๐ช Introduction: A Horizon of 100 Years, and One Billion Dollars โ
"What is overwhelmingly more important than an investment strategy is an unwavering mindset, and at the pinnacle of that mindset lies 'Stay the Course'."
This space is not merely an ordinary investment journal recording how to increase my account balance.
In the past, I was an ordinary retail investor who checked my account every day. I was like a frog in the well, becoming arrogant as if I owned the world over millions of won in profit, and wasting my emotions day by day, losing sleep over tens of millions of won in losses. Swept back and forth by the small waves of the market, I had even forgotten the fundamental reason why I was riding this agonizing roller coaster.
Then one day, the news of "Warren Buffett's One Billion Dollar (about 1.3 trillion won) Donation" struck me like a massive jolt and brought profound, shameful reflection. At that moment, I decided to completely rewrite the destination of my investments.
Money can never be the ultimate goal of investment. The accumulation of wealth should merely be a process to contribute to the wider world and our neighbors.
โณ Extending the Investment Horizon to 100 Years โ
Most people set their investment timeline to 3 years, 5 years, or at most 10 to 20 years until retirement. However, investing with retirement as the goal inevitably breeds impatience. The pressure to 'quickly reach the target amount' inevitably invites the temptation of leverage and short-term trading, and that temptation leads to the most fatal mistakes.
Therefore, like Warren Buffett, assuming that I will live to be 100 years old, I expanded my investment horizon to a distant future.
I designed not a short-term 10-year compounding, but a massive snowball that will roll for a lifetime beyond half a century. Miraculously, the moment I extended the timeline to 100 years, all impatience disappeared. Even if the market were to crash by 20% tomorrow, I came to understand with my heart, not just my head, that it is merely a passing 'puddle' in the remaining 60-year journey.
The destination I aim to reach at the end of this epic time is clear. It is a massive contribution to the world that transcends personal glory, namely a 'One Billion Dollar Donation'.
๐๏ธ Why Does Mindset Shape Execution? โ
Through this site, I will share the 'Core & Satellite Solar System Portfolio' I practice, the 'KCA Strategy'โa Korean Won-based cost-averaging methodโand the automated system I designed to reduce emotional intervention.
However sophisticated an investment formula may be, emotions and behavioral biases during execution can still undermine long-term results.
When markets fall sharply and the media warns of economic collapse, selling out of fear or stopping an automatic plan can break the assumptions behind a long-term strategy. The effect cannot be reduced to a precise percentage, but in my experience, the mindset required to endure market noise and emotions has mattered more to consistent execution than intelligence or elaborate formulas.
How I came to build a mechanical system that completely excludes emotions through numerous experiments of failure and wandering, and what powerful psychological defense mechanisms allowed me to endure during market crashes... I will now begin to tell all those stories.
๐ Stay the Course โ
"Whatever happens, however the market fluctuates, stay the course. There is unequivocally no principle more important than this in the world of investing."
โ John C. Bogle
I will not be destroyed trying to get rich quickly and recklessly.
I will completely let go of the folly of trying to predict the market in the short term, firmly trust only in the immense power of 100 years of time and an automated system that blocks out emotions, and silently stay the course towards the final destination of One Billion Dollars.
I invite you to this long and solitary journey. In the next chapter, please check the specific 'Core Fundamental Principles of My Investment Philosophy' that I have established.