Financial independence is achieved when you have a portfolio that supports the life you choose to live. Gary Vaynerchuk stresses the keys to a successful career are self-awareness and hustle; and, for the record, self-awareness is much more important than hustle, “and it’s not even close.” Self-awareness is just as critical for investors who need to develop a sustainable strategy that harnesses their advantages and avoids self-defeating mistakes.

Warren Buffett, Edward Thorp, and Carl Icahn have earned billionaires as investors, but you and I will probably not. Buffett first employed his unmatched talent for financial analysis when he managed investment partnerships for friends and family. After what Buffett claims to be his greatest mistake (acquiring full ownership of a struggling textile company), Buffett’s strategy evolved to focus on owning rock solid companies with no intention to sell.

Thorp parlayed his innate ability to explore (childhood backyard experiments involving explosives and weather balloons) and derive solutions to complex games (how to beat blackjack dealers) into launching his own hedge funds that utilized his market-neutral trading strategies to handily outperform the market.

Icahn is a med-school dropout who became a stock broker and started an investment company to focus arbitrage opportunities. Best known as a corporate raider, Icahn has the skill and tenacity to identify and exploit unique opportunities.

Look at yourself from a metaphorical balcony. Do you have the ability to identify investment opportunities like Buffett or Icahn? Can you develop an option pricing equation that is remarkably similar to a model that would eventually earn its authors the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences? Thorp did, and he used it (and other strategies) for years before Black and Scholes published their seminal paper.

You probably do not have the time or the ability to achieve results similar to Buffett, Thorp, or Icahn, but thorough self-awareness and an appropriate system-based strategy everyone can earn financial independence.

Find a career that suits your ability and interests. Live below your means. Be grateful for the joy in your life. Invest with a focus on building a portfolio over several decades. You will be financially independent. This plan is easy to write, but tougher to execute. My grandmother did it, and you can, too.

This site is committed to sharing my experience as an investor and the strategies and tactics I use to manage our family portfolios. Please contact me if you have questions or insight to share.