“Playing the stock market is easy.”
I kept bumping into such boastful statements until Barstool Sports founder, Dave Portnoy, took this foolishness to the highest possible level by saying he was a better investor than Warren Buffett and that day trading was “the easiest game.”
Look, no one is supposed to “play the market.” Stock investing is a profession, period.
The stats undeniably show that the overwhelming majority of traders and investors fail. Based on brokers’ available data, 87% of all retail traders lost money trading forex in 2022. Stock investors/traders fare somewhat better: 80% lose, 10% break even, and 10% make money consistently.
Being in the last 10% of consistent money-makers, I know what separates me from the rest of the pack. I already had more than 10,000 hours of investment-related reading and thinking under my belt by the time I turned 35. Not to mention the firsthand experience of costly and painful lessons (along with success stories). As per Malcolm Gladwell’s principle, popularized in his Outliers: The Story of Success book, I easily qualified as a stock investing expert, although I’d never label myself as such. (A healthy dose of humbleness comes in handy if you are to survive and thrive in the markets.)
I share this because I seemingly had all the reasons to feel satisfied and retire as soon as I achieved financial freedom with my proven investment approach. And that’s what I did! Resting on my laurels and celebrating my achievement felt right… for about two weeks.
I knew all too well that entropy would kick in. If something’s not growing, it is slowly dying. If you’re not learning and getting better, only the painful downward slope remains. Fortunately, one of my friends convinced me to start teaching “this financial independence investing thing.” Being bored in my (way too early) retirement, jumping into this worthwhile project felt energizing.
I completed all of Columbia Business School’s Value Investing courses (the place is considered the cradle of value investing) and read hundreds of books… so why not pass on my knowledge for others to use and benefit from? After writing a best-seller on dividend investing and publishing top-selling online courses, the real milestone was launching the FALCON Method newsletter.
Looking back, I most certainly didn’t foresee how operating a newsletter service with 1,000+ subscribers (from 33 countries at last count) could impact my learning curve over the years. The incoming questions and feedback made me delve deeper, pushing me to explain complicated concepts in a digestible, easy-to-understand manner. Both my investing style and writing skills markedly evolved throughout this journey.
My mantra is, “There’s always something to learn.” I was reading the not-so-enjoyable-but-useful Best-Practice EVA book while finishing up my preparations for Ironman Barcelona (a long-distance triathlon race). Right there, before the event, I got in touch with the author’s team and asked tons of questions. Long story short, I managed to gain access to an institutional-level data service that helped remedy accounting distortions, thus paving the way for my further evolution.
The reason for sharing this is to emphasize that learning never stops; it is never supposed to stop. Warren Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, summed it up perfectly:
“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
I know absolutely no successful people who do not read a lot. My story and evolution as an investor are shared in the Beyond Dividends book, which is a compilation of the FALCON Method newsletter’s writings.
You can learn how I transformed from a pure dividend investor into a more versatile stock picker who understands when real value resides in growth but can differentiate between harmful and value-creating growth. (Hint: financial statements are not too helpful in and of themselves.)
Beyond Dividends may open new horizons for even those who think they already know everything. (I fell into this trap before reaching a whole new level, remember?) I bet that Beyond Dividends will make you contemplate and maybe even question some of your long-held beliefs. That’s exactly what makes a book useful, and that’s why I keep devouring them long after passing the financial freedom milestone. How about you?
