Joel Tillinghast on the traits needed to be a great investor

Investors often don't realize that there is a hidden cost for everything that normal persons desire: action, excitement, fun, comfort, social acceptance, popularity, and social exclusivity.  There's also shadow income from patience, boredom, worry, courage, pain, loneliness, being a nerd, and looking like an idiot.  The most expensive emotions are seeking comfort and panic, which induce unplanned purchases and sales.

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Almost by definition, the biggest mispricing will involve a glaring, hideous defect that popular opinion thinks cannot be overcome.  That's when your lonely, preferably well-researched conclusion that it either can be resolved, or isn't so bad, will be rewarded.  In principle, we would always buy understandable, well-run, durable franchises at bargain prices, but in practice the market must think that some element is missing.  On average, you are being paid for being a nerd and sorting out the true situation.  Even more, you are rewarded for the courage to act on an unpopular opinion that made you look like an idiot, provided it turns out to be correct.  Before then, there's endless pain and worry that, indeed, the crowd is right.

~ Joel Tillinghast, Big Money Thinks Small: Biases, Blind Spots, and Smarter Investing, pp. 23-26