Friday 21 April 2017

How to Get Successful at Almost Anything (Including Investing)




Everybody wants to get successful, yet so few succeed in this pursuit. The conventional way of thinking is to first define what success means to you. Whatever it means to you, you can’t get it till you persist. This sounds rather obvious, yet the underlying meaning is quite deep.

My observation suggests that many of us fail to achieve what we want to because we simply get bored or frustrated or hopeless. Many people don’t even start because they are intimidated at the outset.

Take investing for instance. Investing is not taught in school, so the onus falls on people to learn about it. The average adult is naturally a bad student and doesn’t want to learn about stuff. He/she looks for shortcuts and then takes bad decisions. Those who do start studying tend to lose interest after some time because nothing seems to be happening. At this point comes the barrage of data, research, expert views, opinions that point at the futility of what you are trying to attempt. Naturally, you lose track.

This is why persistence is so crucial. In the world, what is commonplace is mediocrity, not excellence. This means the information that readily comes to you is mediocre at best. Such information originates from those who themselves are average humans. Paying attention to it only makes you lose persistence. Time flies. You fail to succeed, but you also get to hear about those who have succeeded just because they kept going.

All you need to do to succeed at almost anything is don’t discard it. Losses, frustration, boredom, despair are a part of the journey. If you simply hang on, over time the way will manifest itself. That’s how you become the master. Mastery is nothing more than clinging onto the path irrespective of what happens.

Beware especially of statistics. They always suggest that you are more likely to fail than succeed. Getting mired in data is perhaps the easiest way to not succeed. 

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