5 INVESTING LESSONS I’VE LEARNED By Travis Watts
Investing can be confusing with all the noise out there.
I dedicated my career and life to investing and educating years ago because it’s a true passion of mine. Part of my mission is to GIVE BACK by taking the time to absorb endless amounts of information, understand it and relate it back to investors like you in a digestible way—both to help you succeed and to make your life easier. Simple as that. These 5 topics are lessons I’ve learned over many years in investor relations at one of the largest brokerage firms in the U.S., working with private equity real estate investment firms, and from hundreds of books, podcasts, and seminars I’ve attended.
# 1 FOCUS ON THE FUNDAMENTALS Many people think of investing as nothing more than day trading, flipping real estate, and other means of “making money fast.” Not to discredit those things, but I’ve found that it’s helpful to focus on the fundamentals to be a long-term investor. Chasing fast money is akin gambling. Some of the best long-term investors have always focused on fundamentals • Warren Buffet • Carl Icahn • Benjamin Graham
#3 LEARN, LEARN, AND LEARN SOME MORE
I love to learn. I’m always talking about reading books, successful people, podcasts, conferences etc.
Warren Buffett once said, “The best investment you can make is in yourself. The more you learn, the more you earn.” 2 Continuing education is your key to long-term success. Here are some examples that you may not expect: 3 Warren Buffet t reads between 600-100 pages a day Bill Gates reads 50 books a year and Mark Zuckerburg re ads a book every 2 weeks. ads a book every 2 weeks #4 NOT ALL INVESTMENTS WILL BE AMAZING Markets have cycles and things happen. You aren’t going to hit it big with every investment. There will also be times when great opportunities slip through your fingers. For example, Warren Buffet t talked about missing out on investing in Google and Amazon. 4 He also missed out on the largest increase in crypto. 5
• Peter Lynch • George Soros
The list goes on.
#2 I CAN’T BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING Simply put, it’s impossible to be good at everything, which is why you need to specialize in what you know and understand. It’s why I allocate 80% of my portfolio to what I know and understand best, and 20% into “experimental” investments. Author Tom Rath wrote, “if you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.” 1
You will most likely miss out on profitable investments throughout your entire life.
I always remember to double down on what’s working.
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