Richer, Wiser, Happier

You may have read a lot of reviews of this book “Richer, Wiser, Happier“, but I’m going to talk about this book in a different way and from a different perspective.

Table of Contents

A good book on stock investing

During the last Saturday, I spent an afternoon reading this book in one sitting. I can’t wait to write the article you see after reading this book. I think it’s worth recommending this book to my friends who invest in stocks; here’s why.

Highly similar to my own investment spindle

The main reason I love this book was the high similarity to my personal investment principles, beliefs, or personality—at least 80% of the content in the book, to me It’s heartfelt.

Amazon Rated as high as 4.8

This book currently has a rating of 4.8 on Amazon, with more than 2,000 reviews (so it has high credibility, I have read many of them, and one of them is from the book’s protagonist, Guy Spier); 4.8 is, at least, as far as I can remember, among the books on stocks or investing that I have read, the one with the highest rating. 4.7 is actually a very high score, and there are not many people higher than 4.7.

Protagonists are all recognized investment masters

The major or great investors mentioned by the author in the book are all great investors by name, who are either still alive or have recently passed away, and who have personally known these persons for a long time. This results in the author’s description not only having a high degree of authenticity, close to the modern stock market and the life and ideas of modern people, but also not just a description of a few words, which is extremely readable.

Main protagonists

List of main protagonists : The author spends considerable space on these people for in-depth introductions, and there are several very important people throughout the book. Including Warren Bufett, Charlie Mungger, Peter Lynch, John Bogle, Howard Mark, John Templeton, Mohnish Pabrai, Joel Greenblatt and Bill Ruane.

Secondary protagonists

List of secondary protagonists : The author has mentioned it in the book due to different topics, but did not introduce it in depth. I think the author has a good choice. Including David Einhorn, Bill Ackman, Carl Icahn, and Guy Spier.

Protagonists are representative

The list of great investors in the contemporary stock market mentioned in the above book are all great contemporary figures in the U.S. stock market, and none of them are generalists. The difference is the “secondary protagonists” list David Einhorn is the lord of shorts, Bill Aikman is the lord of value mergers and acquisitions, Carl Icahnis recognized as the grandfather of Wall Street corporate acquisitions. The characters in the “secondary protagonists” list are less suitable for retail investors, so the space covered in the book is limited; I personally agree with the author’s arrangement.

Provide investors to calibrate their own standards

I wrote in the penultimate paragraph at the end of the preface to my book “The Rules of Super Growth Stocks Investing”, “When you find that what is described in a successful investment master book is consistent with your main investment principles or direction; or it is when you repeatedly see that the principles expressed in the successful investment masters’ book are so consistent with your own beliefs, then I want to congratulate you, it means that you are on the correct and successful investment path.”

The author writes with heart

Author”s background

Author William Green is a top student who graduated from Eton College in the United Kingdom. Eton College is a designated school for the British royal family. It has produced countless prime ministers, writers, and countless British historical greats. Among them was Keynes, the well-known economic and investment guru. This school is not an ordinary school, but an aristocrat among aristocratic schools. The author did not go into politics like other alumni, and wrote such an investment book that will definitely be mentioned in the future.

Similar books

Many of my friends must have seen books such as “The Money Masters” and “The New Money Masters“, “Market Wizards” and “The New Market Wizards“, and “The New Market Wizards“, “Lessons from the greatest stock traders of all time” and other three series of books introduce famous investors of all kinds in the history of US stocks market. These three series of books are actually well written, and they are essential readings for US stock investors.

However, these three books tend to be short biographies, including various investment and trading techniques, including stocks, futures, and derivative financial products. The content is very complicated, and there are too many characters. Too many introduced protagonists are used as stories and knowledge to understand. Good, but some of them are in fields that are not suitable for ordinary retail investors to follow, that is, they are not feasible for ordinary people.

Different ways of describing

William Green and the authors of these three books focus on different ways. All of these books mainly focuses on the stock market. In addition to the “main protagonists” introduced in the book, they are all contemporary investors. Their investment methods and principles, coupled with investment philosophy (Investment philosophy is a different thing, I would like to remind everyone) Most of them have been approved by the majority. Their achievements have been recognized, and any of them are investment masters, worthy of in-depth study by investors.

The author’s focus in this book is on people, interspersed with characters related to the topics covered in each chapter. In addition to highlighting the author’s true intentions, such an arrangement is actually a very difficult challenge for writing, because it is necessary to have a deep understanding of each character to be described.

This is different from similar books in the past. One more chapter covered to introduce one investment character, which is much more difficult than the description method of this small biography which other books used. Of course, this also makes the book highly readable, but it also brings some brilliance and complexity. If you are not familiar with the list of “main protagonists” mentioned in these books, you can read them again after a few months, and you will have unexpected results.

The commonalities of great investors

In fact, “The main investment principles of successful investors are similar“. Most of the great investors, not all, most (the author emphasizes, I agree with) have some of the following things in common:

Most decisions are made by one person. This must be beyond the imagination of most retail investors. I mentioned it before in my blog article “The Advantages of Investing in Stocks, Except for Money“. Having more resources is not an advantage. This is about stock investing. Something special.
Dare to be different. Many of them are also admittedly difficult people, generally considered poor EQs; see my blog post “How difficult to be out of the ordinary“.
Able to be alone, at ease, spend most of the time reading or researching, and rarely spend a lot of time deliberately interacting with people. It may even be that nearly half of them are divorced from the other half because they are too invested in investment and work (this is actually consistent with the divorce rate in the United States).
Except for Peter Lynch, there is no one who is not a centralized investor; please refer to my blog article “Why concentrated investment?“.
Most, but not all, advocate long-term investing; see my blog post,”Why long-term investment is better?“.
Most of the investment principles are simple and consistent. For example, “The commonalities of Buffett portfolio – cheap, fixed income, repurchase“. They used the words that most people can understand. There will be no complicated mathematical formulas and financial models. Please refer to my blog article “Investing has no formulas, but there are ways to invest successfully“.
Don’t be ashamed of imitation, they learn from successful people.

Traits an Investor Needs

After interviewing these great investors, the author summarizes some of the things that these great investors almost agree with in order to be successful in stock market investing. Including the follows:

Emphasized the importance of reading; see my blog post,”Reading is irreplaceable and necessity of for investors“
You must consider the margin of safety and invest within your circle of competence; see my blog post “The importance of circle of competence“.
Temperament, time, perseverance, discipline, and patience are the psychological qualities of a successful investor; please refer to my blog articles “Patience, an indispensable element of investment success” and “Time, discipline and patience are the three elements of successful investment“
Dare to be different from the crowd, thinking, insight (aka second-level thinking); see my blog post “How difficult to be out of the ordinary“.

Heartfelt advice to the investing public

The author has interviewed many great investors in the book, and these great investors almost unanimously believe that most investors should consider index investing, that is, ETFs that directly invest in large-cap indexes, as a good strategy; please refer to my blog. Article”Most investors should invest ETFs tracking broader market“.

Richer, Wiser, Happier — Credit: Amazon.com

CEOs are butterflies

I wrote an article before, “Outsiders, one of the greatest investment books for managment team“, and the CEOs mentioned in the book are not CEOs of ordinary companies. Because the CEO of an average company wants to climb to that position, he often falls into the “Institutional imperative – the good, bad, and ugly“.

This is because the CEOs of most companies have to experience the well-known conditions of 20 or 30 years of network management, long sleeves, political struggles within the company, a high degree of observation of people, business sense, and necessary knowledge of the industry. Besides; the author makes a point in the book, which I agree with.

He believes that the CEO must have a high degree of EQ, empathy for people, and the ability to listen. This is the biggest difference between a great investor and the CEO who wants to work his way up the ladder within a company and climb to the top of what society generally sees as the pinnacle of a successful career. In short, the conditions required by the two are fundamentally different, which I believe most people disagree with.

I know this very well, which is why I wrote an article about it, “Why the successful skills needed for stock investment is opposite of successful workplace skills?“. However, the conclusion drawn by the author through induction and his own observations for many years has indeed confirmed that the capabilities that the two must possess are fundamentally different ─ ─ I have mentioned before in this article. Several protagonists in this book are recognized difficult people, also known as people with poor EQ.

This is actually very easy to understand. “It takes a lot of time to manage contacts, networking, and build relationships; these are core skills necessary for CEOs, but not for successful investors.” This is not only a necessary trade-off in terms of time, but also involves non-quantifiable and non-mandatory requirements such as psychological quality and temperament necessary for becoming a great investor. Many people disagree with this statement, but it is the fact.

Disclaimer

The content of this site is the author’s personal opinions and is for reference only. I am not responsible for the correctness, opinions, and immediacy of the content and information of the article. Readers must make their own judgments.
I shall not be liable for any damages or other legal liabilities for the direct or indirect losses caused by the readers’ direct or indirect reliance on and reference to the information on this site, or all the responsibilities arising therefrom, as a result of any investment behavior.