MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins Page B

donated over $36 million to a variety of educational causes, including $3.6 million in grants to two schools for the deaf, because he’d been hard of hearing since the 1940s. He also set up a college scholarship fund at UPS for the children of employees.
    —
    Have you heard the story of Oseola McCarty from Hattiesburg, Mississippi—a hardworking woman with just a sixth-grade education who toiled for 75 years washing and ironing clothes? She lived simply and was always careful to set aside a portion of her earnings. “I put it in savings,” sheexplained of her investment philosophy. “I never would take any of it out. I just put it in. It just accumulated.”
    Oh, boy, did this woman’s money accumulate. At 87 years old, McCarty made national news when she donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to start a scholarship fund. This woman didn’t have the compelling screen presence of a Kim Basinger or the distinctive musical talent of a Willie Nelson, but she worked hard and knew enough to see that her money worked hard, too.
    “I want to help somebody’s child go to college,” she said—and she was able to do just that, on the back of her good diligence. There was even a little left over for a small luxury item: she bought an air conditioner for her house.
    All the way at the other end of the spectrum, we see the rousing example of Sir John Templeton, one of my personal role models and one of the greatest investors of all time. I had the privilege of meeting John and interviewing him several times over the years, and I’m including our last interview in our “Billionaire’s Playbook.” Here’s a little background. He didn’t start out as “Sir John.” He came from humble beginnings in Tennessee. John had to drop out of college because he couldn’t afford the tuition, but even as a young man, he recognized the incremental power of compounded savings. He committed to setting aside 50% of what he earned, and then he took his savings and put it to work in a big way. He studied history and noticed a clear pattern. “Tony, you find the bargains at the point of maximum pessimism,” he told me. “There’s nothing— nothing —that will make the price of a share go down except the pressure of selling.” Think about it. When things are going well in the economy, you might get multiple offers on your house and you’ll hold out for the highest price. In bull markets, it’s hard for investors to get a good deal. Why? When things are going well, it’s human nature to think they’re going to continue going well forever! But when there’s a meltdown, people run for the hills. They’ll give away their homes, their stocks, their businesses for next to nothing. By going against the grain, John, a man who started with practically nothing, became a multibillionaire.
    How did he do it? Just when Germany was invading Poland in 1939, plunging Europe into World War II and paralyzing the world with fear and despair, he scraped together $10,000 to invest in the New York stock market.He bought 100 shares of every company trading under $1, including those considered nearly bankrupt. But he knew what so many people forget: that night is not forever. Financial winter is a season, and it’s followed by spring.
    After WWII ended in 1945, the US economy surged, and Templeton’s shares exploded into a multibillion-dollar portfolio! We saw the same kind of growth happen as the stock market soared from the lows of March 2009 to more than 142% growth by the end of 2013. But most people missed it. Why? When things are going down, we think they’re going to go down forever—pessimism takes over. I’ll show you in chapter 4.4, “Timing Is Everything?,” a system that can help you keep your head and continue to invest when everyone else is afraid. It’s in these short, volatile periods that astronomical returns really become available.
    I took those insights to my Platinum Partners, an exclusive mastermind group