The most important rule in investing is not to lose your initial capital. Making money comes later. If you lose 50% of your principal, the loss rate is 50%, but to recover that principal, you need a 100% return. This is because the baseline of your return—the principal—has already been halved. Many people tend to think that if they’ve lost 50%, they only need a 50% return to break even. However, this is a misunderstanding of the starting point. In investing, the baseline is always the original principal. The principal after a loss is no longer the same; it’s already in the past. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Time Preference . It is a phenomenon where the more distant a result is from the present, the more rational decisions seem, while closer results tend to lead to more emotional choices. When thinking about the distant future, we usually approach it rationally. However, when making decisions right now, we often act emotionally instead of rationally. This time preference significantly impacts areas such as finances , health , work , sleep , procrastination , and texting. For example, dieting is hard when delicious food is right in front of you; people often say it starts tomorrow, not today, because weight loss doesn’t happen overnight but over weeks or months. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”