process
Play Long-Term Games
The rule
Grow money, trust and knowledge by playing the same game again and again with the same honest people.
Where it flips
Loyalty to the 'long game' can trap you into holding a business or adviser that has clearly broken faith. The fix: long games only work with people who are still honest. When the other side starts cheating, walking away is the discipline, not the betrayal.
The biggest rewards in money and in life come from slow growth over time. And slow growth needs the same partners over many rounds. When you keep dealing with honest people who plan to stay for years, trust builds, cheating stops paying, and returns stack on returns. For an investor this means staying with good businesses for years, not jumping ship. And dealing with brokers, advisers and companies who are in it for the long run. One-time deals tempt everyone to grab and run. Repeated games reward patience.
A worked example
Haridya keeps a ₹5,000 SIP in the same steady fund for fifteen years, instead of switching to whatever topped last year's chart. The quiet growth, with one trusted fund house, slowly beats her friends' constant switching. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·same partners, many rounds
- ·trust that removes the need to double-check
- ·warning sign: a one-time deal with strangers
Naval Ravikant · The Almanack of Naval Ravikant