How To Retrain Your Brain For Dividend Investing

I don’t just play a dividend investor in the newspaper. I do this stuff in real life, too, and I’m pleased to report that the results have been quite gratifying. But it was not always so. When I started investing two decades ago, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I took too much risk. I traded too frequently. I had no coherent strategy. It took many years of reading investing books, learning from my mistakes and talking to people wiser than myself (a luxury of this job) until I finally “got it.” What, exactly, did I “get”?

That becoming a successful dividend investor is about more than picking the right stocks; it’s about rejecting the market-as-casino mentality and embracing a new philosophy that stresses rising income and long-term returns instead of short-term price movements. Such a patient approach is not something that comes naturally to most people, because it’s not how we’ve been conditioned to think about the stock market. Here are a few lessons that have stuck with me: 1. Think as an owner, not a trader, 2. Focus on income, not share price, 3. Invest in quality, 4. Think long term and 5. Kick back and relax.

Source: Globe and Mail

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