Ignorance is bliss; it’s folly to be wise. Not so, when you are in the stock market.
There are at least four stages you must go through before you have any chance to survive in this ‘jungle of savages’ where survival is of the fittest.
The first stage, known as ‘Unconscious Incompetence’ is that you don’t know that you don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. After you have lost money, you are demoralized and begin to realize that there is indeed a skill to be learned.
In the second stage, called ‘Conscious Incompetence’ you know that you don’t know, but not what you don’t know. You look around for the best books to buy and study. You begin to learn.
In the third stage, you know that you know and what you know. However, you are not 100% sure that you can apply your knowledge to gain profit. You have to think and plan, and spent a lot of time doing it. This third stage is called, ‘Conscious Competence’.
The forth stage is called, ‘Unconscious Competence’. You have become an expert; you don’t have to think to perform brilliantly. Actions of wisdom become your second nature and instinctual. When you have reached this stage, you are ready for the war; you are on your way to your first million.
You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world…Sheilah Graham (U.S. columnist, 1904-1988)
