Bias for action. Gets things done. Go-getter. Traits companies big and small look for. And for good reason, you're being hired to do things! However, action is a secondary step that often overshadows the primary step, direction. Clear direction is the foundation that enables our actions to takeoff. Without it, we're stuck in the mud. Striving for clarity is an underrated skill. Having the courage to ask ( seemingly ) obvious questions, and to check in, making sure we're all on the same page. "O bvious " questions are a low risk, high reward way to add value. At worst, you'll add confidence to our actions. At best, you discover a misalignment that saves us from a dead-end. The more people, the more clear we need to be. The bigger the initiative, the bigger the risk of reaching the finish line, only to realize expectations were off. Success is always uncertain. But we can be certain about what we want and what everyone's job is. Things that can be clea
Reading a book won't make you a genius, eating a salad won't get you abs and buying a stock won't make you a millionaire. Successful investing (like success in most fields) require time and repetition. Nothing worthwhile is achieved quickly.
Patience unlocks the power of compound interest. Investors who save and invest regularly in an appropriate portfolio will experience extraordinary growth over time.
The ability to think long-term is one of the few advantages that individual investors have over professionals. Professional fund managers have massive advantages over individuals (information, technology, manpower, etc.), but they don't have the luxury of being able to think long-term. Most fund managers report performance quarterly and they want to show strong results every single time. They act for the short-term - impatient investing.
Impatient investing involves active trading. As we've discussed before, trading is very hard. Impatient investors struggle due to poor market timing and paying exponentially higher fees and taxes due to frequent trading.
A 2014 study by the Federal Reserve showed investors who practiced a buy-and-hold strategy outperformed active investors by up to 5% annually. For the 7 year period studied, this led to a 40% difference in total return.
"Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant,"
- Warren Buffet
Long-term investing consists of almost doing nothing, and herein lies it's difficulty. Doing nothing is boring and doing something gives you a sense of control. Investing is one of the rare areas in life where trying harder isn't better. The ability to do less is what separates the winners from the losers.
There's common expression in investing - your portfolio is like a bar of soap, the more you mess with it, the smaller it’ll get.
Don't be a bad doctor, have some patience.
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