Especially since that, uh, maladroitness does provide a good learned-the-hard-way lesson. True story: back in late '08-early '09, I was picking through the wreckage on the NYSE to look for busted stocks that would make good turnaround plays. Two out of three of the ones I settled on ended up recovering; the third just meandered along.

But...because I didn't know how to buy and hold for the long term, I wound up throwing away more than $100,000. I sold them way too soon and got out more-or-less break-even. Had I had the stick-to-itiveness to hold 'em for a year or more like I had planned, I would have had six figures in fiat. True story.

I'm not complaining: it's a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Life is full of these lessons.

FUN FACT: Long after, I read a study that focused on turnaround stocks like the ones I had bought. It turns out, from the dumps to the end of their recoveries, the shares changed hands something like forty times. So I was far from the only one who was "nervous in the service."