Time, discipline and patience are the three elements of successful investment

Buffett said: “Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time.” I personally think, this one of the best advice Buffet ever gave to investors, especially on mentality and practice.

Table of Contents

Time

Almost all investors know how powerful of “the power of compound interest”, this is what human being are not able to change or control. However, we could try to invest earlier to mitigate – there is no way but get investing as early as possible (it’s hard to control you can live longer).

Time changes many things including stock investment. This is why I spend a whole section 1-3 in my book “The Rules of Super Growth Stocks Investing” to emphasize the role time play on investment, no matter you invest real estate, stock, or gold, time is the most important element for a successful investment.

Buffett ever said “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.“

Discipline

Discipline is the most difficult of the three, the key lies in the ability to persist in execution. To tell the truth, I think this determinate whether invest success or not of most person.

Why I say so? Because discipline is almost all you can control, no excuse or inherent trait at all, there is no room to blame others. If self-control is not your strength, try to improve, find help, or try your best to train, (like some aids–set top loss in your trading system, don’t stare at market price, do exercise and go out instead of watching TV news or check stock price ) otherwise you had better leave stock market as soon as possible before your big lose or time wasted.

This is all about your requirements for yourself, an ask for yourself, and others cannot help.

Patience

Buffett said “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”, and Buffett wrote in his 2004 shareholders’ letter: “Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” Investors know why and reasonable of it. However, you could ever make it unless you have patience.

No matter how smart or talent you are, or how hard you work, something just need time to happen. Eventually, market will reflect the intrinsic (fair) value of a stock. Buffett made a metaphor: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”

One of my admire investment master Peter Lynch said: “You aren’t going to be able to pick the bottom on the price. What usually happens is that a stock sort of vibrates itself out before it starts up again. Generally this process takes two or three years, but sometimes even longer.” and “Blue chips can fall down and stay down over a three-year period or even a five-year period.”

Short seeing is fatal shortage in stock investment because critical business activities plan could not accomplished in at least 2-3 years. This is also why we need to do long term investment. No matter what investment method or approach you apply, hold stock for long haul is necessary, or you will never enjoy the fruit of any 10-bagger, 20-bagger or 30-bagger stock bring to you.

Regarding patience, I suggest you refer to my other blog post “Patience, an indispensable element of investment success“.

Closing words

Be sure to abide by discipline and patience, and wait until the eligible goals appear, and you have a great chance of success and the grasp of rewards before taking action.

The main spirit I want to convey is—the earlier investment starts, the better. You need to devote yourself, there are no shortcuts, do your homework, invest within your circle of competence, patience plus discipline, and long-term holding can have a decent return. Investment is a marathon of a lifetime race; success only belongs to the one who persists to the end.

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