Isn’t it funny how the people who want to make money in a hurry usually end up getting poorer, while those who aren’t in a hurry get richer and richer? Have you ever wondered where the money that makes the patient people richer comes from? The heading says it all:

Money always moves from the impatient to the patient ones!

This in itself isn’t news, because I think everyone knows it; but what is strange is the fact that we don’t want to acknowledge it. Sometimes we do in fact acknowledge it, and we decide to be more patient, but as soon as the interest rates go up or a recession hits we forget this simplest of all investment principles and end up doing things that we’ll regret for the rest of our lives. We sell our investments! Some of us sell them at such low prices that we might as well just give them away. Why?

The reasons for this centuries-old mistake made by supposed investors are varied, but I think the biggest reason of all is because we get in too heavily when things are going well. It’s as if we think that things are going to go well forever. We know they won’t, though, because we’ve had plenty of bad times already; but during the good times we get brainwashed by overly positive media reports and opportunistic investment advisors. They make it sound as if we’ll find ourselves terribly far behind everyone else if we don’t put everything at stake now. We plunge ourselves into debt to try and catch up with seasoned investors who’ve been practising long-term investment for ages already. Someone one day said to me that her goal was to own more properties than me as quickly as possible. In the process, she built up her portfolio at a pace that scared even me. And I don’t scare easily!

One of the other reasons that people panic and sell too quickly is also quite simply the media’s .........................

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