I want to share a story about how a retired auditor named Anne Scheiber turned $5,000 of savings into a $22,000,000 fortune after retiring at 50. I like this story because it proves that even at retirement, it's never too late to invest.

But before that, I'll first share where I'm now in my stock investing journey.

It has been 9 months since I bought my first investment, MEG. Today, I'm still buying that stock every month at a certain buy below price. In effect, I have lowered my average price and increased my number of shares.

Unfortunately, after 9 months of putting in money, my portfolio is still red with an %11.45 loss. MEG hasn't announced yet when they'll give out dividends. I hope MEG announce one this year so that I can taste my first dividend income.

Even though my portfolio is still bloody, it's fine.

Actually, I like it that way because I can still build my volume while the prices are still cheap. If the prices rise past the fair value, I would be left behind and I will never have the chance to buy that stock again at an attractive price.

Even though I hold a red blue chip stock on my portfolio, it's perfectly fine with me.

What I learned from reading a lot of books about the stock market is that successful stock investors have a different mindset compared to the average investor. Even when the markets go up and down, they know how to manage their emotions. Their decisions are not based on emotions but rather on how they understand the market.

I slowly adopted this mindset when the crash of 2015 started. My portfolio dived to almost -%20! When that happened, I didn't panic. Instead of cutting my losses, I bought more.

I feel that buying is much more exciting than selling. I feel that when I sell, I'm giving up a small chunk of a good business that has the potential to grow. I don't consider stocks as numbers that go up and down on a small ticker screen. I think of them as pieces of businesses just like Warren Buffett.

If you think that one year of holding a red portfolio is insane, then consider Anne Scheiber's story;

I learned about Anne Scheiber in one of the stock market newsletters I'm subscribed to. When she retired as an auditor in the IRS in the mid 1940's, she only managed to save $5,000. From that $5,000, she was able to build a $22,000,000 fortune in the stock market for 50 years using the buy and hold strategy.

She donated all those wealth after her death at the age of 101.

What I like about her story is how she managed to turn that $5 thousand to $22 million in 50 years. Further reading about her life, I found out that she invested into high quality companies that have long-term growth. She did it by constantly educating herself about the markets, digging into countless financial statements to find those hidden gold and studied the latest market trends in almost all industries.

She spent countless hours of studying to learn all that wealth building knowledge.

If you'll think about it, her wealth is the product of her passion, knowledge, skill and patience to wait that long.

I believe that anyone can achieve the level of success Anne Scheiber achieved. It just takes a proper mindset which we can learn if we will just make a goal out of it.

I believe that there's a higher chance of winning in the stock market if you go long-term. And when you say long-term, we are really talking of 10 to 20 years of buying high quality undervalued companies.

Most people don't have the patience in investing in such a long time frame. Defining long-term is relative. Some will say that 5 years is already long-term. For me, I can say 10 years.

From Warren Buffett and Anne Scheiber's point of view, a human's lifetime is the definition of long-term. I don't mind holding a stock as long as I live. As long as the business is doing well and the company is paying dividends consistently, I'll hold that stock.

Because just like Buffett and Scheiber, I had learned to treat stocks as pieces of businesses.

To have a successful business, you have to harness your skills and use that to your advantage. It is important to know what you're passionate about and turn that passion into a profitable thing.

Your passion determines where you are good at and from there, you would know what business to start. Once you know what business suits you, you must take action. From that, you'll have a higher chance of succeeding.

I learned about the basics of a business way back then when I was still a college student. I was involved in a number of multi-level marketing businesses. I remember how passionate and eager I was before. I always attended the business opportunity meetings after classes.

But after learning everything and applying what I learned, I still didn't earn a stable source of passive income.

I realized back in the day that I lacked the skills to properly execute a sale. I didn't harness my sales and persuasion skills. I was shy. I learned how to manage rejections but never really applied what I learned.

Eventually, I failed and I quit.

I learned that to run a business, you need to be passionate, knowledgeable and skillful. Passion and knowledge without the proper skill is suicide. The same goes with the other two. You have to have these 3 things to run a successful business.

The same is true with stock investing. Treat stocks as pieces of businesses because a stock represents a company's future earnings. Stocks are crazy in the short-term but in the long-term, they are governed by the profits their underlying businesses generate.

Scheiber thought the same way as Buffett did. She dedicated her last 50 years in mastering her wealth building knowledge. She studied all the companies she invested in and attended shareholder meetings and asked a lot of questions that fueled her passion.

If you apply these three things; passion, knowledge and skill, you'll become successful just like Scheiber did.