Way back 2013, my mom shared one of her books to me. The title is "The Turtle Always Wins" by a renowned public speaker and businessman here, Bro. Bo Sanchez. It's about the right attitude when it comes to investing in the stock market. Mom shared this book to me when she learned about my interest in the stock market. She had me read the book to get some ideas before I venture into stock market investing.

The Stock Market

Just to give a little background about the stock market, it is the place where you can invest in publicly listed companies. You buy and own a share in a company you choose and in return, you participate in its ability to earn profits thru price appreciation (interest) and cash dividends. A country has its stock exchange where you can choose to buy shares from publicly listed companies. In my country's case, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is the national stock exchange of the Philippines. It has been in continuous operation since its inception in 1927.

I believe that success in whatever we do starts with the most basic, the attitude. So in this article, I will focus more on the content of this book, which is about the different behaviors of people and the right attitude that we should apply in order to avoid losing money and be a more successful investor instead. Here are the different types of investors.

The Four Animals that Represent an Investor's Attitude

The author tells a story about the four animals who decided to participated in a race. These are squirrel, rabbit, sloth, and turtle. Each of them possess several behaviors that represent an investor's attitude.

Squirrel: The Typical Trader

This represents newbies who get into stock market without understanding it. This also represents the typical traders who try to take shortcuts in the attempt to gain instantly. They buy now and sell shortly. They don't invest time to do their research and learn first before venturing into stocks. They are the 85% who lose money in the stock market because they earn in the past and lose more in a couple of bad trades due to lack of learning.

Rabbit: The Trained Trader

This represents traders who have the skills and knowledge about the rules in trading and they follow those rules strictly. They prevent big loss as well as big gain.

Sloth: The Typical Investor

This represents the typical investor who buys and holds. He parks his money in a stock market and forgets about it. He usually invests a big amount of money one time. He has a one time big time attitude.

Turtle: The Trained Investor

The turtle invests small amounts of money each month in great companies. He doesn't care if the price in the market is up or down. He invests regularly and puts more money when the market is down. He has the “saving while investing” attitude.

What happened in the story?

An the end of the story, the squirrel loses the race. He got killed by the bear he encountered at the forest before he can finish the race because of his dirty tricks and shortcuts. This is similar to the experience of typical traders who don't take time to study about what they are getting into. They lost money in the bearish market. The turtle wins the race.

How the TURTLE beats the SLOTH?

The turtle won against the sloth by reinvesting the dividends. The interest compounded because the turtle regularly invests while reinvesting the extra cash he gets from dividends unlike the sloth who only invests one time.

How the TURTLE beats the RABBIT?

Rabbits will always be partially invested. Turtles are almost always invested. With that, he can take advantage of the compounding effect unlike the rabbit who occasionally pulls out his investment.

The Attitude of the Turtle

Now that we know that the turtle has the winning attitude, what exactly is this attitude that we should apply for us to be successful investors? Here are the best practices that the turtle does.

• The turtle lives below its means

  - your expenses should grow slower than your income.

• Turtle builds his farm before his home

  - secure your livelihood before your lifestyle. Establish your income stream before your expense stream.

• Turtle invests in his windfalls

  - aside from the regular habit of investing 20% of your income, also invest windfalls like bonuses, commissions, and other extra cash you get from your other income sources. Put your extra money on something that will grow and earn more money in return.

• Turtle invests when it's difficult to invest

  - build wealth while everyone is afraid. Invest even if there’s a crisis or when the market is down. It's actually the best time to invest since you can buy at lower prices and you earn more when the market takes off stronger.

• Turtle works in cash machines, not stocks

  - spend 99% of your time on your business and sources of regular income. Create your cash flow. Increase and multiply it then spend 1% of your time investing that cash flow in the stock market. It makes sense to prioritize your regular source of income if you want to be able to invest regularly and consistently.

• Turtle believes he'll win

  - you need Wealth Competence, the confidence and strong belief that you will successfully build your finances. You attract what you believe and focus on. But more importantly, you need Wealth Consciousness for you to be guided on the proper way to successfully build your finances.

Let's apply the turtle's winning attitude

This book has been very helpful to me. I used to be afraid of taking risks and invest my money but this book educated me and it helped me overcome my fear. It gave me the courage to take calculated risks. Thanks to this I had the courage to start investing in the stock market way back 2013.

Basically, we just have to save while investing. Invest our monthly savings instead of letting them stay in our bank accounts knowing that they won't grow. Whatever we set aside monthly for our savings, we should put them in investments. Treat investments like a savings account with a much bigger interest. This is not only limited to stocks. We can apply this in other types of investments too like mutual funds, bonds, or crypto.

You can actually combine the practice of rabbit and sloth with the turtle. How? If you can afford to invest a big amount of money like the sloth, you can do it when the prices are low. But you should continue putting in money regularly after the big buy. You can be a rabbit by selling when there's a huge take off. With that, you'll have more budget to buy more and do it regularly. To those who invest out there, can you relate to this? Which animal represents your investing attitude? I hope I was able to add value to you with this book I shared. Let's have fun investing and may we all achieve abundance later on.