Lately, I was reading a novel named ‘The Leader Who Had No Title’ written by ‘Robin Sharma’ and I came across a beautiful story in it which describes ego of a person. It has very special role in our life which grows more as we try to become the person the world around us wants us to be versus the person we truly are.
So..sharing that story with you first so that I am ready to make you believe that how does it relate with Investments…hope you all will like it 😉
“One day, a student met with a wise elder person from his community on the street. That elder person was very popular; student felt lucky to met with him. He admired the elder person for his achievements as well as for his strength of character. He asked the wise man if he ever had week thoughts or he ever succumbed to the allure of the ego, which wants us to run our lives by superficial attractions like titles and social status. The elder person replied: ‘Of course, I have weak thoughts and my ego tries to get me off track every single day. This happens because I am a human being. But I also have my authentic side, which is my essential nature and all I really am. That part of me creates the noble and brave thoughts – and keeps me on track to become my greatest self. So, its almost as if I have two Dogs inside me. A good dog that wants to lead me to where I dream of going, and that bad dog that tries to take me off my ideal path.’ ‘So which one wins?’ asked the young student. ‘That’s easy,’ replied the elder. “The one I feed the most”.
I was very impressed with this story and I thought that we all have these two dogs inside us. Every Investor lives with these two dogs every day, every minute and according to me these two dogs for investor are:
Good Dog: Value Investing or Long Term Path
Bad Dog: Speculation or Short Term Path
Every investor should select which dog he wants to feed most. Every day I try to feed more to my Good Dog so that I can be on the Value Investing path or at least continue on the same. I try to keep my Good Dog very close to me so it can take me towards wealth creation.
If your Bad Dog acting as a boss on you then you should start slowly to feed more to your good dog every day and by continue feeding he will surpass the bad one. All things take time but it require action, and this story made the value investing very visible to me; now I can realized that how I can make it more profound. I wish you all will also feed more to your Good Dog to fulfill your dreams.
If you have something to add, Please post your thoughts in comments. I would love to hear from you.
Happy Investing!!
Excuse me for my ignorance. By feeding the good dog, do you mean to say, to read more about value investing, to study about it a lot ?
If so, how do you try to clutter out the non productive issues that do not help us in anyway(bad dog), how do we stay focused more on our goals of becoming a value investor ?
Regards,
Santosh.
kronet909 Dear Santosh, I believe in reading good content and taking small small steps towards my plans on a regular basis; so I stay focused for progressing towards it. Said that, I mean to read a LOT!!
It might involve reading Value Investing, Market Trends, Economy, Annual Reports etc. As Warren Buffett has quoted that you need to read around 500 pages daily to become a great investor. Now you can estimate that if he has to read so many pages after having so much of knowledge then what we are supposed to do?
Now coming to your next question – As I have mentioned in the blog itself, no one can completely get away from the bad dog..as we all are human beings and bad dog is also a part of our life. But if we stay focused on our goal, approach and philosophy about investing, it becomes little easier to be emphasized on Value Investing.Â
At the end of the day; It’s us who decide what to stay focused on & what to erase out in our life.
Hope I have cleared your doubt…let me know if you further have any query!