Changing someones mind with words doesn’t work. They need to see action. They need real life results.
Nature requires us to adapt, but it’s funny to me that we build impenetrable walls in our minds that prohibit us from changing our minds. How the hell did that happen? That seems like an evolutionary glitch, but anyway…
We learn how to protect our feelings at a young age when peer pressure, cliques, rejection and the many trials of childhood and adolescence arrive at our door. We even go as far as deceiving ourselves to deceive others. “No one can hurt me!”
Wait, not only do we use self-deception as a defense, but as a weapon?
This is quite the defense to crack yet we see an abundance of marketing and sales efforts designed to persuade us into thinking differently. Tune into CNN and FOX for real-time proof.
On one station, “Orange man bad.”
On the other, “Old man bad.”
Even in the finance industry, we get people from all different camps (index funds, macro, fundamental equity long/short, buy-and-hold, trend-following, etc) yelling about how the others have it wrong and that you’re making a big mistake if you invest with them. All of this yelling creates more confusion and “gotcha” inevitably when each approach struggles.
To get the message across, the manager has to invest in his/her own fund and present the performance clearly. S/he cannot hide behind the mystique of marketing opine on and on about the markets. This does not foster successful long-term relationships. This attracts performance chasers and sycophants who will leave when the grass looks greener somewhere else.
I’m not a fundamental investor like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, but I do respect their candor and straight-forward way of speaking. They live and breathe their investing approach (as I do mine, trend-following) and do not succumb to any pressure of deviating away from it. They barely acknowledge other ways of investing. That’s how focused they are.
They walk the walk and have made billions of dollars doing it. This is what changes people’s minds. This is how you build a healthy long-term team and win.
Not talking, but doing.