maybe by day 42 but day 1, it’s just another brokerage account that’s been recently registered on Robinhood.
AND THAT’S OK.
Don’t hype yourself up for your launch.
Don’t fantasize about the numbers.
Just get it out the door.
It’s great that you’ve taken this step to start your portfolio that is going to be your business, but that is barely Step 1.
If the first stock you bought tanks immediately afterward don’t be discouraged.
You know that you’re aiming for the dividend income stream and that there is a lot more stuff to do so get started on that.
I’ve launched multiple portfolios, patted myself on the back, and then watched them die as I did nothing with them.
Launching didn’t get me anywhere.
Investing is all about building on top of what you did yesterday.
It’s why successful dividend growth investors get to lay freely beneath their dollar tree.
They’ve nurtured it one day at a time.
Everything they did was to build on top of what was already done and they constantly moved forward.
You can launch all you want but if you aren’t moving forward then your portfolio will die before it experiences success.
So don’t tell me you’ve launched your portfolio.
Tell me you got your first $100 quarterly dividend paycheck.
Tell me you’ve found your rhythm.
Tell me you don’t like your portfolio’s direction and it’s time to realign it up with your principles and values.
Just don’t tell me you’ve launched.
What Is Needed For A Launch?
Because you have covered so much stuff in this guide it’s easy to think that you need to have a million things in place before you launch.
That’s false.
What I like to do is to check to see if I have everything in place to get my first dividend paycheck and you know what’s needed for that?
- Open your brokerage website or app.
- Type in the ticker symbol of your value stock in the search box.
- Tap “Buy”.
- Choose the order type “limit order” (this allows you to buy the stock at the price you want as opposed to the latest market price with “market order”).
- Input the fair value you came up with for the limit price.
- Fill in the number of share you want to buy.
- Hit “confirm order”.
That’s it.
Then when you can accomplish that you can think about the next steps.
How do you get $1,000 in dividends per year?
How do you get $1,000 in dividends per month?
If you sit around worrying about if you have everything ready for launch then you’ll never launch.
One day your portfolio isn’t there and one day it is.
That’s all there is to a launch.
Pretending that there’s anything more than that is just silly.
Now that you’ve bought your first stock it’s time to figure out how you’re going to maintain your portfolio.
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