Tim Brown: Get Your Head in the Game

When you sit down to invest your money, it's important to get your head in the game and be prepared. Unlike football, the market has no off-season -- it's open year-round, and you have to be prepared all the time.

I can help you with that by sharing my investing ideas several times a week, but before I get to today's pick, let me share some insight with you about being prepared.

It's that time of year for the start of NFL training camps.

Make no mistake about it, training camp is a "necessary evil" in every sense of the word. After an off-season of gallivanting around the country, spending money earned from the previous year, everyone patting you on the back telling you how great you are, you have to go somewhere and get your head back into your job.

The evil comes in the obvious forms: twice-a-day practices, eating food that all tastes the same after the first week of camp, having a roommate (well, some of us didn't have to worry about roommates), being told when to be in your room, and even worse, what time lights have to be out!

For a guy like me who reveres the game, I took it as disrespectful when coaches would check my room. In fact, most of the time I would put the chain on the door so they couldn't get in!

All in all, at the end of the day, I was always thankful for training camp, because I knew that when it was done, I was physically ready to play. I had my legs under me, and I was in game shape and ready to roll.