Friends,
When Mickey Mantle retired, he was one of the greatest to have played the game of baseball. He won three MVP awards for the Yankees, captured the "triple crown" in 1956 [best average, most home runs, most RBIs], and still holds the record for most World Series home runs.
And yet, after he hung up his cleats, it wasn't the game or the roar of the crowds that he missed the most:
"I don't miss the game so much, because your body tells you when you can't play anymore. But I miss the clubhouse. I miss the card games on the flights. I miss the bullsh*t sessions after a game. That’s what you can never replace."
Here's the thing: Mantle never would have set foot on a pro field if the draw had been clubhouse card games. What pulled him in was the fame and the money. The relationships were the part he came to treasure, but they were never the reason he showed up.
What gets you in the door and what you value once you're inside are often two different things.
I (Stoffel, here) saw the same thing when we were building my service, Stock Investing Mentor.
Before we launched, we tested it on people as an education program. Weekly sessions, frameworks, and a community of people learning to invest the right way. That was the pitch.
Nobody was interested.
So we flipped it. We put my market-beating portfolio out front, the buys, the sells, the conviction behind each move. We made weekly teaching and community the side benefits.
Interest skyrocketed. That's what people wanted to buy.
And then something happens once they are in the door. The messages that pour in months later aren't about any single buy or sell. They're about the teaching and the community:
"My takeaway from SIM hasn't just been about the returns, but the education... When I backtest that disciplined approach against my other positions, the results are night and day. I’m staying for the process."
Feroldi has a way of putting this that has stuck with me. Think about sugar and kids' vitamins. Sugar is what you crave in the moment. Vitamins give you the nutrition you need to sustain health over a lifetime. The trick is getting the vitamins in while the craving is what got you to the table.
Following my market-beating portfolio is the sugar. It's what gets almost everyone interested. Education and the community are the vitamins. They're the part that people tell us what people really value, time and time again.
I think the same is true for investing as a whole.
The dream of getting rich is the sugar. It's what gets nearly everyone started. But over a lifetime, the process you build, the lessons you learn, and the people you meet along the way are the real payoff. They are vitamins you needed, but didn't want up front.
I'm grateful that, over the long run, those are the vitamins we've been lucky enough to both eat and help serve.
Wishing you investing success,
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Brian Feroldi, Brian Stoffel, & Brian Withers
Long-Term Mindset
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