Lesson Learned: Commit to learning

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

Maya Angelou

One of the joys of investing is that there is always something to learn; from strategies, to business models, from technology to psychology, there’s always something new to wrap your brain around. Even if you stick to your circle of competence, there will always be something new to learn. Here is a quote that encompasses this concept better than I ever could:

In investing, there is nothing that always works, since the environment is always changing, and investors’ efforts to respond to the environment cause it to change further

Howard Marks

Ways to manage this:

• Read, read and read. Read it all. Articles, books, psychology, business history, company reports. If you don’t know something, go read about it. 
• If you don’t feel like reading, go listen to some books. There’s plenty of media to consume, audiobooks, podcasts. Put something on when you’re cooking dinner. Bore the kids with it. Just let it osmose in.

Some classic books on investing:

• The Intelligent Investor (Benjamin Graham)
• Berkshire Hathaway Letters (Warren Buffet)
• Little Book of Common Sense Investing (John C Bogle)
• The Outsiders (William Thorndike)
• Mastering the Market Cycle (Howard Marks)

Some “investment adjacent” books: 

• Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
• Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely)
• Principles (Ray Dalio)

Podcasts:

• Masters in Business (Barry Ritholz)
• The Money (ABC)