I got to thinking about barriers as I was reading about Muriel Siebert’s passing. She was sometimes referred to as the “First Woman of Finance” because she was the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange back in 1967.

Can you imagine the barriers she went through back then when no women worked at that level on Wall Street? And it was obvious that they didn’t want her on the floor of the exchange even then.

You see, even if you had the money to buy a seat on the exchange, you had to have someone sponsor you first. Well, she went to 10 men and nine of the 10 turned her down. (Imagine if she’d had stopped when four or five, etc. had turned her down.) I love hearing about people with tenacity…a “won’t give up” spirit. It’s inspiring, no matter whether you’re male or female.

Editor’s Note: Put the World’s Top Financial Minds to Work for You

Well, she went on to establish her own stock brokerage firm, and the rest is history.
1967 was a long time ago. I was born two years later. (I’ll be 44 soon). But I still remember how tough Wall Street was on women on the floor of the stock exchange even as recently as the 1990s.

I remember watching CNBC in my mid-20s as Maria Bartiromo became the first reporter to broadcast from the floor of the NYSE. (By the way, she was born mere months before Siebert bought her seat on the stock exchange).

I remember watching how people on the floor treated her while she was reporting from there. It was obvious that she “wasn’t wanted” there.

On live TV, I’ll never forget men practically mowing her over while she was reporting. It was one of the rudest things I’d seen on live TV. I’ll never forget it.

But Maria wasn’t leaving. If they knocked her down on live TV, I was confident, she’d get back up…dust herself off and continue speaking as if nothing happened. However, I do remember her briefly telling one guy off that slammed her in the shoulder one day. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Ha-ha. I wanted to get up and cheer for her actually.

It gave me a huge respect for her because of the barriers that she had to break through.

Well, you know, investing in general has its own barriers. Oh, they aren’t seen. They are mental and emotional.

The initial barrier is fear…as we say to ourselves, “I’ve never done that before” or “What if I lose money,” etc.

Editor’s Note: Put the World’s Top Financial Minds to Work for You

But once those barriers are surpassed there are other barriers to overcome. Another barrier is to have confidence in yourself and the investments you’ve made once you’ve made them.

This confidence comes largely from knowing the quality of company that you’ve bought and that you’ve bought it at a very compelling price. I cover this aspect in detail in my newsletter, the Ultimate Wealth Report, just so people can have confidence in their investments as time passes because they’ll know why we got into them and why get got into them right then when we did.

Another barrier is the emotional combat that comes about by hearing differing opinions out there. Have you ever bought a stock and then heard some pro on financial TV bash the stock?

In fact, it can get even more difficult because in the same day you can hear one pro tell you why the stock is a good buy and another one tell you why the stock isn’t worth buying at all.

Once again, this is why I lay it out in plain English, why we’re buying a stock when we do.

The next barrier you’ll have to overcome is the one where you watch the stock’s price bob up and down before your eyes, especially when it’s diving temporarily against you.

This is when self-doubt seems to scream the loudest…and it’s at those times, you go back and take a fresh look at why you bought the stock. And if the same fundamentals that got you into the stock are still there…you “belt up” and ride through the bumps along the way to profits.

It’s only if the fundamental story has changed that you consider selling out of the position.

Yet, many people will sell out and totally forget “why” they bought the stock because the temporary downward trajectory is allowed to override every other thought in their mind.

This all must be overcome to be a successful investor.

Tip: Most investors should not get into the habit of looking at their investments every day. It’s like a farmer going out and digging up his seed each day and checking on it that way. Investments are very much like planting crops.

Between the period of the seed going into the ground and the plant shooting up through the dirt, there is a period of faith that is required. And just as some plants shoot through the dirt quicker than other types of plants, so it is with your investments.

You’ll find a solid stock that is trading at a cheap fundamental valuation and you’ll plant the seed of your investment money into shares of that stock. You’ll do the same with other stocks.

Some stocks will turn positive quite quickly (weeks to months), while others will require months to a year or more to those “stock plants” begin to shoot through the dirt and turn positive. Yet, both were valid crops, worth planting and waiting for the harvest.

We can learn a lot from the farmer. I guess this is why the Bible uses the analogy of the farmer some too.

OK, so go back over these common barriers and see which ones you honestly battle with.

Make a plan of attack to overcome those barriers and you’ll find that you will become a much more successful investor over time.

God bless!

About the Author: Sean Hyman
Sean Hyman is a member of the Moneynews Financial Brain Trust. Click Here to read more of his articles. He is also the editor of Ultimate Wealth Report. Discover more by Clicking Here Now.