If you want a life different from everybody else, then you can’t think like everybody else. This also applies to you as an investor. You won’t have to go far to find someone telling you what to own, what to move, or what to manage in your own portfolio.
For instance, I see users on Reddit sharing their decent-sized portfolios of dividend income and worthwhile investments, and yet 9 out of 10 times, others are commenting on what they can and should do, even if the user has a great portfolio with quality investments.
It’s why I will never share either personal account holdings or investment fund holdings online in totality, because the day this blog gets read and more seen, I am prepared for the comments of other people thinking I should think like them. (In fact, I toyed with the idea of disabling comments before the blog gets to that point.)
Thinking like them means viewing investments and holdings from their thoughts about them over my own. If you fall into that trap, you won’t get far, and if things fall apart, all that person can offer you is a sad ‘I’m sorry.’
As an investor, it is important to stand on your own two feet, be willing to read everything you can get your hands on without being easily swayed, because every investor has their own methodology and philosophy, even those on forums such as Reddit.
Remember the reason why you started to invest in the first place. Chances are you no longer wanted to be broke, which is all too familiar for many of us. Instead, you want to join the ‘elites,’ have investments and cash on the side during down times in the economy so that when things get hard, you aren’t having to worry about the cost of milk and whether you can afford it for your family.
Instead, your problem will become switching from the $10 organic grass-fed gallon of milk to the $5 gallon of milk, instead of foregoing it altogether or buying the cheapest gallon of milk possible or powdered milk that has a blue hue to it once mixed with water.
Understand that to be the investor you need to be, you have to have a mindset that isn’t willing to be like everyone else. This doesn’t mean you can’t listen to others, but always ask yourself: Does their advice fit in with my own personal objectives?
Does it fit in with how I am building my portfolio? Most of the time, even then, you’ll find someone who tells you that your whole portfolio is a crapshoot, because it’s full of dividend aristocrats and there’s is no crypto or Nvidia in sight.
The world of investing is where you can experience ample growth and wisdom and still question yourself and be questioned by others, even if you are doing well.
There isn’t any single approach to the market. In fact, the majority will try to trade, try to time, and try to beat the market, which goes back to understanding that if you want a life different from most, you are going to have to do what is different from the majority.
Understand that this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t apply useful wisdom to your own world of portfolio management as an investor, instead it just means that you are able to discern what is useful and what is nonsense to your own world.
Even as a reader of this blog take what you believe will be useful to your own and leave the rest.
For example, Legendary investor Warren Buffett talks about gold in this video and his thoughts on it, and how it is not a store of value. For some, this might relate to their own investment philosophy, while others may view him as an old man who is losing it.
Either way, understand yourself enough to know which side of the fence you fall on or if you are standing on top of it without being easily swayed to either side just because it came from his mouth.
I have my own thoughts and I prefer productive assets over precious metals, but that doesn’t mean you should suddenly adopt that view unless you naturally reach that conclusion on your own. There will be times when your favorite investor says something you don’t agree with, and you have to be okay with disagreeing while still respecting what you have learned from their journey in the investing world.
Charlie Munger, for example, has said things when he was alive that I didn’t agree with, but I still enjoy listening to him and appreciate his shared wisdom, which has been useful on my own path.
For example, Robinhood was a point of disagreement, not just with him but with others, because it’s the brokerage where I got my start and have encouraged others in the past to use them when fractional shares were limited to their platform.
If I had stayed away because of other investors’ perspectives, I wouldn’t have become the investor I am today, and I didn’t use the platform in a gamified manner either. Again, the stock market is just a way to get your hands on businesses that you want to own.
The Broke College Student 
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