Skip to main content

Mark Cuban: How to Get Rich + Success and Motivation

You may have seen me quote Mark Cuban on Twitter the other day. This is Cuban's take on entrepreneurship in America from his, "How to Get Rich" post: 

"...The nature of our country’s business infrastructure  is that it is destined to be boom and bust. Booms are when the smart people sell. Busts are when rich people started on their path to wealth." 

Kind of applies to trading and "investing" as well, doesn't it? The smart money and experienced traders are buying or preserving their capital and looking for signs of coming strength at the trough, following a panic or bust (bear market). 

The bit players in the crowd are mostly on the sidelines, waiting for things to get exciting before they plunge in. They are driven largely by emotions and their knowledge of the market landscape is, shall we say, less than that of the experienced speculators.

When the boom is in full gear and evident to all, savvy veterans are lightening their positions and selling into a liquid marketplace that will take the inventory (stocks, etc.) off their hands. 

Novices generally buy high and sell low, losing a great deal of their money in the process, while the expert traders buy at a reasonable, or high, price and sell higher. 

This applies to business deals as well, as Mark points out in his post. But you need to put in a lot of hard work and learn your business well before you can identify the right time to invest or start building your company. 

Whatever you have set out to do, there's no quick and easy path to excellence and success. If you want to learn more about what Mark Cuban went through to get to where he is today, read his post, "Success and Motivation". I suspect there are lessons here for all of us, whether you're an artist, a writer, a trader, or an entrepreneur. 

Related articles and posts

1. Mark Cuban interview: "Buy and hold is a crock" - Finance Trends.

2. Howard Lindzon interviews Mark Cuban (StockTwits TV) - Finance Trends.

Popular posts from this blog

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean ...

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore . Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf). But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry). "During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly. Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and...