Two Marshmallows

I don’t like being the bad guy. I don’t think most people like that, but I don’t subscribe to the “it doesn’t matter what other people think” philosophy. You can only make purely independent decisions if you are a hermit. If relationships matter to you, then connections and consequences matter. Yet there is a balance. Your interests matter too. One behaviour that creates capital is delayed gratification. If you are living purely in the now, then every decision is about the now. You are not building space. You are not building time. You are not building capacity. Because everything is about now. There is a story (controversial in its scientific rigour) about putting Marshmallows in front of children. If they can wait for the researcher to return, they get two. The test was meant to evaluate the ability to take charge of your emotions. A powerful life skill. The controversy is over whether this an innate or learnable skill. Imposing delayed gratification on others isn’t fun, and building capital is a team sport. We make many of our financial decisions together. Our joint decisions are the key to whether we consume what is created or whether we act as custodians and reinvest. Building space, time, and capacity.

 

Part Owner

If you love chocolate, and eat too much, it is easier to not have chocolate in the house. The danger as an investor in the Stock Market is that you can always sell. The price is a quote of what someone will pay you if you do. It’s the chocolate. It is not what the ownership is worth. As a Fundamental Investor, you are a Part Owner. Viewing yourself as an owner, who believes in the product, believes in the management, and believes in the business, changes the way you think about the dips in price. Unless something fundamental has changed, ownership gives you a vested interest in the venture and stakeholders surviving and thriving. Even if something has changed, if a genuine problem is being solved and the business has the capacity to continue solving it, you remain an owner in something of value. It makes bumps and dips part of the texture of life. Perhaps the biggest part of being an investor is self-awareness. Self-analysis. Self-correction. Even though your behaviour and the business are separate. If you have a fundamental belief in what it is you are building, it is easier to see through immediate noise. To keep your head even when instant gratification is always available.