Books & Money (31 Dec 2023)
Insights: From losers to the most successful team in cycling history | Money: India's stock market has outperformed the rest over 20 years
How did British Cycling go from being losers to the most successful team in cycling history?
I have had the same theme repeat across everything I have read or heard this week. 1% better. Small wins. Progress. Marginal Gains. Let me share the best story I read to drive home the point. This one comes from British Cycling.
Prior to 2008, British Cycling sucked on the world stage. To change this around a man called David Brailsford was hired. Within five years of his involvement British Cycling won 57 per cent of all road and track cycling gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and at the 2012 London Olympics set seven world records and nine Olympic records! From 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world championships, 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured five Tour de France victories. This made this ten year span the most successful era for any cycling team in history.
Wow!
Let’s carefully read what David said about how he transformed the team:
"People want a feeling of progression, and if we aim for perfection, we’ll fail, because perfection is so far away.
So instead of perfection, let's have a little progression, just a little, and that will make us feel good. So let's identify the basics, get them right and then next week ask ourselves, what other little things could we do?
There are a million things that could impact a cycling performance. Could we, I don't know, change our diet to be slightly more optimal than it is this week and do that by next week? And everybody goes, yep, we could do that! OK. What else could we do? Could we do more in the gym this week? Could we alter our attitude slightly? Could you do that? Yeah, we could do that. OK. So off we go. And then you get to next week and ask, did we do all that stuff? Yea, we did. We haven't moved a long way, but I tell you what, it felt pretty good.
And suddenly you start to get this idea that you're on the move. And when you feel like you're on the move, you feel good about yourself. Tiny progress means a lot to people, and when they feel it, they realize they can do it again tomorrow.
It's quite rare that you can make major change and make it sustainable, but it's quite easy to make small incremental changes and make them stick. And it's this stickability over time, I think, which makes the big difference. We never ever thought about the podiums, or the finish line, or trophies - we didn't talk about that - we thought about the smallest things we could do today to make progress.
And it works, you know, it works, 100 % it works, been at it 20 years. Progress is a powerful force."
Progress should be tracked to ensure small wins don't go unnoticed.
*These stories and ideas are from the book The Diary of a CEO.
THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET HAS RETURNED MORE THAN ANY OTHER OVER 20 YEARS
India is the only large stock market in the world to have a 20 year $ return CAGR approaching 12%.
Not only is India the best performing large stock market in the world over the past two decades, but it is also by some distance, the fastest growing large economy is the world. As The Economist said last year:
“…a novel confluence of forces stands to transform India’s economy over the next decade, improving the lives of 1.4bn people and changing the balance of power in Asia…As the country emerges from the pandemic, however, a new pattern of growth is visible. It is unlike anything you have seen before…. These changes…help explain why India is forecast to be the world’s fastest-growing big economy in 2022 and why it has a chance of holding on to that title for years.” – The Economist, 13th May 2022 (source: https://econ.st/3xjIHj8)
Investment Implications
As Vladimir Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” India’s first few decades post-Independence were decades in which nothing much happened from the perspective of this vast nation’s master narrative. In the last few years, India is beginning to make up for those difficult decades.
*These stories and ideas are from Marcellus Investment Managers: How India Changed It's Master Narrative
How do you invest and grow your money?
I invest only with Marcellus. I am an evangelist for the team and their approach to investing. If you are keen to know which of their six funds (5 are Indian and 1 is Global) I invested in to grow my savings, feel free to send me an email on contact@harshbatra.com.
Harsh Batra
LinkedIn & Instagram
I build businesses (EthosData, Happy Ratio), help investors 5x in 10 years with 1 proven strategy (Marcellus), and email what I learn every Sunday (sign up here).