Comments on: The Quickest Way to Get Rich is to Learn an Investment System & Manage Your Own Money

By: Kaeho

Kaeho — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:06:09 +0000

Hey Veronica,

the fact that you visited your old dojo and many students now have very high rankings though they “haven’t gotten any better” as you put it shouldn’t anger you. some dojos run more as a business operation than to advance the spirit of martial artists. it’s comparable to millionaires that pay $250,000 to a Nepal sherpa to take them to the summit of Everest though they have no real mountaineering skills to speak of, and in doing so, endanger every one’s lives on the expedition. as bruce lee said, “a belt is only good for holding your pants up”. ranking means nothing, especially when awarded so cheaply. my sensei used to tell me that he used to see guys fresh off the boat with only street fighting skills put down second and third dan black belts in some schools because the sensei was terrible and so was his method of awarding rank. in my own dojo, sometimes it seemed as though tests for belt rankings weren’t uniform, but if I had a belt test that I felt was more difficult than my classmates, I learned later that it was only because my sensei wanted to push my harder to achieve greater things. in the end veronica, no matter your belt color, it is only the knowledge and the strength of your spirit that matters. and this can never be defined by the color of a belt.

Maholo,

Kaeho

By: J.S.

J.S. — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 04:53:58 +0000

Good comment John. I will only disagree with you in one area. I believe that it is best to learn one system well, and since investing is an art and not a science, learning one system well will serve every investor well. However, I believe that the flattening of the world has dramatically shifted the ways of making investment decisions into a new paradigm that is driven by the information age- a paradigm that differs significantly from investment methodologies of past eras. In fact, I believe this shift enables investors, for the first time in history, to reduce much of the risk associated with investing in the stock market while also dramatically increasing their chances of selecting stocks that will produce gains way above the norm.

-J.S.

By: Veronica

Veronica — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:23:49 +0000

Hello there,

Came across your story of Musashi and his apprentice.
Im not much of martial art pro and not near being an investor.

I’m stil in University, so its clear I’m investing in studies and my loft, since I live alone. But I want to learn more about all of that, if you wouldnt mind pin pointing some “key” points of investing…

As for your story, and the way you say how in North America its all about the belt color and not how much you’ve learned, I’ll be with you on that… I’m orange belt in Tae Kwon Do and I have been practicing for 2 years but has been a year I stopped. I went back to my dojan and the people I’ve left a year ago already have veyr high belts. But they havent gotten any better. I know they get their belts really quickly and It angers me sometimes to see how hard I’ve worked, even though I stopped and the time I take to fully grasp every technique…

I think in every martial art school there should be two belts like you said: white and black… student and master!

Well feel free to say hello or pass by my space!

Goodbye~

By: John Forman

John Forman — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:02:42 +0000

Outstanding article. Experience in investing and trading will far outperform the next new technique or methodolgy, yet all so many new market participants jump around from one great thing to the next. Much time and money wasted.