The phone rang and on the other end a panicked voice yelled, "sell everything!" You don't need to be a stockbroker yourself to realize that this person decided panic overruled patience. In fact, this might represent your current feelings in an otherwise difficult market.

After all, you might be right. Maybe it is time to sell every stock and hunker down for the winter. Before you do, however, it might be useful to remember three ideas that you already apply in other areas of decision making in your life.

Reminder number one: "Only Believe What You See."

What? Let me ask you a simple question. On the day you were born, what did the Dow close at? Now ask yourself, what did the Dow close at yesterday? There is really only one answer. You have only seen a lifetime of the stock market growing. Sure, there are many ups and downs, but as a trend your entire life is an uptrend in the market.

The reason this is true is that great American businesses get up in the morning, turn on the lights and sell stuff to people. As long as people keep wanting stuff, business will be there to sell it to them. This may be all that you need to know for understanding economics. Since people insatiably want stuff and business relentlessly sells stuff, the market over time will continue to produce great investment opportunities. Believe what your eyes have actually seen in the market over your lifetime, unless of course, you think capitalism is dead.

Reminder number two: "Blue Light Specials Are Good."

When the market is down, it simply means that there is a blue light special on "isle Wall Street" and the first ones to arrive get the best deals. In other words, when times are tough for the market, they are holding a big sale up at the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, you say this same thing in a little different way when using a favorite investment mantra: "Buy low, sell high."

Buy low, sell high is true. But, guess what else is low when the market is low? Hope is low. The future outlook is low. Earnings look low. So, if the market is low everything else looks low as well. This means that you must resist the emotion of panic and buy when everyone else is selling. As traders teach us, buy into another investor's fear and sell into another investor's hope.

Finally, reminder number three: "Self Help Doesn't Always Help."

Although self-help is all the rage there are times when high quality advice is best. Self help root canals are not all that they are cracked up to be, are they? Sometimes high quality advice from trusted advisors simply makes sense. This may be one of those times. So, let me share the advice from my favorite outside investment advisor. When Warren Buffet was asked when was the proper time to sell stocks he answered, "Never!" Buffet's advice might be worth your serious consideration.