As my public equity portfolio gets obliterated thanks to being overweight tech stocks, I started dusting off my resume to go back to flipping burgers at McDonald’s . Then halfway through the application, I wiped away my tears and took a deep breath.

As every long-time investor knows, the name of the game is survival. If you can make it through the downturn, good things usually await on the other side.

We're not in an official bear market , yet. But plenty of individual tech names have already fallen by over 20%, and when you're overweight those names, the index's official status doesn't matter much.

So I thought it might be helpful for those who are retired, or who are close, to discuss the positives of going through a downturn. We'll also review how long downturns usually last so we can better prepare.

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