How Do Top Investors Think Differently

Have you heard of the saying, "Success leave clues?"

You see, those who have succeeded before you have done so because they followed a plan, and you could do the same thing. Of course, the plan could always be adjusted to suit your personal circumstances.

If that is the case, then wouldn't it be sensible if we model what top investors do differently?

Over the years, I learned a lot from many successful investors - who built their multi-million dollar portfolio from scratch. So what is it that they do differently from others?

Well, here are three mindsets that I discovered that my mentors had which they attributed to their success.

#1 They Don't Look At Prices 

Wait...don't look at stock prices? What does that even mean?

Well, allow me to explain.

They don't look at prices, they look at value.

For many years, I have heard people who said that they don't invest in US companies because it is "expensive".

This is compared to the stocks in their local markets which is only a few dollars a share.

They would comment, "Look at Microsoft, it is $200 a share! That is crazy!"

This is a classic example of looking at price and not value.

Let's put it in a simpler example.

The image below is a $10,000 worth of cash.

If I were to tell you that I am willing to give you the $10,000 in exchange for just $5,000 - what will you do?

(assume that the deal is 100% legitimate)

• Tell yourself "$5000 is too expensive, I can't afford it"
• Beg, borrow, steal to get $5000.

The answer is pretty obvious right - all of a sudden, $5000 is not "expensive" any more.

When we say things are expensive, we have to compare to its value.

And in this case, the value of the transaction is $10,000 - so paying $5000 is a steal.

The top investors have already trained themselves to shift their mindset to look at the value and not price.

The concept of focusing on value and not price is something that we all have to bear in mind.

Let me tell you a story.

A young man made his first million flipping real estates for profits.

Now that he had the money, he could outsource the things that he didn't want to do.

So he paid someone $50 to mow his lawn, instead of doing it himself. This mowing task would have taken him around an hour.

His father came back, and saw a stranger mow the lawn in his backyard and got really angry.

He shouted as his son, "You hire someone to mow our lawn? Are you that lazy now that you became successful?!"

The young man was surprised as he hung up the phone, and respectfully replied, "It's not that I am lazy. I found a better use of my time. I just closed another $5,000 deal."

Now, what's the morale of the story?

By paying someone else $50, the young man saved himself an hour of time. He used that hour of time to make $5,000. That's a 10,000% return.

What do you think would have happened if he told himself, "$50 is too expensive! I rather do it myself!"

Well, he would have saved $50 - but missed out on $5,000.

This is just another example of recognizing value and not just price alone. In fact, this example also brings us to the next mindset that successful investors have.

Warren Buffett, the most quoted investor, has this saying - which I think it is absolutely spot-on.

Before I go on and explain what the quote means, I have to first emphasize that the terms "rich" and "poor" refers to mindsets and not the amount of money you have in your bank account.

This means that even if you had a million dollars in the bank today, if you have a poor mindset, that million dollar is not going to stay with you for long. This is exactly the reason why most lottery winners lose their wealth after just a couple of years.

Similarly, even if you have nothing in your bank today, but if you have rich mindset, it is only a matter of time for you to build your millions.

Now this means that, no matter what financial circumstances you are currently in, you can always change to adopt a "rich" mindset. Of course, that clearly depends on you.

Now to explain, what exactly did Warren Buffet mean?

People who have a "rich" mindset always see money a little differently.

One of my business mentors put it aptly - "money is speed" , and he gave me an example.

Let's say you were stranded in a jungle.

However, lucky for you, an explorer happened to be there, and he knew the place very well. He made you two offers:

• I can give you this jungle map for free, and you will be able to find your way through the jungle yourself.
  
  
• You can pay me $50, and I will lead you through the jungle in less than 30 minutes using a shortcut.

So what would you choose then?

1. Save the $50 and try to figure it out on your own? (This could take days!)
   
   
2. Spend the $50 and get through the jungle in 30 minutes.

People with "rich" mindset will always value time more than money. This is a concept that served me well over the years. And if you want to build your wealth, you need to internalize this concept. 

For example, when I embarked on my property journey, I knew immediately that I am not going to try to "YouTube" and "Google" to figure everything about properties. I would have been bombarded with information, and end up not taking any action! 

Instead, I paid for a mentor to guide me through the entire process, give me contacts of their lawyers, bankers, accountants, etc. And if I had any questions, they were just a phone call away. 

So if you take anything from this blog post, let it be this - money is speed, it is foolish to try to save money at the expense of your time.

#3 They Are Action Takers

These top investors didn't become millionaires by just reading books or attending courses.

Information alone will not change your lives, only implementation does.

You cannot read a book or attend a course and magically become wealthy, you have to actually do the hard work and take action.

Time to time, people come to me saying that they want to start investing. So I sent them the website to open their US brokerage account.

Guess what, months have passed - and some of them have yet to even open their brokerage account. Meanwhile, those who opened their brokerage account, has already started in their investing journey.

Now, here's a simple tip to taking action - schedule it in your calendar, block out time, and just do it.

For example, opening a brokerage account will probably take you less than 30 minutes. So just set it in your calendar, that you will block out 30 minutes to open your brokerage account. This means that during that period, there will be no NetFlix, YouTube, Facebook, etc. You just focus on completing that one single task you set out for yourself. Simple as that.

And to be very harsh with my words, if you are not willing to take action, then you don't deserve success.

Conclusion

The reason why I wrote this blog post is because, learning about all the tactics and strategies in investing is the easy part.

You can pretty much find all of that in my Stock Investing Hub.

But very often, what stops us from getting results is our mindsets. If you want to build wealth, it all have to start with your mindset.

If I had never changed my mindset, I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I have today, and much bigger things in the future. You need to anchor yourself in quality mindsets, otherwise building wealth will just be a journey of struggle.