Listen to Your Inner Voice, And it Will Show You The Way This is something that most investors don't do. Instead of going by what their 'inner voice' tells them to do, they do what they hear from the stock market experts. But then, this is the way most of us have been living our lives. Most of us don't hear the voice that comes from inside our heads. We simply decide that we're going to work in finance or be a doctor because that's what our parents want us to do or because we ourselves want to make a lot of money. And when we consciously or unconsciously make that decision, we snuff out that little voice in our head. The biggest problem with going by someone else's advice (in life and in investing) is that not only it could be wrong (and in most cases in investing, it is wrong), but that advice also inhibits your own ability to form independent judgments. Look at Jobs. He was always a restless soul, always a man with a plan. But his plan wasn't for everyone. It was his plan. He wanted to build computers, and that is what he did. In 2004, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he only had a few weeks to live. Here is what he told the audience at the 2005 Stanford commencement speech: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." So, follow your heart your inner voice. As an investor, whatever this voice is telling you, you would be smart to listen to it. If it tells you to avoid the dud stock others are buying, or buy the great stock others are selling just do it.