He aint everyone's cup of Rosie Lee but I reckon this is fair:

I think this is why investing in high growth is hard. Because of the inevitable volatility, the emotional and rational drive to sell when prices fly up in order to "take profits" or some "money off the table" and equally to sell or at least reduce when "the thesis appears broken" (after all, there will usually be a reason when prices fall 50%), means you are likely to be left holding a fraction of the long term upside that was available to you.

This is where conviction is so important. You need it to distinguish between the true long term wealth winners from those that will not progress over the long term. But of course conviction is personal and subjective and only proven in hindsight.

As we come into reporting season I am looking at several of my positions where I am underweight where I would be if my conviction was higher and asking "what do I need to see in the result to strengthen my conviction" which would lead to a decision to add weight and equally, what would weaken it. This is harder than it sounds because I am looking for evidence of a "signal" and not the noise that comes simply from whether a result meets, beats or fails consensus.

Because of this, I’ve learned the importance of doing preparation ahead of results.

@mikebrisy great comments, "only proven in hindsight" may be a long time....years. i am looking to make some faster decisions come results season, really only can do that with preparation. actually one of the "tricks" i use to use when managing money, was never look at the share price until i had reached a conclusion on the result myself, better/worse/ about the same, on my own view, and then look. imo it made the decision untainted by the market and more chance for a clearer call. but thats me everyone is different.

Great point @Solvetheriddle . Another thing I try and do, which I think someone else on this forum suggested shortly after I joined, is to digest the financials and the operational metrics and form a quick view on them BEFORE I read the management highlights and commentary. This has the great benefit that when I read the commentary, I am already informed by what all the key numbers that matter actually are. This also makes it easier to detect "spin".

Strong agree with all of this.

I just emailed Ian -- would be great to line up a meeting with him and pick his brains. Fingers crossed!

Looks like he's trying to get as much time on air as he can recently, I reckon you've timed it perfectly @Strawman

The last couple of lines are by far the most important ones - it is a lesson I learned (and in many ways am still learning) the hard way.

You want to do the right thing (i.e. buy and hold indefinitely) to really let the power of compounding work, but there are several obstacles, challenges and pitfalls both your chosen companies and you will face along the way which makes that extremely challenging - most of those efforts will be futile because as Ian says, very few positions deserve that sort of loyalty. A lot of these events will come out of left field, and you can't possibly account for it in any analysis.

Investors often miss something else too when it comes to growth investing paying off this bigly - the role of luck.