Life as a full-time investor

Once upon a time, I had a full-time job. I used to go to the office and do the “office work” and in the evenings and weekends, I used to hone my investing skills. After about 15 years of such existence and having reached a semblance of financial independence, I started toying with the idea of leaving my job and becoming a “full-time investor”, and FTI, in short.

In the investor circles, there is a perceived highbrow feeling that I get whenever I spoke to an FTI. In conversations, the FTIs would make me feel that unless you were part of the FTI crowd somehow you were not a serious investor. Which of course is really stupid. I know so many great investors who are happy and probably better off because they are part-time investors. Having a stable income from a job can be a very liberating thing. You can focus on identifying a handful of companies every year and then let those investments work the magic for you. Of course, if you yearn to be a day trader, having a job is not going to work.

As a full-time investor, the first thing that hits you is the amount of time you have at your disposal. And unless you are disciplined it can derail your efforts very quickly. Distractions in the form of Whatsapp, Twitter (ever notice how many so-called investors tweet so many tweets during the day?? I wonder what they actually do for work or is it all just an exercise in social media outreach) can take you down a rabbit hole and you realise that you have spent a few hours and accomplished nothing.