Professor Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University did a very interesting experiment in his book “Self-Control” — 19 chimpanzees against 40 people.

The approximate meaning is that 19 selected chimpanzees were pitted against 40 students from Harvard University and Leipzig University in Germany. The content of the contest was that each contestant had a chance to immediately eat 2 servings of their favorite food, or wait 2 minutes, and then have the chance to eat 6 servings of their favorite food.

As a result, 72% of chimpanzees chose to wait, while only 19% were willing to wait. The conclusion is that humans aren't even as patient as chimpanzees.

We have no intention of delving into why the experiment turned out like this. As far as individual experiments are concerned, the experimental methods, the specific environment, and the circumstances of the participants themselves require further discussion, and the results are not necessarily universal. But a similar phenomenon does raise a question worth continuing to think deeply about. In the world of investing, patience is becoming increasingly scarce.

“Because no one wants to get rich slowly”

I don't remember where I saw it. Someone asked Buffett, “Your investment system is so simple, why don't others do the same thing as you?” Buffett answered, “Because no one wants to get rich slowly.” In a nutshell, it covers almost every problem we face in our time.

When human society developed into an industrialized society, due to a sharp increase in productivity, the productivity created over the past 200 years far exceeded the sum of productivity created in all past eras.

And when this productivity begins to be transformed into wealth, we are seeing one wealth myth after another, and all kinds of overnight riches. Maybe when everyone thinks “we'll get old if we don't get rich,” it's time for us to stay patient and take a look at patience itself.

Patiently search for investment targets

Faced with thousands of complex stocks on the market, how can we find targets that can actually help us make money ourselves? This is an issue that almost every investor cannot avoid. There may be many answers, and they are obviously complicated, but in any case, patience is an answer you can't get around.

The approach of famous baseball player Ted Williams is a very inspirational approach to investing. This is the only baseball player to hit 400 hits in a single season in the past 70 years. He divided the hitting area into 77 baseball-sized grids.

He only swings when the ball lands in his “best” grid, even if he is likely to strike out because of this, because swinging to hit those “worst” squares will greatly reduce his success rate.

As we all know, investing is the monetization of knowledge. Given that every investor has a different perception of the world and the market we are in, every listed company is different.

So we have to keep looking for targets that match our perceptions, like Ted Williams; maybe we are lucky enough to find them in a very short period of time. But as is often the case, we need to be extremely patient to wait for these investment opportunities to appear.

This requires us to be firm in our beliefs, embrace great patience, and invest our capital in really important investment opportunities rather than simply trading for the sake of trading.

Like Buffett said, you'll be given a card with only 20 grids. This represents the number of items you can buy in this lifetime. Every time you invest in a target, cross out one grid. This approach may greatly improve the returns of the vast majority of investors.

Be patient

Patiently finding the right investment target is only the first step in the long journey of successful investment. Next, and more importantly, we need a firm hold on to targets that have real potential for long-term growth.

Everyone knows that compound interest can be called the eighth miracle in the world. Seemingly inconspicuous benefits can show huge and amazing returns over time. However, few people may have paid attention to the fact that for the power of compound interest to be truly demonstrated, it requires firm patience as a foundation.

If you don't hold it firmly and patiently for a long time, compound interest will be easily interrupted, causing previous achievements to be discarded.

The reason is not hard to understand, but it's not easy to really be patient. The reason is that most of our time in the process of holding the target was a dull moment. The long-term expected return during these dull moments was close to zero, and the moments that actually contributed to the increase or decline were few.

Because we don't know when these real ups and downs will occur, we can only obtain definite returns through patient holding.

However, the difficult part is that often when the targets we invest in are in a dull period, there will always be some targets in the market at a wonderful moment. Attractive increases continue to tempt investors' minds. If you lack patience, they will sell their own targets and “chase” those that look beautiful.

The result of a long period of time is that those wonderful moments of chasing in the bid are nearing its end, yet investors often miss the sharp rise in their original holdings because of this operation. This is probably the psychological reason for chasing up and falling. As soon as you buy, it falls, and as soon as you sell it, it rises.

Be patient with change and immutability

Of course, in the process of holding, the market we are in and the listed companies themselves are all changing. For investors, holding patiently does not mean being immutable; it is necessary to make corresponding adjustments according to changes in the market and the listed company itself.

For targets with improved fundamentals and an optimistic future outlook, holdings can be further strengthened; for targets that have deteriorated, positions need to be reduced in a timely manner until sales are cleared. This is a process that requires constant tracking. Without patience, the practice of buying a target and leaving it alone is impossible to continue to reap benefits for a long time.

Therefore, in the face of complex changes, we must be extremely patient, analyze the telltale signs behind each incident in detail, and understand the real impact on positions.

At the same time, no matter how the market changes, there will always be some things that will never change. These immutable things are the lowest, most basic, and most unshakable objective rules that determine the operation of the market.

Investors should always be humble and cautious, study hard, refine their own perceptions, and get as close to the truth as possible. This will not be an overnight process; on the contrary, it may be a process of many detours and many doubts, struggles, and hardships. This requires great patience and companionship, and in this process, it is necessary not only to have sufficient long-term goals and vision, but also to be down-to-earth and start every little thing.

Patiently facing the changes and eternity of the capital market requires investors to understand the causes and sources of this change and eternity, and avoid abiding by the rules. The important thing is not to follow the changes or go against historical trends, but to really calm down, be patient, understand that everything changes and does not change, so as to sublimate to an investment philosophy that suits you.

Seek wisdom patiently

For investors who actually treat investment as a form of spiritual practice, the deeper purpose of striving to invest is actually to get closer to wisdom. A lifelong investment is a lifelong process of patiently seeking wisdom.

The capital market is a barometer of the operation of the economy and a mirror of the operation of the whole society. The most representative enterprises from all walks of life are gathered here. By studying the business model, product situation, development history, etc. of listed companies, investors are actually understanding the past social and economic development history and current development status, so as to make judgments about future development trends.

What makes people even happier is that in this quest for wisdom, there will also be an additional reward, which means investors can often reap high profits from correct judgments and predictions.

But precisely because this process is very fun and very rewarding, it is decided that it is a process that requires long-term accumulation. Many theories and opinions need to be verified through one's own personal practice, discard those mistakes or those that are not suitable for you, and find the wisdom that truly belongs to you.

How to be patient?

At this point, it seems that one of the questions we must discuss is how can we be patient? From the previous discussion, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion that the exact answer to this question varies from person to person, but at the same time, there must also be some common principles.

To be patient, the first step is to be clear about our own goals. For investors, our life is about continuous improvement and getting closer to success, even if this process is a little slower. As long as we can stay close to our goals, we are on the right path.

If you think clearly about the goals you really want to achieve, you don't need to be too anxious, let alone become rich overnight with envy. Understand that the accumulation of wealth in life has its own rules, and focusing on one's own goals is the starting point for all patience.

To be patient is to understand the rules of development of things. Whether it is the capital market or listed companies, they are things that are within the rules of objective development. Therefore, whether in the process of finding an investment target or holding an investment target, we need to develop good thinking habits, which means we must have a process of thinking when doing something. Only after thinking clearly can you not give up in the middle of your own actions, whether in the face of good times or adversity.

Further, we need to internalize patience into our natural behavior until it becomes part of our personality and truly enjoy the benefits that patience brings to every aspect of our lives, rather than requiring us to make an extra effort to persevere. This requires us to have the ability to think and observe at any time, to be able to refine everything we see and hear in our daily lives, so that rational thinking becomes a kind of consciousness for us. In this process, people will naturally become rational and open, so they can continue to approach intelligence and continuously improve themselves.

Editor/Jeffrey