I’ve been kicking myself all week, ever since my throat went scratchy on Tuesday evening and morphed into a full-blown cold. (The pun’s intended, by the way.) I’m kicking myself, not because I got sick, but because of my lack of foresight.
Every time I catch cold, I make a mental to invest in tissue stock – as soon as I feel better. But as soon as I’m on the mend, there’s a mountain of neglected life to catch up on: laundry, cleaning, bills, mail, emails, work. By the time those are taken care of, my bright investment idea has become a dim memory and never becomes reality.
During my teaching days, the profit mogul mindset hit often. At least twice a year, my students who loved to share everything with their teacher, lovingly passed along whatever virus was making its way through their ranks. Some years we blew through our stockpile of tissues (one box per child as requested on the back-to-school supply list) by February, and a note went home requesting more contributions. Multiply that cycle times every elementary classroom in the United States, and you know why dollar signs dance in my eyes when I blow my nose.
Once I left teaching, I slowly learned why people don’t take advantage of this gold mine. First, people outside of education don’t get colds often (this is my first since I left the classroom in 2003), and they certainly don’t frequent poorly ventilated, germ-filled classrooms full of sneezing, runny-nosed children and teachers. Second, the teachers are too busy doing their jobs (which has been made harder lately by No Child Left Behind and larger class sizes) to call a stock broker.
So consider this your stock tip of the day. Invest in a tissue company before cold and flu season hits. Do it while you’re healthy, the same day you get your flu shot maybe. And then, use some of your Wall Street profits to make another kind of investment. Drop off a couple boxes of tissues at a school. Create a care package for a teacher you know – a bottle of hand-sanitizer, some cough drops, a box of candy, a thank you note, a gift certificate for pizza.
The dividends for such actions are incalculable, life changing. Wouldn’t you like to be part of an investment like that?
