After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!
Interpretation
Success in investing relies more on patience than intelligence or strategy.
Jesse Lauriston Livermore's quote emphasizes the crucial role of patience in achieving financial success. Despite his extensive experience and knowledge in the market, he underscores that the most significant factor in his wealth was not his strategies or analysis but rather his ability to remain steadfast and hold onto his investments during turbulent times.
In practice
A motivational speaker may use this quote during a workshop on investment strategies.
The average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think.
Don't take action with a trade until the market, itself, confirms your opinion. Being a little late in a trade is insurance that your opinion is correct. In other words, don't be an impatient trader.
At long as a stock is acting right, and the market is right, do not be in a hurry to take profits. One should never permit speculative ventures to run into investments.
He really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.
Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.
It is what people actually did in the stock market that counted - not what they said they were going to do.
Writing careers are short. For every 100 writers, 99 never get published. Of those who do, only one in every hundred gets a career out of it, so I count myself as immensely privileged.
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
The formula is simple - do more of what is working, do less of what isn't, and try on new behaviors to see if they produce better results.
Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.
No one's just going to hand you a career. I waited for years for someone to hand me one and it never happened.
I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.