If we’re talking about bad days, buying and selling stocks for a living has to be a perfect example of the extreme.
And this email isn’t about money or stocks, but it is about investing.
A day trader, given the name, is trying to exploit changes in stock prices that happen daily, but value investors like Warren Buffet are interested in the trend over the long term.
So the thing that separates day-traders and value investors is the time increments they work with and their mindset.
Here’s an opinion for you: Treating your life and work like a day trader trying to make money is the quickest way to become a ball of stress and anxiety.
You’ll have massive ups and downs, live in doubt, and try to do guesswork that may or may not end in a lucky break.
Jumping ship from a new project as soon as it gets hard.
Moving frequently to whatever’s hot instead of sticking it out in something worthwhile.
Burning yourself out when things are going well, and becoming demotivated when things aren’t.
These behaviors are concerned with the short-term.
A value investor, however, doesn’t have this mindset — and if you live your life like one, you’ll steadily see the benefit.
People concerned with long-term value invest their money into industries in a calculated way. They know that prices go up and down every day, and they know the market will react to those changes.
And over the long run, they’ll make money in industries that are strong and have proven their value.
Shifting your mindset from daily fluctuations to value over time is the most significant leap you could take.
Aka. Zooming out.
In your work, life, and relationship, every day looks different.
You have highs, and you have lows.
You have external influences affecting your efforts.
You have constant chatter and distractions.
The only thing that you can keep consistent; the only thing you have control over is how you choose to invest.
Invest your effort, your time, your money, and focus.
Yesterday may have been a peak, today might be a trough, and tomorrow might be somewhere in between — but if you’re consistent in where you invest your focus, the days will even out, and up.
In trend analysis, your days are what they call noisy data.
The outcome of each looks unstructured with no correlation to yesterday or the day before.
It’s like your effort in the gym, your coding lessons, your fat-loss journey, or your guitar practice — it’s not the day that counts, it’s the collection of days.
You have good and bad days one after the other without visible changes.
You likely won’t have six-pack abs tomorrow, just like your investment probably won’t triple tomorrow.
But just like with a lot of noisy data, all you have to do is get enough points on a graph and zoom out to see where you’re going.
And every day, with the effort you put in, the repetition of positive actions, and the collection of tiny steps — you’ll be able to zoom out and see drastic changes in a year, decade, and ultimately throughout your life.
All it takes is losing the day trader mindset and adopting the value investor one.
Concentrate on the bigger picture, and don’t let one day ruin your entire plan.
The plan will work, it just takes time — and to see that, all we have to do is zoom out.
I hope that helps with perspective 😎
🔗 Link Dump
🥇 My three golden concepts for learning things, so you never forget.
📌 I got 1,000,000+ views on Google Maps last year by posting bad photos - here’s my take on Google Maps’ potential for being the next big content platform.
✍ For the writers among you lovely people, here’s a guide for replacing “very.”
🎨 Another quick infographic on all the best Adobe Product substitutes, both free and one-off payment versions.
💃 Crazy interesting thread on the day in the life of an OnlyFans creator who makes $100,000 a month.
You there! I really appreciate that you’re reading this right now. Thanks for sticking around and being interested in what I’ve got going on :)
If you found this email valuable, don’t be shy to share it with your friends or network that might find this stuff useful too. 😎
Have a great week and keep positive,
Talk next week!
—Sah