What Works on the Street (and in Real Life)

There are numerous stock-market success formulas. Those who are successful at stock investing tend to tell us their formulas for success, but not many of us are able to replicate them. Take Warren Buffett for example. Half the world is crazy about his ideas, which is obvious, given the huge fortune he has amassed. But how many can actually boast of accumulating that sort of wealth? I haven't heard of many. Peter Lynch visited companies before investing in them. How many investors can do that? The fact remains that what wins in the stock market (and in real life) is originality. People who get successful are those who have something new to offer and say. Copycats seldom get successful or famous. 

I am not suggesting that you shouldn't take inspiration from the successful. By all means, reading about and learning from the successful is essential. Even when you start, you may like to take the tested path, yet the tested path isn't enough if your goal is to get really successful. You will need to devise something new, something that works for you. It doesn't matter if others can't replicate it or find it altogether crappy. If something works, it works, and that's more than enough. When you get successful, there will be many who get inspired from your formula and follow it. That's exactly what happened with Warren Buffett, and, for that matter, with any other successful personality,

How do you evolve something new? You can't become a star the day you begin. The key is experimenting. Learn, experiment, observe, and try again. Once you spend time doing something, you naturally develop insights that are alien to an outsider. Once you have these insights, you can cast them into a methodology. If the methodology works (for you, of course), you have just developed a success secret and you will eventually know what actually works on the Street.