I was reading early this year about a legendary day trader who started with 600 dollars and ended with over 100k. It took him 3 years of diligently studying the market and making mistakes. People only saw the outcomes and not the effort. Many jumped in and got burned.

Investment is work. The best way to be an apprentice is to use your own money. Those pseudo money platforms never give you the gut-wrenching feeling of making a loss on a trade or deal. The highs are high and the lows are even lower. You become a certain type of investor.

No two investors are the same. Some are risk-averse and others play extremely on the risk plus spectrum. Many are in between and their returns are lukewarm. Luck still plays a big role no matter your appetite. A few made out like bandits when Trump won and many lost. Reverse now.

My real decision to take personal investment seriously came from the movie ”Margin Call”. I saw everything about my uncle in Tuld. He was a listener to the music in the market and people paid him to listen to that music. It came from years of being in the market and understanding

I realized that I had been a listener to the same market but not a risk-taker. I could analyze why things went the way they did and make predictions but had no ”skin in the game” ( I am yet to read that book as Taleb annoyed me) but others cleaned out based on taking risks.

I took a few risks that didn't pay off. I also didn't take some that panned out, I still continued based on what I believed in and a few surprised me even with success. I tried to figure out what creates a >30x company in Africa and I realized it was not luck. It was experience.

After my uncle and others did the famous 50x exit, it was easy to think it was pure luck but I saw that company being built. It was disappointment after disappointment daily. Fights over everything from furniture to fraud. That exit was actually relief for many as they wanted out

I realized that the investor must be ready to build and not just stand aside. The perception we have of the person who just puts in a little money and comes back later to collect the bounty is very wrong. Where I have made money, I helped them to build. Where I lost, they built.

Success comes from pooling collective experience and effort. It doesn't come from ”one bright star.” I am very wary of bright stars now and ”celebrity founders.” Anyone who is more interested in the glory than the work is not going to last. It ALWAYS takes a village.

The media doesn't make anyone successful. They only come after the perception of success. While in marketing ”the customer’s perception is reality, ” they must FIRST become your customers. The only way to make them customers is to sell them what makes them happy.

I had a weird dream this morning. I closed a deal with someone who was very happy but I was not. I have always realized that investing is an entrepreneurship role and preached it to others, it was in that dream I realized why many companies fail. Happiness is not on both sides.

This is now also going to be my philosophy in trading. I will only do deals that make me happy. Companies that take investors seriously and want to make them happy. I will also promote those companies to others because they make me happy. It is that simple after all.

I started putting some money monthly earlier this year into the US market through @investbamboo and I looked at my portfolio this morning. There was not one company there made me sad. No wonder the returns are great.

More on the legend.

”They focus too much on profits and losses and not enough on the process. “If your strategy has shown edge over time, the only thing you need to worry about is the consistent execution of your plan and P&L will take care of itself,”” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-insights-from-a-retail-trader-who-claims-he-parlayed-600-into-100000-2017-03-14