The three big funds aren’t only indexes available for investing; there are thousands of others, including not only American-based indexes but indexes specific to other countries and international indexes. When looking at index investing, you should keep in mind wide variety of possibilities for your invested cash.

The most significant advantage to index investing is that it’s easy to diversify your investments, reducing your risk for losing money. Index funds also have a lower expense ratio than other types of mutual funds, which ensures that you’ll be able to keep more of your money.

Ever wonder how risk inclined you are? And how you compare to others.

As a part of my forthcoming book, Seize Opportunity - A Practical Guide to Taking Advantage of Opportunities, I conducted some research on risk inclination. The research involved people self-assessing their risk inclination in a variety of areas.

Participants were first asked to indicate their general risk inclination on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Very Risk Averse and 10 being Very Risk Inclined. They were then asked to be more specific by similarly indicating their risk inclination in following areas.

* Physical Risks - Activities that involve some risk of injury. Riding a motorcycle, river rafting, rock climbing or skydiving are some examples.

* Career Risks - Risk such as job changes, taking on new responsibilities or seeking promotions.

* Financial Risks - Your risk tolerance in investing, borrowing and lending money.

* Social Risks - Risks like introducing yourself to someone you don't know or putting yourself in an unfamiliar social situation even at risk of possible embarrassment.

* Intellectual Risks - Things like your willingness to study a difficult topic, pursue information that challenges your convictions or read an intellectually challenging book.

* Creative Risks - Risks such as painting, drawing, taking on a writing challenge or pursuing an unconventional design.

* Relationship Risks - Risks such as a willingness to pursue a new relationship, spend time with someone despite an uncertain outcome or make a relationship commitment.

* Emotional Risks - Willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

* Spiritual Risks - Willingness to place your trust in concepts that may be unprovable or you do not fully understand.

Having assessed their willingness to take these nine different types of risk, participants were then again asked first question about their general risk inclination again. Here are results of research so far.

Averages and Ranges of Assessments - On average, people placed their Balance Point for all types of risks between 5.9 and 7.7. I find it interesting that averages are all above midpoint on assessment scale. It is also of interest that range is so relatively small with less than two points between lower and higher averages. This seems to suggest that people, as a whole, consider themselves moderately risk inclined and they see their risk inclination in all areas as reasonably similar.

Individually, range of risk inclination for specific risks varied maximum possible. Some people had self-assessed risk inclinations ranging all way from 1 to 10.

The range of averages of all risks for men was 6.2 to 7.8. The average risk inclinations for all risks for women were lower but broader ranging from 5.0 to 7.6.

Highest Assessment - Both as a whole and when broken down by gender, respondents indicated they were most comfortable taking intellectual risks. This could be due to people seeing downside of taking intellectual risks as more acceptable than negative outcomes from other risks such as financial, relationship or physical. Put another way, intellectual risks are private in nature and usually taken without anyone being aware of risk except person taking risk. As such, a negative outcome, should it occur, is likely known only to risk-taker.

Lowest Assessment - Overall, people identified financial risks as ones where least comfortable taking. The average age of respondents being in mid-forties likely influences this result. Men assessed their risk inclination in both financial and emotional risks as their lowest. My guess is that many will not be surprised to learn that emotional risks are among least comfortable for men. This strikes me as consistent with way men are often socialized in our society. Women identified physical risks as ones they were least inclined to take.

Gender Differences - Men and women's inclination to take social and creative risks was essentially identical. The greatest difference in risk inclination between men and women came in physical risks. The average inclination to take physical risks for males was 6.9. For females, it is 5.0. This range of 1.9 is greatest difference in risk inclination that occurs when comparing results by gender.

There are two type of risks for which women indicated a greater risk inclination than men. Can you guess which ones? Women expressed a higher inclination to take both relationship and emotional risks than men.

Revised Overall Risk Inclination - One of points of this exercise is to encourage people to look at their risk inclination more broadly. That's reason respondents are asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination a second time after assessing their inclination to take risks in a variety of specific areas. I am pleased to report that many respondents revised their Overall Risk Inclination upward as a result of completing survey.

Two out of five people moved their Balance Point to right, towards more risk inclined, second time they were asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination compared to their response to same question when they first responded to it. That's powerful and means that simply looking at their risk profile more broadly allowed them to revise their Overall Risk Inclination upward. For women, this effect was even more dramatic. Fully half of women taking survey increased their Overall Risk Inclination. One in three men did same.

Two in five taking survey did not change their Overall Risk Inclination. For men, those with unchanged Overall Risk Inclinations were 44 percent. For women, it was 36 percent.