I sucked at baseball when I was younger. It wasn’t because I was physically incapable of playing baseball. It was mainly because I was undisciplined and tried to do too much. For instance, I was a decent right handed hitter, but I spent half my time practicing left handed. Baseball is hard enough as it is. Most great batters get out 70% of the time and here I was trying to get good at both sides of the plate wasting half my time on a skill I didn’t need. Quite simply, I lacked the discipline to focus on one thing and do it well.
I later retired from baseball and joined one of those old guy beer drinking softball leagues. This was even harder than baseball. I joined a team loaded with young guys playing in an older guy’s league. Long story short, the old guys kicked the crap out of us. Our problems weren’t athleticism. It was all discipline. Let the ball come to you….
My fielding was even worse. I generally played infield and my discpline here was equally disastrous. My impatience resulted in lifting my head/glove or converging on the ball too quickly. I couldn’t ever get used to the ball just coming to me and staying patient and down on it. Again, a lack of discipline was the cause of so many problems. Let the ball come to you….
You can probably see all the asset allocation metaphors in there:
Before you can become good at something you have to first recognize why you’re not good at it now. Luckily for me I made most of my investment mistakes on the baseball field long before I ever had a dime at risk in the financial markets. Understanding those mistakes and creating a process for minimizing those mistakes has been a crucial element of better investment performance.
