Why is an unconventional approach good for investing

It depends how you define unconventional. I would make a distinction between actions and words.

The following things are considered conventional, or at least somewhat mainstream, advice

1. Be diversified
2. Never time the markets
3. Don’t panic during crashes
4. Don’t get too excited in the good times
5. Don’t stock pick or speculate with 90%-100% of your portfolio.
6. Don’t try to watch the news and think you can see trends.
7. Watch your spending habits so you can invest more in the first place
8. Don’t trade too often. Rebalance at most.
9. Not letting our emotions get the better of us. Often we are subconsciously emotional as well. For example, studies have shown we are more likely to buy Amazon shares if we live near the warehouse, as the familiarity makes us feel more comfortable. Yet we don’t actively think we are buying Amazon stocks due to that emotion.
10. Not thinking this time is different every time there is an event like 9/11, covid or 2008. People get drawn into stories too easily.

These might be conventional pieces of advice. Yet how many people do I know that have kept to this through thick and thin for decades?

I know very few. I know plenty who managed to do it for 1, 2, 5 or even 10 years.

I have seldom met a person who has managed to do it for 10, 20 or 30 years.

Perhaps the reason is to do with human nature. It is natural to get afraid during the bad times, be overconfident or fearful.

Therefore, the money is in doing what others won’t do, not knowing something that others won’t do.

It is like in business, the money is in the execution, not the idea. Everybody has million dollar ideas.

Even homeless people do. The key is executing ideas for the long-term, not just having ideas.

The same is true in investing. The money is in being unconventional in terms of our actions, not words.

Slow and steady can win the investing race, but few people find it exciting.

Yet it is profitable as Soros’ says below:

So, unconventional can be good, if it is directly towards the right actions.

It gets negative when people try to be too smart for their own good.