Why I Believe in Decades Over Days
My mom came to America when she was in her 20s.
It was hard to pick up the language at first. She washed dishes in the daytime and cleaned offices at night, so she didn’t have many opportunities to practice with others.
My mom jumped at every opportunity to learn new words. With patience and time, she became fluent.
A byproduct of patience is its compounding effects.
Here is Steve Wozniak – the co-founder of Apple Computer – on what made him successful:
I acquired a central ability that was to help me through my entire career: patience. I’m serious. Patience is usually so underrated. I mean, for all those projects from third grade all the way to eighth grade, I just learned things gradually…
Patience is a key tenet of successful investing in the stock market.
The odds of successfully trading stocks on a daily basis is worse than a coin flip:
The odds of making money in the stock market per minute is 49%. If you wait a day, the chances are ~54%.
The compounding effects of staying invested and being patient start to pay off over time:
The stock market is positive ~73% of the time in any given year – that’s 3 out of every 4 years.
The chances rise to 87% over five years and 94% over 10 years. The chances are 100% over multiple decades.
Charlie Munger (RIP) said:
The big money is not in the buying or the selling, but in the waiting.
What you focus on magnifies. Focus on the decades, not the days.
Whether you’re learning a language or growing your wealth, patience isn’t just a virtue – it’s the key to success.
I’m proud of my mom. Which reminds me, I need to give her a call (a funny English expression).