Like many before me, I emerged into the world of do-it-yourself stock investing with a fair bit of life experience.
And my journey had involved training, working, advancing, starting a business, building it up, selling it, paying off my mortgage and bunging my remaining thousands into a share account.
Do-it-yourself stock investing
From that moment on, I was a do-it-yourself private stocks and shares investor who thought he couldn’t fail because of his experience managing and building businesses.
I’ve been something of a market junkie since then. And over the years have read and loved many books written by previously mega-successful stock investors and traders.
But one story stands out, and that’s of US stock trader Mark Minervini’s struggle and triumph over odds that were stacked against him.
And I’m not talking about his life circumstances. I mean his struggle with the markets and to achieve more than merely a breaking-even outcome.
He talked about the “long tail” at the beginning of his investing journey. And he didn’t manage to turn a profit from stock trading until he’d been at it for around six years.
Well, I’m almost ashamed to admit that for me it took much longer than six years. So, despite all my initial confidence and expectations, it turned out I had to learn many things from scratch.
My ‘aha!’ moment
But here’s the kicker – my results didn’t improve until I decided to keep my own counsel.
And in life, that can be a good idea.
Keeping one’s own counsel is often taken to mean saying little or nothing about one’s opinions or intentions.
But there’s more to it.
I read a stimulating blog the other day arguing that people tend to join groups because of a need for support, answers and direction. Also, they often have a need to lead. So groups can provide an environment that facilitates all those needs via talking and the exchange of ideas and opinions.
Beware the cult experience
But the problem is those very groups can become cult-like.
And when I read that, it gradually dawned on me that my determination to learn from great and experienced investors had become cult-like in its effects.
The blogger reckoned that in cults, we “stop seeing our own greatness or brilliance and rely on the person or thing we worship or pay homage to for answers or direction.”
And that was true for me.
I deferred to the ‘wisdom’ of others to inform my investment decisions and suppressed my own intuition because of an assumption that they knew best. After all, they’d been doing it longer than me and seemed to be more successful.
But by then I’d racked up a number of years of experience on my own account. And had decent knowledge of the teachings of the stock gurus who’d published in print.
All that conscious and sub-conscious information was backing up my intuition and gut feelings.
So, I closed down the investment chatrooms, shut the books, tuned out the noise, and looked within.
I did my research, listened to my own advice when making buying and selling decisions with stocks and shares – and kept my own counsel.
And the outcome? My share account began to turn profitable, and I haven’t looked back since.
