The Big Win: Learning from the Legends to Become a More Successful Investor

Introduction

If you have flipped open the cover of this book, or tapped the screen on your iPad or Kindle to arrive at this introduction, I hope you won’t be disappointed by not having found another dry, dull how-to book on investing. The Big Win: Learning from the Legends to Become a More Successful Investor has been written to read like a collection of entertaining short stories while providing invaluable insights, culled from the experiences of some of the best investors in the business, that you can integrate into your investment strategy in order to drive greater profitability.

My first book, The Billion Dollar Mistake: Learning the Art of Investing Through the Missteps of Legendary Investors (John Wiley & Sons, January 2010), profiled 11 top investors, their life stories, their paths to success, and their biggest mistakes. While virtually all investment books lay out a step-by-step strategy that, if adhered to, will allow for the achievement of “financial independence” or “success beyond your wildest dreams”—sarcasm intentional—The Billion Dollar Mistake is unique in its approach—focusing on what not to do. It is a “don’t do what I did and get rich” kind of book. The mistakes in each chapter are the garden-variety missteps that we all make, investors big and small, the only difference being the number of zeros to the left of the decimal point. In fact, most professional investors assiduously relive their mistakes, dissecting them over and over both as involuntary penance ...