This post was originally shared in my DT Email Newsletter here.
It was six years ago, a moment I’ll never forget.
Our gynaecologist said: “You’re overdue.”
My wife and I looked at each other. We had no idea. My wife was overdue by a week. What turned out to be a regular baby scan was a rush to the delivery ward.
It was a scary moment. What if the baby didn’t turn into a “head-down” position, or if her blood pressure is too high? My fears started to come out.
Nine months of waiting boiled down to that one single moment.
I remember crouching beside my wife on her right. Everything moved quickly. In the next instant, I saw the doctor carrying an alien-looking being. Our second son had just been born.
Warren Buffett says: “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
Raising kids is just the start of an even longer journey. But I’ve come to realize the best things in life are always well worth the wait.
For me, completing university, passing one of the toughest financial exams, the CFA program (I took five years and two failed exams, while seeing all my peers passing it at one go), achieving financial independence were milestones that took time to realize.
It’s never a magical event but a process.
A farmer cannot make a seed grow by pulling on it. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t till the soil, doesn’t water the seed and doesn’t remove the weeds. Some things take time and effort. You can’t violate such growth.
When I first started investing, I banged my head against random walls. There wasn’t YouTube. There wasn’t social media. There wasn’t ChatGPT. To get good, I spent my waking hours studying all the finance gurus I could find.
From Warren Buffett to other finance gurus like Benjamin Graham, Howard Marks, Seth Klarman, John Burr Williams, Phillip Fisher, Joel Greenblatt, Ray Dalio, David Einhorn, Michael Burry, Bruce Greenwald, and so on.
I read their books, shareholder letters, and memos to understand how they invest and what makes them different. More importantly, I read my finance bible – annual reports. It was my source for learning about business.
Everyday, I read the annual reports of different companies. I would also read the past ten years annual reports of the same company.
At one point, I made a goal to learn about all 700+ companies that were listed on the Singapore Exchange.
I commit to studying one annual report of a different Singapore company each day. In less than two years, I could tell you the types of businesses of these companies listed in Singapore.
All of this took time.
Same thing with achieving your financial goals. After all, investing is a long-term process of accumulating solid, dividend growers at a fair price.
At the start, it doesn’t seem like much. When I first put together a Dividend Grower portfolio for my Diligence Wealth Club members years ago, there were long stretches where nothing seemed to happen.
You might not see the immediate effect. Some months, the stock market drops (see red arrows below). Some months the stock market goes up.
But with time, effort and the power of compounding will snowball your income.
What’s crucial is you need patience to let the forces of compounding and dividends do its work. You’ll consistently make more profits when you hold stocks for the long term. That’s how you can hit your financial goals.
Hearing the hottest stock picks from friends is going to make you anxious, distract you from making the key investing decisions. You fall into the trap of making unnecessary buy and sell calls.
I know it feels safe we must be following momentum and chasing the exact same thing as everyone else. You don’t have to do that. In fact, even a boring strategy like dividend investing can continue to snowball your returns year after year.
As long as you pick the right stocks, your battle is already more than half won.
So, trust the process. Don’t rush. That’s how you accumulate wealth for retirement safely and profitably.
Sometimes, investing can be simple.
Willie Keng, CFA
Founder, Dividend Titan.
thanks for info.
We appreciate the thoughtful analogy between the natural process of childbirth and the discipline of long-term dividend investing. The article offers a meaningful reminder that lasting success—whether in investing, business or life—is built on patience, consistency and the discipline to stay focused without being distracted by short-term market fluctuations.