The instructions for building wealth are boringly simple: Buy index funds. Wait 10 years. Don’t touch it. It's simple, but not easy. If it were easy, everyone would be rich. The reality is: Most money isn't made in the buying or the selling. It's made in the waiting. And waiting is torture when the market is moving and your brain is screaming at you to "do something." Ironically, the ones who pull ahead are those who resist that impulse. We tend to think of patience as a personality trait – you’re either born with it or you're not. That's totally false. Long-term investing is a muscle. And that muscle can be trained. You don't walk into a gym and bench press 300 lbs on your first day. You don't run a marathon the day you buy your running shoes. In the same way, your resolve might break during your first few years of investing. Sometimes, you'll slip back. I struggle with this too. I sold Robinhood at around $10 to simplify my portfolio, only to watch it climb to the $90s. Did I feel sick with regret? Absolutely. But that doesn't derail me from the bigger picture. If you panic sell or miss out on a rally, you aren't a "bad investor." You're just untrained. The goal isn't to be a robot that never makes a mistake. The goal is to look at that mistake, figure out why you broke, and set better guardrails for next time. You don't have to be perfect to be wealthy. You just have to be consistent.

Most people misunderstand how index investing works. Read this post so you don't make the same mistake: