Tua's Tragedy

Tua's Tragedy

[00:00:00] So the story I'm gonna tell you about now is a current news item, and the reason I'm gonna tell you about it is a couple reasons. One is that it's bothering me. It's bothering me because a young man has had his health and his future affected by. The incompetence displayed by an organization in the National Football League called the Miami Dolphins.

So the quarterback's name is Tua Tagovailoa, and I'm sure I am murdering that. So going forward, I'm just gonna call him Tua by his first name, 

so the background here is that Tua is a third year quarterback, and it's been doing great this season. The [00:01:00] Miami Dolphins look like in an exciting organization. They have a new coach by the name of mike McDaniel.

So on Sunday, September 25th, Tua got pushed by a defensive lineman after he had thrown the football thrown onto his back, and as he fell onto his back, his head rocked back and snapped back and hit the turf. His hands go up towards his head as though. Perhaps he was reaching for his head and he's there for a moment, and then you see him try and get up and you wobble a little bit as he's trying to get up.

And then he tries to start to jog back towards the line of scrimmage [00:02:00] and all of a sudden he basically stumbles and falls. One of his fellow lineman tries to kind of put his hand out to hold him back, and another, a lineman grabs him and holds him up so he doesn't fall any further. A medical person, I believe it was, runs out onto the field to attend to him, and they take him to the locker room.

This is shortly before halftime. Everybody in America knew what they had seen. We all saw the man clearly get his head hit, not be able to stand and had what we would all consider to be head trauma, a concussion in this case, everybody with a lick of a sense saw this.

But during halftime, at towards the end of halftime, we are told that Tua is back out on the field trying to cheer on the [00:03:00] fans and that he will be going back in and that it wasn't his head, it was his back.

We all knew what we had seen. I don't doubt that he had a back issue, several plays earlier. I had seen him get bent back, you know, what looked like a painful manner that could easily affect his back.

So he played well in the second half at the meetings after the game. He and his coaches reiterated the line about it not being his, his head, that he hadn't had a concussion, that he'd passed the protocols and that it was his back, and that his the coach said that his, he had been told by two of that his legs felt like jelly because of his back situation.

So you have to. Believe what they're telling you in this situation, watching this rather than your own lying eyes. Apparently

[00:04:00] fast forward four days, only four days to Thursday night when the Miami Dolphins on a shortened week are playing another game, and Tua is out there once again and once again. He, in this case, he gets thrown violently to the ground in a whipping motion. And during a sack hits his head, his hands, once again go up to his head, and this time he does not move other than just rolling over his hands.

If you've seen the video, If you haven't seen the video, you might wanna decide whether or not you're willing to see something that will be disturbing to you. Anybody who saw this, I guarantee you, with a, with a lick of empathy in their body, was [00:05:00] disturbed by what they saw because the man layed there and his hands were in a fixed position near his face.

His fingers were in a distorted, unbelievably distorted position. In some sort of a spasm, a very unnatural spasm in his hands. He was completely unconscious. At this point,

the medical staff, once again, rushes out there this time they strap him in a gurney and take him to the hospital.

This is a sad story. I, I don't even like discussing this, but I think it's important for you to understand exactly what happened, because I'm gonna tell you some details that I've never seen discussed in the media. I'm gonna give you this, the secret to this whole thing, what happened, And there are some lessons that I think that we can take from this as well.

So this time, Everybody, everybody who witnesses was [00:06:00] disturbed. I mean, it was difficult for anybody to even want to play football after seeing this man taken off after getting his head smashed into the ground for the second time in just a few days.

So word comes back towards the end of the game, that Tua has a concussion, and that he is going to be discharged from the hospital, which I didn't like, and that he's gonna be sent home on the team plane. So, During this, the national NFL Players Association after the first event said they were gonna look into this because they weren't sure that procedures had been followed.

Like I said, to anybody who witnessed the Sunday event, it had to looked like the man had concussion then, and lo and behold, just a few days later, it looks like a second event. [00:07:00] Now if you're listening to the Miami Dolphins and the doctors, it wasn't a second event. It was completely unrelated.

But that's the unfortunate thing, is that what I'm gonna tell you is that not only did everybody else with a lick of common sense know what had happened the first time, I'm going to show you was proven by their own evidence. So, the second event that occurred where his hands became in a fixed, rigid position is apparently called a fencing posture and is indicative of head trauma.

An electrical storm is going through your brain and locks your limbs into rigid positions Now, The medical staff, didn't deny that he'd had had trauma the second time. But now I'm gonna tell you what, what the secret is and why this whole narrative about him [00:08:00] not having head trauma the first time around is bunk.

That's because if you watch the video, what had initially looked like him merely reaching for his head, if you look closely in the video, you can see that he was doing the exact same thing with his hands. He just merely did it very briefly. He was in the exact same posture. His hands had in fact become distorted.

It was just so brief that nobody seemed to pick up on this, but by their own logic that indicates that he had head trauma. We all knew that whoever had any common sense at all. But somehow or other, the doctors who were present, the supposedly independent doctors, and the the team physician reached a different conclusion than everybody in the stands 

so the sad thing about this is, This is a man who had something that was preventable to have this, the second event, because [00:09:00] a concussion that occurs shortly after first one can lead to really tragic results of the brain hasn't recovered from the first insult, and the second time around can cause you to drop in terms of brain energy.

Energy level is to a threshold where there's, permanent damage. Now, I hope to God that that is not the case for this man. I don't think that Tua actually was even aware that he had developed that fencing posture and probably lost consciousness after the first event. He may really have thought that it was just his back.

That's one of the funny things about head injuries, it's frequently not very useful to ask them if they lost consciousness, because they don't know. If you go in and have surgery, for instance, and they put you under anesthesia one moment, they're, asking you to count backwards and the next you're waking up.[00:10:00] 

You might actually think that they haven't done the procedure. Because in your mind there's been no time span at all, and that's the way it tends to be with people with head trauma. They oftentimes don't know, 

So when these medical experts brought him in at halftime, what were they thinking? Because the NFL says in their rules about head trauma, that if a player develops gross motor instability, that he's not supposed to be going back in. Unfortunately, there seems to be a loophole in there that if the gross motor instability is caused by something other than something neurological that he can return to.

So this narrative that it was his back is what allowed him to go back out there on the field.

Now, once again, Tua may not have known that he suffered a [00:11:00] concussion. He may have felt okay, but NFL players after this event have been talking about it. And to a man that all I've heard, everyone I've heard has said that they. If they, if somebody asked them if they had a concussion while they were playing, they said no.

They just wanted to go back out on the field and play. And they knew if they admitted it, that they would not be allowed to play. And so what some of them would do is they would blame their symptoms on some other type of injury that would allow them to play such as a bad back.

News today indicates that. The doctor who has now been fired, this independent doctor who looked at Tua at half time on Sunday has been fired, and they're not even sure that the man actually reviewed the video. How shocking is that? How shocking is that, that the man didn't even look at video [00:12:00] evidence so he could understand how the injury had occurred?

I mean, did they just bring him back there and run some, you know, basic neurological, cognitive, you know, eye test, things like that? And, and take his word that it was his back.

So it's a sad story because the man should not have been out there on. He shouldn't have been out there on the first day on Sunday either, but unfortunately he suffered a second injury to his head. We don't know what the ramifications are gonna be for that, but neurological people will say that after something like that, the man should literally miss months.

It's gonna take him that long to recover if he ever does fully recover. So it's gonna be a sad thing. I don't think that, I don't think he's gonna wind up missing the season. They're gonna put him back out there and he's gonna be perhaps susceptible to another head injury, but[00:13:00] they may try and stick with a story that the first one didn't occur.

But I told you, I just told you the evidence that it did occur by their own logic. The first time he did have the head injury, and the second time was the second. So what can we learn from this? One is don't trust too much the experts. So like I said, everybody who saw the first event knew what had happened, but the coach who was in a position to.

Keep Tua off the field did not step in. And he deferred to the so-called experts, the doctors who examined Tua at halftime,

people who had seen what had happened could have simply said I don't care what. What you're saying to me, I know what a concussion looks like. The coach was in a [00:14:00] position to keep Tua off the field.

He's the last line of defense to keep the player from hurting himself by going back out on the field. And he didn't do that. He deferred to the doctors. And that was a mistake. And most doctors, by the way, we put way too much faith in these people. They are not that bright. I'm sorry, but I've met plenty of doctors 

and at the very least we can, we can agree that they're fallible and in this case, very fallible. And the other thing to learn, I think from this is don't put too much faith in systems. So the NFL and the coaches all relied on the NFL's systems that are supposed to be in place to treat situations like this to prevent players from going [00:15:00] returning to the field who shouldn't be on the field.

The problem is, That they're designed by people who, as I just said, are fallible and they're designed in advance. So they're trying to predict what may happen and they may or may not even be applicable. There might be in a case like this, a loophole that shouldn't even be there. And 

may not take into account everything that possibly could occur. And so not everything may even apply. And I guess the things that that I just mentioned that they have in common is there're no substitute for common sense. Like I said, everyone with common sense saw what had happened to Tua and knew he shouldn't be out on the field.

So the fact that a system. Overrode Common sense is a real problem here. And the NFL and the Miami Dolphins and their [00:16:00] coach are all in a bad place now because of the fact that the systems overrode common sense. So it's a sad story.

I wanted to kind of relate that to you because I think it's important to learn some things from this. So, in your own life, if you think something is obvious, but you're being told that it's otherwise, don't put too much faith in this system that they're telling you. Knows better than you.

Your own eyes and your own common sense are worth a lot, and they really more timely and frequently because they're more timely and they have up to date information.

They're more accurate and the systems should only be in place as framework for you to use as a tool, not as a substitute for your own mind. 

5K Question

[00:00:00] And to a listener question for today, and this one comes from Wesley who says he's asking for a friend. The question is, where would you invest $5,000 today? So you may think that you are asking a simple question, but I'm going to tell you that there are a lot of parameters that need to be looked at, and I think the listeners. Today we'll be able to benefit from it if we discuss what those parameters are that you should consider when making your investment decisions. And that way, whatever your situation is, you should be able to apply it to your situation. So the first thing I would say is a few different questions you need to look at, and one would be, what is your age?

Generally people can be more aggressive with their investments when they're at a younger age, and as they get closer towards retirement, they become more conservative with their [00:01:00] investments. The idea is that investments have risk and you want to reduce your risk as you get closer to a time period where you can't afford to have a downturn and you may not have enough time to recover you're younger, you still have that kind of time for recovery, so that's why you get more conservative with your investments as you get older. The kind of traditional way of looking at it, the simplest way I can kind of explain it, is that, for instance, a young person will generally be. Maybe in 100% equities.

When I say equities, again, I mean stocks in the stock market. This kind of stuff you hear about all the time on the news. And those investments, you know, tend to go up and down quite a bit. And the balance counterbalance to that, the more conservative portion of a person's portfolio will usually be in something like a [00:02:00] fixed income.

In other words, think bonds. That's one consideration is the age. Another consideration you want to consider is what is your risk tolerance? Think about yourself right now and what kind of a person do you tend to be in terms of the amount of risk you like taking, or do you really tend to avoid risk in your investments?

Imagine for a moment, let's say your investments went down 30%. Ask yourself, would you be in a panic or would you just kind of be able to shrug it off? That should give you an idea too, of, you know, where you kind of are in the spectrum. If you're the kind of person who just absolutely says, I can't, I don't want that. That would, that would freak me out. Then [00:03:00] you know, you're really on the conservative side, so if you are the kind of person that says, That doesn't bother me. I know I've got a lot of time ahead, then you can, Then you have more risk, what we call risk tolerance. . So that's one thing to consider. And when you build an investment portfolio, so when you say, you know, what would I do with $5,000?

I'm thinking as a portfolio type manager, what is this person's timeframe? What is their. Risk tolerance. Next would be also what is their ability to take risk. So your ability to take risk may depend upon several factors, what your personal financial situation looks like. So would you be in dire straits if you were to lose some money?

 Are you using the money towards something specific? And what is the timeframe on that? If we're just talking a long time horizon, where you're looking for your returns to come [00:04:00] back to 30, 40 years from now, that's so very different story than when you might be saying that I need this to put down on a house in five to 10 years.

So that's another thing to consider is what are your objectives for the money? Is it earmarked for something specific other than, a long term objective like your retirement? So when I talked about your ability to take a risk, that really leads me into.

An important topic that I want to get into here, which is when you talk about $5,000, I'm thinking that this might be your first $5,000 that you're investing. If not, that's fine as well. But the first thing I need to ask you is do you have an emergency fund set up and an emergency fund Is there, just like the name sounds like if something happens and you need money.

So that's your first step for any investments at all, should [00:05:00] be put it in something very safe. And I'm thinking of, either a checking account or savings account tied to your checking count, or an online high yield savings account, again tied to your checking account. It needs to be liquid, Anything that is invested within that account, again, has to be liquid.

This way, if something happens, you have something to fall back on and There's two things that really are achieved with having your emergency fund. One is that you've actually got it. If you need it in some sort of emergency, you lose your job. You got something to fall back on, for instance. The other aspect of it, the second thing is, Psychologically you feel better.

When the life seems to be trying to grind you down, you stand a little taller knowing that you are not about to become, impoverished. If things don't work out so well for you. So you can, you feel a little bit different psychologically knowing that that money is there.[00:06:00] 

So that's your first thing you need to be doing is an emergency fund

now, let's say you've got the emergency fund set up. So let's take it one step further beyond that. So those of you who already have that set up will talk to to you just here a little bit. So the next thing I'd be looking at is, have you contributed to your IRA this year? Now, an IRA is not an investment per se.

It is an investment vehicle so there's . Two types of IRAs. One is a traditional IRA and a traditional ira. You will get a tax deduction for contributing to it this year. So it will reduce your current year's taxes, but when you go to withdraw it in the future, you'll pay taxes.

Then. A Roth ira. Kind of the, the flip to that in some ways. And with a Roth IRA you put in [00:07:00] after tax money, okay? You've already been taxed on it, but when you go to withdraw it in the future, you don't get taxed on it. Now, I'm not gonna go into a lot of details about this today cuz I want to try and keep this fairly concise and short for you.

But I would suggest you have both types of account. because there are real benefits to that in the future. It allows you more flexibility about when to withdraw money and when, how much, and how to use it to , your best tax advantage.

And if we're talking $5,000 and it's your first $5,000, put it into one of those types of accounts, or in this case, do both. You can just, you can contact any, reputable brokerage house, you know, Schwab, Fidelity, will be able to open you in an account.

I don't have a specific recommendation for you on that today. Schwab. Always been [00:08:00] very good for me, but I don't know what their minimums are but yeah, do your homework on that. You know, just see what their minimums are, what their fees are.

But I would probably, open both types of accounts. And as far as what to buy with your $5,000 in. IRA or Roth ira, I would look for a few different things. If you're somebody who enjoys stock picking You can pick individual stocks. Generally you want to build a diversified portfolio, is kind of our overall objective.

Now, there are a number of different ways of getting to it, and again, we could really get into the weeds here on this. I would say if you're gonna pick individual stocks and you're gonna build a hundred percent stock portfolio, for instance, no individual stock position should be over 10%.

Most people would say considerably less than that. But again, you're talking $5,000 and you may be kind of getting started on research. They should be [00:09:00] in different industries. So that they're. Gonna track together and keep 5%, 10% in cash. That way on dips you have some money to put in.

The other way of doing it is to use some ETFs or funds to try and get some diversification. If you're gonna be looking at ETF's and funds, you're going to want to make sure that. You look for low expense ratios. If you're going get a fund and it's gonna have an active manager look at their track record.

Usually as funds get bigger, they tend to do poor, more poorly, just to let you know. And if you don't wanna do any of that, I would get an all world fund, or an et. Probably, which would basically diversify you broadly across all countries across the world. I would say, you know, look at a, look at a good company like Vanguard.

They have been kind of the [00:10:00] low fee leader, of the, of the world. And that's how they built their name. So we could have gone even deeper on all of this. I hope that gives you a start if you have further questions, just go ahead and reach out.

You can reach me on richesrevealed.com. You can ask question there. , you can actually add messages. You can. Put in a response on the podcasting sites as well, but probably I would go to richesrevealed.com. That way you can get the most direct access to me. All right, so that's it for today.

Hope that helped you with your question