From -52% to +63%: avoid my investing mistakes

Thumbnail: -52% → +63% “how to invest,” “how to start investing,” “investing mistakes,”

🎬 Hook

In 2022, my portfolio dropped 52.6% — it hurt deeply.
but every failure is a lesson in disguise. so i turned my biggest fall into my greatest teacher.

after that loss, I gained 59%, 31%, and 63% in the following years.

In this video, I’ll share how I turned the worst year of my investing life into my greatest life lesson.

That lesson began with a question I didn’t want to face — why did I lose so much?

Why I Lost Over 50%

It wasn’t the market that defeated me — it was the noise in my own mind.
There are three reasons why I lost.

1. Too Many Styles

At the beginning of my investing journey, I deliberately experimented with every style — because I wanted to learn.
I tried ETFs vs. active investing, value vs. growth, diversification vs. concentration, dividends vs. non-dividends, buy-and-hold vs. market timing, and even fixed equity-bond ratios.

Each approach taught me something new, but also scattered my focus.
I was chasing methods before mastering my mindset.

When my growth stocks dropped sharply, I didn’t know what to do — because I was still living in buy-and-hold mindset.

but struggling with strategy is only surface level, the root of my problem was copying others blindly.

2. Imitation

Before my biggest loss, I followed everyone — Warren Buffett. Charlie Munger. Aswath Damodaran. Buyandhold2012 on Seeking Alpha. Saul from Motley Fool. Mohnish Pabrai from India. Yongpin Duan from China. Even Cathie Wood — for a short while.

I studied their words, their holdings, their philosophies — searching for the “right” way to invest. But over time, I realized something deeper: there were too many voices… and I had lost my own inner one.

Sometimes I bought a stock just because Motley Fool recommended it — or because a YouTuber said it was a great buy.

I wasn’t using my own judgment anymore. I was on autopilot — following noise, not awareness.

3. Lack of Temperament

I wasn’t truly investing anymore — I was simply reacting to noise. Because I lost humility and became greedy.

I had studied accounting, valuation, and statistics — and I became arrogant. I even told myself that Warren Buffett was no longer my role model — because I thought I had found something better.

I compared my performance to the S&P 500 and to other investors online. Each comparison made me anxious and restless.

I poured all my energy into investing, hoping it would give me certainty. But that obsession only made me lose balance.

The market mirrors your state of consciousness. When I lost myself — the market reflected that loss.

It took a complete breakdown to reset not just my investing, but my entire way of being.

Turning Point

My 50% drawdown wasn’t just a market correction — it was a mirror.
It showed me how far my actions had drifted from awareness.

“The biggest lessons come from pain.”

I didn’t open my account for over a year.

Then one day, I reread The Education of a Value Investor.
In Chapter 13, the author wrote:

“If you want to get rich, value investing is a relatively stable method in the long run.
But beyond external wealth, investors must pursue inner growth —
self-awareness, humility, and the ability to face their own weaknesses.”

Those words hit me like truth finally arriving — not from the market, but from within.

“I thought I needed more knowledge, more strategies, more control. But the market didn’t need me to be smarter. It needed me to be still.”

That’s when I changed everything — my routine, my focus, my energy.

I stopped investing in the market and started investing in myself. — to rebuild inner strength, clarity, and discipline.

I studied computer science, believing it would sharpen my thinking. To my surprise, my portfolio grew nearly 60%.

The contrast was undeniable:

The year I obsessed over investing, I lost 52%.

The year I stopped watching the market and focused on learning, I gained 60%.

That’s when I began to see the truth — the outer market follows the inner one. And in the next two years, everything that happened confirmed it.

Why I Gained Over 60% Again

My 60% gain in 2023 was half luck, half unconscious alignment.

But in the second half of 2024, I got distracted by politics and stopped studying. I lost focus again — buying and selling too often, hoping to do better. In the end, I only outperformed the S&P 500 by 5%. I could have done better simply by holding.

So in 2025, I decided to cut off the news and change myself. I chose value investing not just as a financial strategy, but as a way to save time — so I could invest all my energy in myself again.

Value investing sounds simple: find a great company, wait for the right price, and hold for years. But in practice, it’s hard — because there’s too much noise every day.

How to avoid noise? By focusing on building myself.

I studied English, trained my body, faced my negative emotions, and practiced love, awareness, and surrender through writing and videos.

And without chasing results, my investing results soared — a 58% gain, with 30% in bonds.

Because the moment I stopped looking outward and started looking inward, the market began to reward the energy I had cultivated within.

My portfolio started to compound — quietly, steadily, naturally. That’s when I began to see the deeper pattern: the market was simply responding to who I was becoming.

For years, I thought investing was about finding the right stocks. Now I see it’s about finding the right state of being.

When my inner world was chaotic, my portfolio followed. When I became grounded, clear, and patient — my returns reflected that peace.

The market doesn’t reward intelligence alone. It rewards awareness, discipline, and emotional balance.

True compounding begins inside — in how you think, feel, and live every day. Once your inner energy compounds, your outer wealth simply follows.

That’s why I no longer chase numbers. I build myself — and let the market mirror that growth.

in the next video i will explain more about the inner assets and outer wealth.